Chanah's Voice: A rabbi wrestles with gender, commandment, and the women's rituals of baking, bathing, and brightening

by Haviva Ner-David

In her first book, Life on the Fringes, Haviva Ner-David described her quest to become an Orthodox rabbi, to serve God the same way men traditionally did. Now, Rabbi Ner-David tunes in to an aspect of God she hadn't heard before, the voice of Chanah.


Chanah, the Biblical mother of Samuel, was considered by tradition to have invented prayer. Her name is also an acronym for the three commandments given to women: Challah, the taking of an offering from baking dough; Niddah, separation during menstruation followed by immersion; and Hadlakat HaNer, lighting the Sabbath candles.


In this spiritual memoir, Rabbi Ner-David explores the spirituality of domestic life while struggling with the strictures of systematized Jewish law. Combining soul-searching honesty and deep Jewish knowledge, Chanah's Voice is the compelling voice of a new generation of Jewish feminism.


"A beautiful example of how to wrestle with God, Torah, and one's self." -Brad Hirschfield, author of You Don't Have to Be Wrong for Me to Be Right


"New challenges, new insights, and, at times, new theological innovations."
-Jay Michaelson, author of Everything is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism


"This profound meditation on spiritual integrity, vulnerability, and holiness is a must-read for anyone who values Judaism. Haviva Ner-David has once again illuminated the way for us, enlivening ancient concepts and imbuing them with deep spiritual meaning."
-Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, author, Surprised by God: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Religion


"Haviva Ner-David is one of the most original thinkers on the Jewish scene today. In Chanah's Voice she takes what have sadly become stale rituals and re-envisions them anew. Ner-David's powerful stories of family, tradition, and love will inspire readers to find deeper meaning in their Jewish lives."
-Ari L. Goldman, author, Living a Year of Kaddish: A Memoir


"I have always admired Haviva. I loved her first book, yet Chanah's Voice is more remarkable. It is not only a unique contribution to the literature of feminism and Orthodoxy but also a significant work that better fits the categories of the theology and social anthropology than autobiography. Perhaps this is how all theological works should be: written engagingly in the first person, making accessible to the reader the struggle of an individual or community trying to make sense of one's relationship with God."
-Blu Greenberg, author, On Women and Judaism: A View from Tradition

Genres: Judaism, Jewish, Nonfiction, Feminism

204 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 26, 2013

About the author

Haviva Ner-David is an ordained rabbi and interfaith-interspiritual minister, with a doctorate in philosophy and an M.F.A in Creative Writing. She runs Shmaya: A Mikveh for Mind, Body and Soul, where she officiates ritual immersion ceremonies and offers group workshops. A certified spiritual director with a specialty in dreamwork, she works with individuals and couples. Rabbi Ner-David is the author of two published spiritual journey memoirs (Life on the Fringes: A Feminist Journey Towards Traditional Rabbinic Ordination; and Chanah’s Voice: A Rabbi Wrestles with Gender, Commandment and the Women’s Rituals of Baking, Bathing and Brightening) and has a third, Dreaming Against the Current: A Rabbi’s Soul Journey, on the way. She is also the author of a soon-to-be published guidebook for engaged couples, Getting (and Staying) Married Jewishly: Preparing for Your Life Together with Ancient and Modern Wisdom. Hope Valley is her debut novel. Rabbi Ner-David is involved in peace work, promoting a shared society of Jews, Christians and Muslims in Galilee, where she lives with Jacob, her life partner of thirty years, their seven children and their dog and cat. She also lives with a genetic degenerative muscular disease called FSHD, which has been one of her greatest teachers.

Reviews

[Marjorie Ingall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a thoughtful exploration of "women's work" from an Orthodox feminist perspective. I give major props to Ner-David's authentic wrestling with text, history, sexism and meaning. And I felt humbled as I read: I can be a judgy fuckhead, and I wish I were as open-hearted as Ner-David seems to be. She explores traditional Orthodoxy, fairly radical egalitarian feminism and a lot of space in between. (At one point she sounds like the most traditional challah-baking Erev-Shabbat-sweating matron, and at another she's having hot sex outdoors at night at a public hot spring with her husband after she's pointed out the sexist aspects of the current usual world of mikvah immersion so the two of them have both created their own sexism-stripped mikveh experiences, to which I can only say YOU GO, GIRL.) She's extremely well-read and knowledgable about both Tanach and commentary, but she also believes that the personal is political -- people can find meaning in all kinds of ritual and action, large and small. It's cool that I can feel a kinship for a woman with a very different relationship to religion than my own, someone who has seven kids and lives on a kibbutz...but I do. Thanks to my colleague Liel at Tablet for pointing me toward this one.

[Rose Clubok · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything about this book was beautiful. I want to be Haviva Ner-David.

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I placed too high expectations on this book. I hoped Ner David would help me explore some of the issues I grapple with with these mitzvot. Instead, her wrestling with them was entirely in different directions to some of my own wrestling. It wasn't the book I hoped it would be, but was still interesting. I far preferred the more combined scholarly and anecdotal approach of her first book. This book was more personal, but less textual.

[Atarah]

This was a book in which I disagreed with some of the authors opinions and ideas of Jewish communal practice. But I was also moved to tears at times. I'm excited to discuss this book in a bookclub setting.