7 - Women and the Dialectic of Spirituality in Hasidism

Summary

THE QUESTION of the role of women in the hasidic movement and their access to hasidic spirituality constitutes an important topic whether one is approaching from the direction of gender studies or the research of Jewish mystical movements. All branches of hasidism are typified by singular attitudes to womanhood and the relationships of men and women. On a surface level, modesty and related issues are paramount, leading to highly distinctive patterns of behaviour. However, among the different branches of hasidism there are some quite different modes: at one extreme women appear to be denied access to serious Hebrew study; at another, we find evidence of their active involvement in the dissemination of the hasidic ethos. At a median position women do engage in study, yet we find the assessment that they are not themselves hasidim—with all the spiritual connotations which this term might imply—but only the wives and daughters of hasidim.

This chapter seeks to elucidate the evolution of the role of the woman in the hasidic movement and her level of Jewish and hasidic education. The focus is on the emergence of the Ahot Hatemimim, a Habad girls’ study group in pre-Holocaust Riga, and the development of the spiritually empowered female emissary, considered against the pre-war Bais Yaakov movement and attitudes to women in Satmar hasidism. My claim is that this twentieth-century development in Habad relates to a specific aspect of early Habad mysticism: the focus on the Lower Unity, rather than the Upper Unity, as the ultimate spiritual goal. Rather than being simply a feature of a mystical approach, of interest only to contemplatives, this focus resulted in a tangible transformation of the role of the woman in Habad hasidic society.

The Dialectic of Spirituality

Early Habad texts describe two polarized perspectives on existence: the Upper Unity, which reaches away from the world, and the Lower Unity, reaching towards it. These categories are rooted in early Habad theories about contemplative mysticism, yet they can also be translated into social forms: a world-avoiding enclave on the one hand, or on the other the attempt to relate in spiritual terms to an outer, earthly reality. A complementary polarity is that concerning ‘service from above’, in which the tsadik elevates the passive hasid, or ‘service from below’, in which the hasid has to make an effort of his own.