Sensuous Minds and the Possibilities of a Jewish Ecofeminist Practice

Ethics and the Environment, 4(2): 185-195 ISSN: 1085-6633 Copyright © 2000 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. Irene Diamond David Seidenberg Sensuous Minds and the Possibilities of a Jewish Ecofeminist Practice There is no defense against an open heart and a supple body in dialogue with wildness. Internal strength is an absorption of the external landscape . We are informed by beauty, raw and sensual. Through an erotics of place our sensitivity becomes our sensibility. If we ignore our connection to the land and deny our relationship to the Pansexual nature of earth, we will render ourselves impotent as a species. An Unspoken Hunger, Terry Tempest Williams We come to the questions of ecological practice as politically committed Jews whose passions and search for truth tell us that at this juncture, neither feminist theory nor Jewish theory can rest on an understanding of humanity, sexuality, or carnality which does not take account of the life of the planet that nourishes our spirit and flesh. Like Terry Tempest Williams, we find ourselves compelled to examine human desiring bodies within the context of the earth. Our work togther is part of a conversation in process in which we are exploring understandings of human embodiment through a specifically Jewish sensibility. We believe that such a project is important not only in terms of transforming Judaism, but also in terms of the alternative models it might suggest to the disembodied approach to knowing and being that has prevailed in the West since the time of Hellenism. We will suggest that embedded within Judaism is an understanding of sensuous minds that points to a path beyond human/animal, culture/nature, mind/body dualisms. That is the promise. Each of us will trace the individual paths through which we entered these questions. At the same time we should clarify that as the dialogue has developed the boundaries between voices have blurred and the voices as presented do not necesDirect all correspondence to: I. Diamond, Department of Political Science, University of Oregon, Eugene , OR 97403; E-mail: idiamond@oregon.uoregon.edu or daseidenberg@jlsa.edu 185 186 ETHICSAND THE ENVIRONMENT Vol. 4, No. 2,1999 sarily represent particular authors. We have maintained the form of distinct voices both to invert the tradition of male voices speaking about female bodies and to play with the boundedness of subjectivity. This seems particulary important in a project devoted to understanding human embodiment and desire in relationship to the more than human world. Irene:As a fairly typical Jewish intellectual for much of my adult life, my daily practices had nothing to do with the intricate Jewish rituals that mark virtually every aspect of bodily life. My reading and writing were focused on rethinking the feminist philosophical assumption and political strategy that freedom for women was to be achieved through gaining control over our bodies. This work was primarily informed by the ecofeminist insistence on women's and men's dependence on the earth and by Michel Foucault's (1978) analysis of the operation of power/knowledge in societies governed by the human sciences. In Fertile Ground (Diamond 1994), I explored how the production of what I termed the sexuated body through technologies of control diminishes our access to the sensuousness of life. To the extent that my life had anything to do with the world of ritual, it was through rituals that are a part of ecofeminist political and cultural activities. In my limited and intermittent involvement, I found these rituals interesting and meaningful primarily as opportunities for frivolity, comraderie among humans in the here and now, and tools for creating political unity and effective political strategies. A shift occurred with the passing of my mother, when I found myself immersed in the intricacies of Jewish burial practices. Suddenly Judaism, with its emphasis on bringing the dead body in direct contact with the earth, appeared to have important ecological traces. I began to see that Judaism was a repository of ritual practices whose character starkly contrasted with those of a dominant culture bent on staving off the decay and withering integral to the cyclical nature of life on earth. This disrupted for me the...