Receiving Through Strength

In “Fighting for Her,” author Chaya Hertzberg describes the process of a woman’s self-development from submissive acceptance of her husband’s violence to a life of liberation and happiness. In brilliant style, never offensive or overly critical or crass, she casts her heroine as the daughter of a well-known rabbi living abroad, who moves to Israel and forms a friendly relationship with an abused woman. The outsider’s best efforts to open her eyes encounter defensive walls made of the finest materials of our daughters’ education: “An upright woman does her husband’s will. […] It is also written that all who close their mouth in time of strife merit to see the hidden light, and concession is a supreme virtue; we are redeemed in the merit of our mother Rachel’s concession.”

To help her friend who had accepted her fate of an abusive relationship, Milki, recruits her father, the famous rabbi, who persuades the submissive and tortured woman to take her fate into her hands. The task is not simple: “Perhaps my husband mustn’t lash out like this, but his arguments are essentially correct: everything depends on the woman. If I would be okay everything would be okay. Everything really does start with the woman.” The story reaches a happy ending, of course: The woman’s eyes are opened thanks to the wise counsel of the rabbi from abroad, she finds her inner strength, the husband enters a course of therapy, and they live happily ever after.

Hertzberg, perfectly aware of the boundary between the possible and the impossible in Charedi literature, walks a thin tightrope. She delivers delicate and implicit criticism against the type of preaching that weakens women but does so via a leading rabbinic personality

Hertzberg, perfectly aware of the boundary between the possible and the impossible in Charedi literature, walks a thin tightrope. She delivers delicate and implicit criticism against the type of preaching that weakens women but does so via a leading rabbinic personality. Absent this flourish, she knows, any message of female empowerment would be considered too progressive, too feminist – something to be suspected and condemned.

Hertzberg’s talent attests to the potential pitfalls of the “female receiving” approach that Tamar Pfeffer, in her impressive article, seems to embrace wholesale. The labor of teaching the concept of receiving is a delicate and complex task and should be undertaken with much caution. This is true everywhere, but it is especially crucial in the framework of Charedi girls’ education.

 

Acceptance or Curse?

Eve’s curse, “And He will rule over you”, has been the basic rule for women over thousands of years. Knowledgeable people sometimes forget that this is a curse—not a mitzvah, not a definition based on halachic or educational definitions, but a destined to dissipate from the world at a future time of redemption and perfection.

An important and somewhat confusing part of this process is feminism. It is no secret that women throughout history and in all cultures suffered from violent men due to the aforesaid curse. Such phenomena were albeit marginal among Jews, and throughout the generations, our Sages cultivated an attitude of love, respect, and protection of the Jewish woman; but notwithstanding this tradition, cases of abuse certainly continue to exist within our camp.

I believe the time has come to make our educational messages to our daughters more nuanced, drawing clear-cut distinctions between softness that accepts and enables, and a victimizing passivity that uses the teachings of our Sages as a cover.

Some will say these are marginal issues, deriving from a lack of faith in God and fidelity to His commandments. Indeed, one who has God in his heart can never be cruel to his wife. But evil or misguided people use (or abuse) the discourse of receiving and acceptance, which emphasizes humility and silence, to trample over their wives. While the approach might include much that is good and right, this is its Achilles Heel.

I believe the time has come to make our educational messages to our daughters more nuanced, drawing clear-cut distinctions between softness that accepts and enables, and a victimizing passivity that uses the teachings of our Sages as a cover.

 

Between Softness and Passivity

A receiving woman has a strong and robust identity. She is well acquainted with her desires, is connected to an array of ambitions and aims adapted to her personality and soul, and feels no need to apologize for the place she seeks to form for herself both in her external and internal world. It is specifically because of her strength and confidence that she is deeply open to the needs of her husband and the acceptance of his difference and freedom. She is conscious of his sensitivities and tendencies; she will not always be able to meet his requests, but she will be ready to communicate respectfully and effectively.

This type of female acceptance derives from a mindset that broadcasts a message of “be what you will be” to others and specifically to husbands.  The position of softness does not weaken that which lies within and does not reduce the woman to being a “yes person” at all times. It is an open and flexible position precisely because it is backed by a stable, secure persona, who knows her wants and the ways to achieve them.

Mothers who raise their daughters based on a personal example of self-erasure in the name of values effectively teach them that a woman has no place in God’s world. Some girls absorb this message and grow up to become doormats, and some will develop, as a reaction to it, a broad range of symptoms

By contrast with the receiving woman stands—or perhaps bends—the passive woman. The latter accepts almost any request and demand; if she even has her own will, she is ashamed of it and lives in its denial. This is a woman whose definitions and identities—personal, spiritual, and professional—are synonymous with those of her husband and children. She has difficulty refusing, often feeling (sometimes with some pride) that she is “sacrificing her life” for others. She is confused or helpless when a decision needs to be made and is constantly in need of approval from outside sources of authority. This submissive and soft person seems goodhearted and devoted, but the cost she and her family pay for her attitude can be unbearable. Underneath the passive façade is sometimes a deep sense of bitterness and anxiety.

Mothers who raise their daughters based on a personal example of self-erasure in the name of values effectively teach them that a woman has no place in God’s world. Some girls absorb this message and grow up to become doormats, and some will develop, as a reaction to it, a broad range of symptoms, mostly excessive showiness and even a vocal disposition that seeks to compensate for internal misery.

Girls and women of the passive sort often seek the all-knowing rabbi who will tell them how to live. I often end up accompanying such questioners to the room of the important rabbi, who in his great wisdom insists on asking: “And what do you think?” These women are almost always embarrassed by the question and once again want the rabbi to think and decide for them. Sometimes, the rabbi will go on to say: “It is not me who will need to live with the ruling I give you; you will bear its consequences. I thus wish, first of all, to hear your thoughts, and only then will I tell you my opinion.” Though not all manage to formulate the redemptive answer, this sort of message is nonetheless a refreshing breeze in a world that insists on teaching girls to automatically obey, to crush their own desires and emotions in the face of any authority speaking with confidence.

 

Teaching Mature Acceptance

Many young women find themselves in a pickle. The educational and intimate guidance they receive tells them: “Run with whatever he wants and asks for, you are the glove of his hand.” Many female educators and counselors dispense such guidance under the notion that Charedi women’s high level of modesty, coupled with an unequivocal worldview regarding proper norms of behavior for a woman, could be cracked when encountering a man who is a little more daring. They thus tell them to take leave of all feelings, thoughts, and values they bring from home in favor of a mindless “follow me in the wilderness” approach.

Is this the kind of acceptance we should be teaching our daughters—a blindness to the colors, smells, and feelings they have of who they are? Should they be giving up on a thinking mind and intuitive desire in the name of female acceptance? Alongside incomparably important values such as restraint, listening to rabbinic sages, and using our better judgment against passing youthful caprices, we also need to also inform them of additional teachings that complete the discourse of receiving and acceptance.

We need a discourse of listening to one’s own body, which is not possible while our teachings on modesty are delivered in a “Christian” manner, attacking simple pleasures or shunning the body and its needs. How will our daughters be open to warmth, softness, and gentleness, when they do not know the secrets of their soul and their feelings?

We need a discourse of listening to one’s own body, which is not possible while our teachings on modesty are delivered in a “Christian” manner, attacking simple pleasures or shunning the body and its needs. How will our daughters be open to warmth, softness, and gentleness, when they do not know the secrets of their soul and their feelings?

We need a discourse of honest, transparent, and open dialogue with one’s husband. This discourse often challenges the moral lessons on restraint, concession, silence, and charity. It would be wonderful to find a precise formula for a happy medium between the two; even in its absence, however, neither can be neglected.

We need a discourse of caution, teaching explicit warning signs that should set off alarm bells during dating in Lithuanian society and after the wedding in Chassidic settings. Innumerable women have found themselves on the edge, weeping while holding onto a marital altar rather than allowing the altar to weep (the Talmud teaches that the sacrificial altar weeps over the breakup of a Jewish marriage), just because they were never exposed to simple guidance before the romantic sun began to set and the violent darkness came.

Female educators rightly fear to frighten pure-hearted women with stories of evil and injustice. They claim that an overly frank discussion stokes needless anxieties and makes an already tense time even tenser. I have no easy response to this argument, which must be listened to. It is indeed the pride of our education that we shy away from anything resembling such ugliness. But shying away does not mean completely denying reality. We need to find a way to speak gently and calmly on the matter, to encourage self-expression, questioning, and consulting.

 

Feminism and Freedom

I would like to make a side note by focusing on the trait of female acceptance. Mrs. Pfeffer presents a very defined and dichotomous model: man gives, woman receives. Responses of many readers, both male and female, sought to unravel this tight fabric. But I would like to understand something deeper underlying this and similar models. All of us, both men and women alike, have a fantastical model of the perfect partner. These images are informed by Hollywood movies in which women are judged according to their beauty and men according to their masculine strength, as well as our own educational philosophy, in which a woman is estimated according to her pious softness and the husband is exalted relative to his great spirituality (his learning in the Lithuanian world and his adherence to God and asceticism in the Chassidic parallel).

It seems the human soul needs the imaginary dimension to establish a lasting connection. Already in Talmudic times, Beit Hillel instructed us to hide the actual bride behind a veil that conceals reality and dance before the groom with the song “a beautiful and pious bride.” Each couple would do well to start their first steps with a  romantic cloud hovering above them, but they shouldn’t linger at this stage for too long. They must come to look at each other with painful but redeeming clarity.

Efforts to create criteria for the internal world of men and women are good and proper for creating order and forming an educational and spiritual sphere of definitions in which couples can tread their course. But sometimes these labels turn from inspired guidelines to a suffocating and restrictive vice, resembling tight wedding clothing whose beauty hardly mitigates the pain

Efforts to create criteria for the internal world of men and women are good and proper for creating order and forming an educational and spiritual sphere of definitions in which couples can tread their course. But sometimes these labels turn from inspired guidelines to a suffocating and restrictive vice, resembling tight wedding clothing whose beauty hardly mitigates the pain. As such, they hamstring both the husband and the wife. Some women are automatically “receiving,” while others are more opinionated and assertive; there are strong men who seek to influence and give, and some are gentler and more hesitant. Every man and woman encounters a partial, divided, and tattered reality, in which their internal fantasy does not align with the other half set to meet their demands.

It is good for a man to know that his desire for softness will be but half-satisfied. It is good for the woman to know that the actual strength of her husband will be considerably less than what she imagined. Precisely a society such as ours, which insists on avoiding the consumption of romantic literature and which views the personal realm as the exclusive place for realizing the relationship, should be a model for a marriage of value and reality, rather than sanctifying imagined, restrictive models that are not realizable.

As I mentioned earlier, feminism presaged the beginning of women’s liberation from Eve’s curse. It is true that some of its strains went in problematic directions, but I nonetheless wish to raise a spark of holiness from within it. Feminism “freed” women to define themselves in broad terms, beyond what was permitted yesteryear. Some perceive this freedom as a call to dismantle order and blur boundaries; but in my professional experience, this liberation of femininity and masculinity may strengthen relations in a new, fundamental way.

If the relationship between man and woman is dear to us, then those who find new ways to realize, cultivate, and strengthen it should be praised for their labors. The imprisonment of men and women in rigid, definitive straits (giver-receiver, active-passive, externalized-internalized) prevents them from positioning themselves flexibly and freely. Feminism, in all its facets, is not merely about the danger of nihilism; it also presages a message of expansion and diversification on the path to realizing the covenant between man and woman—two who become one.