The Masculine Mystique

In the following lines, I wish to tell stories. Yes, you read correctly. I want to share three stories on this prestigious platform with you. I will later discuss their common theme and propose a conceptual-theoretical framework that I will call “the masculine mystique,” a concept that may serve as a framework for broader theoretical thinking that can be applied to other contexts. I hope these thoughts will contribute to an ongoing lively discussion on the issue of the Haredi woman’s approach to holiness.

Story 1

I will begin with a somewhat sad story. I attended the funeral of a young neighbor who passed away after a long illness. At the conclusion of the eulogies, when they began to carry the casket, I pondered aloud, half to myself and half to my sister standing beside me, while we stood in the women’s section: Why is it specifically men who carry the deceased’s casket? My question elicited puzzled looks from women standing near us, and one of them, a dignified older woman, began to answer me.

The woman: It is an honor for the deceased that men carry them.

Me: But this is a woman. Wouldn’t it be more appropriate for women to carry the casket?

The woman: But it’s not respectful for the deceased. The honor is that men do it.

Me: I think it’s less respectful for a woman to be lifted by men. Just moments ago, they praised her modesty.

The woman: This is a matter of souls, not the body. The soul feels.

Me: They are lifting a body, not a soul.

The woman: (Giving me a disappointed and weary look, as if to say: Leave it, you don’t understand, you have more to learn.)

Well, the main thing is that we were able to escort the deceased four cubits on her final journey…

Story 2

Let’s make a sharp transition to one of the most joyous and festive holidays in the Jewish calendar: Simchas Torah, just last year.

After Shacharis and before the traditional dancing with the Torah scrolls, a Kiddush is held in the synagogue, as is done every year. The men are in their area near the men’s section, and the women are in their space near the women’s section. The diligent women of valor in the community have prepared tables laden with all sorts of delicacies, all set for the meal. Now, Kiddush needs to be recited. Faint sounds reach my ears from the men’s section. I hear one of them reciting the Kiddush blessing in a melodious voice, and as is the tradition. They then sit down to enjoy the Kiddush meal.

In contrast, in the women’s section there is confoundment and confusion. The respectable, diligent, and intelligent women, including the rabbis’ wives, stand awkwardly as they face the challenge of making Kiddush themselves. The men’s Kiddush was not recited loudly or with sufficient consideration of women who wished to participate, and now it was down to the women to perform the ritual on their own. A minute passes, then two; awkwardness fills the air. I am puzzled by this as both part of the group and as an observer. I ask one of the rabbis’ wives if she wants to make Kiddush, and she mumbles an incomprehensible excuse. Her friend responds similarly, as does the third. I wonder to myself why these important women, rabbis’ wives who know how to run entire households, fall silent when they are expected to conduct a small religious ceremony: the kiddush.

Even though I am neither a rabbi’s wife nor a particularly important woman, just another member of the community, I offered to perform the kiddush. My suggestion was received with sighs of relief and joy. Finally, someone to save us from this embarrassment. Since then, I have continued to wonder about this event…

Story 3

The third story also takes place in the synagogue. Unlike the previous one, which took place in a large gathering, this story takes place in the presence of a small group. On a pleasant spring Shabbos morning, after the prayer service ended, I stayed, as is my custom, in the women’s section, which is usually empty at this hour, and I sat down to study the daily page of Talmud: the Daf HaYomi.

I was fortunate that on that Shabbos, another woman, a rabbi’s wife, stayed behind in the synagogue to recite Tehilim. We sat at a distance from each other, barely seeing one another, each absorbed in her own task. Suddenly, I felt her standing close to me, observing me. She looked at me and then at the Talmud, back and forth, not saying a word, her face expressing astonishment and bewilderment. Then, after she collected herself, she performed an act that, despite the time that has passed, still lingers in my memory. She grabbed the Talmud and closed it. Then she turned to me with a rebuke, made up of a series of statements: How dare you study Talmud? It is sacred! Only men can study Talmud! You are forbidden! Forbidden! Do you understand what I’m saying? This is forbidden to you! You think you’re performing a mitzvah? You’re committing a transgression! Which rabbi permitted you? And so on.

I listened to her. I did not argue. I felt sorry for her pain and astonishment. We parted as friends, but not before I promised her that I would think about what she said. And as I promised, I thought about it, thought about it a lot. In the following paragraphs, I will share some of my reflections, framing them into theoretical concepts.

The Halo of Male Holiness

If you identified the common theme in these stories, you could probably add the fourth, fifth, and sixth stories yourself. The commonality is that women, and men too, crown the male gender with a kind of halo of holiness. The “holiness” and the ability to “possess” holiness, to touch or cling to it, is an ability attributed primarily to men. Whether within a religious framework, an object, or a religious act representing holiness, men are seen as the appropriate agents of holiness. The examples I presented highlight the religious framework in which this attribution occurs, and this is where I will focus.

It is thus natural that at a funeral, as a religious ceremony, men are the main (or sole) participants, even when it’s the funeral of a woman. Their involvement in the religious ceremony and with the object of that ceremony feels proper and self-evident. Similarly, performing the kiddush is an act naturally expected of a man, particularly when done in public. The man holds the Kiddush cup, makes the beracha, and fulfills the obligation for his listeners. The women in the second story didn’t feel capable of performing this act, which, as its name suggests, signifies holiness. Likewise, in the third story, the Talmud is seen as a book that only men have the right and ability to study because of its sanctity. The man’s special stature allows him to interact with holiness, whereas the woman lacks this quality. According to this view, the man’s virtue gives him access to the Talmud. The automatic expectation that the man will act in religious spaces, and the ease with which he operates therein, stems from this perception.

This perception is what I propose to frame in a conceptual-theoretical model I will call “the masculine mystique.” This term could serve as a framework for broader theoretical thinking on the subject. The concept of “masculine mystique” (a borrowed term from Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique”) aims to convey the halo of holiness attributed to men as those who have the ability to engage with holiness. Before elaborating, I wish to introduce a theoretical model that will help us think about this “masculine mystique.”

The anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss[1] developed the structuralist approach as a method for understanding human society and culture. He presents a division of binary opposites as a fundamental basis for theoretical thinking about human culture. He points to several pairs of dialectical opposites that exist in constant tension and together create a structural whole that aids in understanding human culture. One of the basic binary pairs Lévi-Strauss identifies is the pair ‘nature-culture.’ These opposing concepts are in a conflictual relationship. Nature is seen as instinctive, raw, something that has not yet been processed or developed. It is driven by primal, ancient urges. In contrast, culture is developed, structured, and reasoned, and it is guided by social norms and codes that have evolved over long periods. Culture differs from nature by formulating laws and rules about what is forbidden or permitted, what is proper or improper, thus creating social order within a natural and wild world.

According to Lévi-Strauss, various elements in the world, objects, or practices, can be coded by placing them on a spectrum between ‘nature’ and ‘culture.’ For example, eating raw, unprocessed food is natural for both animals and humans. However, humans practice cooking and preparing food before eating it, a social norm that elevates eating from a ‘nature’ practice to a ‘culture’ one. In this way, the division between ‘nature’ and ‘culture’ signifies hierarchical relations, similar to other binary oppositions such as matter and spirit, activity and passivity.

The anthropologist Sherry Ortner[2], a student of Lévi-Strauss, developed his theoretical model and argued, based on empirical findings from around the world, that the binary ‘nature-culture’ relationship reflects the relationship between women and men: woman, in relation to man, is ‘nature’ in relation to ‘culture.’ Presenting empirical findings, Ortner shows that in all human societies, there is a distinction between male and female, and all accord prestige to the male gender. Ortner explains these findings through humanity’s universal search for “man’s superiority,” which reinforces humanity’s sense of uniqueness in the universe. In this quest, man seeks to distinguish between the body (which is found in all animals and sometimes behaves similarly to the human body) and the soul (unique to humans alone). Based on this distinction between body and soul, the dialectical division between ‘nature’ and ‘culture’ has also been entrenched, as well as the division between the physical and the spiritual, the impure and the pure, and so forth. In this division, woman is positioned on the side of nature, the inferior, and man is positioned on the side of culture, the valued.

Lévi-Strauss’s theoretical model and Ortner’s development will help sharpen the concept of the ‘masculine mystique’ that I propose, as it manifests in the religious sphere. Tanya Regev[3] also used the ‘nature-culture’ dichotomy in the religious sphere, although differently from my proposal, but her work was conceptually important for my use of Lévi-Strauss and Ortner’s theoretical model in the religious context.

My claim is that identifying man with ‘culture’ leads to a parallel identification with spiritual values rooted in religious culture. Man is therefore perceived as having the ability to touch holiness, to approach it, to hold it, and to engage with it. For this reason, women also identify the higher realms of religion as belonging to men, not to them. They perceive men as being connected to religious tasks, religious actions, and religious existence. They feel that it is better for a man, rather than them, to perform the religious act. Conversely, I will argue that women identify themselves with the inferior ‘nature.’ They symbolize the ‘material,’ the physical, and the mundane; the lesser parts of existence.

Female Belonging

Why is all this important?

To answer this, I will temporarily set aside my sociological hat and don my religious one.

First, I wish to clarify that in this article, I am not addressing the issue of the different levels of obligation for women and men in mitzvos. My focus is on women’s feelings about religious practice and religious existence. Women feel that men are the ones suitable to perform religious acts: men are associated in their eyes with sanctity, and therefore, they will approach the holy. This feeling is especially prevalent in public religious acts, performed in the presence of more than one person, such as the kiddush ceremony.

According to the perception I have presented, women may sometimes feel distanced from the full religious experience. They feel that the religious world does not fully belong to them, and they sometimes require mediation when approaching holiness. I wish to qualify this by saying that the ‘holiness’ I described is tied to public religious acts (as in the examples of the funeral and Kiddush) and in areas traditionally closed off to women (even if not by halachic consensus) such as studying Talmud. On the other hand, I cannot claim that women do not feel connected to holiness and religious experience in other areas of life, such as prayer or lighting candles. For many women, this connection may be sufficient, and they may not feel the need that I am raising here.

I also wish to refine my argument and suggest that education toward extreme modesty may influence public religious acts, such as making Kiddush. It is possible that this education would lead to the same difficulty in finding a volunteer even if we were seeking someone to recite a non-religious text. Either way, this distancing from the public sphere leads to a sense, in certain areas—religious or otherwise—that “this has nothing to do with us.”

I, too, was educated in Charedi institutions and learned about a woman’s role and essence. I am not seeking to challenge this education here. In this essay, I wish to bring hearts closer together. The conclusion I would like to draw from this is the need to connect women, like men, to the essence of holiness and its experience. The perception that identifies men primarily with values of holiness places women in a position of distance from those values. In a world where the challenges of external culture are increasing and drawing many, it is imperative that we create an inner connection to the values of holiness—an internal connection and a deep bond.

In my view, it is not enough for a woman to rely on a man in her vicinity to perform religious acts for her. This reliance can impose upon her a state of discomfort and even helplessness when there is no such man around. Again, I am mainly referring to the feeling, not necessarily the action she will ultimately take. On the other hand, a woman who feels an internal connection to the values of holiness will be able to perform religious acts in any situation. She will do so out of a sense of closeness, a sense that the religious value belongs to her.

The Missing Connection

The above thoughts have many concrete implications. I will mention a few examples.

A divorced friend of mine, for several years now, casually mentioned that she does not perform the Havdalah ceremony at the end of Shabbat. In her view, it is a man’s act, and she does not feel connected to it or the need to perform it. I do not wish to enter the halachic discussion about women’s obligation of Havdalah but rather to discuss her experience. I am certain she represents many other women. Her story pained me deeply, and I ask myself: Why? After all, she is a righteous and devout woman. It pains me that a Jewish woman feels that the sanctity of Shabbat’s departure does not pertain to her. And if I may, it seems the fullness of the Shabbos experience does not belong to her, only part of it.

Another example is a single friend who left her parents’ home some time ago and lives alone. One day during Chanukkah, we met, and I asked her about lighting the candles. She looked at me and didn’t understand my question. It turns out that for several years, this woman has not fulfilled the mitzvah of lighting Chanukkah candles. The mitzvah seemed masculine to her; she felt no connection to it. She hadn’t even thought about the option of fulfilling the mitzvah herself.

A particularly common example is that many women do not know the weekly Torah portion during ordinary times or that they do not engage in any Torah study after completing their studies at a Beit Yaakov seminary. And I am not even talking about studying Talmud.

The result is that due to the ‘masculine mystique,’ women do not necessarily take on the full range of religious life, even when it comes to simple halachic obligations. Not only religious obligations, but also, and perhaps especially, religious experiences that they are not obligated to but which could greatly enrich their religious and spiritual world.

For instance, anyone who has ever walked through any Charedi neighborhood on a Friday night has seen the streets filled with girls strolling leisurely while the men are in Shul for the evening prayer. Why do they not choose to go to Shul at this time? After all, they are not taking care of children! Moreover, why are women’s sections in many synagogues not open for women and girls at this time? (Without delving too deeply into this question, I will say, perhaps naively, that if there is demand, there will also be supply.) And I will ask further: Are they even taught to go to Shul? It seems these questions complement each other. I do not intend to criticize, Heaven forbid, the women of Israel but to inspire them to think and even to feel a desire to take responsibility for their religious world.

***

It is clear to me that this essay, which points out that every Jewish man is inherently granted the right to be connected to a deep religious existence, while women lack a parallel right, may provoke strong opposition, particularly from those who wish to hold a halachic discussion at the level of obligation. This is why I emphasized, and will emphasize again, that this essay does not deal with the practical level of obligation, but rather with the level of experience and sense of closeness. I understand the difficulty and the need to defend against these claims. Nevertheless, I ask readers who feel resistance to reflect on these points again.

I will conclude with the words of the Tanna D’Bei Eliyahu: “I call heaven and earth as witnesses: whether Israelite or Gentile, whether man or woman, whether servant or maidservant, everything depends on the actions one performs – so the Holy Spirit rests upon them” (Eliyahu Rabbah 9). The path to holiness—Ruach HaKodesh—is open to all, without distinction of class or gender.

[1] Lévi-Strauss, C. (2004). Mythologies: The Raw and the Cooked (Hebrew translation by Y. Reuveny). Tel Aviv: Nimrod Publishing (first published in 1964).

[2] Ortner, S. (1974). Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture? In: Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo & Louise Lamphere (Eds.), Women, Culture, and Society. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.

[3] Regev, T. (2022, August 11-8). The Dichotomous Division of Nature-Culture in Writings on the Ethos of Modesty [Lecture at Conference]. The 18th World Congress of Jewish Studies, The World Union of Jewish Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.