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Collected Critiques (Hebrew)
Gratitude Notification (Hebrew)
Read Rabbi Yisrael Meir
Haskama
Letter for
"Tfilat Nashim"
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'With humility, my God,
I approach you'
By Prof. Avigdor Shinan, Haaretz, 2006
"Tefilat nashim: psifas nashi shel tefilot vesipurim
("Jewish Women's Prayers Throughout the Ages"), edited
by Aliza Lavie, Yedioth Ahronoth Publishing, Hemed
Books, 310 pages, NIS 98
Once there was a Jewish woman, Fanny Neuda, who lived in
Central Europe (1819-1894) and left behind a book of
prayers in German: "Prayers and Supplications: Hours of
Devotion, A Book of Prayer and Morality for the Women
and Girls of Israel, for Public and Private Prayer and
for Every Occasion in the Woman's Life" (first printed
in Prague, 1855). Written by a woman, for women, the
book strives to give voice to female needs and
predicaments experienced during the cycle of the year
and in the course of the individual life.
The words at the head of this review are taken from a
prayer Neuda wrote for "the young girl," who gives
thanks for the youthful years she has passed in joy and
abundance and, at the same time, asks to continue in the
path of honesty and modesty, observing religious duties
and avoiding the pursuit of worldly vanities, and
especially "that I never abandon the duty of respecting
my father and mother."
Neuda, it seems, puts this prayer in the mouth of a girl
who, poised on the threshold of adulthood, asks her God
for help and support as she ventures outside the
protective embrace of her parents. The prayer is
included in the section of the book devoted to the
coming-of-age process and the bat-mitzvah rites. It is
preceded by the famous "Song of Deborah" (Judges 5),
which was part of a group bat-mitzvah ritual for girls
in various Italian communities, and followed by "A
Supplication for a Girl with the Beginning of Her
Menstrual Cycle" by Ruth Lazar of Kvutzat Saad, which
says, among other things, "Blessed are you God for
making me a woman, for making my body wisely, so that
every organ knows its season and you gather these organs
together and bring maturity and fertility to ripeness in
me."
There are three texts: the first from the Bible (albeit
in its later usage), the second written by a Moravian
rabbi's wife in the 19th century, and the third composed
by a modern-day woman from the religious kibbutz
movement. All three are female creations that function
as liturgical expressions of an important transitional
moment in the life of an adolescent girl.
Diverse expression
These texts, along with more than 100 others, were
gathered into this splendid and illuminating book by Dr.
Aliza Lavie, a lecturer in communications at Bar-Ilan
University and an active proponent of various social
initiatives intended to advance women's standing in
Israel. The book includes prayers, supplications and
poetry for everyday life - a request to find the right
spouse, as well as words for the bride on her wedding
day, for the woman who cannot conceive or is going
through a difficult labor, for a mother leading her son
to his military service, for the one who goes to bathe
in the mikveh (ritual bath), and for a woman who is
grieving, in her own way, for the destruction of the
Temple or who is mourning the death of her child. Also
included are laments for women murdered by their
husbands, poetry for women yearning for national
redemption and for Zion, a prayer for the successful
outcome of sexual relations and words to be spoken at
Rachel's Tomb.
I have listed here only a few of the subjects to which
the book gives very diverse liturgical expression, in
different literary forms and in the many languages of
the Jewish Diaspora (what was originally written in
other languages, such as Yiddish, Ladino or Arabic, has
here been translated lucidly into Hebrew).
Some of the writers are anonymous, others are women
whose identities are known. And so, alongside Fanny
Neuda and Ruth Lazar, we find works by the 19th-century
Moroccan poet Friha, daughter of Rabbi Avraham; a
certain rabbi's wife from Lvov in the 19th century; as
well as Dr. Yael Levine, Leah Shakdiel or Hava
Pincas-Cohen, who are all writers of poetry and prayer
in contemporary Israel.
In addition to them and to the many female writers I
have not mentioned, the book also surprisingly offers a
great many prayers and supplications written by men for
the use of women. Among these are "A Prayer for a New
Mother Rising from Her Bed after Childbirth," by Dr. M.
Leteris (Prague, 1845); "A Tikkun for a Woman Who Was
the Reason of her Child's Death," by Rabbi Yosef Chaim
of Baghdad (known as "Ben Ish Chay"); or "The Cry of a
Woman Suffering from a Failed Marriage Bond," by Rabbi
Yoel Bin Nun, head of a yeshiva in the religious kibbutz
movement.
The praying woman, it seems, was unable to find in the
siddur (the traditional Jewish prayer book) an
appropriate and satisfactory answer for her life events
and unique experiences. The siddur, as we know, was
created by men and evolved over many centuries in
masculine contexts, especially the synagogue and the
beit midrash (house of religious learning); female
existence is hardly its foremost priority. It should be
mentioned that one of the first prayers spoken by the
Orthodox Jewish man every morning is an expression of
thanks to the creator "who did not make me a woman."
And more: the Jewish man who observes religious duties
is required to pray every day, whereas large components
of the prayers are not as clearly and unequivocally
demanded of women. Therefore, the siddur that coalesced
over the generations did not serve women in the same way
that it served men, who were obligated to pray. The
female life span, from childhood to old age, contains
the same transitions and crises that naturally prompt
the believer to turn to God for guidance and help -
biological maturation, the initiation into religious
duty, entering the circle of marriage (with its joys,
but also, sadly, its woes - such as separation, the
inability to obtain a divorce, wife beating and
infertility), the challenges and complexities of
child-rearing, fertility (customs surrounding menstrual
impurity, visiting the ritual bath, pregnancy,
childbirth or barrenness), even menopause and more.
Within the calendar of Jewish life, women were allotted
their own unique corners, such as lighting the Sabbath
or holiday candles, customs marking the first day of the
month (traditionally considered a day of women), or the
duty of hafrashat challa (setting aside a portion of the
challa dough for ritual purposes). Where these events
are concerned, whether they are one-time or repeat
themselves in a fixed cycle, the traditional siddur has
usually been mute and indifferent.
Vitality and candor
Lavie has diligently collected numerous and diverse
texts. In some cases she has included explanatory
remarks about the background of their composition,
biographical information or comments on the texts'
liturgical usage, but without adding a systematic
exegesis of the texts themselves. The works collected
here have until now remained on the margins of the
Jewish people's literary endeavor, and their collection
brings them, almost for the first time, to the center of
the stage. The book combines very old texts (such as
Psalms) and ones that were only just written (such as
additions to the "vayehi ba'chatzi halayla" - It
happened in the middle of the night - section of the
Passover Haggadah, a piece of liturgy that deals
exclusively with men). It brings together works from the
Ashkenazi world and those originating in the Jewish
communities of the East; works of poetry and of prose;
works written by women and works written for them. All
these create a varied, multifaceted mosaic of an
intriguing phenomenon that is often touching in its
literary vitality and emotional candor.
The book's title, "Women's Prayer," can be misleading in
two ways. First, it is not devoted solely to prayers,
but includes a range of different texts that have some
use in a religious context; the appeal to God is central
only to a large portion of them. Thus the book includes,
for example, the song of Miriam the prophet after the
parting of the Red Sea, which makes no appeal to God
("Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously");
Psalm 22 ("My God, My God, why has thou forsaken me"),
which according to the Midrash, was spoken by Queen
Esther before she went to Ahasuerus; or Pincas-Cohen's
beautiful poem "Prayer for a Mother Before Dawn," which
can only be called a prayer in a very liberal use of the
term.
At the same time, the word "women" in the book's title
is also problematic, since a considerable number of the
texts in the book were written by men. Reading the book
raises other fascinating questions that require further
discussion: Is there a difference between a work written
by a woman for her friends and one produced by a man for
women's use? Can men, and especially rabbis, understand
the secret stirrings of a woman's heart and express them
in an honest, comprehensive way?
Another question raised by the book involves the
socio-religious affiliation of the women whose writings
have been collected here. As it turns out, the book
contains no prayers, supplications, or other liturgical
works by women from outside the Orthodox Jewish circle.
There was definitely room to include here, alongside
Pincas-Cohen's poem, the section of Leah Goldberg's
"Poems for the End of the Road," in which the speaker
entreats God to teach her how to pray and give thanks;
or "Barren" by the poet Rahel (Bluwstein), in which the
speaker expresses her yearning for a son and compares
herself to Rachel and Hannah, two biblical women who are
also anguished by their infertility. Then there are the
hundreds of works that were written and are still being
written by religious, though not Orthodox, women in
Israel and abroad - works that likewise reflect the need
to turn heavenward in times of joy or sadness,
transition or crisis.
Any publication is entitled, of course, to limit its own
scope and range. In this case, however, it seems that
excluding non-Orthodox women restricted the collector's
ability to present her readers with other wonderful
works and thus to enrich further the view of the world
the book reflects.
In one of my desk drawers I still have the words to a
prayer for a soldier on his way to battle, written for
the 1967 Six-Day War. I also know of prayers written for
paratroopers or divers. One imagines that men, too, have
written and still write prayers in times of opportunity
or need. Has a prayer ever been written about a
father-in-law wishing to form a good relationship with
his son's wife (paralleling the mother-in-law's prayer
included in the book)? Has anyone ever composed a prayer
of thanks for a boy's emerging awareness of his
masculinity (like the girl's prayer mentioned above)? Is
there a special supplication for a father to speak on
the grave of his child, or a cry for a man suffering in
an unsuccessful marriage (like the parallel female cry)?
I believe that the answer to these questions is no, and
it demonstrates what a powerful hold prayer exerts
within the frameworks of those who believe in it, and
how strong the women were who refused to settle for what
the siddur had to offer and sought instead to expand and
deepen it.
Prof. Avigdor Shinan teaches in the department of
Hebrew literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
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