Judaica this week was great. M3, M5, S3, and S4 watched The Tribe, a short film about Jewish identity based on the question, "What Does Jewish Look Like?" O3 did a program about the lost tribes and the creation of community in the Diaspora, M1 did a program on Jewish values, S1 and S2 did a program on how we could respond to anti-Semitism and dispel myths about Jews, and M7, S5, and S6 thought about their public and private identities and whether they "hide" or "highlight" their Judaism.
"Ononhawk" Shabbat was also a huge success. Led by Onondaga and Mohawk, campers and staff spoke about our theme of equality, and shared their musical talents through several performances. A huge thank you to Greg Kreitzer, Lisa Schwartz, and the Onondaga and Mohawk staffs for their tireless efforts in making this Shabbat great.
Discussion periods went very well. Youngest Onondaga and Cayuga learned about the map of Israel, and then recreated that map in edible form. Middle Onondaga and Cayuga helped finish the sentence "If I Couldn't Pray With Words" through an interpretive dance activity led by Kati Andersson, and Oldest Onondaga and Cayuga learned about Maimonides' Ladder of Tzedakah, and created cartoons about each of the ladder's levels. Youngest Seneca and Mohawk did a new program about cliques in a Jewish context, while Middle Seneca and Mohawk explored their personal Jewish priorities and their relationship both to each other, and to their secular priorities. Oldest Seneca and Mohawk learned about the First and Second Temples, and explored the idea of personal sacrifice, and Tusc did one of their curriculum's flagship programs on belief in God, what that looks like, and whether or not one must always 100% believe in order to be Jewish. Th\is Tusc program serves as a foundation for their curriculum's emphasis on questioning as a core Jewish concept, and of coming to better understand who we each are as unique people and Jews through the exploration of our values and beliefs.
My dvar Torah is below. I look forward to meeting many of you today on Visitor's Day, and to another wonderful week here at CSL!
~Joy Getnick~
CSL Judaic Educator
Dvar – Friday night – Week 3
Theme: Equality
This week’s theme is equality, derived from the parasha Pinchas. One of the first stories is of the census. The premise of a census, or a counting of all people, is that everyone is equal. A census doesn’t care about your income, your popularity, or the way you celebrate your faith. A census is simply a counting of your existence, as a person, equal to all others.
The census conducted during this parasha was just a counting of men over the age of twenty. This particular census was done to determine how many people were available to serve in the Israelite army, which at the time did not include women. This is only one example of gender inequality in this week’s parasha. The second example is about the five daughters of Zelophehad. God told Moses that each man’s land was to be divided among his sons. If the man had no sons, the property was given to other male relatives. Zelophehad’s five daughters argued that despite their gender, as children they should receive their father’s land before other relatives. God agreed with the women, and told Moses to adjust the inheritance laws accordingly.
As a Jewish woman, I struggle with the idea of using parasha Pinchas as a symbol of Judaism’s emphasis on equality. On two occasions the parasha reminds me that, historically, the Israelite community valued men over women. Only men counted in this census, and sons received land before daughters. Although certainly Jewish law has much evolved since this biblical time, and as a Jewish woman living in 2011 I both count in the Jewish census and can inherent land before my brothers if the deceased so decreed, these stories still leave me with a small but persistent feeling of inequality, of being less than my male counterparts because of my gender.
My mom’s mom, my grandmother, went to the University of Rochester in the mid to late 1940s. At the time the University had many more men than women, and had until recently had a quota limiting the number of Jewish students. It was rare for a Jewish woman to attend, and even rarer to receive academic scholarship. The summer before her senior year she married my grandfather, her boyfriend since middle school. When the university was informed of her new last name and changed marital status, they revoked her scholarship, arguing that higher education would be wasted on a married woman. My grandmother disagreed, and paid for her senior year.
In a few weeks I will have the opportunity to present my dissertation at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. When I present my research I will be doing more than simply sharing the historical development of drinking age laws. I will be continuing to break ceilings for women in academia, ceilings that have been raised by past generations of women, but that still exist due to arbitrary ideas about gender and its impact on personal abilities.
As a modern American Jew, woman or man, I can learn from parasha Pinchas. I am reminded that society is not inherently equal, and that for a variety of reasons, some will have more than others, or be valued more than others due to ignorance or bias. Yet simultaneously I learn from the daughters of Zelophadad that we have the power to make change. When we see inequality in society we need to feel empowered, as Jews, to stand up, and fight for better, remembering that many of the rights we so enjoy were achieved through such fights. We must remember that like the daughters of Zelophadad, as Jews, we hold the power, if not the obligation, to set the rights that future generations will enjoy, and that that change occurs through the values we uphold, and the choices we make, each day. Shabbat shalom.
