Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple

This post on If Not Now, When?, the interactive blog of Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple, is the sermon shared by Rabbi Jordana Chernow-Reader at the Shabbat Service on June 14, 2019.  We encourage you to share comments below, or to post the link to this post on social media such as Facebook or Twitter, or to share with others by email, to continue the conversations it engenders.

There is a one thing you should know about me.  That is: I love podcasts, a lot.

Anyone with me?  If so, I would love to know which are your favorites.  Some of mine are: Pod Save America, How I Built This, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, Pop Culture Happy Hour, The Moth and more. I listen to a lot of podcasts: when I’m running, folding laundry, or driving around town. I can always learn something new, see a problem from another person’s perspective, or get sucked into someone else’s story.

My favorite new podcast is called Woman in Charge. It’s a podcast run by journalists from Slate, an online news website. Truthfully, I’d probably enjoy the podcast because of the title, but the subject matter is good too.

The interviewer talks to women who lead organizations, companies or programs that have been traditionally dominated by men.  Interviewees have included: Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, the president of StubHub, Sharon Brous, the spiritual leader of an interdenominational synagogue in Los Angeles, Ellen Stofan, director of the National Air and Space Museum, Sara Errington, the fire chief in Syracuse, NY, and Katrina Adams, the former president of the United States Tennis Association.

These women share their journey to their prominent roles, talk about the fierce obstacles they faced as women to achieve their success and the insights they gained along the way.   These interviews are inspiring because all of the interviewees, no matter their profession, make it a priority to encourage and mentor other women who want to take up leadership positions.

These women are trying to change their professions so that in the future they will be not the singular woman in charge but one of multiple women in charge.  This podcast inspires me and gives me hope for the future.

If women can lead countries and run companies and can change the world around them, then they can also be in charge of their own bodies.

This is an issue in this week’s parasha.  This week’s Torah portion, Naso, considers what happens when a woman is deprived of agency over her own body.

In one of the most demeaning assaults to women in the entire text, we read about the sotah ritual.  In speaking for God, Moses outlines a procedure for when a husband suspects his wife of being unfaithful to him.  If a jealous husband just suspects his wife of adultery, our text states that he “shall bring his wife to the priest.”   Once the husband and wife are seated before the priest, the terrible ritual of sotah begins.

The sotah ritual is built around the humiliation of women.  As the text continues, the priest makes the wife stand before Adonai and forces her to eat a meal offering of jealousy and drink what are called the “waters of bitterness.”  These waters are the remnants of an oath sworn by the woman to confirm that she has not committed infidelity, which are written in a scroll and then erased.  The dust is mixed with water, which is then drunk by the woman.  The priest then tells the accused wife that if she has not lain with anyone other than her husband the water will have no effect upon her.  But if she has, in the priest’s words I quote: ‘gone astray,” the priest continues with these words: ‘may Adonai make you a curse and a curse among your people.   May this water that induces the spell enter your body, causing the belly to distend and the thigh to sag.’

What exactly this affliction means is unclear.  According to the Women’s Torah Commentary, it is linked with women’s fertility.   It is implied the sotah ritual would render a guilty woman infertile.  If the woman is already pregnant, the guilty women would miscarry.

Throughout this ordeal, the wife is almost entirely silent.  The only thing she can say is “amen, amen.”   Think about how the woman would feel.  She cannot defend herself or refute the charges.  She is automatically presumed guilty.  She is forced to drink an unpleasant concoction.  She is humiliated not only in front of a priest – likely the leading figure in her community – but in front of God as well.  The priest literally tells her that she will be a curse.   If a woman cannot conceive, the sotah ritual links it to her supposed infidelity. If she is pregnant and miscarries – which the stress of the ordeal makes this risk likelier – she is condemned as an adulterer.   The sotah ritual piles one humiliation on top of another.  It reinforces the vulnerable role of women in society and leaves women without agency over their own bodies.

In the context of our text, through marriage a husband acquires exclusive sexual rights to his wife.  But the converse was not true.  Husbands could have more than one wife and several concubines.  The husband’s extramarital relations are supposed to be accepted and unquestioned by his wife.

While the sotah ritual is included in the Torah, it is unclear if it ever took place. Unlike other laws, it is described without reference to a particular incident and was later abolished in the rabbinic period.

I hope the sotah ritual was never used.  But even its inclusion in our text, it remained as a threat to women.

Today, we can take power back from these lines of Torah.  We can read the parasha as cautioning us against creating situations where women are so vulnerable and when decisions that impact a women’s body are made without her consent.  There are examples from rabbinic literature that emphasize the importance of women’s agency over their bodies.  To give one example from the Talmud, in Bava Kamma 90a:13-14, we read: “if a man uncovers the head of a woman (without her consent) he must give the injured party four hundred dinars.”  About the same incident later in the Talmud it states: “Rabbi Akiva rendered the assailant liable to give her four hundred dinars.”  Here the text is siding with the woman who suffered because control over her body was taken away from her.

A more recent example of this opinion is found in a statement issued last year by the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) responding to concerns about the autonomy of women over their own bodies. The CCAR stated: “We believe…each person is entitled to follow her own inner compass when making decisions about her reproductive health free from constraints or impediments.”

These words by the CCAR emphasize the importance of empowering each woman the make decisions over her own body.  In our own country, and in our own state, there are efforts underway to dismantle the reproductive rights of women.   I first began thinking about this topic at Passover.  I was asked to write an interpretation of the week’s Torah portion for Reform Judaism, produced by the URJ.  What I didn’t realize was that my words would become more relevant since Passover.  So many states have passed legislation restricting women’s ability to decisions about their bodies.

If we take Alabama as an example, women need to make a choice within the first six weeks of pregnancy if she wants to have a child.  Many women do not even know they are pregnant at six weeks.  Similar legislation has passed in other states around the country. If this law comes into effect, women will have no agency in making decisions that impacts them for the rest of their lives.

I believe the message of the sotah ritual is encouraging us to do better for women. It is teaching us not to harm to women as the sotah ritual did, but to ensure women have the power to make their own choices.  I argue this text is reminding us to learn from the sotah ritual not be put women into such vulnerable and sometimes humiliating positions.

As states across the country are taking away women’s autonomy, there are examples of others increasing women’s rights.  Just this week, the governor of Illinois, Gov, J.B. Pritzker signed into law legislation establishing abortion as a fundamental right for women. At the signing ceremony he said: “in a time when too many states across the nation are taking a step backwards, Illinois is taking a giant step forward for women’s health.  Today, we proudly proclaim that in this state we trust women.”

I believe the message of this text is when we give women agency, we make a statement about the sort of society we are.  We can be a society that fosters leaders. We can all help create the society that we want to see for women.  We can speak up when women’s agency is taken away and vote for leaders who prioritize empowering women.  We can ensure that younger generations of women expect to be in charge of many things including their bodies.  We can change the narrative of our culture to strengthen, protect, value, trust and empower women.

The sotah ritual is our text at its worst, but we can learn from it so we can live at our best.

May we all learn from this text and live up to this challenge and so all people, everyone, can live their best.