|
|
Post by peachymom1 on Dec 5, 2016 0:53:07 GMT -5
What’s on your mind – how to make kugel? This week’s Torah reading? Life goals? Prayer? We are all engaged in weight loss/weight maintenance journeys and we are all Jewish or at least interested in Judaism. We like to eat, we like to discuss. It is our goal here to provide each other support on our journeys, to share experiences, to call on our rich cultural heritage and texts, and to help each other grow spiritually.
Some of us take weekly turns starting the thread:
Angelika
Holly
Lee
Louise
Lynne
Peachy
|
|
|
|
Post by peachymom1 on Dec 5, 2016 0:54:02 GMT -5
Boker tov! I think it is meaningful that the Torah makes such a point of twins being different from each other. I have twin sons myself, and they are most definitely completely different people, and have been since the day they were born. All their lives, I’ve heard comments about “what boys do” or “what boys are like,” as opposed to what girls do and what girls are like. It’s always made me laugh and wonder, “Which boys? Which girls?” I have three sisters, and believe me, we don’t fit the stereotypes either. It seems to me the Torah is trying to get us to examine our ideas about gender identity and hopefully make strides in breaking down barriers and understanding ourselves and each other.
In our lifetimes, we have seen a great deal of progress made in the roles of women, at least in the free world. We didn’t get a woman POTUS this time, but we came darn close, and I think our children will certainly see this in their lifetimes. Would you like to share some memories or experiences of how women’s roles have changed throughout your lifetime? I’d love to hear them.
I remember the day it was announced at my elementary school that girls would be allowed to wear pants to school. This was a very big deal. I think my sisters and I each had one pair of pants, if that, because we simply didn’t need any more than that at the time. And I remember that in seventh grade, the girls had to take a semester each of cooking and sewing, while the boys had to take wood shop and metal shop. I didn’t want to take any of them. Why couldn’t I just take a year of music or language instead? I can’t sew worth a darn, no matter how hard I tried to learn. My mom and sisters are wonderfully talented in sewing, crocheting, and all kinds of needlepoint and crafts, but I’m terrible at all of them. I’m a decent cook, but it’s just something that needs to get done, like brushing my teeth or doing the laundry. (I would have made a pathetic pioneer woman.)
What do you remember, what made an impression on you, or what else would you like to share?
|
|
lee058
This space for rent
Posts: 23,276 
|
Post by lee058 on Dec 5, 2016 8:43:49 GMT -5
Good morning everybody. Hope you are all well today. Peachy, I had to smile when I read your lead. In my school district, I was the first girl to wear pants to school AND to take shop instead of home ec (plus some other actions, but these two went to the school board to get decided if they were okay). My parents backed me up, which was important; they agreed with me that since it got very cold in NY, it was stupid to not let us wear pants. And as for shop, that turned out to be a fairly awful experience, but I was glad I did it anyway. The boys did not want me there, and they wouldn't be my partner in projects, they locked me in the darkroom, they messed up my desk, and so on. But I persevered!
I'll be back later if I can; I've got a lot going on today including my monthly Scrabble game with my neighbor. That's always fun.
Have a peaceful day, Lee
|
|
|
|
Post by louise on Dec 5, 2016 9:52:58 GMT -5
I liked taking the home ec classes but I do remember feeling odd about classes decided by gender and I wanted to take the wood and metal shops as well. Lee - you were ahead of your time (and very brave).
When I was young my father used to come home from work, step out of his pants (leaving them on the floor for my mother to pick up) and lie down on the couch in front of the TV. I once said something to my mother about his habits and she was very surprised - she told me that her father didn't even know where the glasses were kept (his wife would bring him a drink if he was thirsty) and had never drawn his own bath. So things had indeed progressed. I'm my married life (early 80's) my husband would clean and cook but generally it was because I asked him to do something and then I said "thank you" so it was still in my mindset that he was helping me with MY work.
Sorry I never got here yesterday - was my full day Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom workshop.
|
|
|
|
Post by savtele on Dec 5, 2016 10:30:04 GMT -5
Boker Tov All! Interesting! Pants were allowed in school after I graduated HS - we used to have to kneel down on the floor in the cafeteria to prove that our (short) skirts would actually touch the floor. (we unrolled the waist on the way down, rolled them back up as we were getting up) I took sewing - got an A - that was a no-brainer, because my sisters & I sewed our own clothes from the time my mom taught us.
There is a b/w photo of me at about 6 or 7 years old, wearing slacks that my mom had made me - I'm thinking we were going camping or something. Certainly I would not have been allowed to wear them to school!
There were "women's jobs" and "men's jobs" - and Phyllis Schlafly did all she could to make sure that never the twain would meet - largely thanks to her, ERA did not pass.
In our home, most jobs were not gender-specific. I seem to remember mowing the lawn & my brothers washing the dishes fairly regularly. And garden harvesting was an "all hands on deck" sort of work - but I've mentioned before, all the tanatas sitting in a big circle under the cherry tree, pitting cherries or shelling peas for canning. That's where the family lore and gossip was passed along - occasionally someone would pointedly look at one of us girls & make a little noise and the conversation would trail off for a few minutes.....
So far our "cold weather" has not manifested - I'm perfectly happy if it was just hype, but you never know when the weatherman will be right!
I'm off to the pool - have a good day ladies!
|
|
|
|
Post by hollygail on Dec 5, 2016 12:24:45 GMT -5
I attend a women's Rosh Chodesh group (actually, two, one at the Conservative shul where I daven weekday mornings, and one at the Conservative shul where I teach). For Kislev (which started last week), I was the leader. Because Kislev is the month in which Chanukah falls, the theme I chose was Women Who Bring Light.
We started by having each woman stand behind a chanukiah (that had the shamash and one candle in it). The first shamash was lit; I told them about a woman who had brought light into my life, then took the shamash to light the candle in the chanukiah in front of me. The next woman lit her shamash from my shamash; told us about a woman who had brought light into her life and lit her candle. The next woman lit her shamash from the previous woman's shamash, and so on all around the room. So each woman lit her shamash from the previous woman's shamash, and each woman got to tell us about a woman (sometimes two women) who had brought light into her life. That was the "set induction" (if you teach, you write a lesson plan, and often the first thing is to set the mood for the lesson, so I set the mood for the evening this way).
Here are some of the excerpts from our gathering.
- - -
[exerpted from Miriam’s Well: Rituals for Jewish Women Around the Year, Penina V. Adelman, Biblio Press, New York, second edition, 1990]
Women of Light
Women of light appear often in Jewish lore. There was the light of the candles which Sarah lit at the beginning of the Sabbath. By a miracle, the light remained throughout the entire week, glowing in the tent of Abraham and Isaac. When Sarah died, the task of lighting these sacred candles passed into the hands of Rebecca, the wife of Isaac. Because Rebecca was as worthy as Sarah, she caused the light to remain throughout the entire week as had Sarah.
Ginzburg, Louis. Legends of the Jews. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 7 vols, 1909–38; vol. 1, 297
- - -
Then we read about Judith from the Apochrypha (the second half of the book of Judith is about Judith herself and what she did and how she did it; you can read about her, if you don't already know about her, by going either to jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/judith-apocrypha or to Wikipedia, if you care to). I had a very short summary of the the Book of Judith, and then a more detailed summary. I read the short summary, then passed the longer summary around, giving each woman in turn the opportunity to read the next paragraph. (Are you "getting" that I'm into participation?)
Then I introduced Deborah (Book of Judges, chapters 4 and 5). I had the next woman (we were sitting in a circle in someone's living room, so it was kind of easy to "go around the room") read the following:
[exerpted from Miriam’s Well: Rituals for Jewish Women Around the Year, Penina V. Adelman, Biblio Press, New York, second edition, 1990]
Storytelling
Deborah, the Judge, who lived in the 12th century BCE, learned the secret of making light as a young girl. This midrash is inspired by the question, “What does ‘woman of Lappidot’ mean?” Some say Deborah was the wife of a man called Lappidot; others say it refers to Deborah in her glory as a “woman of flames.” The following is based on the Book of Judges, where it is written, “And Deborah, a prophetess, woman of Lappidot, judged Israel at that time.”
Judges, 4:4; Deborah is named one of the seven prophetesses. (The others are Sarah, Miriam, Hannah, Abigail, Hulda and Esther, in Tractate Megilla 14a)
- - -
Then I asked for three volunteers to read an original midrash by Janet Zimmern-Kahan. It was first told at Rosh Chodesh Kislev, Boston, 1983. Deborah is referred to as a “woman of flames” in Tractate Megilla 14a in the Talmud. One woman was the "narrator," one the "old woman" and one was Deborah (the midrash is written in narrative style, but I had them read it as a dramatic presentation). People really loved it!
- - -
So today's topic is incredibly timely in my life. This has been happening to me for the last few months; I may have told you that I put together a lesson plan several weeks ago about a particular topic, only to read my rabbi's weekly Torah message two days later and she touched on the same topic as my lesson plan, and it's been happening on this thread too...
There are three women in particular that come to mind as having had a major influence on how I live my life and how I think about things. (It just so happens that all three are rabbis.) One was/is so influential, that I asked her permission to name her the executor of my will.
|
|
|
|
Post by louise on Dec 5, 2016 16:58:06 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by happysavta on Dec 5, 2016 18:45:01 GMT -5
Some things don't change. My granddaughter, who is 9, picked Robotics club in her afterschool program last year. She is very good in math & science. She was the only girl who enrolled. The boys in the class teased and taunted her because they didn't want a girl in what they perceived as an activity for boys. Myaan isn't shy and she stood up for herself, but they continued to make her feel that her presence was unwanted. She went to the teacher and the teacher made them apologize, one by one, and that was the end of it.
You know, I wonder if President Obama wasn't right when he said that men were reluctant to vote for a woman. Men don't like it when the Boss is a female and giving them orders. The only place that seems to work is in the Israeli army where the majority of field instructors are women.
|
|
