The pesky Tznuot and Perutzot, about whom we gossiped on daf 3a reappear on daf 3b, surprise surprise! On daf 3a we were concerned that the meek woman would think the best of her husband (who left her over a year ago with a suspicious conditional divorce) and assume she was still married, rendering herself an agunah; while the brazen woman would purposely remarry despite her husband’s intention to return. (Picture Romare Bearden. Two Women in a Landscape, 1941.)

On daf 3b they play different though similar roles. As we discussed earlier, the meek woman would prefer to be killed then allow a local governor rape her on her wedding night (perhaps for halakhic reasons because she believes she won’t be allowed to return to her husband, or simply for emotional reasons). On the other hand the lascivious woman will actually enjoy the first night’s rights- her desire transforming it from rape to adultery, after which she really is not allowed to return to her husband.

In some ways the tznuot and the prutzot play a similar role in both sugyot. The Rabbis would like to build a perfect world, with clean clear legal standards and set rules, but reality keeps rearing its ugly head, and it has two faces. The minute we step from the ideal into the real, we find women, real live people with personalities and opinions. And they don’t always listen to Rabbis. In fact the Perutzot, listen to the Rabbis and then manipulate the system with the knowledge of halakha, while the tznuot, a term we would usually consider praise, are in fact those that reject halakha and rabbinic loop holes on the grounds of their emotions or sense of the world.

Reality doesn’t always work out as planned. But the Rabbis do want to make things work in the real world, and so time and again they have to face the women, the real people for whom the law exits and adapt.

The Gemarah on daf 3a (yes we are still on daf 3 in my Iyun class) describes a takana enacted to solve the problem of Tznuot and Prutzot- the modest and the brazen or lascivious.

The problem at hand is as follows: if a man writes a conditional divorce “If I don’t come home in a year, you are divorced,” the woman waiting at home may not know whether she is in fact divorced. If he chose not to come home at the end of the year, then she is in fact divorced because the condition was fulfilled purposely by the husband. But if some accidental circumstances forced the husband not to return, then she is still married because the condition was not fulfilled by the husband, but rather by the an outside force (let us call it an act of God.)

According to Rashi the modest/meek woman takes this lack of information and never remarries rendering herself an aguna, while a brazen woman fills the void with a new husband and may unwittingly give birth to Mamzerim (bastard children) if she in fact is officially still married. For both personality types the problem is the lack of information that allows these women to create ill consequences for themselves, which the takana can solve by pronouncing her divorced in any event no matter why the husband didn’t return.

Tosfot has a bit of a different read. The problem is not lack of information but the women themselves are problematic, each personality type with her own machinations. The modest woman, says Tosfot, really can get married because statistically it is unlikely that her husband was held up by circumstances and so she is halakhicly allowed to remarry (though I’m not sure whose doing their statistics). She with her own personal stringencies refuses to except the halakhic statisticians’ pronouncement and therefore she creates her own igun. The Perutza on the other hand knows for a fact that an accident of fate has held her husband up in some foreign land- only she doesn’t tell anyone. She takes advantage of the same statistics proffered to the modest woman and tells the world she is remarrying because her husband isn’t returning and the divorce took affect, when she knows this not to be true.

Are these stereotypes worth anything to the modern Feminist reader? And whose fault is the gemarah really pointing towards? I think all women will have a similar problem if the husband asserts an essentially vague condition to a divorce. If he is negligent enough to write her a conditional divorce without sending word as to why he didn’t return then any woman will be in trouble. Perhaps the gemarah is taking his faults and turning it into extreme personalities of women.

If I am positing that the fault is of the husband then why call this “the problem of Tznuot and Prutzot.” A “normal” woman, who is neither quick to remarry nor slow to get over her denial, will herself be transformed into a neurotic, trying to weigh the possibilities. Has enough time passed? Did he want to remain married and is trying to get back yet was prevented against his will from returning? Was he eaten by a lion? Did he willingly chose to abandon me because he met a younger more beautiful woman to start a family with in some far off town? The imagination is a dangerous thing.

The experience of not knowing of being trapped in your thoughts and in your nightmares in itself could turn a woman into a Perutzah or a Tznuah. One woman may shrink into herself, nurse her romantic memories, refuse to see the truth of his betrayal and spend the rest of her life mourning his disappearance. While another woman may turn to anger and brazenness. She may let that anger blind her from the hints of his return or prevent her from waiting some reasonable time, or from hiring a private eye. She says “he left me! Well I’m not waiting for him to find himself.”

I like this reading of the text because it doesn’t mean women are by nature extreme emotional beings who can’t be trusted. Rather it is unfair to leave women hanging in lacking of control and lacking information. The fault belongs to the man for leaving her with a worthless conditional divorce, and some of the blame can be shared ultimately with the structure of one-sided marriage that leaves only the woman helplessly chained. Perhaps it’s this blame that actually propels the rabbis to find a way out, to validate this questionable divorce so she can move on. 

When does the marriage actually take affect? There are in affect many moments that signify the marriage: The engagement ring, the discussion with you betrothed parents, the engagement party, opening up a joint bank account for the gifts, the veiling, the chuppa, the wedding party, moving in together, and of course the sex.

According to some reads of Ketuboth, the process of marriage may take affect in stages, because the marriage itself is made up several different relationships - sexual, familial, economic, social.

One place this issue arises in on page 56a. If the husband adds on to the base price of the Ketuba, when does the wife actually acquire the rights to that money. The Gemarah tries to answer from a psychological perspective: what was the reason he added on to the basic requirement of the Ketuba? Does he promise it in order to make her happy to sleep with him, or because he is paying her to sleep with him, or he is paying for her specific level of experience or virginity- in which case she would only own this part of the Ketuba after they consummate the marriage. Or perhaps he adds the money to make her happy at the Chuppa, perhaps representing the more social or even communal element of their relationship. Then after the chuppa she would be entitled to this money.

In some ways this discussion raises the question: how central is sex? Does sex represent some kind of love and personal relationship that has already been initiated at the Chuppa. If so perhaps the promise of fidelity made at the chuppa is enough to solidify the marriage in that it hints to the consummation to come, based on the emotional (and legal) promises made. Or perhaps none of these promises and projections are meaningful until they are fulfilled and made tangible.

I had the weirdest dream last night. ( I know those of you who read this blog are not used to reading the personal fluffy stuff- but I promise it’s related.)  So I had uncovered the truth, that in ancient Hebrew society powerful women, queen like, goddess like women, were in charge. These women, in their collaborative spirit were the first to come up with the idea of the Talmud a way to pool brain power. Different women would remember different pieces of information different Mishnayot. Each woman was like an individual server and together they could recreate all the learning that was being forgotten.

This is clearly a mixture of a couple things I’m reading right now. Tikvah Frymer Kensky’s book on Goddesses traces the decline of the Goddess in Ancient Summerian and Assyrian lore. Male Gods slowly took over the roles women had played, just as in my dream the Rabbis were actually replacing an early group of women. Also on my desk is Albeck’s Overview on the Mishnah, which discusses the theories of how it was organized and finalized by Rabbi Yehudah Hanassi. This fused with Halivni who describes certain student’s whose responsibility it was to remember the official version of Mishnayot and Braiytot, so he like a computer could repeat it back to those who needed it. And servers….well my computer is my closest companion theses days.

I was struck by one of the Mishnayot at the end of Masechet Ketuboth. Both a woman and man can force their spouse to move to Israel and if either of them refuses then it is grounds for divorce in both directions.

This statement stuck me as radical found at the end of a masekhet that treats men and women as diametrically opposite beasts. Even while women are protected, or benefited, or controlled and men are given power and have their power limited, the two sexes are positioned differently in every institution mentioned: Marriage, Ketuba, divorce, widowhood, inheritance, responsibilities towards children, relationship to parents- you name it.

Not only does the Mishna mention the law, but the words
אחד האנשים ואחד הנשים
 emphasize the long awaited parody between husband and wife.

The final chapter, especially the last few pages, of most Masechtot often throws us a curve ball as part of the summation. Perhaps here the Mishna is winking at us. Despite the differences in how the sexes function in marriage and divorce - deep down we all want the same thing. Both mates want to live the good life, to move to Israel, which for the Rabbis meant to bask in messianic fulfillment. What is our “Israel” our messianic hope? Husbands and wives the world over ultimately don’t want fair divorce settlements or cold but regular food for their children; they want to live in the nice house in the right neighborhood, receive compassion, companionship and love from their partner, (and throw in good sex) and meaningful relationships with their children.

Perhaps all the squeaky grimy machinery revealed in this Masekhet is meant to work back stage, so that the potential fulfillment and ecstasy of human relationships can take center stage.

If only the wonders of aliyah today would outshine the hardships- maybe we’d have more happy couples moving into our neighborhood.

My first recorded class online! You can hear me speak on "Writing our own Aggadot" at the last JOFA conference from their web site. It was a writing workshop so you can listen and write if you like.

Had an interesting conversation with a teacher at Matan about how seriously to take categories and cases constructed by the Rabbis. Sometimes it is clear that there are fundamental values and conceptions that underlie the opinions of the Rabbis, while others – this teacher was saying- that the Rabbis are technically playing with categories without really intending the conceptual implications of their constructions.

For example- the opinions about rape discussed yesterday: When Rav Abahu says all women who are raped are forbidden from returning to their husbands what does he really mean? Here are three possibilities for the deeper meaning – or lack their of – implied by his statement.  

1) Is he making a psychological point that women are so easily swayed that they really enjoy and desire the rape. Therefore he assumes most women consent at some point during rape and truly cheat on their husband’s during the act.

2) Or does he think the fact of rape in itself is a form of bodily infidelity (despite the woman’s inability to prevent it). Then imagining women’s desire may be an artificial vehicle used to force a man to divorce his wife despite her emotional or intellectual fidelity.

3) Or is he playing a detached game of halacha; he toys with the concept of a deed that started by accident or by compulsion and ended with desire and consent. He applies it to rape as it may be applied to any of many areas of law.

The same can be asked about Rava, who acquits a woman who displays desire for her rapist. Does he see actually see the woman as super sexual? Does he create the case to be the most extreme as possible just to prove his point that rape is always rape. Perhaps he believes that a woman does not truly consent even when she feels pleasure? Or does he believe a woman who consents only because a rapist brought her to this desire to this evil inclination is ultimately not responsible. Or is it a technical point that the original impetus of an act defines rape, and any act, despite the final motivations or feelings.

I personally don’t want to believe that the Rabbis were so disconnected from their material that, as the last possibilities suggest, they thought about all deeds similarly, applying theoretical conceptions to rape without imagining and considering the cases at hand.

But perhaps the Rabbis were disengaged from the material at hand. I can fathom that good Jewish men don’t think about raping women, it is far from their daily thoughts and plans. While women, as I mentioned last post, think and dream and obsess over issues of rape even when they live in relatively safe neighborhood and take normal precautions against being alone in the wrong places. When we learn Gemarah, perhaps we search harder for the conceptual and sociological implications of these halachik stands.

But I would suggest that even if these weren’t “real” in the psyche of the Rabbis, I do think that the cases represent the imagination of the Rabbis. More on imagination next time.

Someone told me recently that I sound bitter in this blog. I took a short break to think about how I can make feminist points that may at times reflect frustration, anger or plain surprise without having the public think I’m a ranting extremist bra-burning feminist. (I like my bras thank you very much). On the other hand I see no reason to trade in my express loud feminist boom for the sweet, barely audible, nice- Jewish girl’s voice I used most of my school days.

Beyond the rhetoric, I do want to convey to my readers the nuanced voice of good scholarship and luckily the Gemarah is quite a nuanced book. Of course this may mean that my posts are a bit longer...

Yesterday’s daf brought up the topic of women’s role in rape. The bible itself makes a point of saying that an engaged woman who is forced into sex is not guilty of adultery, a distinction the Bible makes seemingly in contrast to other societies it knows. Hence the woman’s desire and/ or consent is the deciding factor as to whether the sex is considered rape or adultery, which would result in capital punishment at worst or at best in being forbidden to return to her husband.

So if the woman’s feelings during the rape determines the identity of the act, this might seem quite women focused. Not quite. R. Abahu, the first voice in this discussion, worries that a rape victim may have enjoyed part of sex, even if the beginning was against her will, therefore all victims of rape may not return to their husbands. The burden of proof is on the woman to scream out for help from beginning to end. And without such proof, he assumes that the physical act of sex is likely to bring pleasure to the woman.

It is nothing new that the Gemarah attempts to come to a conclusion based on statistics without taking an interview with the individual women whose life and marriage is at stake. Of course I would have to agree with the Gemarah that such a woman is partial and may choose to lie if she indeed felt desire or pleasure during the rape. She wouldn’t want to be forbidden from returning to her previous marriage and even within that marriage she probably would have a hard time speaking openly to her husband about this extramarital sexual experience. However in this vacuum of her forced and traumatic state of mute, the assumptions of women’s experience of sex are determined by the Rabbi’s imagination about women’s sexuality.

Do some women feel bodily pleasure during rape? Is that measurable? Do some women orgasm during rape? We discussed this at great length here at Matan. Mot women did not think that women feel pleasure during rape. Maybe I’m going out on an essentialist limb here, but my gut reaction is that sexual feelings may be more psychological for women. Only a phallic man would assume that a woman being raped will be likely to feel pleasure.

But more importantly a woman should not feel guilt (emotional or actually meted out through punishment) for feelings evoked by the violent act of another! Rava (our feminist hero for the daf- sort of) counters R Abahu and says even if a women says I want to hire the rapist and pay him for him to continue- meaning she desires him and consents- she is not held responsible. If the beginning was rape the entire act is rape.

While Rava uses the most extreme case he can imagine, one where the woman falls in love with the rapist, clearly his statement also exonerates the woman who resists at the beginning and resigns herself, stopping to struggle during the rape. He does not require visual proof from start to finish that every moment of the act was rape and not consensual.

This issue was eerily echoed in a Shabbat meal this past week. A group of women were discussing their own living nightmares about how they would react if they were attacked. Almost all these women said they would not struggle, they would given in keep quiet and hope the man wouldn’t kill her when he was done. Let me note these were not meek women. These women would all be misunderstood by R. Abahu who doesn’t understand the complicated network of reasons that silence and paralyze women).

One woman at our Shabbat table had been to a self defense class. She explained that one should yell and resist from start to finish. If the rapist isn’t allowed to ever feel in total control then you are more likely to get away. You don’t want to be waiting passively to find out what will happen at the end. Surprisingly, unbeknownst to R. Abahu, by requiring women to resist loudly to prove that she is not consenting, he is in fact describing the self defense of the moderns- not how to defend yourself in court after the fact, but during the rape itself.

This is a very touchy and complicated issue and I hope to learn more as the dapim march on.

I was at a panel discussion tonight on the topic of Chevrah Meurevet, mixed groups, Co- education, or co-ed socializing. The panel clearly missed the mark on several accounts. Mainly they could not define the value of having young men and women mix, but rather just assumed that it was a given that they couldn’t do away with even if they wanted to. Secondly they vaguely referred to the costs of having mixing at all, without defining what we are so afraid of: Men and women touching? Premarital sex? A level of friendship that might lead to adultery? This vagueness, which skirted around the issue, left the audience feeling that even the formula laid out by the panelists - separate sex education side by side with serious content based programming from time to time for mixed groups- did not address how the sexes are meant to interact with each other, (friendship, love, collegiality) or what values are actually being embodied with by this approach.

Here are a few more specific things that really upset me.

Despite a couple attempts, for the most part the perspective was male (even from the one woman on the on the 4 person panel). The discourse was what should we do with the women, should we let the women in. I wanted Malka Bina- the head of Matan, who had already expressed a rather conservative position -to say, ‘we women have to decide whether we want to let the men in!’ or ‘Women’s only education is good for women.’ I think she was trying to express similar sentiments; but, instead a powerful feminist statement, she told a story of a strong woman who desired to learn with the men, until she was beaten down and rejected enough that she finally discovered that she could be a good meek Jewish he women and learn Gemarah with the women.

Then, in an attempt to fill in the women’s perspective, Rav Bigman posited that women feel more subjective Kedusha when they pray in women’s tefilot than when they are called to the torah in progressive minyanim that include women in a limited fashion. I suppose he didn’t poll me before he made such a blanket statement. I don’t want to get rid of all single sex spiritual expression- but I don’t want men making an argument for sex segregation in the synagogue based on the excuse that they are protecting women from loosing out on women’s tefila- most of which are dying, dead, or at the very least infrequent!

Lastly the pink elephant in the room as I mentioned above was sexuality. These questions I don’t have answers to but were blatantly absent from the discussion. What are the actual dangers of mixing the sexes? Is there a way to increase respect on both sides of the gender divide and yet to prevent premarital sex? Is premarital sexual experiences- lets take touch- something that teenagers can actually be asked to avoid completely? If we emphasize exclusively intelligence and serious conversation, will we deemphasize a natural healthy sense of sexuality? If men and women feel more comfortable together, will there be a rise in successful married relationships or failed ones? If boys are trained to talk and listen to women, will they not naturally fall in love and want sex all the more? But if we think respecting the intellect of a woman is going to curb sex, then won’t sex in marriage turn the woman back into an object?

Ok the last few questions were leading…but I do honestly believe there is a lot to explore, for which I do not yet have the answer. But I want to work on developing some theories, and not simply start wringing my hands at its complexity.  

In last weeks Daf Yomi, there are a whole series of Mishnayot that deal with whether one can testify in court as to their own status (I was married but now I am divorced, I am a cohen etc.).

One of the cases that stands out for me is the case of a woman who is taken captive (a fate that was assumed to include rape). In one permutation the woman testifies both to the fact that she was indeed taken captive and to the fact that she was not raped and is still kosher to marry a Cohen. The Rabbis argue that if she willingly tells us that she was taken captive – and is essentially prohibiting herself from certain marriages- then we will also believe her when she
says ‘I was not raped’- removing that same prohibition. However when someone else offers the information that she was taken captive, the statistics (the assumption that most women are raped in captivity) determine her fate and she has no option to add the information that she personally was not raped during her captivity.

I find myself thrown back and forth between two images of women. One image is the conniving women, who is willing to lie in order to save herself. She is the woman the Rabbis worry about, the woman who hides that she was taken captive and only when an outside source reveals this fact does she counter by saying nothing happened during her captivity. On the other end of the spectrum I imagine a meek quiet scared woman, who naturally might want to keep quiet about her embarrassing or perhaps terrifying experience in captivity. She indeed was not raped and now will not be believed because she had decided not to speak about her experience.

I guess real women are somewhere in between, though I have compassion for both the woman who chose not to speak and lost her chance to save her reputation, and the brazen woman, brave enough to lie in order to save herself from prohibitions against her. I understand that courts need rules- but if a woman can’t testify about what happened to her body and is rather judged on statistical grounds, it doesn’t bode well for their voice in society.

The power of witnessing and then testifying or speaking about ones traumatic experiences has been lauded as one of the most important ways of overcoming trauma. Part of this process is of course to have a listener who accepts and validates the person’s experience. On the one hand this gemarah encourages women to speak out about what has happened to them immediately- like filing a police report right after an incident. On the other hand it leaven little room for the very natural phenomenon of an initial period of silence before people feel capable to talking about their experiences.