Female Bodies, Male Souls

Judaism has long been perceived as a world-affirming religion,viewing human beings as a wholesome unity of body and soul and the material world as the proper arena for action dedicated to God's service. Since the body is the instrument through which this is to be achieved, normative Judaism demands that it be maintained in good order, and provides, within certain restrictions, for the gratification of its needs. This is expressed in the injunction to enjoy all permitted pleasures, and above all in the sanctification of sexuality, the celebration of marriage as an ideal state, and the rejection of celibacy and monasticism.

This characterization of Judaism first emerged in nineteenth-century Germany when Jewish historians, engaged as they were in the struggle to enter modern European society, were keen to promote the image of Judaism as a healthy-minded religion, strongly differentiated from what was then perceived as the pathologically ascetic extravagances of Catholic and Eastern Christianity. In recent years, however, a powerful ascetic impulse has been discerned even at the very heart of rabbinic tradition, where the notions of the body and sexuality are fraught with tension. Ascetic self-deprivation—albeit within the constraints of Jewish law—is recognised as an effective way of enhancing mental capacity, certainly for the intellectual or spiritual elite.

This book argues that the problematics of Jewish asceticism have significant gender implications. It suggests that the traditional ontological distinction between the sexes and the resultant division of labour are the products of this unresolved conflict and serve to diffuse some of the tension it generates. The denial of any value to women's adoption of ascetic practices that may be highly valued in men is a clear manifestation of this. It further argues that exclusion from the ascetic life may account for women's apparent failure to contribute to the mystical tradition of Jewish spirituality, a failure that is particularly striking given women’s important contribution to the mystical traditions of both Christianity and Islam. Only within the a-nomian or anti-nomian eschatologies of the heretical Sabbatean movement, which entailed either the spiritualization of physical reality or the materialization of spiritual realities, as well as the coming into force of a new messianic Law, could the gender barriers be eradicated sufficiently to admit women to the ranks of the spiritual elite. The notion that hasidism effected a proto-feminist revolution in acknowledging a significant number of women as mystical teachers in their own right is dispelled as a twentieth-century historiographical myth.