Standing Again at Sinai: Re-Drawing Communal Bounds

Ever since I was in high school, this week's Torah portion - Yitro - has always made me think about the bounds of Jewish community. The passage that first brought this important topic into the foreground for me appears in Judith Plaskow's seminal 1990 work of Jewish feminism, Standing Again at Sinai. It reads:

"Entry into the covenant at Sinai is the root experience of Judaism, the central event that established the Jewish people. Given the importance of this event, there can be no verse in the Torah more disturbing to the feminist than Moses' warning to his people in Exodus 19:15, "Be ready for the third day; do not go near a woman." For here, at the very moment that the Jewish people stands at Sinai ready to receive the covenant--not now the covenant with individual patriarchs but with the people as a whole--at the very moment when Israel stands trembling waiting for God's presence to descend upon the mountain, Moses addresses the community only as men."

How had I not noticed before that women weren't included among "the people" as the Israelites prepared for the pivotal covenantal moment of the receiving of the commandments at Sinai? Jumping off from this problematic Sinai moment, Plaskow makes a passionate case that feminism must transform Judaism and change the bounds of the Jewish community of our age. I marveled at this whole collection of ideas: that every community exists by virtue of its boundaries, that communal boundaries shift over time, and that we can play an active and intentional role in shaping and re-drawing the boundaries of our communities.

Judaism has survived for centuries and millennia precisely because the boundaries of the Jewish people have always been elastic. There is room within our tradition to radically rethink things as the world around us changes, and that flexibility has given Judaism the ability to withstand major changes and to remain relevant.

Feminism was the central challenge to American Jewish communities of the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Synagogues and seminaries debated women's participation in ritual leadership; different answers to these questions separated denominations. Today, in liberal Jewish communities like ours, egalitarianism is a given. Additionally, our understanding of gender has become more expansive over time, such that now we are increasingly able to think beyond binaries (at Kavana, young people may now celebrate not only a bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah, but also a b'nai mitzvah or b. mitzvah!). Within the broader Jewish community, we have learned that even where there are significant differences (for example, between Kavana, in which people of any gender can participate equally in prayer/ritual leadership, and Orthodox congregations, where men and women still pray on opposite sides of a mechitza/divider during prayer), we can still undertake joint projects and sit around the broader communal table together.

At Kavana, this theme of setting maximally expansive communal boundaries comes up all the time. Internally, we ask: how can we be sure that our community feels like a home for younger adults and for older adults alike (not to mention for children and for middle aged adults)? How do we create safe space to welcome individuals with a wide range of perspectives on Israel (a topic which is used to litmus test who's in and who's out in many other Jewish organizations these days)? How do we help Jews who may feel marginalized in some other spaces -- for example, Jews of Color, queer folx, interfaith households, and more -- feel seen and accepted and also have the opportunity to connect with others who share their identities within Kavana? Plaskow's commentary on the Sinai moment reminds me that we must pay attention to communal boundaries -- both the ones that are delineated explicitly and those that are there implicitly -- and do our best to re-draw them whenever we notice a problem with the status quo. Because our society is constantly changing, our community bounds, too, must be revisited and revised with regularity.

It turns out that Plaskow's observation about Exodus 19:15 -- that women were seemingly left out of the revelatory experience at Sinai -- bothered others long before it bothered her. The Midrash of Shemot Rabbah 5:9 seems to have anticipated Plaskow's critique many centuries before she lived. Citing a phrase that comes just a few verses later in the Torah, the midrash teaches:

"Come and see how the voice [of God at Har Sinai] would go out among all of Israel - each and every one according to their strength: the elders according to their strength; the young men according to their strength; the infants according to their strength; the sucklings according to their strength; the women according to their strength; and even Moshe according to his strength, as it is stated (Exodus 19:19), 'Moshe would speak and God would answer him with a voice' - with a voice that he could withstand."

The rabbinic authors of this midrash specifically name multiple groups of people who they imagine must have stood at Sinai, explaining that when the commandments were given, each of them were able to perceive God's voice in the way that they needed to, "according to their strength." They read women back into the story and in so doing, make an important statement about how they understand the boundaries of their own community.

Today, we continue the work together: the conscious expansion of the boundaries of Jewish community, modeled for us by both an ancient text (Exodus Rabbah) and by a contemporary feminist theologian (Judith Plaskow). When Kavana's new website launched just a few weeks ago, you may have noticed that there is some new and revised language on the "Who We Are" page. The text there now reads: "We welcome folks in all life stages and from all backgrounds, and shape our community around every person who chooses to join us in this experiment of Jewish community building. We are families with children of all ages, families of birth and families of choice. Some of us are parents, some aren't; some were raised very religious, some with no Judaism at all... We welcome you to bring your whole self, in all your complexity, to our community."

Indeed, we will keep naming and re-naming who we are and who is here, as we seek to build the most expansive Jewish community we can. This is our way of saying that the experience of standing at Sinai is one that we all can share.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum