Sunday, November 25, 2012

On the Possible Inclusion of Bilhah and Zilpah in our Liturgy


Bilhah and Zilpah Listserv Postings
As many of you know, at our next minyan meeting on Sunday, December 2nd, we will be voting on whether to include Bilhah and Zilpah in the communal recitation of the Amidah. In advance of that meeting, the study group’s findings are posted below. These were shared at services a few weeks ago, but we appreciate that not everyone was able to attend.

I would like to encourage the community to discuss this on the listserv and on this bloc so as to share your perspectives. Earlier, I had asked people to e-mail their comments to me, and that had the unintended consequence of making me the sole recipient of everyone’s views. I would like to rectify that now.

This exploration grew out of one of our principles: a commitment to liturgical innovation and the right of the service leader, within very broad guidelines, to introduce new materials in order to expand learning, deepen spirituality, or heighten attention to issues. For example, the traditional Aleynu says, "Who has not made us like other peoples of the world or families of the earth, and not made our lot like theirs or our fate like any others'."  When the community decided to use the Reconstructionist version that replaces the phrase with "who gave us true teaching and planted eternal life in our midst," we originally paused to allow time for those reciting the traditional Aleynu to finish because it takes longer to say.  Over time, that pause fell by the wayside when no one seemed to be doing the traditional Aleynu.

The intention of the study group has been to use this question as an impetus for Jewish learning and to create an avenue for communal discussion and to deepen our connections to each other.
As a brief background, Bilhah and Zilpah are the “handmaidens” of Leah and Rahel who birthed sons considered leaders of four tribes of Israel. The sons born to Zilpah (Leah’s shifhah) are Gad and Asher; the sons born to Bilhah (Rahel’s shifhah) are Dan and Naftali. The reason we chose to focus on the possibility of including them in the recitation of the imahot is that their children account for one third of the tribes of Israel.

Below are the opening comments from the d’var we shared:

Through study and consultation with many members of our community, we have identified a number of reasons both to include and not to include their names in the listing of the imahot. As we formulated our approach to learning, we agreed that, despite what our personal inclinations might be, we would be open to hearing whatever our search brought to us. We do not have a recommendation one way or the other but have come to the conclusion that including them or not including them in the community recitation of the Avot v'Imahot section of the Amidah is a matter of personal and community conviction. And as a matter of process, more important than coming up with an answer, is using this exploration as a way to get to know each other in a deeper way and build community.

We chose four avenues for data collection: rabbinic text (Michelle Greenfield), the Hebrew words by which Bilhah and Zilpah are referenced - “amah” or “shifchah” plus the concept of pilegesh (Chana Dickter), the processes of other communities that have wrestled with this issue, and feedback from our community as we included Bilhah and Zilpah in the community recitation of the Avot v'Imahot section of the Amidah (Naomi Klayman). Further, the chapter, Attitudes, Beliefs, and Values from David Teutch’s book, AGuide to Jewish Practice was a valuable resource for us as we grappled with the question of how this inclusion might or might not support our communal values.
This study was not meant to be exhaustive, but rather an initial exploration, limited by our time and energy.
Rabbinic Text Search
A review of Rabbinic sources (talmud and midrash) on the Imahot and on Bilhah and Zilpah led us to sources which, not surprisingly, contradict each other.
Although there is a strong early tradition of there being four mothers, we also found a Midrashic tradition (attested to in Song of Songs Rabbah as well as other sources) that specifically claims there are 6 mothers, including Bilhah and Zilpah on the list. In these midrashim, the inclusion or exclusion of Bilhah and Zilpah is likely not driven by values.  It would seem as though when the rabbis were looking for things that added up to four, there were four mothers.  When they wanted seven, they added the four mothers and three fathers. And when they wanted six, Bilhah and Zilpah were included.
Other sources contribute to a sense that these two women were important in the life of Joseph.  Midrash on Geneses 37:2 imagined them as having been Joseph’s caretakers, as his mother had died.  There is even a Midrash that imagines Joseph referring to Bilhah as his mother.
No texts were found about Bilhah and Zilpah's faith or religion, though one obscure Midrash does imagine them as the product of a relationship between Lavan and one if his maidservants which, in a system of Patrilineal descent gives them the same status as Rachel and Leah.   
Other Synagogue Practices
Three synagogues/minyanim were identified in North America that include Bilhah and Zilpah in the Avot section of the Amidah at some point in a service. What is unique about Dorshei Derekh, is that we are the only community that I have found so far that is subjecting this decision to a communal process; the others made a de facto decision by a few people with little process. I know there are other prayer communities that I have not been able to contact, and perhaps there are others that have gone through a similar process.
Congregation Bet Simchat Torah, an LGBT synagogue in NYC appointed a study/work group to develop their own siddur. The group included the assistant rabbi at that time, Ayelet S. Cohen. The group decided to include Bilhah and Zilpah in the Friday night recitation of the Amidah. No discussion of weighing the implications was reported, but this is what appears at the footnote:
“As a community of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and straight Jews, we have experienced the ways in which families are excluded and erased from Jewish community and family life. Because of the way we love, some of us have lost our children or have been excised from their lives; many of us will never be legally recognized as the parents of the children we have raised. Likewise, many of us are the children of parents who are not legally recognized. Yet despite this, we know that our relationships are holy and our families are real. Therefore, we acknowledge all our ancestors, Avraham, Yitschak, Ya’akov, Sarah, Rivkah, Rachel, her handmaiden Bilhah, Leah, and her handmaiden Zilpah. Our ancestors descended from all of them, whether their relationships were celebr4ated or not, whether they were regarded as equal or not.”
Congregation Adath Jeshurun, a Conservative synagogue in Elkins Park, added Bilhah and Zilpah to the minhah service. When Rabbi Seymour Rosenbloom was developing their siddur, he decided to add them to the minchah service without consultation with the community. Their names are included or excluded at the discretion of the service leader, and that is announced just prior to the recitation of the Amidah. Rabbi Rosenbloom first became aware of the possibility of included their names at a female baby-naming service conducted by Rabbi Lenny Gordon.
Ahavat Olam, a progressive synagogue in Vancouver, CA, includes Bilhah and Zilpah in the Shabbat morning recitation of the Amidah. Rabbi David Mivasair explained that he shares leading services with one other person. When that other person included Bilhah and Zilpah in the Amidah, Rabbi Mivasair decided to continue that tradition. This was not discussed by the community.
Compiled Reflections on Values
Avadim hayinu bemitzrayim (We were slaves in Egypt [Deuteronomy 6:21]). "create empathy with all who are down-trodden, victimized or in pain, and support for them." Some of the rejection of Bilhah and Zilpah is due to class and race issues. - Supports inclusion
B’tzelem Elohim (Human beings are created in the image of God) "no human being should be treated merely as an object" Bilhah and Zilpah should not be treated merely as objects (wombs/surrogates) but as putting their lives on the line for Israel in enduring pregnancies for the propagation of the tribes. -  Supports inclusion
Darkhey shalom:  "utilizing ... resources in ways that create harmony. ... Applies to conflicts between religious groups", A change to the status quo has the potential to incite conflict within our community. - Could support exclusion
Diversity "We benefit from our exposure to different ideas, cultures and ways of being in the world."  Recognizing the diversity of mother role - Supports inclusion.
Egalitarianism Although it speaks of equal treatment only for "women and men, homosexual and heterosexual, and people of all races and ethnicities. This principle to extend to socio-economic class. It recognizes the infinite worth of every human life, especially as mothers of Israel. It also sends a message of inclusion and respect to all members of our community. – Supports inclusion.
Emet (Truth and integrity) Provides the truth about our origins, recognizing all six mothers, voiding the untruth of omission. – Supports inclusion
Inclusion and Pluralism "Welcoming all into our communities regardless of ... family status". Supports embracing a wider range of people, strengthening the community and encouraging it to serve all its members.  –  Supports inclusion.
Kehila (Commitment to community) and Klal Yisrael (Unity and survival of the Jewish people) and Sh’lom bayit (Peace at home)   Some in our community take offense at this and would find it distracting. However, the same could be said of other minority groups that we feel compelled to include and other ways that we have expanded our prayers, such as the Imahot and "yo shvay tayvel" at the end of kaddish.  - Supports exclusion
K’vod hab’riyot (Human dignity)  :  "we are bound to respect the dignity of each human being and act in a way consistent with that dignity."  - Supports inclusion.
Pluralism:  "We embrace pluralism not as a necessary evil but as a source for creating vigor in Jewish life".  Bringing the rare practice of including B&Z enhances pluralism. – Supports inclusion.
Shalshelet hakabbala (Preserving the chain of tradition) PROBLEMATIC as Bilhah and Zilpah are not seen as part of the dominant oral tradition in our prayer services. But then neither was including the imahot until we started doing it.
Tzedek:  "We live in a just society only when every one of its members is treated justly."  Inclusion of Bilhah and Zilpah as equals with Rachel &Leah is a way of retroactively treating them justly as mothers.  - Support inclusion.
Hebrew Text Study
In the text, Bilhah & Zilpah are referred to as both “amah” or “shifchah”.  What types of relationships do these terms imply when used in the Torah?  Another  textual term is “pilegesh” How were these terms used and understood in the ancient Middle East?

The brief citations below are not intended for anything other than to provide a very broad, basic understanding for reference in future discussions.  They were collected during a very pleasant hour spent lost in the internet.

1. Pilegesh/ פילגש  :  A pilegesh was recognized among the ancient Hebrews and enjoyed the same rights in the house as the legitimate wife. Since having children in Judaism was considered a great blessing, legitimate wives often gave their maids to their husbands so they could have children with them when those women themselves where childless.  According to the Babylonian Talmud (Sanh. 21a), the difference between a pilegesh and a full wife was that the latter received a ketubah and her marriage was preceded by a formal betrothal ("kiddushin"), which was not the case with the former. Any offspring created as a result of a union between a pilegesh and a man were on equal legal footing with children of the man and his (ketubah owning) wife.  (no citation)
NB:  anyone interested in pursuing such a relationship is welcome to visit www.pilagesh.org
2.  The following is from a brief e-mail correspondence with Wil Gafney:
“Amah & shifchah are used completely interchangeably in the corpus and it is no longer possible to distinguish them. Both types of enslaved women and girls are sexually available to their owners for pleasure and/or reproduction. For that reason I chose "womb-slave" to emphasize that aspect of their servitude in those narratives in which they are so used. The translation is semantic (womb) and philological (slave).
Here are some references for Amah in the Tanakh:   Judg 9:18; 19:19; 1 Sam 1:11, 16; 25:24–25, 28, 31, 41; 2 Sam 6:20, 22; 14:15–16; 20:17; 1 Kings 1:13, 17; 3:20; Nah 2:7; Psa 86:16; 116:16; Job 19:15; 31:13; Ruth 3:9; Ezra 2:65; Neh 7:67”

Shabbat Parashat Mishpatim, 29 Shevat 5764 - Torah: Exodus 21:1-24:18; Maftir: Exodus 30:11-16; Haftarah : II Kings 12:1-17
An amah is a girl sold to a man because of her family’s dire poverty She becomes a servant to that man. Because her status is anomalous – she is a part of the family but was acquired in the manner of slave – the Torah here lays out her special prerogatives. According to Professor Nahum Sarna, the “laws safeguard her rights and protect her from sexual exploitation.”
Biref4. Most intriguing was a summary from the book: Savina J. Teubal. Ancient Sisterhood: The Lost Traditions of Hagar and Sarah. Athens, Ohio: Swallow Press/Ohio University Press, 1997, in which she posits that Hagar was a Naditu priest and argues that she may have been Pharaoh's daughter, or his royal wife or sister. Teubal argues that Hagar's function was childbearing, a rather important function that was of great significance for childless priests like Sarah. Drawing a distinction between "shifhah" and "amah" [slave, maid] terms that are both attributed to Hagar in the Bible, Teubal links the first term to the function of a woman who bore children for a barren priest and who served herself as a priest. That Hagar was childless before coming into Sarah's service provides the likelihood that she was a priest. Teubal argues that Hagar was Sarah's companion, a clan member of equal status rather than a slave or a servant as the later interpretation of "shifhah" and the term "amah" suggests.
Community Feedback (as of the date of the d’var)
·         It is possible that Bilhah and Zilpah were initially excluded from the Imahot based on class and/or race prejudice.
·         It is possible that Bilhah and Zilpah were initially excluded from the Imahot because their alliance to God is not evident or because they do not explicitly represent Jewish spiritual values.
·         The inclusion of Bilhah and Zilpah could be taking feminism too far, listing so many more mothers than fathers and could alienate some men in our community.
·         The addition of Bilhah and Zilpah reminds us of the contributions of so many nameless and voiceless people over the millennia, especially women, who toil and care for their families and the children of others.
·         We might put elipses after Rachel and Leah, and pause in the davvening to indicate that we can never name in the prayer all the ancestors in all the generations.
·         The inclusion of Bilhah and Zilpah could be distracting to the point of discouraging participating in our service.

6 comments:

Rona Pietrzak said...

I have been passive about this topic, but reading both the commentary and the comments encourages me to share. So thanks to Naomi for collecting all these entries and to Betsy for finding a way to put them on our blog!
The bottom line is that I am uncomfortable with mandating inclusion of Bilhah and Zilpah, but am fine with our continuing non-mandatory experimentation. (I particularly like the idea of leaving a silent space after the parents to recognize the unknown mothers -- and that makes me realize there are probably unknown/minimized fathers too who can be included this way. But, letting service leaders who wish to use B and Z is also okay by me.)

I don' think this change is like adding the imaot or "yoshvei tevel." First, I don't recall any squeamishness about either of these. Second, at least in the case of the imaot, I recall that the addition was somewhat organic; before we had Kol Hanishama, darshanim were adding them spontaneously. And, I think that for egalitarian/progressive groups like ours, it was a no-brainer: whatever the status of other mothers, there was no question that Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah were our matriarchs, parallel to the 3 patriarchs. (And, again, for progressive Jews, extending the wish for peace to the whole world seemed non-controversial also. Although, I admit that there could have been objectors or those discomfitted that I never tuned in to.)

I see the Bilhah and Zilpah issue as similar to other spontaneous experimenting we've done with the liturgy over the years: for a while, we used both masculine and feminine forms in Ose/Osa Shalom; there was some experimentation with using a more general "parent" or "ancestor" term to supplant some uses of avot and imaot; similarly, there was experimentation with using "knesset" Israel instead of "bnei" Israel in the Micha Mocha. Some of our experiments more-or-less stuck -- i.e. were adopted by other service leaders than the one who started the use, and others never caught on.
I think we should treat adding Bilhah and Zilpah this way -- let its use sink or swim over time as the k'hal either organically finds it meaningful or not.
B'shalom,
Rona

Candy Sidner said...

Your study seems to have missed the
article below, written by a late member of our havurah (Shir
Hadash Reconstructionist Havurah, Newton, MA):

Elizabeth Wyner Mark, "The Four
Wives of Jacob: Matriarchs Seen and
Unseen, The Reconstructionist 63,
no 1 (fall 1998) 22-35.

Our havurah has incorporated all
the mothers' names for some years,
but not by an organized process.

Candy Sidner
Shir Hadash
Newton, MA

Betsy Teutsch said...

This is from Reena Spicehandler: Hi Naomi,
I want to thank you again for initiating this interesting discussion. As I mentioned to you, I am not fan of adding Zilpah and Bilhah for two reasons
First, I think we are confusing a spiritual issue with one of social justice and fairness. I see no evidence in Breishit that Bilhah and Zilpah considered the Jewish God or religion to be theirs. The other matriarchs do appear to have chosen to follow a Jewish path and in many cases to pray to God or to be following God's plan. So to say God of Zilpah and Bilhah seems inaccurate to me and would not enhance my sense of spiritual connection. If we want to honor those (especially women) who are our ancestors, I suggest a kavanah at some point in the service. There are many others, such as Ruth or Tamar who could be included as important matriarchs!
My second concern is related to the importance of the number 7 (4 matriarchs+ 3 patriarchs) in Jewish mysticism and gematria. 7 days of the week, seven wedding blessings, 7x7 years to the Jubilee etc. If we add B and Z we would have 9. In general the rabbis have shied away from multiples of 3 because of trinitarian concerns.
This is only a brief account, but I feared I'd never get around to writing something up if I waited for an opportunity to more fully formulate a response.

Reena

Betsy Teutsch said...

This is from Ken Cohen: Naomi,
Thank you for orchestrating this very thorough inquiry into the issue of Bilhah and Zilpah.

I was going to write a more lengthy response, but I just read Reena Spicehandler's posting, which said (more expertly than I could have) almost exactly what I was going to say, so I'll keep this brief. Although I'm generally in favor of experimenting with changes in the liturgy when it makes sense to do so, in this case it doesn't make sense to say in the Amidah, "the God of Bilhah and the God of Zilpah" when we have absolutely no indication, and no tradition, of what the religious beliefs of Bilhah and Zilpah were, or which deity or deities they worshipped. I appreciate the point David Mosenkis made about activism, and I agree that it would be right to find a way of recognizing Bilhah and Zilpah as being included in the ancestry of the Jewish people, but in my opinion this has no place in the Amidah. I wouldn't be opposed to inclusion of Bilhah and Zilpah in the mishebeirachs, since the text there doesn't refer to "the God of...", though I think Reena's suggestion of a kavannah elsewhere in the service could be more meaningful.

בְּשֵם יְהוָֹה וְיֵשׁוּעַ וְרוחַ מִרְיָם said...

Bilha: Do it and include them. The World is Watching! Jk. just us.

בְּשֵם יְהוָֹה וְיֵשׁוּעַ וְרוחַ מִרְיָם said...

Zilpah: Amain, sister!