Yeshiva Fundamentalism: Piety, Gender, and Resistance in the Ultra-Orthodox World

Notes

165 Notes Chap te r 1 1. My analysis of women’s access to fieldwork dominated by men is influenced by edna Lomsky-Feder’s work (1996). 2. key informants are considered central to ethnographic endeavors, as they perform a variety of roles, chief among them helping the researcher obtain access to the field. 3. Make yourself into groups [kittot] to study the torah, since the knowledge of torah can be acquired only in association with others” (Benedictions, 63b). 4. The fellowship, hevruta, is a unique form of studying in a male peer group, with the aim of improving the understanding, memory, and debating skills of sacred texts (Heilman 1983, 203). This hevruta form of studying is very popular in the Haredi community and also has important meanings at the community level. Many members of the community told me how proud they were that their son was in the hevruta of a certain individual, especially if he was the son of a famous rabbi. Thus, the hevruta also is a reflection of the student’s social hierarchy, networks, and future position. Many yeshiva students talked about their hevruta partners as a way of clarifying their level and status at the yeshiva. 5. i bought most of the audiocassettes from three Haredi organizations: kolHadaf , Ner-Lamea, and Hasdey-Neomi. Chap te r 2 1. today the Musar tradition continues in the yeshiva world at, for example, the Mir, Hebron, and Ponevezh yeshivas in israel and U.S. yeshivas like Chofetz Chaim in Forest Hills, New York, and the Lakewood yeshiva in New Jersey. Chap te r 3 1. The book was first published in 1740 by r. Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, known as the ramchal. it is a classical work on Jewish piety and a manual for devotion and piety, and it is studied in all Haredi yeshivas. 166 Notes 2. The protection of the body from the temptation of the evil inclination. 3. Abramovitch (1991, 78) noted that at the end of the ritual of purification in the Jerusalem burial ceremony, it is customary for the eldest son to place soil over the eyes of his parent. Abramovitch’s informants told him that because the eye is the organ of desire and envy, it needs to be specially treated in order for it to accept its demise. 4. Men are known to be prone to the evil sexual inclination, a disease of the heart, whereas women have, in addition, a disease of the mouth, or “tongue gossiping ,” leshon hara (evil tongue). Furthermore, women are taught that their bodies are arousing to men, so they should dress modestly, and that they can also be dangerously polluting during and after menstruation. They thus are subject to the particular rule and ideology of tzniut (modesty) (Baskin 1985, 5; Douglas 1966; Neusner 1979, 99; Yanay and rapoport 1997). in official Haredi writings, women are driven by wild, uncontrollable instincts, even madness (oryan 1994; Satlow 1996, 27; Yanay and rapoport 1997). Both men and women are threatened by depraved internal desires, but women lack the sexual self-control that men are expected to have, and by nature, women are almost incapable of achieving such control. in this they are unlike men, who are usually portrayed as rational and able to control their desires and urges. women are a constant threat to men, which is a great challenge to overcome. Accordingly, even relations between the sexes before and after marriage must be strictly governed and monitored. 5. The title of this book is taken from the rambam’s Mishneh torah, the book of Adoration, Prayers, 9. Morning Benediction: “enlighten our eyes in Thy law, and make our hearts cleave to Thy commandments.” Chap te r 4 1. The term Torato omnuto is from the talmud (Sabbath 11, 1). 2. in contrast to texts produced by community organs for the secular camp (such as newspapers and cassettes), for other religious camps, or as proselytizing literature (see Caplan 1997, 2007). 3. The use of a miracle in Haredi Lithuanian literature to explain economic existence is surprising, since the Lithuanian tradition is characterized (by both scholars and community members) as rejecting miraculous beliefs and practices and highlighting rational religious practices (according to the teachings of the vilna gaon (1720–97) (Nadler 1997), and preferring the use of rational theories to explain world events (see Ben-Sasson 1984). The Lithuanian tradition, in turn, refers to the tradition of the Mitnagdim, who emphasized rational study and methodology while vehemently rejecting the mysticism...