“Who is God’s Wife?” my daughter innocently asked me last night as we were reading parsha stories. We were talking about how Hashem, our creator, is like a parent. The inevitable five year old response followed – “A parent, well who is God’s wife?” Yikes!
So, I started down the path of leading questions: why do you think God has a wife? Is God really like our parent? Somehow, we even got to the “Sabbath queen” (who, in our Disney-themed mad house, has a tribe of Sabbath princesses too!) But, for all the provocative questions, I understood my daughter’s instinctive query.
I will admit that I initially had a moment of wondering whether her progressive upbringing was all for naught. Why, after all, didn’t she ask, “Who is God’s husband”? Though I understand that ”Who is God’s husband” is not a question any of us tend to ask. Because once a child – or adult – has gone beyond God as corporeal, turning God into a woman just doesn’t resonate, no matter what our feminist inclinations might be. (Or was the question, in fact, super-progressive, because it assumed that God had to include the female? Any kabbalists out there with a view?)
I also realized, a bit sadly, that this conversation about God’s wife was a rare moment for me. To actually ponder the nature of God. We were not talking about whether women can leyn in shul, or how to arrange a mechitza to be more equitable, or any of the countless important conversations on how to make Orthodoxy more progressive. At times I wonder if all the working for change has made me forget about the spiritual urge that encouraged the progressive activism in the first place.
So, despite the fact that I am not prone to ponder God, and, as co-chair of the conference programming committee, I was instinctively more drawn to sessions on leadership, scholarship and social justice, I now find myself – as the conference approaches – eager to attend some of
the spirituality sessions at the conference and ponder together, with, among others, Tamar Ross, R. Mimi Feigelson and Nessa Rapaport. Whether or not, we will answer the question of “who is God’s wife?” is yet unknown.
While I understand the impulse to say, “why did she assume God to be male?’” despite how we try to raise her, I think that that’s somewhat a given for young children as there entire environments presume the masculinity of God, from their prayers, to their picture books and to their teachers who, for sure, refer to God as He. In my house, I reflexively correct my kids when they say, God, He …I don’t change it to God, She but try to use gender neutral language and encourage them to think beyond an idea of God as a person. It’s definitely complicated. But, I do take heart that your daughter thought to ask, where’s God’s wife, because it does mean she is sensitive to the idea of exclusion to ask where the women are.
Comment by Idana on February 4, 2010 3:59 PM
The answer you should give your child is that our tradition views God as neither and both male and female. God is truly Mother and Father, Abba and Ima, and as such, God is married to klal yisrael, each one of us. While this represents a very advanced way of thinking, it is never too early to introduce our children to complex and complete ideas about the nature of God and Her dealings with humanity.
Comment by Daniel on March 20, 2010 12:34 AM