It is Written:
Tradition, Interpretation, and Innovation in Jewish Women's Lives

Susan Starr Sered, in researching and writing about the religious lives of elderly Jewish women in Jerusalem, "hope[s] to challenge preconceptions about the very nature of such concepts as the sacred, the holy, and human spirituality" (3).  By talking and listening to the illiterate and uneducated women in her study group, observing and interpreting their activities and gestures, Sered finds that 50% of Judaic practice and belief is developed outside of prescribed law and ritual.  Women's Judaism is far different from men's, yet no less complex, meaningful, and vibrant.  Through interpretation and innovation, women restructure paternalistic and androcentric religious beliefs and traditions.  By creating living, useful, and meaningful spirituality appropriate to their own unique needs, these elderly Jewish women can provide inspiration for all women who too often feel alienated and excluded from male-dominated religious institutions.

Jews are people of the Book.  That is, their history, beliefs, laws, and rituals are written down in the Torah and Talmud.  Judaism is a religion that values literature and literacy.  But because the Torah and Talmud were written by men for other men, and are studied by men, the vast majority of the laws and rituals apply only to men.  This makes the male gender normative.  Women don't have much of a voice in Judaic literature.  Therefore, anyone studying the literature does not gain much information about Jewish women's spirituality.  Sered's study, Women as Ritual Experts: The Religious Lives of Elderly Jewish Women in Jerusalem, sets out to change that by approaching the religion from a feminist perspective.  Women make up no less than half of Judaism, she says, and they practice it according to their own needs, understanding, and desire to enter into a relationship with God.  To be a Jew is to be more than just a literate male who reads and studies the Talmud, who prays in a certain way at certain times each day, and who carefully performs rituals as he is taught.  It is also to be a woman who strives for "a clean heart" (Sered 79) and who knows there is "spiritual meaning and legitimization ... [in her] everyday ... activities" (Sered 85). 

By not having their histories, beliefs, laws, and rituals written down in permanent form, Jewish women have freedoms that men do not have.  They can interpret Jewish rituals as they understand them from their own point of view, and they can create new women's rituals or re-create the men's rituals to fit their unique needs.  "The women in this study," Sered claims, "are not atypical of the generations upon generations of Jewish (and non-Jewish) women who have lived their lives in traditional, sexually segregated societies" (4).  The elderly women that Sered studies are not liberated feminists and are not rebelling against patriarchy and androcentric mindsets, but are working within the system to carve out their own niche, knowing that they are "good and pious Jews" (Sered 50).

Sered provides several examples of how women go about interpreting and creating their own Judaism.  Attendance at synagogue is required for Jewish males, but not for Jewish women who are "considered superfluous in terms of a prayer quorum" (Sered 27).  Nevertheless, some of the elderly women of her study group have started to make appearances at synagogue though they must sit apart from the men and at too great a distance to hear or understand much of the service (Sered 27).  Because they are not included in the goings-on, women lend their own interpretation and meaning to the men's activities, and define the reason why they themselves are there.  "They believe," Sered notes, "that the time when the Torah is held up is particularly efficacious for making requests of God on behalf of their families.  [These] women ... come to synagogue at times determined by Jewish law, but they come in order to make personal petitions" (Sered 28).

The women understand the great importance of the Torah in their faith and know that the men study it, but because they are illiterate, they cannot read or study the Torah for themselves (and are forbidden to do so in any case).  While in synagogue, they are witnesses to the men's reverence for the Torah which is apparent when they touch and kiss it after it's raised up before those in attendance (Sered 28).  Furthermore, the women know that the mezuza in their homes contains words from the Torah.  These words, though the women cannot read them, are nonetheless sacred and meaningful.  "They do not know what is written in the mezuza," Sered stresses, "but they do know that mezuzot are what guards the home.  For women whose self-image is as the spiritual guardians of their families, kissing the mezuza is a particularly potent ritual" (69).  Women interpret and re-create the men's religious acts so that they are useful and meaningful according to their own unique needs.

One of the few written laws pertaining to Jewish women's religious activities is the commandment that they light the Sabbath candles.  "Jewish law demands that two candles are lit in each household and that the woman who lights the candles recite a formal Hebrew blessing" (Sered 31).  Sered's illiterate, elderly women do not seem to know the proper blessing, most likely because it is written down in the texts which they cannot read.  So, knowing only that a blessing much be said in accompaniment to the lighting, they create their own blessings and make requests of God at the same time.  "For many of the women, each candle or wick represents the soul of a family member.  God is believed to be particularly receptive to requests made at this time, and the most common requests are on behalf of family members" (Sered 31).

As in the synagogue when the Torah is held up, the women believe that God is listening to them.  They take the opportunity to make personal requests during a prescribed ritual.  In this manner, they subtly change the meaning of the ritual itself.  Neither the Sabbath candle lighting nor the holding up of the Torah is specifically, directly, meant to benefit the family.  Rather, both are a means to express the omnipotence of God and revere his words and commandments.  Sered reveals the proper blessing that is supposed to be recited when lighting the Sabbath candles:  "Blessed art Thou, Lord our God, King of the universe, who had commanded us to kindle the Sabbath lights" (31).  By lighting more than the two candles required and asking for family needs, the women interpret and re-create Jewish ritual, as developed and written down by men, to better pertain to their female experiences and needs.

Interpreting and re-creating formal, prescribed rituals brings new life to ancient traditions.  Completely new rituals further invigorate and enliven a "religious system that has been more or less frozen for a great many years" (Sered 30).  One of these rituals is tree-planting on the traditional holiday of Tu b'Shvat, the day when trees "become one year older," according to Sered (30).  Tu b'Shvat tree-planting was not created to be a religious women's activity; rather, it is a secular environmental project (Sered 30).  Sered's women, however, have made it a religious ritual.  She reports that when planting the new trees, the women pray, "'in the merit [zechut] of my planting this tree, my family should have good health/happiness/everything we need'" (30). 

Again, the elderly Jewish women take the opportunity to petition God for familial needs.  Tree-planting time, like the time during which the Torah is held up in synagogue and when the Sabbath candles are lit, is a time when God is listening.  Though tree-planting is not performed specifically to directly benefit the family, the women have interpreted the act this way and have created a new religious ritual that holds meaning for them.  This is not a religious ritual prescribed and written down by men in sacred Judaic texts.  "These illiterate, uneducated women feel competent to create a new ritual within a broader religious system.  This ritual, designed [by the women] to enlist God's protection for their families, lies within women's sphere and so does not need rabbinical approval" (Sered 30). 

As good Jews, the women seek to establish and maintain a relationship with God, one that is contractual and reciprocal, like the Covenant he made with the Hebrews long ago.  Sered maintains that "a tenet of faith for these women is that an individual can and should be in frequent contact with God" (55).  Maintaining contact with God is something that people most often do verbally, through "prayers, blessings, and petitions" (Sered 55).  It is not necessary or expedient to write to God.  The God of the Torah is a verbal-aural God:  "God said, 'Let there be light'; and there was light" (Gen. 1:3); "Then the Lord said, 'I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry" (Ex. 3:4); and, "Then God spoke all these words: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt" (Ex. 20:1-2). 

Illiterate, uneducated women may not be able to read or write, but they can speak and hear.  Because they are not chained to texts, "they stress aspects that are not considered important when thinking about holidays [or rituals] from a male perspective," Sered contends, even though they are "aware of the official reasons, laws, and customs for the various holidays [and rituals]" (80).  By interpreting, reinterpreting, creating, and re-creating Judaism in new ways, outside of the unchanging written texts, Sered's elderly women engage in a living religion, able to "ignore, borrow, circumvent, and shift emphasis" as needed (Sered 87).  Sered's work shows that women of any faith can be "ritual experts ... the ones with the power" (102) rather than the invisible ones alienated and excluded from patriarchal, androcentric religious institutions. 

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Works cited:

Sered, Susan Starr.  Women as Ritual Experts:  The Religious Lives of Elderly Jewish Women in Jerusalem.  New York:  Oxford University Press, 1992.

The New Oxford Annotated Bible.  Ed. Bruce M. Metzger and Roland E. Murphy.  New York:  Oxford University Press, 1994.