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We can now see the shift in emphasis from the masculine to the feminine , from death to life, and the role that maternity plays in that move. Levinas turns to the figure of maternity because of the image that Isaiah sees and the risk involved in it. However, Isaiah’s image of maternity is not unique to him. Levinas thinks that we share this image. The image of maternity is rich precisely because it appeals to us. It offers intuitive evidence to short-circuit a reliance on the will. If, for Levinas, the problem with describing the ethical is the risk that one will lapse into the ontological , then he needs to circle around the ethical so that we can glimpse its significance without actually naming it as such.1 The previous chapter investigated Levinas’s conception of maternity as the ethical relation par excellence. For Levinas, sacrifice is a necessary part of the ethical, and thus it is a necessary aspect of maternity. Sacrificing one’s life for another ultimately expresses the interruption of the conatus essendi. And we see most clearly the possibility of this sacrifice in maternity. There are, of course, problems with a conception of the ethical that is characterized by sacrifice, especially when the paradigm of the ethical is the figure of maternity. This chapter examines two competing yet complementary themes: (1) maternity demonstrates the genuine possibility of one dying for another; and (2) the feminine in the role of maternity may lose the playfulness that earlier was said to characterize it, particularly in the erotic relationship. Thus, the feminine appears to be caught between two opposing positions: on the one hand, the earlier role of the feminine included a playfulness. But the feminine remained outside the ethical, and thus appeared unimportant. TEN The Silent Footsteps of Rebecca  And Abraham proceeded to mourn for Sarah and to bewail her. —Genesis 23:2 On the other hand, in Levinas’s later writings, the feminine in the role of maternity is squarely situated in the ethical relation. But this description of the feminine appears to lack the playfulness of eros. It is certainly possible that Levinas separates these categories for descriptive purposes. Thus, he might not intend them to be discrete characteristics—the early role of the feminine is playful while the later role is somber and responsible. I suggest that Levinas’s move to the maternal image does not require us to sacrifice the enjoyment of life, nor does it indicate that the feminine has lost its playfulness . Although responsibility is an aspect of maternity, it is not the only aspect of it. This chapter examines Sarah’s relationship to both Abraham and their son Isaac, whom she conceived at the age of ninety. By considering Sarah and then Rebecca, Isaac’s wife, we arrive at a conception of the feminine that is revealed through the lives of these two biblical women. These are mothers who embody both responsibility and jouissance. SACRIFICING MATERNITY The rabbis recognized the risks involved in pregnancy and childbirth and thus concluded that the first commandment, to “be fruitful and multiply,” obligates only men.2 They acknowledged that along with incurring pain, pregnancy and childbirth can endanger a woman’s health and life. In recognizing the risk of pregnancy for a woman, the rabbis thought that it would be immoral to legally obligate a person to do something that causes enormous hardship and endangers life.3 A woman risks her life in childbirth . It is not uncommon, even today, for her to die as a result of complications from the pregnancy or the labor and delivery.4 Clearly, this is the ultimate sacrifice, which is most often not chosen. But responsibility in the maternal relation refers not only to the sacrifice that a woman might make in childbirth; it also refers to the mother’s very act of nurturing the child growing inside her body. Levinas sees in maternity a love that is stronger than death; it is the excessive love of maternity that may result in the extreme act of sacrifice. Thus, he sees maternity as the ethical relation par excellence . This model, then, requires us to consider a few of its implications: (1) maternity as an ethical paradigm may lead to an essentialist view of women;5 and (2) the ethical understood as sacrifice may be a dangerous model for women. In her essay “The Hungry Jewish Mother,” Erika Duncan relates the story of a woman who “in her dying...

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