The Obligated Self: Maternal Subjectivity and Jewish Thought

by Mara H. Benjamin

Mara H. Benjamin contends that the physical and psychological work of caring for children presents theologically fruitful but largely unexplored terrain for feminists. Attending to the constant, concrete, and urgent needs of children, she argues, necessitates engaging with profound questions concerning the responsible use of power in unequal relationships, the transformative influence of love, human fragility and vulnerability, and the embeddedness of self in relationships and obligations. Viewing child-rearing as an embodied practice, Benjamin's theological reflection invites a profound reengagement with Jewish sources from the Talmud to modern Jewish philosophy. Her contemporary feminist stance forges a convergence between Jewish theological anthropology and the demands of parental caregiving.

Genres: Judaism, Jewish, Religion, Theory, Nonfiction, Feminism

182 pages, Hardcover

Published May 24, 2018

Reviews

[Sofia Freudenstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous. Seems pivotal.

[Lisa Feld · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most Jewish theology envisions God as a parent or a ruler offering love in exchange for obedience, or at most an equal Other with whom we have a mutual relationship. (And those Others are somehow always divorced from any social context that might impact how we relate to them...) Benjamin instead recasts God as the child, and ourselves as the parent: What are the obligations we take on as parents? How do we shift between fulfilling those obligations with excitement, frustration, habit, love, wonder, and exhaustion in our everyday lives? How do we understand the Others (teachers, babysitters, random strangers) who play necessary roles in developing and challenging our relationship with with our child? And how do we relate all of this to our relationship with God?

Drawing on ancient sources from the Torah and midrash as well as modern thinkers such as Buber, Levinas, and Plaskow (not to mention her personal experience as a parent), Benjamin explodes our notions of what it means to be in relationship with God and with Jewish tradition. I had to read this slowly to fully take in her ideas, but it was absolutely worth it.

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

So there was the bit where I was reading the chapter on teaching in one paragraph increments while watching my child in the backyard and then there was the bit where I was sitting in my chair reading the chapter on Other while my child was sitting in her chair "reading" and I know literature is supposed to be performative, but this is a bit excessive, don't you think?

I mean, I could wax rhapsodic about what Benjamin says, and I wouldn't be wrong, and her ways of thinking about a specifically embodied experience of theology, but the test of theory is the degree to which it can function as a tool-kit afterwards. Not "what do I think about this" but "how do I think with this". And Benjamin's book has given me a lot to think with.

[Lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really cool book! I really loved her reading of God as both infant and parent, blown up to absurd scales, because it just,,, makes sense? Also her investigation into the concept of love as something that moves beyond mere emotions and is expressed in actions even when one does not feel the emotion "love" is absolutely fascinating. Just super cool. And accessible. After reading Levinas, I will forever be grateful to academics who make their work accessible to someone who isn't going to devote years to decoding their language. The book was unfortunately repetitive (you could read the preface and the first three chapters and be fully satisfied), but overall, definitely worth the read.


4/5 stars

[Charles Cohen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really challenging read. Using the maternal relationship as a basis for theology is such a shift from the paternalistic default I was raised on that this was like a kick to the spiritual head, in a good way. There's so much richness in the metaphor, from the way choice and obligation get mixed and build on each other, to the ways in which the mundane, quotidian aspects of parenting and teaching and modeling show up in our relationship to Gd, which are simply invisible in a strictly paternalistic frame. But for Judaism in particular, that's where the action happens - it's all about the everyday routine, the common regular actions and behaviors that make up our connection to the divine. Just fantastic and soul-altering.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was hoping this book would use Jewish theology to help new or expecting mothers grapple with the new obligations introduced upon their bodies and lives. Instead it did the reverse direction: using the lived reality of these obligations as the basis for new perspectives on Jewish theology.

Even though this wasn’t the book I was hoping for, it was still a fascinating (if challenging) read, and probably something I will continue to reflect on while (BH) raising children.

[Noam Weinreich · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly insightful. Every chapter was a pleasure.

[r]

"The theological implications of this pursuit are admittedly startling: if the rabbinic notion of obligation comes into felt experience most viscerally in caring for young children, then God is not an overlord but a vulnerable, dependent being who needs virtually constant attention. This concept inverts the biblical metaphorical economy, in which God is parent, not infant, and the rabbinic sources that speak of God as king and as father, not as subject or son. But since these are metaphors, one in which God is imaged as a baby invites us to name the condition of being obligated to God as being compelled and beguiled, shackled and infatuated, all at once. The care for an infant perfectly captures the pairing of command and love at the heart of rabbinic thought. If God is not only loving parent but demanding baby, we may find within ourselves the resolve to meet the demand."

"'Torah' is not to be understood as the limited, particular bequest given to a limited, particular people, but rather as a stand-in for the sensible substructure of the universe. Torah, like gravity, allows free movement on the planet."

"The danger of creating a sentimental, unrealistic portrayal of parental power in which we recognize only the positive valences of collaboration and mutuality and grant them privileged ontological status, does a disservice to the task of theorizing from actual experience."

"Israel is not ready to meet God; God seeks out Israel to no avail. Rare indeed are the encounters in which perfect symmetry occur. Between God and Israel and between mother and child, synchronicity is hard to come by. And unlike an egalitarian arrangement between lovers, collaboration in these cases cannot escape the lopsided balance of power between the two parties."

"Vulnerability can indicate the radical porousness of the self. Human beings, adults as well as children, are not integrated and complete wholes; we are shot through with inscriptions of the world beyond ourselves. Human selves are formed in response to elements beyond our control, and thus the 'deeper meaning of vulnerability has to do, not with the lack of agency, but with openness and relationality to the world.'"

"Israel, in bringing some element of God into the world, holds the power to make God suffer."

[Jessi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I find Benjamin deeply frustrating and sometimes frightening. While I appreciate the clear commitment to particularity through intersubjectivity and her refusal to reduce the complicated messiness in her comparison between maternity and theology, I think she has colleagues on the side of biblical studies who are more insightful and illuminating. Even though I’m going to be able to use excerpts from this book for an essay, it was disappointingly geared toward a more pedestrian audience.