111111011- 1.111 Andy Stilianou, David Abbo and Paul Peristeris INVITE YOU TO ENJOY THE VERY BEST IN GREEK-AMERICAN DINING that is where the concept falls apart. Ochs' answer to this is that it's still too soon after the Holocaust to truly incor- porate it into the Jewish story. We are. still in a period of mourning, she writes. She points to the fact that the Mishnah, which contains early rab- binic Torah commentary, though writ- ten 130 years after the Second Temple's destruction, fails to mention either the destruction or the transformation of the Jews. The rabbis knew that the dis- aster was too fresh, too painful, that generations needed to pass before it could be placed in the larger context. C TAVL!,(44.1.: it Live EvetY Tbursdo t. • Great Lamb Chops • Broiled Whitefish • Grilled Salmon • Flaming Cheese MEDITERRANE1N & AMERICAN CUISINE Party & Private Facilities up to 40 43317 Grand River Ave. Just East of Novi Road Novi (formerly Oxford Inn} "Look For The Big Blue Awning" (248) 305-5 Fax: (248 The Torah, Through Her Eyes Women rabbis offer insights and commentary. SANDEE B RAWARS KY Special to the Jewish News F The post-Holocaust generations are only now beginning to rub their eyes, look around and figure out where to go from here. "We have learned that there is room within our faith for numerous ways of understanding the losses and pains we confront," she writes. "God is not threatened, and neither is our faith." This book makes the case that the answer is not only in ancient text. We're "writing" the story of the Jewish people right now, in the way we live our lives, go through time, and in how we can see God in the spaces in between. 111 • Greek Specialties • Seafood Favorites • Steaks & Chops • Pasta or the first time, the voices of" women rabbis are gathered in a single volume that follows the cycle of Torah readings. Using traditional sources, the contributors delve into the text, weaving original, textured com- mentary with a feminist spin and, in many cases, creating modern midrash. "I wanted to stretch the rabbinic imagination," Rabbi Elyse Goldstein, the editor who conceptualized The Women's Torah Commentary: New Insights from Women Rabbis on the 54 Weekly Torah Portions (Jewish Lights; $34.95), says in an inter- View. Reading the book is like having many wise guides to the text, often taking unpredictable but worthwhile paths in search of meaning. Contributors include rabbis from the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements. Rabbi Goldstein explains that she agonized over not including Orthodox women's voices, but said that her "first goal was to publish ordained women." There are no ordained Orthodox women rabbis. Many of the 116 women interested in contributing to the book wanted to write about the same portions — partic- ularly those about female figures like Sarah or Tamar, or those dealing with childbirth and rituals of purity. So she negotiated assignments and then selected the 54 essays to include. She looked for writers who "would sing the song of women — to speak in a woman's voice," whatever the content of the Torah portion. The contributors include rabbis who have congregational pulpits, as well as Jewish communal professionals, cam- pus rabbis, chaplains and academics, from the United States, Canada, South America and Israel. The majority of them are from the Reform movement, which also has the largest number of women rabbis. "I think there's a woman's way of see- ing the world and the Torah, through the lens of having experienced the world as a woman," Rabbi Goldstein explains. Most women rabbis, she says, would call themselves revisionists — who neither reject the Torah for what they see as biases nor try to whitewash those biases. They write with love and reverence for the text, turning it around in light of commentaries and midrash to find a meaningful message. Some of the homiletic pieces seem to reflect the "profundity of change in Jewish life that the women rabbi represents," as Rabbi Amy Eilberg, the first Conservative woman to be ordained, writes in the book's foreword. In her outstanding piece on Pekudei, "The Birthing of the Mishkan" (Tabernacle), Rabbi Elana Zaiman, formerly of New York's Park Avenue Synagogue and now in Seattle, likens the building of the mishkan to the birthing process, "an idea inherent in the text itself," she writes. The word pakad, "to take account" is used in connection with the mishkan, and although its root appears in many other texts, she notes its use in refer- ence to God taking account of Sarah and Hannah, and both women subse- quently giving birth. 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