I am Jewish, so is her father. We live a life within the Jewish community. At seven months, she has never gone for longer than two weeks without attending services.  All objective facts point to        Z being raised in a Jewish home.  However, I hesitate to say that we are raising a Jewish child, simply because we are raising a child jewish-ly.  (Just as I hesitate to assume she will choose her birth gender – nevertheless for now she is a girl).

Z may not always be Jewish and this does not worry me.  I worry that she may not find her voice in spiritual practice or progressive faith communities will fail her, that she will one day go to college and run into the likes of AISH, a super-conservative Jewish outreach organization and like it.

I wish for my daughter a deep and satisfying spiritual practice that rest tentatively on the edges of justice – today those edges are most clearly characterized by acceptance of homosexuality.  The edges are likely to be different for her, and when she finds her way to the edges, I will be immensely joyful if her spiritual practice is pushing her there.  If she does not identify herself as Jewish because her spirit leads her in some other direction – be it Buddhist, Christian, Pagan, etc…., I do not think that this will cause me any grief.

Within the progressive religious context, requiring fidelity to a natal religion does not compute, except perhaps for culture (more on this to come).

Much of what I love about Jewish practice is the ritualized meals on Shabbat: inviting, cooking, serving, praying. Lengthy multi-course meals reoccurring every week.

It would be wonderful if she adopted these traditions – but this is a wish for me, not a wish for her, because I do not see an absolute value in Judaism.

I would guess that many other progressive Jews feel the same way; then why worry about our children identifying as Jewish when they grow up – instead we should worry about our children joining Jewish religious communities that are non-egalitarian, homophobic and otherwise reactionary.

What if, at least for some of the believers, these assumptions do not apply?

The new TLC show “Sister Wives” is a fabulous conformation of the radical power of particularity within university.  Sister Wives is about a polygamous step-family with four wives, one husband and sixteen children in total. The wives are able to embrace polygamy as a “faith” practice as they explain on the NBC interview, while maintaining openness to alternatives for their children, and thus for us all. On the show, the language embraced by the sister wives is “lifestyle.”

There is magic in members of the Fundamentalist Mormon Church calling their faith based choices a “lifestyle.”  A lifestyle is optional and personal, the opposite of forced religious practice, the opposite of conventional thinking on fundamentalism.

This show, amongst many things is a coming out party in ways large and small and I never miss a good coming out party. When Christina, the stay home wife, goes to the hospital to have her sixth baby, the family is exuberant.  The other babies in this family were all born at home, because the family feared the treatment they would receive at the hospital.  Here they tell the doctor right away. The doctor, a young woman, replies “I have never done a delivery with a polygamist before – I have a lot of polygamist ancestors.” This is exactly what an awkward guest would say at a coming out party, a version of the classic “I have a gay cousin.”

After the birth, the entire family stomps to the hospital. Janelle, the working wife, says while the audience watches her hold the new baby, Truely, “I guess all the children are sort of like my children, it is like me expecting another child without the work.” In relation to Christina’s baby, she has the subject position of a “man.” She gets a baby without the “work.” Does she mean the work of childbirth, or does she mean the daily grind of taking care of a baby? If she means the second, the meaning, is enhanced, because as a mother who works long hours, arguably she is not the primary caretaker of her biological children either.  In a previous segment the wives mention that the children think of Jenella as the fun mom – she is the one who takes them to the movies and lets them eat ice cream for dinner. This role is also traditionally occupied by the father (in a soft patriarchy), who is the fun parent and not the disciplinarian.  Plural marriage is indeed providing Jenella with an “alternative lifestyle,” to the one enjoyed by man-woman couples, where the woman serves as the primary caretaker. Janelle is my favorite.  If was a polygamist, I would be her.

Stay home wife, Christine is my second favorite.  As a little girl she dreamed of being a third wife!  She wanted the other wives and not the husband. As a young woman she only wanted to date married men.   Is her platonic love for women hiding queerness stirring beneath the surface?

I don’t know.

I cannot imagine living with other women or men so intimately, raising their babies, sharing their meals and not wanting to share their beds; but that is me and my predilections.  The women in this show are asking us to see them as making a credible choice for the love  of God, for the love of each other, for the love of their children, perhaps even for the love of Kody, their surfer-haired husband.  In return they are giving us a paradigm for universalist religion that is rich and deep, dripping with tolerance (if not welcoming) of the other, while living a life saturated with meaning that comes from the practice of faith every moment of your day and not just on insert-your-day-of-rest-here.

Sadly the same cannot be said for Kody who says the following, when Meri, the baron wife (also the radical one), asks him to acknowledge her feelings of  jealousy, by considering how it might feel if she took a another lover.  Kody says “it is not something I am comfortable imaging. The vulgarity of you with another man sickens me.  It is against man and nature.”  Here I was, about to ask him to sign my legalize group marriage petition!  (I harbor the hope that the sister wives would sign it)

I am not sure what to do with this absolutely unmovable double standard – besides to point out that Meri was willing to move it, even if just a millimeter, by requiring him to imagine a different (aka egalitarian) world.  Meri (perhaps radical because she is baron), is also the radical one – not only does she question the double standard, but she also questions “where the lines in who we can love,” when discussing her relationship to the other children.  Like Janelle, Meri is also living a deeper sort of alternative lifestyle. She wanted to have eight children, and she got 16, and birthed only one of them.

My body was supposed to the object of the rules of men – and not my object, to be used in prayer. The night before putting on Teffillin, I went to an orthodox run mikvah. I bathed, put on my robe, and got ready to dip, my new Tefillin in my bag. The woman working in the mikvah that night, did not want me to use it – because my body was not as she wished it to be. I was wearing my nose ring and a ring on my finger. Both I do not remove for mikvah. She told me that she was going to call a Rabbi – that these are actually not her rules– but his, the man made these rules, she was just following them. We are the enforcers. I, without saying anything, dropped by robe, and went into the mikvah. I had a right to be there – my body, with its rings, had a right to be there – a right to use this community resource. I using the mikvah, with a non-approved body would in no way render it less kosher: I just wanted to dip. The woman working in the mikvah did not say anything to me – she was silent.

And I was utterly joyful; joyful to have dipped in the mikvah – to be performing this utterly embodied ritual in my body – to be dipped, not because I menstruated, but because I was going to put on Tefillin. Mikvah, like Tefillin is denied to women. Yes, married women can use the mikvah in order to have sex with their husband. But they cannot use it to be spiritual beings – to use their bodies in prayer/ as prayer. I do not want to imply that the using the mikvah after menstruation is somehow less spiritual, less embodies, rather, I am arguing that circumscribing mikvah usage to this on one occasion is in fact denying women a full spirituality – it is allowing ritual only as it effects men (women can touch them after mikvah) and not for purposes that are entirely her own. Purposes outside the desire of men.

Even non-orthodox mikvahs have been known to prohibit menstruating women from using the mikvah, when there is no prohibition for men to use the mikvah at any point, and in general the mikvah claims to be there for purposes outside nidah. However, just the thought of a woman with blood between her legs, deciding she is nevertheless worthy of ritual, worthy of spirituality is an impossible thought.

Try googling “feminist Spirituality” (googling a subject matter is often my point of entry, as you might have realized, if you read any of my other entries), “mainstream” feminist spirituality is often connected with some version of essentialist feminism – aka women are so cool because_____(fill in the blank with something about nurturing, the earth or the moon, and you get the point).

While, I consider myself fiercely feminist, and I attempting spirituality, I have not yet found a feminist spirituality that is “egalitarian,” at its core, or even thinking along that line (feminist for me as philosophy of radical egalitarianism). Calling god the something earthy, like the “wind” or the “spirit” instead of “he” is not what I am referring to, such changes are too easy, because, while attempting to posit a genderless god, old school good is just glossed over with “hippy” names.

An “egalitarian” spirituality ought to deconstruct the very notion of god, because god “the wind” exists in hierarchal relationship with the earth just as god “the king.”

Back to google my Oracle – a search for “egalitarian spirituality” is evens less likely to yield fruits. As expected it boils down to either “love the earth” religion or “everyone is right” religion, which is not what I am saying on either count.

After parting ways with Orthodox Judaism, and going “egal,” I’d love to take “egal” to the next level, and wonder what it would look like to have an “egal” spirituality.

Quick recap of Sodom: Story appears both in Muslem tradition and in the Hebrew Bible. Catch up on your Sodom facts on Wikapedia.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodom_and_Gomorrah

Its been understood traditionally as God destroying a city of (you guessed it), folks engaging in SODOMY, because boy on boy action is such a terrible terrible sin! Even though you ask me, its is clear from the Hebrew Bible, that whats going on in Sodom is not alternative family structures and loving relationships (did that exist anywhere in the ancient world ???) but specific kind of prohibited rape.

Lot has a bunch of angels over for dinner, and the people of the city come to Lot’s door and say, “where [are] the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them.” (Gen 19:5).

They ask, the for the angels, so they can gang- bang them, and Lot our good man, who God saves from the fire and brimstone, replies, “I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as [is] good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof Gen 19: 8).” Aka, don’t take the dudes, instead rape my daughters. In other words, its ok to penetrate women against their will, because, hell they are property anyway, but do that to dudes and your fry. This seems to be the moral of Sodom. (Look you got to start somewhere, they started with banning boy-boy rape)

Oh, and the best part, is that the area of Sodom and bunch of other “bad” cities would become uninhabitable desert for all time – hence the dead sea as Sodom fits the bill just right.

So, how about it – lets have the pride parade in Sodom next year – transform the history of the dead, salty earth into one of human love and egalitarian co-existence, no matter who is doing the penetrating (as long as its consenting adults). It is time to take back Sodom for several reasons, the best three I could think of are below. Post your reasons in comments.

Tommorow, I’m leaving Israel – and my last words from the holy land are indeed – “Take back Sodom” A fitting last thought to a rather strange and random summer.

1. God doesn’t get to just destroy cities – its time someone sent The Word up there. \

2. It could a beautiful location for a night rave in the desert.

3. Somewhere overtime, what seams like the literal meaning of the Hebrew bible got interpreted away – even back then the story was about the ethics of consent vs. no consent sex , versus who was doing the fucking. Thus, would it not be perfect restoration of damaged earth to make Sodom a celebration/location of consensual sexuality in all its many forms.

There is very little out there for modern orthodox folks who are no longer buying it.  The Ultra-orthodox apostates can turn to organizations such as Footsteps in the states. The organization guides people who seek it out towards basic skill training, GEDs, and other survival tools. (Unchosen by Hella Winston tells you all about this organization). I hear that Israel also has a simular NGO, but I could not locate its website, if you know about it please write in.

In either case the modern orthodox don’t need GEDs – they have  higher education from top universities, what they need (that the ultra-orthodox might need as well) are people to talk to about their spiritual life.  Unraveling a system of meaning is terrifying when you see no other system to replace it – no other will of God, besides the normative orthodox observance. After all, that is the party-line in mainstream orthodoxy – they, apparently, hold a monopoly on the will of God.

Thus many who leave, continue to believe that Orthodoxy is essentially – Judaism/truth/Divinity and they simply do not like it, and thus leaving symbolizes rejecting Judaism/truth/divinity.

There needs to be a place to go for conversation on this issue – a place where the Will of God is understood in contingent and multiplicities ways. Where the ethical problems in Orthodoxy can be discussed – Where can you go to ask a question and receive an intellectually honest answer that takes into account multiple currents in Judaism (halachic and non-halachic) alongside world thought at large. For example, at least for me this question was very important “Why would God make me a woman, if I feel most comfortable in male roles?”  As a very young woman, I loved the apologetic about the specialness of woman’s primary roles as private and domestic. At 22, I understood the injustice of circumscribed lives. (I also understand that many people who are just and wonderful and thoughtful continue to find meaning in Orthodox.) There are hundreds of similar questions that challenge the ethics of a system where your birth determines what you can and cannot do.

The one thing I wanted to find on the web and could not is the following message. People do not leave Orthodoxy because it is to hard, they leave because they are seeking the Will of God. At least I am.   If you are interested in discussing these questions from any end of the spectrum. Please post, I cannot wait to here form people who might know of some outlets for this conversation.

Nishmat took all the students for Friday night to what is known as a fairly picturesque and hippie-filled Jerusalem neighborhood, Nahloat.  The group went to what is supposed to be a famous area minyan – Kol Rina.  And thus, I went through the alleys and down to the basement, to Kol Rina and found my spot behind the great wall of separation, behind the man’s section.  This of course is the most offensive machitza ever – the women are not equal but separate, but actually behind the men, behind a wall, that thank god had curtains about four feet of the ground that could be moved away for the Dvar Torah (rabbinic homily).

This week, I decided to listen to the Dvar Torah – it must have been divine providence, because the Dvar torah was simultaneously the most honest, and most offensively hideous thing I ever heard within Orthodox Judaism – this guy, whose name I never found out, actually had the gull to say it like it is, and thus I know have language for saying Good-bye to Orthodoxy. Thank you random Dvar Torah Man.

This man, brought up a feminist classic:  Daughters of Zelophehad. In brief, its an account of women who ask Moses to alter the existing law, because it screws over their right to inherit their father’s land, and when Moses goes to God with the problem, God declares these women to be correct and changes the law to accommodate them   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelophehad).  This Kol Rina man went one to say that he understands that the women in today’s Judaism are also dealing with a great injustice. However, currently we do not have a way to communicate with God, the way they had back in the time of Moses, thus the women should just suck it up till messianic redemption.  When we are redeemed the women will bring their injustice before God, who will fix it the way he sees fit.  

Now, I have clarity, and clarity is a powerful thing – the core problem within Orthodox Judaism is the perpetuation of injustice, for fear of rocking the boat. (0nce upon a time they used to say that we cannot set up a Jewish state till Messiah comes, but for better of worse, someone had the balls to change that) Theologically, today’s rabbi’s  have no balls for fear of doing the wrong thing. Thus they willfully freeze the system; and this is inherently injust.  How can one simultaneously acknowledge human pain, and tell those in pain to wait…and wait…and wait, because those who can end the pain have no fait?  Yes, I say faith, because to combat injustice is an act of faith – in a good God, who created good humans, who will make justice manifest.  On the other hand, those who lack faith, fear for “Jewish continuity.” Their primary experience is fear:  of change, of modernity, of feminism, of evolution, of God.  Fear is the lack of faith, the lack of hope.

Continuity cannot be a separate goal; the goal must be to have something great, something that is striving to continue. For instance intermarriage is not a problem but a symptom of a problem….more to come.

Check out advocatesforpregnantwomen.org for the facts of countless stories, and activist opportunities.

Spending time in a Israel this summer, a place where women receive free fertility treatment from the government, while having to go before a committee of three in order to be granted permission for an abortion, I cannot help but search for the common links between free fertility treatment in one small part of the world, and criminalization of women’s bodies in another rather large part of the world. 

To begin with, the abortion committees, the fertility treatment, and the incarceration of pregnant women are all policies that are largely supported by the extreme religious folk in both America and Israel.

However, even that link does not run deep enough, because it does not answer why religion has become a repository for conservative perspectives (I believe religion at some point may have been a radical force for progress), and second of all why does everyone else go along with it? In the liberal circles crack mothers have little support as well.

This issue fascinates me to no end because more then anything other issue the rights of women when it comes their reproducing bodies or the lack there of, is the epitomy of  gender injustice, because to a large degree arguments for gender difference/ inequality stem from the reproducing bodies of women.  This being the case, there cannot be feminism without women having complete control over their reproducing bodies.  But according to the prevailing model the pregnant body becomes the exception to women’s rights. (Women generally, have rights, except when they are pregnant.) In such a system, women cannot, by define have rights, because for the majority of their adult life, that can at anytime become pregnant, and rights that can be removed at anytime, are not rights to begin with – rights by definition do not get taken away by the state.

However, there is a powerful argument that can be made for the “rights of the fetus.” After all, doesn’t my right to swing my fist end at your nose? So too, it ends at my “fetus’s nose,” says the rights of child ideology.  Thus women’s rights are sublimated to the rights of the fetus, which of course is not a problem considering that women are expected to sublimate themselves to the needs of their family and children, so why not start early, before the child is even born, and we might as well make it the law.   

 Pretty much all inequality for women stems from their role as baby machines (women are nurturers, aka  unqualified to public life and serious careers where competition  and hard work is required. (I say “baby machines” on purpose, because I speak of an ontology that sees women’s essential rule in society as reproducers  – objects, this is a universe away from an individual women’s right to be mothers on their own terms).

Today gender inequality persists because women are still “baby machines.”  The laws that makes this happen are not surprising, they are inevitable in society such as ours. Often these law are perpetuated by the extremely religious, because religion in its tradition manifestations is based on law and order that is constructed through predetermined and clear-cut roles for all members of society.  Women’s primary role is motherhood within this mapping of reality.  And thus “fetus rights” becomes away to continue a system that actually has nothing to do with rights for anyone and everything to do with predestined roles (aka what is socially constructed is absolute and inevitable.)

 This perspective is absolutely bad for women! and frankly everyone else, if you ask me.

Pride Parade!  At one point the policeman actually told me not to go and tried to block me. I was shocked – I asked him if I’m allowed to go, and he said don’t go. I told him that I have the right to go and I will go, and he let me through. Other friends had similar confrontations with the police that tried to discourage people from going to the Parade.

I cannot figure out what that is all about. The police had a really good excuse to cancel the parade all together because the fire department was on strike for over six days, but they did not. Over half of the active police force were at the parade (8000 police for 2000 marchers, plus military) God, you do that math – for every marcher there were four police officers. Five Thousand marchers were expected. What happened?  Did the potential marchers get scared? Is the community to small to get 5000 to show up and argue with the police that are actually on their side?

Also, there were few observes, very little touching, absolutely no music, and the after party was canceled.  It is hard to be festive with this amount of young men and women with guns all around. Even when the military state is on your side, it is still a military state. (not to underestimate the important of it being on your side.)  

Despite the situation, still the parade was an event to behold. My favorite the “Fuck Gender: Say No to Family Values” poster.  The quite progression down David Hamelach was full of hope. Perhaps the first few marchers are always doing so under the watchful eye of the police. After all, racial integration in the states occurred with the help of the National Guard.

However, I wonder if there might be some other way of dealing with the difficult situation.  Perhaps the police could be more helpful, instead of scaring people away from the parade by literary telling them not to go because there will be violence. At the same time, violence was a real threat, an Ultra-Orthodox Man with a bomb was stopped and 24 others were arrested throughout the day. However, is the role of the police to breed fear in an already guarded population?

I wonder if a few details could take the edge of the military state? However, who can you expect the police to be courteous if even the waiters at local restaurants are not? Israel is not a “costumer service” society.  Most adults come of age in the army, and thus bring that culture back with them into civilian life. Perhaps that is why both the police officer and the waitress are standoffish?  Or is it the other way around? 

Grumble as I might about the rude police, the bottom line of the Parade is clear, The majority (however, ungracefully) put stood against the increasingly powerful, and absolutely terrifying version of Judaism. There is nothing authentic, sweet or quant about this sort of religion.  Perhaps this can be the profound lesson of the parade, for those who encounter the outreach activities of this particular group. Their life may seem inspired, beautiful, spiritual, and filled with meaning, and often this is all true – however the price you has to pay is blind hatred of your queer friend, queer child, your queer neighbor and perhaps your queer self.  Meaning should not cost your soul.

It took me an entire adolescence of being a “bal teshuva” before I came to this conclusion. This

summer, I came to Israel to say good-bye to Orthodox Judaism, the Parade certainly helped in that processes.

For main stream covarage of the Parade check out Jpost and Haartz (the facts in my article mainly comes from Jpost article, but the Haartz peace is every uplifting.) 

  http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1182409606778&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/873728.html