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FORUM Immaculate Conception? I was much taken by Rabbi Amy Eil-berg's article ' 'Encountering a Feminine God" (April 1989) and her coming to a new realization of the feminine attributes of this...
...In his MOMENT article, Rabbi Boro-witz presses the right issues, the Christian responses notwithstanding...
...If and when women define laws about taharal hamish-pacha (family purity, i.e...
...Irene Stack Miami Lakes, Florida Did God Meet Amy Eilberg...
...there are numerous others...
...According to CBS, NBC, and the Los Angeles Times polls, for the percentage of the presidential vote going to Dukakis, the gender gap obtains for both Jews (73 percent women: 63 percent men) and for all voters (50 percent women: 41 percent men...
...Interestingly, the Christian writer emphasizes Jesus as a Jew, the Jewish writer emphasizes Jesus as a Jew...
...Byron Broudy San Diego, California Shanks's Critique Was Thorough And Thoughtful I want to congratulate Hershel Shanks on his recent article ' 'Leonard Fein's New Zionism: An Inspiring Vision or a Flawed Argument...
...April 1989) that my article ("A New Zionism") in the April 1989 issue should be read critically...
...It is through our intuitive feelings, messages from our heart, that we communicate with God...
...I was turned off reading it...
...I am one who has also been very troubled by the events in Israel and usually disagreed with the Likud's approach toward a solution...
...To me, his "New Zionism" is no more than an excuse for American Jews to remain in the United States as "arm-chair Zionists," with no intention of giving up their cable TV's and Cadillacs...
...I restrict myself to this one example of misreading or misrepresentation...
...Sum mimeni kolpoah auion...
...All of Chapter 24 in the classic Avot de-Rabbi Matan are statements of Elisha ben Abuyah's emphasizing the value of good deeds...
...Charlotte and Lewis M. Escott Sidney, British Columbia Salman Rushdie and Philip Roth Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses was, until recently, simply the darling of the British literary set, a favorite of the Manchester Guardian and guru of the literati and cognoscenti...
...we do not burn them...
...Or is the Immaculate Conception more alive and well than we Jews care to admit...
...I too found fault with Fein's article, but from a different point of view than yours...
...Shmalli, however, was kept in the refrigerator and used like a spread—we didn't think to pour it...
...Lisa E. Stone Lexington, Massachusetts The Gender Gap In Jewish Voting The article on Jewish voting ("Where the Jewish Vote Is Going," March 1989) by Alan M. Fisher had interesting facts concerning generational differences, but as is frequently the case, no mention or analysis was made of the differences between women and men's voting patterns in the Jewish community...
...JJ Gross New York, New York Shmaltz—Spread or Pour...
...Fein's intellect and his ability with words, but his article somehow leaves me cold...
...Shanks dismisses Fein's conclusions as "fallacy" and his suggested remedies as "simplistic," yet fails to offer alternatives...
...But the ' 'living God" has always been a God of "love and acceptance, joy and celebration," as Jewish men and women have known in their welcoming of Shabbat and on abundant other occasions...
...Nurturing, the most traditional of female mitzvot, requires time and patience...
...In your April 1989 issue, you published a nine-page article, or should I say a promotional piece, on Sammy's Famous Roumanian Restaurant in New York City ("Green Bagels: How Sammy's Roumanian Steak House Blends Jewish Food and Nostalgia Into a Generic Ethnic Stew...
...Although I admire your response to Fein's piece (indeed, I liked it very much,) I do think you were a bit rough on him...
...raise the Jewish body-count in Israel by as little as 1,000,000 Americans and the problems that plague Israel will be vastly reduced...
...The timing of the poll virtually guaranteed a vigorous defense of Israel by her American relatives...
...A Christendom keeping the halachah of Jesus—which has obvious parallels in rabbinic Judaism—could never have been the breeding ground for the virulent anti-Semitism of past and present ages...
...But what was most striking about this fine article was, simply, that it dealt with God...
...The high value placed on it is illustrated by the exclusive influence that women have on the religious status of their children...
...Charles Ansell Sherman Oaks, California Ne'ilah at the Nova Counter Professor Kugelmass's pandering piece on Sammy's Roumanian restaurant is an example of the pseudo-scholarship that seems the stock in trade of very hungry sociologists...
...It is a delightful place that needs no ' 'intellec-tualizing...
...But she seems to have ignored a vital component in her path to motherhood—an earthly partner...
...And' don't forget that haven of writers and poets, the Garden Cafeteria, a half block away from the Forwards building...
...According to Shanks, however, "radical imperfection" is merely my "euphemism" for "evil...
...Maybe that saved us...
...April 1989) and I too must respond...
...Professor Cohen's poll results show marginally stronger support for Israel by American Jews in 1988—after the intifada—than in 1986...
...Kugelmass attempted to find more than just the fun and good food of Sammy's...
...Rabbi Herschel Grossman Jerusalem, Israel The Mikvah as Feminist Rabbi Michael Gold and his wife are welcome to their reasons for observing laws regarding mikvah ("Family Purity—A Fresh Look at the Mikvah" March 1989), and perhaps any reasons are good ones for those who choose them...
...Indeed, one wonders how Rabbi Eilberg managed to pray so diligently for 13 years to the remote and unpleasant caricature of "the God of justice" that she describes in her article...
...Sheldon D. Beychok Baton Rouge, Louisiana Sad Commentary On Gastronomic Judaism I can't imagine what possessed you to include the article on Sammy's restaurant in the recent issue...
...I thoroughly enjoyed "Green Bagels" by Jack Kugelmass...
...It was a delight...
...Now that she has vowed to "never again bury" those parts of her that are central to her femininity and therefore to her wholeness, perhaps women can be allowed to reclaim that institution that was meant to safeguard their spiritual integrity: exemption from time-bound mitzvol...
...Spinoza was excommunicated, not eliminated...
...My mother did, although with some variations...
...The most dramatic and effectual thing that American Jews can do to help Israel is to live in Israel...
...Bravo Amy Eilberg...
...Dons B. Gold Editor and Publisher Biblio Press: The Jewish Woman's Publisher New York, New York Alan M. Fisher replies: Doris Gold's comment is well taken...
...If Rabbi Eilberg has discovered the blessing of worshiping God through the feminine dimension of herself, why does she nonetheless need to emphasize her own alacrity in returning to the performance of the time-bound mitzvot in which only men are obligated...
...We should continue to speak out to further true peace and security in Israel, but with a sense of perspective...
...The real French Roumanian restaurant on Delancey was a proud place...
...To be a well-rounded human being, we must possess rational and intuitive capabilities to deal more effectively with other human beings...
...The tables were shabbasdik every night of the week...
...Zabar's, to its credit, keeps its doors open on Yom Kippur as a last bastion of spiritual salvation for those whose only link to Yiddishkeit is the almighty bagel...
...But the Jewish/non-Jewish gap is still greater than the gender gap...
...In the final analysis, Sammy's lets its loyal congregants down on the holiest of days...
...government are overheard by our children...
...Abe Cahan of the Forwards would troop in there with his chevra...
...Well, if Sammy's is so irrelevant to Jewish life as you report, why such a long article—or coverage at all—in MOMENT...
...Incidentally, I am sorry that Mr...
...In response to the new dangerous and painful element in his life, Rushdie made a statement comparing his situation with Philip Roth's 30 years ago...
...Can the Church really enshrine Jesus equally as Lord and rabbi...
...However, let there be no mistake about the origin of the Jewish God concept...
...Unhappily, he is now a worldwide household name, known by both the literary editor of the New York Times and the illiterate Moslem peasant...
...Susan Fisher Los Angeles, California What Real Zionism Means I read Leonard Fein's article ("A New Zionism," April 1989), as well as your response, ("Leonard Fein's New Zionism: An inspiring Vision or a Flawed Argument...
...Men may receive Jewish law from their male teachers, but as anyone who has spent time in a traditional Jewish community can tell you, most of their spiritual understanding comes from their mothers, grandmothers and wives...
...Virgin birth refers to Jesus' birth without aid of an earthly father...
...I wrote at the time that it was "tasteless, denigrating and unworthy...
...Too many of us, including the rabbinate, tend to beat around the burning bush altogether...
...I was much taken by Rabbi Amy Eil-berg's article ' 'Encountering a Feminine God" (April 1989) and her coming to a new realization of the feminine attributes of this God that opened up a new spirituality in her life...
...But none of this will happen simply by teaching Jewish children in America how to read Hebrew and how to "love Israel in a new way...
...Gluckstern's was balabatish...
...You have unlocked a well kept secret...
...Surely, someone else joined her "as God's partner in the act of Creation" (page 38...
...The glass cases along the cafeteria -counters featured the choicest smoked fish and dairy dishes...
...Despite his apostasy and his corrosive and even atheistic statements, his thoughts and ethical aphorisms were faithfully reproduced in Jewish literature...
...learned that one must serve God with the "fullness of non-intellectual aspects of [one's] being...
...The sages of the Talmud made the requirements of prayer for women somewhat more lenient and much more flexible than those for men, for reasons that Rabbi Eilberg probably did not find compelling before the birth of her daughter...
...Thus, future generations of students would be careful in reading his statements to be certain of theological proprieties...
...I don't agree with Eilberg that this gift is grossly undervalued by the Jewish community...
...I have been to Sammy's on several occasions when I have spare time in New York...
...Else he would have had the courtesy to attack what I actually wrote and not what he wants to think I wrote...
...Laws of ritual purity may also easily be interpreted as simply a fairly civilized form of an ancient blood taboo...
...Shanks's critique was both thorough and thoughtful...
...Only if it is generally recognized that the noise of healthy self-criticism represents no fall-off in solid Jewish backing of Israel is no real harm done...
...We published the article because it was a fascinating anthropological study of a Jewish phenomenon...
...Here in Jerusalem, we "ultra" Orthodox must be too absorbed in our holy books to merit such an encounter...
...Keep up the good work...
...This important second-century savant fell under the influence of the Epicurean branch of Hellenistic thought...
...I'd not bother to correct even the one if Shanks did not go on snidely to suggest that I am more interested in our being able to "swell with moral pride" than I am in strengthening an endangered relationship...
...But, those of us who love Israel must support it as a whole and should look to the positive achievements and to the potentials for cooperation between the Jews in the Diaspora and Israel...
...As our society becomes more hectic financially, emotionally and socially, the need to find a source of peace and acceptance increases...
...Immaculate conception refers to Mary's conception, which Christians believe was without sin, thus making her a fit vessel to give birth to Jesus.—Ed...
...Cogan's point, she really means virgin birth, not immaculate conception...
...Rabbi Eilberg discovered something crucial when she (finally...
...In fact, women are obligated by the Torah to pray daily...
...We like that...
...I find Sammy's to be perhaps the only place in the country where one can find food that is at least similar to what "mama" made...
...Nothing is more antithetical to Jesus' teachings on loving one's fellow and even one's enemy than anti-Semitism...
...Of course if you're an anti-Semite, you might take Sammy as authority on Jewish nativism...
...Maimonides was vilified, not exterminated...
...And that failure of will or wit characterizes all theologies of Judaism, without distinction as to the race, creed, color, gender or previous condition of servitude of those theologies' respective definitions of "the other...
...It's true, as Eilberg points out, that as women we need to pray words that more closely connect us with God, and how fortunate we are that we're not bound to rote repetition of predominantly male-prayed prayers...
...April 1989) of Leonard Fein's insightful article ("A New Zionism," April 1989) was both puzzling and highly inappropriate...
...But the converse is equally true: The uncharitable criticisms and underminings of Israel's public position that Fein himself has so often indulged in, similarly reach the ears of our State Department and lawmakers...
...Her need for flexibility in her prayer life was consistent with that of Jewish women throughout the ages...
...Binah isn't applied to halachic interpretation, however...
...Jesus himself threatened to disown those who call him "Lord" but play false to his teachings: Meolam loyadati etchem...
...Solomon Landers Clinton, Maryland Sacred Cows We are very pleased with your magazine, since you touch on "sacred cows...
...Walter R. Fried Santa Ana, California If Children Hear, So Does The State Department Leonard Fein correctly asserts ("A New Zionism," April 1989) that the "stale apologies" and "cliched excuses" in support of Israel's positions that Jewish leaders direct toward the U.S...
...Streamlining the government to a more modern democratic form would be pushed ahead far more rapidly, industrial output would increase, efficiency in all areas would improve, and, further, those Arabs hostile to Israel who have harbored the idea that their continual griping and harassment will eventually reduce Israel's Jewish population will be shown that the exact opposite has occurred...
...Both are outstanding works of scholarship...
...Those who, in effect, have apostatized (sur) from Jesus' teachings are told to "Get away...
...Alas, I cannot rejoice: God Himself/Herself told me last night that He/She has never met Amy Eilberg...
...Does Penina Eilberg Schwartz Have a Father...
...I was probably self-defeating...
...The classical case of Jewish response to heresy is that of Elisha ben Abuyah...
...There was no shouting out a false ethnicity...
...April 1989) Coin-cidentally, within the same fortnight I had read Professor James H. Qharles-worth's Jesus Within Judaism (Double-day, 1988) and Professor David Flusser's Judaism and the Origins of Christianity (Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1988...
...Looking in vain for evidence that young Penina Eilberg Schwartz has a father too, I wonder where in Rabbi Amy Eil-berg's feminist theology of Judaism ("Encountering a Feminine God," MOMENT, April 1989) there is room for men...
...One can find many other more profound matters to "intel-lectualize" over other than eating the food in Sammy's and protecting oneself from "cholesterol-shock...
...Amy Eilberg's moving story describing her "moment of revelation of the Divine Feminine," is exciting news, being the first public acknowledgement of direct communication with God in over two thousand years...
...I am surprised that Shanks failed to recognize the inherent weakness of the statistics which he chose as the basis of his rebuttal...
...Then it will become a humane religion...
...Leonard Fein Boston, Massachusetts Shanks's Arguments Are Weak, Meanspirited and Self-Serving Hershel Shanks's rebuttal ("Leonard Fein's New Zionism: An Inspiring View or a Flawed Argument...
...Rabbi Eilberg's own experience bears this out: Her 10-day hiatus from prayer was a hiatus, whether the God to whom she resumed praying afterward thundered at her for it or embraced her...
...If anything, it is a sad commentary on the state of gastronomic Judaism in New York...
...What an invidious comparison...
...If Sammy is asking our vote to elect him our official archivist of what-once-was, we are in deep shmaltz...
...I fully believe mikvah attendance can help bring comfort, satisfaction and a sense of continuity to women and/or their sexual partners...
...Matthew 7:23, Hebrew text in The Gospel of Matthew According to a Primitive Hebrew Text, by Professor George Howard [Mercer Press, 1987...
...One example: I assert that in order to move to a healthier and closer relationship with Israel, and in order to avoid what might otherwise develop into a serious sense of alienation from it, we must begin to understand Israel's "radical imperfection...
...The detailed descriptions of the "humor" in the menu and in the patter of the "entertainment" used up nine valuable pages and weren't even funny...
...Jews may throw books at each other...
...My East Side had class and dignity...
...Can its rediscovery of Jesus' Judaism move from the intellectual to the pragmatic...
...sum...
...I was one who thought then, as I do now, that Portnoy's Complaint was a rancid, self-hating portrait of a part of Jewish life...
...Depart from me, all you workers of iniquity...
...Rushdie said he knew how Roth must have felt after being attacked by the Jewish community for his portrayal of Jews in Porlnoy's Complaint...
...Is this so unexpected...
...As "ethnic anthropology," it failed...
...the mikvah laws), if and when there is even a rough equivalent of mikvah for men—only then will it be less than offensive to label mikvah observance as approaching feminist practice...
...On the basis of my negative comments, many no doubt went out to buy the book...
...Christians still have to face up to the authentic "Cross" of Jesus'Jewishness...
...What's worse, Sammy's owner openly mocks Jewish traditions and customs and arrogantly believes that his customers consider his establishment a "temple...
...Just as one can't tell a book from its cover, one can't tell an article from its title, fortunately...
...What Jewish family, however diverse, would not rise to the defense of an embattled member whom it holds dear...
...But in order to read it critically it is helpful to read it carefully, and there is scant evidence in his reply that Shanks has done that...
...Jews do not deal with the questions of literary, intellectual or spiritual disagreement by advocating murder...
...Amen to that...
...Alas, "radical imperfection" is the human condition, and the thrust of my argument is precisely that we must recognize that Israel is no more exempt from that condition than we are...
...If Shanks disagreed so vehemently with Fein's position, MOMENT should have rejected the article, rather than burying it in the back of the magazine while attacking it in the opening pages...
...The twice-millennial malaise of Christianity is that Jesus is exalted at the same time that his ethical teachings are woefully neglected in practice...
...Ed* Beelzebub's Feast at Sammy's Despite Kugelmass's erudite gloss over Sammy's restaurant, at bottom it's a medieval tale of a feast hosted by Beelzebub to celebrate the seven deadly sins...
...Linda Levee Paul Sherman Oaks, California Women's Need For Flexibility in Prayer Rabbi Eilberg's article, "Encountering a Feminine God," in the April 1989 issue of MOMENT, could leave the reader with the very false impression that traditionally, Jewish women have been exempted from the mitivah of prayer...
...Rabbi Alan M. Sokobin Sylvania, Ohio It's Greenblum, Not Goldblum The co-author of the Lakeville study cited in the footnote on page 55 of the April 1989 issue should be Joseph Greenblum, not Joseph Goldblum...
...If you are interested in exploring the role of kosher-style food vendors as surrogate spiritual centers, may I recommend a scholarly piece called "Zab-ar's—Ne'ilah at the Nova Counter...
...His ideas and concepts, however hateful to normative Judaism, were derived from a human being blessed with the great gifts of mind and spirit that God can endow...
...As you report, Sammy's serves non-kosher food and doesn't even try to reconstruct a traditional culinary aesthetic...
...I find that a particularly offensive characterization...
...It is our very ability to encounter the Divine through "acts of nurturance," as Eilberg put it, that permits women exemption from most time-bound mitz-vot...
...Despite the furor over that book, however, I don't recall anyone calling for Roth's death...
...Where I expected to find an article written by a woman for women, I found a warm and joyous search for a loving, gentle and non-judgmental God...
...Classical Jewish thinkers indicated that Elisha ben Abuyah was a heretic by removing his name from the text and using a pseudonym, Acher...
...Perhaps only a "modern" woman would be surprised that God wasn't mad at her...
...Robert A. SelUer Assistant Director Philadelphia Chapter American Jewish Committee Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Women's Intuitive Understanding I enjoyed sharing Amy Eilberg's spiritual encounter ("Encountering a Feminine God," April 1989) following the birth of her child, but I found in her experience a slightly different meaning...
...Lili Kahan Los Angeles, California Amy Eilberg Unlocked A Well Kept Secret My own awakening to a total God seems to parallel Amy Eilberg's experience, which she ably recorded in her enlightening article ("Encountering a Feminine God," April 1989...
...The article represented an excellent analysis of Leonard Fein's rather (surprisingly) shallow response to Israel's problems and the current situation since the intifada began...
...Richard E. Schneyer New York, New York We don't necessarily approve of Sammy's...
...Until feminist theology of Judaism copes with the problem of "the other"—in this case male—it will enjoy no more success than do all those other theologies of Judaism that define, but then cannot plausibly explain, the outsider...
...Women engaged in the essential and spiritually enriching task of nurturing children (be it in conjunction with other commitments or not) cannot be expected to consistently fulfill mitzvot that must be done within a certain time frame...
...Zalman Gaibel Chicago, Illinois The Cross of Jesus' Jewishness Thank you for Rabbi Eugene Boro-witz's "How Is the Church to Confront Jesus'Jewishness...
...It is hard enough for a two-year-old that Abba must go to shul—"must" Imma go too...
...But nowhere in my article do I propose or imply that we face such a clumsy dichotomy...
...Surely my daughter from that unnamed someone else's perspective must be our daughter...
...I never knew you...
...The title of the book, not mentioned, is Jewish Identity on the Suburban Frontier...
...Today, Christianity can renew itself out of Judaism and with the help of Judaism...
...Leading women to believe that their spiritual growth lies in copying the religious life of men is destructive of the spiritual process in women...
...Jacob Neusner Brown University Professor Ungerleider Distinguished Scholar of Judaic Studies Providence, Rhode Island Beating Around The Burning Bush I read with great interest and pleasure Rabbi Eilberg's article ("Encountering a Feminine God," April 1989...
...Sammy gives us a vulgar burlesque of ethnicity...
...I am appalled by the abuse of editorial privilege Shanks displayed in rebutting Fein's article in the same issue in which it appeared...
...Eugene W. Sucov Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Leonard Fein Replies Hershel Shanks believes ("Leonard Fein's New Zionism: An Inspiring Vision or a Flawed Argument...
...Elaine Cogan Portland, Oregon Although we get Ms...
...Go back with me to the mid-1940s when I worked at the Educational Alliance on East Broadway...
...This is a common mistake...
...Kugclmass's mother did not cook food like Sammy's...
...That permits him to go on to say that if my argument is accepted, we are driven either to preserving our integrity by condemning Israel, or, by supporting Israel, to losing our soul...
...Women, the mystics tell us, are endowed with an extra dose of binah, intuitive understanding...
...Rabbi Eilberg is certainly correct that the feminine dimension of God has been underdeveloped, while a corresponding emphasis on the cerebral and the masculine has been overdeveloped...
...I admire Mr...
...Laws of ritual purity must among other things be interpreted as ways to segregate, minimize and demean women...
...But Rabbi Gold stretches reasonable definitions when he claims feminist reasons...
...His arguments are weak, his tone meanspirited and his forum self-serving...
...The Lower East Side should be remembered with greater dignity and warmth than Sammy's offering...
...Certainly any law which prohibits women from participation in Temple rituals due to a biological and an essentially positive fact of life is sponsoring male exclusivity and discrimination of women...
...Joseph Greenblum Baltimore, Maryland...
...He/She, the total God, responds to us in kind...
...Relevant to Borowitz's article, on page 644 of his book Flusser observes: "Tension towards Judaism was an historical necessity for Christianity, in order to become a world religion for former pagans—a need which no longer exists...
...Alan M. Fisher Department of Political Science California State University, Dominguez Hills Carson, California Indigestion at Sammy's I look to MOMENT for thoughtful, enlivening and relevant articles on current Jewish issues...
...Please, I got a heartburn reading the piece...
Vol. 14 • August 1989 • No. 5
