A question:
How common is it for a woman to carve a turkey that a man has cooked?
- This has never happened in Canada
- This is normal in one household out of a hundred
- This occurs regularly in one in ten households
- Almost half of the women we spoke with say they do this all the time
The answer? B. This is normal in one household out of a hundred. Or as the study from Ipsos Reid states, “If you’re a woman who carves a turkey cooked by a man who lives in your house, you’re extremely rare.”[i]
It seems that as blessed as we are to live in a country with equality carefully woven through both the culture and the legal system, there is still a disparity in earning power.
A few months ago the phone in my office rang.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I asked to speak with the rabbi,” said the caller.
“This is nolongeran'ish', I am one of the rabbis of this congregation.”
Through nervous laughter, the woman said, “I am so sorry. I’m not used to reformed.”
“Yes, TS is a reform synagogue. How can I help you?”
The caller was expecting to hear a man’s voice and she was thrown when I answered the phone. For the caller, asking to speak with the rabbi led to an expectation of hearing a man’s voice.
Even though women have been rabbis for 37 years but the push for female rabbis began long ago.
The last time the Union for Reform Judaism’s biennial convention was in Toronto, Jane Evans, executive director of the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods told the delegates to the 1957 convention that, “women are uniquely suited by temperament, intuition and spiritual sensitivity to be rabbis.”[iii] In 1956 leaders like UAHC president, Maurice Eisendrath and HUC president Nelson Glueck signed a CCAR document permitting women’s study at HUC. However, they said, “the question before us is purely academic at this time. We do not have a particular case in point.”[iv] At the 1963 National Foundation of Temple Sisterhoods convention in Washington, DC where the group celebrated its 100th anniversary, Jane Evans asked the membership to resolve once and for all in favor of women rabbis.[v]
While history acknowledges Rabbi Sally Priesand as the first ordained rabbi there were many women before her who served rabbinic functions. Rebecca Brickner, wife of Rabbi Barnett Brickner of Holy Blossom Temple and Cleveland’s Euclid Avenue Temple often covered for her husband when he was unavailable. This made her the first woman to preach a sermon, read Torah and lead services.[vi]
So here we are today and across the planet similar issues exist just as they do here.
In a recent article, Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn write about women’s issues in the developing world:
In a slum outside the grand old city of Lahore, a woman named Saima Muhammad used to dissolve into tears every evening. A round-faced woman with thick black hair tucked into a headscarf, Saima had barely a rupee, and her deadbeat husband was unemployed and not particularly employable. He was frustrated and angry, and he coped by beating Saima each afternoon. Their house was falling apart, and Saima had to send her young daughter to live with an aunt, because there wasn’t enough food to go around.
“My sister-in-law made fun of me, saying, ‘You can’t even feed your children,’ ” recalled Saima when Nick met her two years ago on a trip to Pakistan. “My husband beat me up. My brother-in-law beat me up. I had an awful life.” Saima’s husband accumulated a debt of more than $3,000, and it seemed that these loans would hang over the family for generations. Then when Saima’s second child was born and turned out to be a girl as well, her mother-in-law, a harsh, blunt woman named Sharifa Bibi, raised the stakes.
“She’s not going to have a son,” Sharifa told Saima’s husband, in front of her. “So you should marry again. Take a second wife.” Saima was shattered and ran off sobbing. Another wife would leave even less money to feed and educate the children. And Saima herself would be marginalized in the household, cast off like an old sock. For days Saima walked around in a daze, her eyes red; the slightest incident would send her collapsing into hysterical tears.[vii]
Saima utilized her intuition and local community organizations and with a $65 dollar loan bought beads and fabric and in a short amount of time employed 30 families in addition to her own in her small business. In time, she paid off her own debt as well as that of her husband. She became a leader of her community and now sends all of her daughters to school, has running water and a television set. She reports that now her husband’s view of women has changed though he sometimes needs to take orders from his wife who provides the sole family income.
Saima took a seemingly impossible situation and using resources around her changed her life, the potential for her daughters’ future, and her community. Carving out a niche, Saima rewrote her future and that for women in her village.
In a small village in Pakistan the socially accepted gender roles are changing and the gender gap is narrowing.
This gender gap is nothing new, our Torah is filled with examples. Our matriarch, Sarah, is introduced to the reader as Abram’s wife who travels with him when he hears the call from God. Sarai, Sarah’s name prior to the establishment of the convent, is first described as a beautiful woman. Thanks to Sarai’s beauty that Abram is able to acquire riches as she lives in Pharaoh’s household. Sarai is barren and gives her Egyptian maidservant to Abram in order that a child might be borne to him. When Hagar becomes pregnant Sarai is lowered in esteem in Hagar’s eyes because of her pregnancy. Yet, God makes it clear that it is through Sarah’s offspring that the covenant will continue. When three visitors come to Abraham’s tent, he instructs Sarah to go above and beyond in welcoming them providing bread, water, meat and cheese. These visitors tell Abraham that when they return in a year Sarah will have a son. She laughs at this seeming ridiculous idea because she is a menopausal woman. When God learns this, God asks Abraham, “Why does Sarah laugh?”[viii] Sarah denies laughing because she fears God and the matter is closed with it being clear to everyone that Sarah was in fact, laughing.
The angels words come true and Sarah gives birth to a son, Isaac, Yitzhak, he laughs, named as such by Sarah because, “God has brought [her] laughter; everyone who hears will laugh with me.”[ix] Sarah, “saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian-woman, whom she had borne to Avraham, laughing. . .” and playing with Isaac and immediately calls for the banishment of Hagar and Ishmael.[x] Abraham has no choice, it seems, than to submit to Sarah’s requests though there is no evidence of any wrongdoing. The power plays between these two women, Hagar and Sarah are unending and it is only when Sarah uses her position at the ear of Abraham that she is able to stop any threat to Isaac.
Whether in Biblical times, today in the third world, or even in Canada, it seems that given the same scenarios, women make different decisions than men, particularly when it comes to the basic necessities of life. Kristoff and WuDunn report, “One reason involves the dirty little secret of global poverty: some of the most wretched suffering is caused not just by low incomes but also by unwise spending by the poor — especially by men. Surprisingly frequently, we’ve come across a mother mourning a child who has just died of malaria for want of a $5 mosquito bed net; the mother says that the family couldn’t afford a bed net and she means it, but then we find the father at a nearby bar. He goes three evenings a week to the bar, spending $5 each week.”[xi] This explains the recent trend of NGOs funding women’s empowerment in rural communities through programs like micro-finance. Women’s priorities are different than men’s.
Sadly, whatever happens in the home, whether the tent of Abraham and Sarah our own today, does not crossover easily no matter where we are in the world. Remember who is cooking and who is carving the turkey.
Bill Gates tells the story of a trip to Saudi Arabia in which he made a presentation to a room that was divided by gender. 4/5 of the audience were men and 1/5 women covered in black from head to toe. During the question and answer session, a Saudi man asked if Gates thought it was realistic for Saudi Arabia to become one of the top 10 countries in the world in technology. Gates’ response, “Well if you’re not fully utilizing half the talent in the country, you’re not going to get too close to the Top 10.”[xii]
We need to start closing the gender gaps in our own lives. And when we do so, we must remember not to apologize! There are many among us who already have closed these gaps in our home life. Men are the principle cooks, grocery shoppers and carpool drivers and women pay bills and take out the trash. We provide equal access for our sons and daughters to education
My friends, there is no need to apologize for belonging to an egalitarian, Reform synagogue. We may not do things the same way as our brothers and sisters down the street and there is nothing wrong with that. There is no need to apologize to the people we eat lunch with today when they seem surprised that we blew shofar this morning at our services. As individuals here we make choices about wearing kippot, tallit and tefillin just as we hope visitors to our congregation will be respectful of our customs at our worship services,and when praying elsewhere we should be equally respectful without apology. Equality is no laughing matter.
TS tries to be as equal as possible and we have a lot to be proud of. Men and women chant Torah and lead services here on a regular basis. Three of five clergy members are women. Our young adults become Bar and Bat Mitzvah fulfilling the same requirements and reading the same amounts of Hebrew. In addition to the baby naming during a Torah service our congregation is now making available a Brit Banot service described by Rabbi EP as “just like a bris without the cutting” to welcome our daughters into the covenant. This new option is available to our members and children of members. It is an attempt by this synagogue to remain true to our tradition, our Reform Jewish values, and responsive to the twenty-first century world in which we all live.
There is a long road ahead towards equality in the Jewish community in Toronto and sometimes it isn’t easy to be ahead of the curve. Of the six Reform synagogues in the GTA, and the 10 rabbinic positions, women hold 5. Two of course here, at temple. Rabbi MD, Rabbi EP and I are proud to work together and to serve this congregation. There are many more steps to make toward egalitarianism as a nation, as a synagogue, and in our family units. Find them. Figure out what will work for you and for your family. Be proud of believing in equality.
Let 5770 be the year in which we stop apologizing for egalitarianism and we seek out opportunities to support women and men who are already working towards minimizing the gender gap. May we all be like Saima who used her intuition to save her life and the lives of her children and to make her community a better, more equal place for all of its citizens. May this be the year that the cooker and the carver of the turkey change places. May God bestow blessings onto each of us equally, man and woman, and may we all know peace. Ken y’hi ratzon. May this be God’s will.
[i] The Great Big Canadian Quiz, 257.
[ii] The Great Big Canadian Quiz, 206.
[iii] Spiegel, Irving. “Women as Rabbis Urged at Parley: Reform Groups Hear Pleas at Toronto Meeting – Qualifications Cited,” The New York Times. 30 April 1957.
[iv] Nadell, Pamela S. Women Who Would Be Rabbis: A history of Women’s Ordination, 1889-1985. p 134.
[v] Ibid, 135.
[vi] Ibid.
[vii] “The Women’s Crusade.” New York Times Magazine. Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. Published: August 17, 2009
[viii] Gen. 18:13
[ix] Gen. 21:6
[x] Gen. 21:9. Everett Fox translation.
[xi] Kristoff & WuDunn.
[xii] “The Women’s Crusade.” New York Times Magazine. Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. Published: August 17, 2009
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