A Woman's Place

Reviewed by JONATHAN GRONER

Expanding the Palace of Torah: Orthodoxy and Feminism
By Tamar Ross
324 pages. Brandeis University Press. $29.95.

 

For about a generation, many Orthodox women in Israel and North America have been grappling with conflicts between contemporary feminist concerns and several aspects of Jewish law and tradition that they believe are insensitive or demeaning to women's spiritual and religious needs. While feeling constrained by the demands of the Torah and centuries of custom, an increasing number of observant women have tried to carve out dimensions of equality in their religious life.

It has not been an easy struggle, either within these women's own consciousnesses or in the public sphere. Many modern Orthodox rabbis and institutions seem to have closed ranks in opposition to even fairly minor alterations in Jewish life and liturgy proposed by Jewish feminists; this is one example of the "swing to the right" that observers have noticed within Orthodoxy. Still, some change has clearly occurred, as women in unprecedented numbers are enrolled in advanced Talmud study programs, women's prayer groups have sprung up in many cities, and women are assuming new roles as lay leaders and scholars in Orthodox synagogues.

Tamar Ross, who teaches Jewish thought at the modern Orthodox Bar Ilan University in Israel and is also a longtime instructor at a women's yeshiva in Jerusalem, wrote Expanding the Palace of Torah against this background. Although in portions of the book Ross expresses her frustration with the slow pace of change in Orthodoxy's attitude toward women, this is not a political treatise or a call to action, and readers who look for that here will be frustrated. It is, rather, a philosophical and theological work that examines on a theoretical level all the possible accommodations between feminism and the Jewish tradition–and finds most of them wanting.

Ross's project, as she describes it in her prologue, is nothing less than to show how the "Jewish tradition itself provides hope that an authentic understanding of Torah can accommodate what is, for all intents and purposes, an egalitarian ethos." This is an ambitious undertaking, and it is not a criticism of this book to say that it does not constitute the last word on the matter. Expanding the Palace of Torah, in fact, more than repays the careful thought and consideration that it requires.

Ross's intellectual enterprise reaches far beyond her detailed understanding of halacha (Jewish traditional law) and feminism–Jewish, Christian, and secular. She rigorously examines legal theory, post-modernist thought, biblical criticism, and the history of religions. Her arguments require a good deal of effort to follow. But it does eventually become clear that she rejects any number of reconciliations that have been advanced between tradition and feminism. She finds that they either lack a solid intellectual foundation, fail to take women's demands seriously enough, or fail to give the tradition its due. The tradition has its part to play, Ross reminds us. "Once a tradition becomes established, it is never again possible to retreat to some neutral territory that ignores all that previously prevailed in order to build a new and antiseptic future," Ross writes. "Any future developments must negotiate with what already exists."

It is clear that if this book is read carefully and taken seriously, it will probably offend or infuriate many traditionalists and many radical feminists alike, and it is clear, incidentally, that Ross knows this.

Ross's preferred answer to the conflict between Orthodoxy and feminism is what she calls "cumulative revelation," a philosophical idea with roots in traditional Jewish sources. This term describes a process in which the word of God unfolds itself gradually through history rather than at a single moment of blinding revelation. From her perspective, the 21st century, precisely because of the growth of liberal, egalitarian ideas in the general culture, is a propitious time for Orthodox feminists to push the process of revelation along by stepping forward and voicing their concerns. "The feminist critique creates one of those decisive historical moments when faith can be lost–or strengthened through its refinement," Ross writes.

Ross's inspiration is found in the writings of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the 20th century Israeli chief rabbi and mystic who, incidentally, was far from an across-the-board supporter of feminism. Kook saw Jewish history as a progressive expression of God's will, and he was open to the possibility that the Jewish people could change their destiny by taking positive action. "We should not immediately refute any idea which comes to contradict anything in the Torah, but rather we should expand the palace of Torah above it, and through this exaltation the ideas are revealed," Kook wrote, in a passage that inspired the title of Ross's book.

Although this book contains a plethora of footnotes and sources, it is not a halachic or practical guide for a woman who wants to pray at a women's service, to expand her Jewish learning, or to put on tefillin. It is one or two steps removed from that, and, perhaps for that reason, it may prove to be a work of lasting value.

 

Jonathan Groner is a Washington, DC-based freelance writer. Email him at JGroner@Legaltimes.com.