JOFA
There's way, way too much to say about the JOFA conference that ended today--way more than one post and possibly even more than one brain can hold (mine, at least, on both counts). I have sheaves of notes and am still trying to synthesize all the separate phenomenon I witnessed. Smarter people than I will surely dissect the particulars of what was said there; I want to comment on two far more obscure phenomenon.
1) I had seen many of today's speakers before. Norma Joseph and Tovah Hartman, in particular, but a number of other presenters and participants. It was like meeting them anew. Perhaps because this is the time when they are trying to cheer their sisters in arms onward toward battle, Norma and Tovah especially were on fire. Seriously incendiary, and I got lit up right with them. I wonder how much of it had to do with not being the representatives of Orthodoxy, or at least the only representatives of Ortho feminism, up on whatever dias they found themselves on. Whatever caused it, I hope I get to see it again.
2) The universality of Jewish deity who, or which, supercedes gender is supposed to transcend denomination. It's tautological to say that an incorporeal God is genderless. But for whatever reason, it's women who drive that home. I was reminded today of a recent story Lilith ran about the first batch ever of Reform women rabbis--that is to say, women rabbis. One of the rabbis spoke about how the introduction of female clergy helped people conceive of God outside of an old man with a big beard. And when Norma Joseph said, "Can you see the idolatry of conceiving of God only in male terms?", it made me think that women maybe are really on to something here.
3) The question of whether denominationalism is really the best methodology for transporting Judaism, sustainably, into the future has come up in this blog before, but you can expect to see it reemerge with a vengence: I'm becoming more and more convinced that it's an idea whose time has gone. Maybe we're more evolved now. Maybe we're just bored.
So much to say, so little sleep. Sigh. Kol tov...
1) I had seen many of today's speakers before. Norma Joseph and Tovah Hartman, in particular, but a number of other presenters and participants. It was like meeting them anew. Perhaps because this is the time when they are trying to cheer their sisters in arms onward toward battle, Norma and Tovah especially were on fire. Seriously incendiary, and I got lit up right with them. I wonder how much of it had to do with not being the representatives of Orthodoxy, or at least the only representatives of Ortho feminism, up on whatever dias they found themselves on. Whatever caused it, I hope I get to see it again.
2) The universality of Jewish deity who, or which, supercedes gender is supposed to transcend denomination. It's tautological to say that an incorporeal God is genderless. But for whatever reason, it's women who drive that home. I was reminded today of a recent story Lilith ran about the first batch ever of Reform women rabbis--that is to say, women rabbis. One of the rabbis spoke about how the introduction of female clergy helped people conceive of God outside of an old man with a big beard. And when Norma Joseph said, "Can you see the idolatry of conceiving of God only in male terms?", it made me think that women maybe are really on to something here.
3) The question of whether denominationalism is really the best methodology for transporting Judaism, sustainably, into the future has come up in this blog before, but you can expect to see it reemerge with a vengence: I'm becoming more and more convinced that it's an idea whose time has gone. Maybe we're more evolved now. Maybe we're just bored.
So much to say, so little sleep. Sigh. Kol tov...
posted by Di Freye Froy at 8:11 PM
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