The Jewish woman: Myself and others

Abstract

The Jewish woman is, like the Jewish man, a paradox. The woman is the mainstay of the family, the members of which, including the woman and at her unconscious instigation, reg? ularly break out and away, in order that the woman may be confirmed in her centrality to the family and to the society that perpetuates this paradox. Women have always been rebels. At every turn women overthrow the masks of order, dominance and rationality which, un? altered, would warp female knowledge of the flow of life, its feel, its current. The Jewish home-based Friday-night ritual revolves around the lady of the house. Lighting the candles, she is the Queen of the Sabbath, ushering in the sacred peace of the Sabbath. Throughout her life and cyclically through the year she symbolically enacts the roles of Eve (and Lillith); matriarch Sarah; cunning Rebec? ca; prolific Leah; difficult, beloved Rachel; Miriam, who sang when her brother Moses passed through the opened seas and who al? most went too far politically; Sheba or the Many-Named; the nameless beloved of the nameless lover of Solomon's psalms; Ruth and Naomi, natural-born Jew and sister-woman; Queen Esther, who saved her people; Judith, who took the head of Holofernes, the enemy; and all those others in Jewish lore who are not men. As in a repertory company, the members of a family take on, directly or indirectly, each other's conflicts and destinies, resolving them variously. The Jewish woman has had a full task to fulfill the demands of her own charac? ter, as well as those aspects denied within the men. The Jewish man has, of course, the same situation; but, because of his previously more public role, has been less free to mimic the hidden self of the other. For example, Jessica, daughter of the Mer? chant of Venice, dreamed out Shylock's de? sire to be accepted by the prevailing society, the desire to assimilate that haunts and taunts all Jews (perhaps the better to maintain inner Jewish identity by contrast). For Shylock, the loss of his honor, beyond that of his ducats, was brought home to him by the loss of his daughter. Like other prodigal daughters, Jessica rebelled against having to be like those great and noble Jewish women. Like them, she just wanted to be herself. (So did Emma Goldman.) The strictures of Judaic thought are there for a reason. Instead of commanding general virtuous goodness, thereby incurring anxiety concerning whether an act is or is not the Good, the early Jews set forth Ten Thou Shalts and Shalt Nots. Anything else was all right. Jews live by Law so deeply ingrained in their consciousness that variable constructs are con? tinually mandated in response. Further, be? cause the Law is inviolable, it is regularly Carol Rubenstein is a poet, translator and anthologist.