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Bringing Home the Light
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For some, participating in rituals such as Tashlich (casting of our sins symbolically in the water on Rosh Hashana), Sukkah, and the Seder is exhilarating, educational, transformative and meaningful. But for others, these rituals can feel rote, stifling, boring, full of agenda and exclusivity that makes us feel like bystanders to our own tradition. Very often, women feel like the "outsiders" in these ceremonies. In our day, groups of Jewish women have begun not only to rewrite and infuse inclusivity into traditional rituals, but also have begun to "invent" new rituals. Esther Broner's new book attempts to address traditional ritual from a feminist viewpoint, while presenting new invented rituals. When dealing with the "why" of her feminist rituals, she introduces each section with a good overview of that ritual, its rationale and history, and then invites the reader to share in the step-by-step "how." Some of the rituals feel familar, almost homey, like her Tashlich ceremony for women and her Chanukah ceremony. Her new rituals for aging, for loss, and for menopause are welcome additions to a tradition sorely silent at these times. Her rituals for women at the Wall in Jerusalem are powerful, and she has some beautifully crafted "political" rituals for healing between Black and Jewish women and between Arab and Israeli women. I would have liked a longer introduction, however, about the thrill–and danger–of writing, performing, and then teaching, transmitting and sharing newly minted ceremonies. The very nature of modern, invented rituals prevents them from being universally applicable. When a certain women's group, for example, or a certain group of friends or even a certain synagogue or chavurah does a new and creative ritual, it is inexorably tied to the chemistry and history of that particular group. I have rarely found these rituals to be "clone-able" to other groups, and thus I have had similar reservations about other such volumes of women's rituals. So this book, like other collections of step-by-step instructions for rituals which go so far as to include all the creative readings, garb to be worn, music to be sung and steps to be danced by each participant, will by necessity fall short when it presents Broner's New York ceremonies as a "paint-by-numbers" for other groups of women. They just feel too personal, too idiosyncratic to her particular circle, to be transplanted as they are to other communities and other circles of women. That does not mean they cannot be used as a blueprint, as inspiration or a jumping-off point, for surely our rich tradition must make room for these new kinds of rites that speak to women's experiences and come not only from the heart but also from within the very Jewish tradition we are trying to stretch. |
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