Rebbe Nachman and Feminism -- To Hitbodedut or Not to Hitbodedut

Tonight our kabbalah class got completely derailed -- as all Jewish classes do -- by a topic not on the agenda: Jewish Feminism. I admit to being an co-instigator to this derailment. In our continuing study of Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav we discussed his approach to Jewish prayer known as Hitbodedut (התבודדות) -- which translates to "self-seclusion". 


Rebbe Nachman suggests that prayer should involve talking to God in an intimate, informal manner while secluded in a private setting such as a closed room or a private outdoor setting.The best place for hitbodedut is in the forests or fields. At least one hour per day should be devoted to this practice, but preferably more -- may hours, in fact.


Earlier in the evening someone mentioned that the women and children weren't included in the count of the 600,000 or so people standing at the base of Sinai for the divine revelation. When we got to Rebbe Nachman's suggestion of several hours of immersion in hitbodedut daily, I said, "Well, now we know where the women are. Keeping the home, earning the money, cooking the meals and raising the children so that the men can spend hours in the forests."


This comment sparked a reply from one of the more traditional women the class, who put forth the classic argument that women are doing more important work, and that they are already on a higher spiritual level. I have heard this argument many times over the years, and it always falls flat. 


Sure, I can study Torah in our progressive little shul in Fort Collins, CO, but if I grab one out of our ark and try to approach the Western Wall with it, I'd be arrested -- for being a woman. 


And although a Jewish marriage contract was supposedly invented to protect the rights of women, the man still has the final power of granting a divorce, or not, and as such can be held hostage to the whims of their husbands.


Standing Again at Sinai, Again
Women in Judaism are unequivocally the "Other." Judith Plaskow, author of Standing Again at Sinai, uses  Simone de Beauvoir's definition of otherness: Men have established an absolute human type -- the male -- against which women are measured as Other. Otherness, she says, is a pervasive and generally fluid category of human thought; I perceive and am perceived as Other depending on a particular situation. In the case of males and females, however, Otherness is not reciprocal: men are always the definers, women the defined. [emphasis mine.] Women's experience is not enshrined in language, nor has it shaped cultural forms. As women appear in male texts, they are not the subjects and molders of their own experiences but the objects of male purposes, designs, and desires.


Plaskow argues that the above system of Other and Otherness is, in some ways, at the core of Judaism. "Jewish women," she writes, "have been projected as Other. Named by a male community that perceived itself as normative, women are part of the Jewish tradition without its sources and structures reflecting our experiences. Women are Jews, but we do not define Jewishness. We live, work, and struggle, but our experiences are not recorded, and what is recorded formulates our experiences in male terms. The central Jewish categories of Torah, Israel and God are all constructed from male perspectives. Torah is revelation as men perceived it, the story of Israel told from their standpoint, the law unfolded according to their needs. Israel is the male collectively -- the children of Jacob, who had a daughter, but whose sons became the twelve tribes. Exploring these categories, we explore the parameters of women's silence."


Hitbodedut for Women?
In some ways, hitbodedut seems a very masculine method of prayer. Go out into the wilderness alone, where no one can see or hear you and pour out your heart in solitude. Then, for the rest of the time, Rebbe Nachman says, be joyous. Real men might cry, but they do it alone. 


What would a feminine response to hitbodedut look like? I'm not sure, and  am loathe to define something that sounds as if it is as based on stereotypes. But I can easily imagine women together in a supportive community based on the bonds of friendship, reducing the power of our burdens by sharing them. The power of the village over the power of the individual and turning to one another in time of need instead of turning away.