Sacred Pronouns

ASKTHEAUTHOR! APRIL19:JUDITHPLASKOW 6p.m.PacificTime(9p.m.Eastern) Call1-888-346-3950forfree! Thenenterthiscode:11978# M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 1 0 W W W. T I K K U N . O R G T I K K U N 55 T he issue of the role of male God-language in producing and maintaining a male-dominated Judaism was first raised by feminists over thirty-five years ago. From the early 1970s, when Rita Gross argued that Jewish inability to say “God-She” was the ultimate symbol of women’sdegradation,throughthe1980sand1990s,feminists both insisted on the importance of female language and wrotepoetryandcreatednewliturgiesthatexpressedtheirvisions of who “God-She” might be. Today, except for a few brave voices speakingofaJewishGoddess,theissueseemstohavefizzled,and nonewlanguagehasemergedforoveradecade.Why? Idon’tknowforsure,butletmeoffersomesuggestions.Firstof all, most Jews other than the ultra-Orthodox are reluctant and even deeply embarrassed to speak about God. Insofar as new images of God must emerge out of the spiritual experiences of communities, the absence of communal willingness to talk about thenature of God and to share experiences of the sacred makes it difficulttosustainliturgicalinnovation. Secondly,earlyfeministliturgicalcreativitytookforgrantedthe gender binary and was sometimes essentialist—characteristics thathavebeenrenderedembarrassingbyqueertheory’sinsistence thatgenderisunstable,malleable,andperformative.Howcanone talk about female images of God without presupposing that there is femaleness and without reinforcing traditional female stereotypes ? Doesn’t the insistence that God is both male and female representtheultimatereificationofgenderdualism? Thirdly—andthisisnotanewinsight—changingGod’sgender does not go nearly far enough in transforming the conception of Godenshrinedintheprayerbook.Femalelanguagechallengesthe idolatry of the dominant male image of God but does not of itself offer an alternative to a God separate from and above the world. Indeed, in some ways it exacerbates the problems with the traditional liturgy by highlighting the extent to which a God in female garbisstilltheGodoftraditionaltheism. Yetthesereasons,whilesignificant,cannotaccountforthecontinuedholdofmalelanguageinmostprayerbooks .Itishardnotto suspectthattheissueoffemaleimageryhasdisappearedpartlyfor thesamereasonsitwasalwaysfiercelyresisted:thepossibilitiesof female power and the power of female sexuality cannot be taken seriously in a male-dominated society. Jews still cannot say “GodShe ” not because we have struggled with questions of male dominance and come out the other side into a more spacious and fluid understandingofgenderbutbecause,forallthechangesofthelast fortyyears,suchlanguagestillseemstrivialanddegrading. What’s needed, then, is a renewed conversation about the natureandgenderofGodthattakesaccountofnewunderstandings ofgender.IfGodisfoundwithintheworld,howdowemakerealin thelanguageofprayerthepresenceofGodinallofcreation?This isnolessaquestionforthetwenty-firstcenturythanitwasforthe twentieth.I O ur creation stories define whatkind of creator godswebelievein.TheGodofpatriarchalmonotheism wasdefinedbyadualistic,hierarchicaluniverse.Reality was divided between spirit and matter, mind and body, and the power of the first to rule over the second. God wasadisembodiedmaleEgowhodweltinthetranscendent spiritual realm and shaped the bodily realm from beyond. Whether this God made the universe from some preexistent unformed “matter” or out of God’s own substance is the unresolved dilemmaofmonotheisticcreationtheology,buttheassumptionis that the embodied world is radically “other” and under the dominionofitspatriarchal “creator.” Today science is giving us a very different creation story, although also one that emerges through historical stages. But these SACREDPRONOUNS by Judith Plaskow Judith Plaskow is professor of religious studies at Manhattan College and author of many books and articles in feminist theology, including The Coming of Lilith: Essays on Feminism, Judaism, and Sexual Ethics, 1972-2003. AGODWECOULDBELIEVEIN by Rosemary Radford Ruether Rosemary Radford Ruether is professor emerita from Garrett Theological Seminary and from the Graduate Theological Union. She currently teaches at the Claremont Graduate University. She is author or editor of forty-six books and numerous articles on religion and social issues. ...