Special Section: Celebrating Judith Plaskow's Work: Introduction

The publication of The Coming of Lilith: Essays on Feminism, Judaism, and Sexual Ethics in summer 2005 was seized as a long overdue opportunity to publicly acknowledge Judith Plaskow and the tremendous contribution she has made to Jewish feminist thought.¹ Because of the exemplary leadership she has provided both as past president of the American Academy of Religion and as a founding editor of the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, it made sense that a panel focusing on and celebrating Judith's work should occur at the 2005 conference in the Women and Religion Section and then come together in this published tribute.

I had the pleasure of editing The Coming of Lilith with Judith and of serving as moderator for the panel. I was honored to have played both of these roles and now to introduce this roundtable because, as I approach the twenty-fifth anniversary of my ordination as a Reform rabbi, I am increasingly aware of the ways in which my rabbinate has been informed by Judith's thought. She taught me—and a generation of women rabbis—that our presence was not enough to transform Judaism. She taught us that for real change to take place we would need to do the difficult work of exposing and confronting a fundamental belief in women's otherness that, Judith demonstrated so clearly, undergirds Jewish law and tradition. This can be a frightening prospect in the context of mainstream congregations. But Judith repeatedly models courage and risk taking for the sake of justice. She has always been an icebreaker, cracking through hardened, seemingly impenetrable surfaces to liberate mayim chayim, the living and sometimes tumultuous waters of redemption that lie beneath.

It is a gift to have the opportunity to immerse ourselves in the consideration of Judith's work. The essays that follow help us do just that. They are personal, varied, and incisive and they remind us of why Judith's thought remains vital not only to the life of Jewish women but also to the survival and flourishing of Judaism itself. To echo Carol Christ, may we dive deep and surface, finding ourselves on the shores of liberation to which Judith leads us.