interview

WIE: What led you to convert to Orthodox Judaism after being a feminist? That seems very unusual.

TAMAR FRANKIEL: Yes, it is. When I was teaching comparative religion at Stanford, I met the man who would later become my husband. He was returning to the Jewish tradition after not having been an observant Jew. First, I found the practice of Shabbat very attractive. It was a richer, more meaningful way of life. I had no intention of becoming Orthodox and I still don't like the labels, but I undertook a Conservative conversion and then found that I was much more deeply attracted to the observance than even the rabbi who converted me! My husband was attending Orthodox services. I would go with him and really rage at what I felt was the inequality of women, but at the same time I felt the authenticity and the depth of the people who were there. So I started talking to the women who had been involved for a long time. They were very strong women. I was sort of shocked by their perspective on life, by their confidence and by their ability to manage their lives. They were not the oppressed, second-class citizens I had thought they would be. It was a process of coming to a depth in my own spiritual practice and reconciling that with what it means to be a woman and to fight oppression. I had to find a way to express my own voice. That's how I ended up writing The Voice of Sarah. It became clear to me that there was another way of seeing things besides women as "feminists and liberated" or "oppressed and religious."

WIE: You described being attracted by the confidence that the Orthodox women expressed. Did you not see the same confidence among women in the feminist movement?

TF: I didn't see much spirituality among the women in the feminist movement. The women whom I knew at that time were politically oriented, and even when I met women who were religiously involved in some way, it often seemed as if they were trying to be like men. After meeting Orthodox women who had a sense of their own being, I realized that we really have to think about whether there is a gendered quality to spiritual work and whether taking the man's role really serves women. The Hasidic women I met had a long tradition that's been passed down to them of how to be with God. Doing the simple rituals and observances that they did, which were private, not political, was extraordinarily satisfying to them. They had a sense of their own purpose, and they didn't seem to need to do what their husbands were doing. Of course I asked, "Are they just brainwashed?" But over a period of years of knowing many of these women, I realized that, no, they really weren't. They really did have a sense of deep satisfaction.

WIE: When I was describing your championing the Orthodox way of life for women after having been involved in the feminist movement to a feminist friend of mine, she commented, "I know what that's all about"—the implication being that you must be someone who has sold out or even gone off the deep end. Have you encountered that response before?

TF: Oh yes, sure.

WIE: How did you explain your attraction to this traditional and more restricted role to your feminist colleagues in a way that convinced them that you hadn't gone crazy?

TF: I've found that a commitment to something that is deep and profound gives you a center from which you can do other things. Sure, there are things you cut out of your life. But I found that once I cut them out, for the most part they really hadn't been nourishing me anyway. It's the spiritual work that's nourishing. And what I saw among the Orthodox women whom I respected was a realization that we are all in this together and if we don't help each other—men and women—none of us will advance. There is an organic sense among these women that we're all responsible for each other, for the community and particularly for the future, for the next generation. Judaism insists that women be involved in what is called "the redemption," which means the perfection of the world. It can't be done only by men. The tradition is that it was because of the righteous women that the Jews were redeemed from Egypt, so it's going to be because of the righteous women that the final redemption will come. It can't be done without the women, and that means that women have a crucial and unique role according to even the most traditional interpreters of Judaism.

WIE: By saying to women, "You have a responsibility for the redemption of the world," the tradition calls on women to take their spirituality and their own lives seriously. There's something very moving about this way of cultivating that sense of dignity and spiritual responsibility.

TF: Yes, absolutely. I've seen it among many of the Hasidic women. They take themselves seriously spiritually and see themselves as having a responsibility. Even if it sounds genderist or sexist, I think women do have to take seriously the question: If women are supposed to have a special role and it's not exactly what men are doing, and it is supposed to be helping the whole world, what is that role?

WIE: It's a complex question. In your book, The Voice of Sarah, you also wrote, "I think we need to face the potentially disturbing question, 'Is it possible that some forms of spirituality are more feminine and some are more masculine?'" What do you think about that now?

TF: I grew up with a strong belief in equality, and the feminist movement enhanced that. I'm not sure what it would mean if we took it seriously that there might be very different things that people need to do in order to grow spiritually. In Judaism, I think what's meant by "a woman's place is in the home" is that the inwardness or spirituality of women develops in a different way than the inwardness of men. My husband seems to think that men just wouldn't do any inner work at all if they didn't have to be out there in groups davening [praying], doing the more public thing. I think that's a little extreme, but—

WIE: Is that a Jewish view, to say that women would gravitate toward an active relationship with God even if they didn't have an outward structure, whereas men wouldn't?

TF: Yes, that's right. That wouldn't be true for everybody, but women don't seem to need those external structures to grow in their spiritual life the way men do, although they may be helpful.

WIE: Can you describe what it is about women's roles and their particular rituals, laws and prayers that brings the awareness of God into their lives and gives their lives a deeper meaning and a broader context?

TF: The rituals that are marked out for women have to do with directly bringing spirituality into the physical. Men have certain physical symbols that are supposed to help them do that, like putting on tefillin, [phylacteries, ritual prayer ornaments] and wearing the tzitzit, the fringes; whereas women's mitzvot [commandments] are directly connected to the body, to the physical, to giving birth and all the women's processes. It sanctifies these physical processes for women. Women don't have to set foot outside their own home to create everything that Judaism wants women to do. And when you do set foot outside your home, it's to expand that into the community. It's like an inward center that radiates outward. But a woman can't just do the rituals and take care of the kids and expect magically to feel as though she's living a spiritual life. If a woman is doing that, she's living a traditional life but not necessarily a spiritual one.

WIE: The laws governing marriage and intimate relations seem to be meant to foster a coming together between men and women that is based on each person independently worshipping God in everything they do. The relationship described is very beautiful—intimate, loving, respectful but not sentimental. You've explained the philosophical basis as, "When husband and wife unite at permitted times . . . their union reflects the union of masculine and feminine in the divine. This is a special kind of holy act: two people in their physical being and their natural energies reflect the culmination of the divine creative process, making a unity from what had been a duality. . . . Only in the union between man and woman can we touch with our own natures the process that the whole world is about: to come together, to overcome our separation, to be one." Can you elaborate on how this teaching for men and women helps us realize divine union?

TF: Judaism affirms that you can come together in these ways with respect and love and, yes, it is unsentimental. You are manifesting something that goes way beyond our ordinary consciousness. It goes into the depth that unites everything. The idea is to go beyond the personal and the feelings of the two people at any given moment. Maybe they've been doing really well. Maybe they've been having a lot of difficulties, but they're able to overcome them. It affirms that possibility of union even in the midst of all our conflict and division.

WIE: There are relative differences between men and women. When it comes to ultimate realization or union with God, how significant do you feel these differences between men and women are?

TF: These differences in conditioning don't mean anything when you get to the ultimate. An important part of the Jewish spiritual path is ratzo vashov, running and returning. You run to God and then you come back. This means you can achieve experiences of union, but you're always almost instantaneously brought back into your physical reality. So, even when a person achieves great heights in spirituality, when the person brings it back down, so to speak, they're going to again be speaking through their own conditioning.

WIE: Many different teachings, like Judaism, say that fully embracing our womanhood or our manhood will enable us to realize our full spiritual capacity. Could there be another approach that, without denying the differences between us, allows us to focus on our essential unity and then discover naturally and freely what the differences between the genders are?

TF: Experiencing unconditioned reality is one thing; gendered reality is another—whether you can "freely and naturally" discover it or not. But when I pray or meditate, I'm not the least bit interested in these issues. This has absolutely no relevance when I open up my prayer book or when I sit down to meditate. I am just concerned with either contemplation, speaking from my heart or the different kinds of work one can do in those contexts. I think being concerned with that kind of identity while I'm involved in a specific practice oriented toward my relationship with God would be completely distracting. I don't know why anyone would want to do that. When you're doing your spiritual work, contemplating the One, that's what prayer is supposed to be all about. But bringing it back down, then we have to realize that we are in gendered bodies and we do have societies that treat us in certain ways according to our gender and expect certain things of us. And then we need to deal with these issues again. We don't stay up there in a spiritual state. God wants us to create that state here on earth. I think the important question is: How can we best create a world where divinity is realized. Because from the Jewish point of view, that's ultimately our job.