ALL

בס"ד
29 Adar

...so I was gazing out the window of Beans this morning sipping my warm brew & listening to yet another unidentifiable female voice yearning for "the other" - & what struck me is that so often, "the other" we yearn for is ourselves.

It's sensual & it's hungry.

& this got me thinking again about Shekhinah. This day of full solar eclipse. Impending Rosh Chodesh Nisan.

We first see Her around 220 c.e. in the Mishnah, where Her name is interchangeable with Y-H-V-H & El@him to identify G@d.

Several hundred years later, the Kabbalah has gendered & sexualized Her in a way to make Her G@d's wife/lover or daughter. A "female" whose identity exists because of her attachment to a "male". But aren't we talking about G@d here? Isn't G@d indivisible? Expansive?

A false hierarchy had been built into the spiritual to reflect social norms of the physical, thus limiting our concept & connexion to Shekhinah.

Now don't get me wrong, I appreciate the psycho-sexual imagery in many Kabbalistic texts as that is a real part of every adult's life & it's a valid way of expressing Divinity in our experience. Cleanliness isn't next to G@dliness, Eros is. But femaleness - & Shekhinah - is consistently resigned to the passive, reflective, helpless stereotype that is part of what women are still fighting today.

In a word, this is victimhood.

Can somebody please tell me what is so passive about pregnancy or giving birth?

B'reyshit/Genesis 1:2 tells us that, "...ve-ru'ach El@him merachefet al-p'nei ha-mayim." "...& the spirit/breath/wind (f) of G@d (the plural S/He) hovered (f) over the face of the waters." The verb & the noun are both female in this pasuq/verse & the Name of G@d here used is androgynous, like the first human was. Male & female He created them (verse 27). In the same pereq/chapter G@d appears as female, male & both.

Now, by jotting down these ideas, I am not attempting to negate the softness, the receptivity, or the compassion we find in femaleness. Far from it. I just don't like to see our nature & by extention that of the feminine face of G@d relegated to a role, given ultimate boundaries. Especially when we do not choose those boundaries.

I don't believe that either the feminine or the masculine archetypes are meant to stand wholly independent of each other; however they need not be defined by the other. We can honour uniqueness without depreciating any part of Creation's whole. G@d's unity.

If we stop stereotyping G@d as exclusively male, we will undermine sexism.

The Kabbalists' idea is that the Universe was created by G@d contracting G@dself to make room for us, like a pregnant body; they call it tzimtzum, concentration or condensation. A compassionate act (womb = rechem; compassion = rachamim) which means we are entirely made up of G@d, being supported & surrounded.

G@d is the Eym Ha-m'rachemet, Compassionate Mother. How is this not female?

Our tradition teaches us that each created being is a limb of the Shekhinah. Well, each of these beings also has at least one X chromosone.

We need some serious integration here, sisters!

Let's help bring Mosiach-consciousness by empowering the feminine without diminishing the masculine. Build a bridge between Eyn Sof - the Infinite or "nothing that is everything" - & Eyn Sof Or, the Infinite Light or "nothing that is something".

G@d is One.




Technorati tags: religion, Judaism, Torah, Canada, journal, weblog, blog, diary, Sex, Culture, Politics, sofrut, Israel, soferet, Technorati..