Gendered God?

By Robin Mandell

How does the notion of "God" fit into feminist Judaism? Or WHAT DOES “God” look like?

            It seems hypocritical to me that monotheistic religions preach so vehemently against idolatry when their practitioners have such a pronounced image of what God should be. No, perhaps monotheists do not worship actual images, as other religions do, but there is definitely an imaging of God. I want to loosely explore what this means in theory and practice. This is, by no means, an academic exploration.

            In her book standing again at Sinai, Judith Plaskow has presented a chapter entitled "God: reimagining the Unimaginable".  If God is unimaginable, than why must we and how can we reimagine "Him"?  The majority of biblical language speaks of God as "He", as "King", as "Father", and as many other masculine titles.  These titles are not only masculine in nature, but dominant in nature.  Replacing this andocentric language (which has laid the foundations for the dominance of men in Judaism and other monotheistic religions) with feminine terms will not work either, at least not from the standpoint of creating equality.   Saying "Queen of the Universe rather than King of the Universe", for example, in Prayer does not subvert the notion of the Divine as dominant.   Such language also perpetuates the notion of imaging "God" in human terms.

            It is difficult, though, to conceive of the notion of not imaging God as human.  People need to be able to relate to their "God", and to do so we (in my perception) image God as a larger, more perfect version of ourselves. (It is interesting to note that images of Hindu Gods and Goddesses, while retaining some human features, are not intrinsically human in their appearance. Kahli, for example, has many more arms than two.)  Is the answer to this dilemma to do away with anthropomorphic language and images.  Perhaps, perhaps not.  To follow from Goddess spirituality tradition, symbols of God (which include the gendering of God) should perhaps be taken "seriously, but not literally" (Plaskow, 146).  WE do, after all, need a language to speak of God, but perhaps should not be wedded to one strand of this language alone.   Perhaps a way can be found to identify with God, while retaining notions of God as genderless, all-pervasive, et cetera. 

I have objected to anthropomorphic language for God, and advocated it, nearly in the same breath.  What do I mean by this?  I mean only that people must find a God that works for them.    I think the role of feminist reformations of the Jewish "God" do not, or at least should not, simply involve the introduction of female God-language.  Female God-language, as I stated before, reinforces the hierarchy of God to humans.  The female version of the male-language used simply reinforces the differentiation of deity from earthly reality.  While goddesses form a part of my own personal theology, I don't think that Goddess imagery can be a part of Jewish tradition as a whole, except as a form for individuals to identify with God.

            I am using the word "God" to describe The Divine here because I am writing in a Jewish context.  The God of which I write is not a He, or a She, or anything to that effect.  God is simply a genderless name.  Having said that, I know that most people in reading this passage would automatically assume that I am writing about God-He.  I am not!  I am writing about all-pervasive Divine, the one whom I call Divine, or Goddess, (or one of the many Goddess names) by turns.

            This brings up another interesting issue.  How do more traditional Jewish women (who are feminist despite their desire for tradition) identify with their God?  They may wish to identify with their God as female, but not as a Goddess.  Enter the concept of Shekhinah (Wisdom).  This is a concept of God and a concept of Judaism which is not often discussed among Jewish people.  I doubt if many know about it Shekhinah at all.  I am interested by the use that some feminists have made of Shekhinah, using Her name in lieu of God or Yahweh.  Again, I think this could be an excellent alternative for more traditional feminists who want to make use of something from within the tradition.  While some feminists have argued that Shekhinah is not an appropriate imaging of God because of Her supposed inferior status, a departure from strict mystical texts and a reimaging of Her can make Her representative of the deity.  After all, this is much of what feminist Jewish revision does: reimagines things presented to us in the texts to fill in the gaps in the stories.

POSTSCRIPT

            What you have read above is adapted from something I wrote several years ago. It  doesn’t necessarily reflect my current religious beliefs (I.E. I am less Pagan than I was) but I still embrace the overall spirit—of trying to find more useful, less dominant language for religious dialogue. As I reread this, I see more strands than  conclusions emerging, but I will share it with you as is, and explore those strands in subsequent writings.

REFERENCE

Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective, by Judith Plaskow. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1990.