|
" Exposing power, transforming God: A process Jewish feminist exploration "
Arlette Poland
P. Clayton
| Document Type
|
:
|
Latin Dissertation
|
| Language of Document
|
:
|
English
|
| Record Number
|
:
|
53847
|
| Doc. No
|
:
|
TL23801
|
| Call number
|
:
|
3364047
|
| Main Entry
|
:
|
Arlette Poland
|
| Title & Author
|
:
|
Exposing power, transforming God: A process Jewish feminist exploration\ Arlette Poland
|
| College
|
:
|
The Claremont Graduate University
|
| Date
|
:
|
2009
|
| Degree
|
:
|
Ph.D.
|
| student score
|
:
|
2009
|
| Page No
|
:
|
444
|
| Abstract
|
:
|
Fragmentation, pieces and bits of life that seem not only out of relation but also dualistically opposed and unrelated are part and parcel of the thinking, feeling, believing, speaking and doing of the Western mindset. This project addresses the heart of such a mindset white it presupposes that women's experiences have value and bring novel expressions to experiences of the deity and unity; women's voices address these issues and feminist endeavors are typically if not always a move toward a relation-based ethical framework from and in which ail feminists (and others) can and maybe even would like to work. Finding a reasonable framework or metaphysic that can be a part of the move toward finding and using such a feminist mindset is a guiding concern in this project. Ethical inclusion is where one includes others out of concern for them not out of concern for enlarging or validating one's own position. Fragmentation and unrelated oppositions result in exclusion in every discipline and experience of existence. What is really ultimate in existence? The issues investigated to assist in answering this question lie within issues of power, ethics and justice. How do we know something is ultimate? Ultimacy begins and ends in embodied experience. Women's experiences must be included as the descriptions of any kind of ultimate are developed. At the outset of this work, it is recognized that women's voices have not only been silenced but also made invisible, even to women. Women's experiences are embodied and include a deep awareness of relation that in some cases seems primal or inherent. Thus, it would seem that fragmentation can be deconstructed through a paradigm of relation. Relation proves itself to be an ultimate after the voices of Process theologians and feminists weigh in, as they each say in their own way that if there is no relation there is no existence. However, it is discovered in the course of this exploration that relation qua relation is neutral. What then can be said about the deity? Jewish feminists argue that Judaism must be engendered, held ethically accountable to all the people Israel, and that even the notional feeling of connection between the women in the death camps of Nazi Germany served the Jewish ethical requirement of inclusion--thus, making their actions Jewishly and theologically significant, rather than invisible. Judaism thereby validates the experience that relation is necessary not for existence but also somehow involved in the experience of the deity and ethics. Feminist voices declare in their own turn that justice is not blind but rather involved in the particularity of existence, in other words, inside relation. They express feelings of being in relation to the deity when they feel connected and caring towards others. And, they tell us that ethical concern and inclusion can and even should be part of the everyday experience and expression of life. Buddhism provides this project with the final group of concepts that allow relation to be recognized as ubiquitous, neutral, ultimate, and dynamic. Sunyata , Emptiness in the Buddhist context moves this project towards the needed relation first thinking that is called for by many feminists. Sunyata is composed of pratitya samutpada (dependent origination) and anitya (impermanence). Everything is in dynamic and impermanent relation. Ethical behavior, laid out in the Eightfold Noble Path, asks the practitioner to be aware of sunyata as mindfulness of it will bring prajna (wisdom) and karuna (compassion). Eventually, process theology, Buddhism and Judaism join in the ethical demand that relation is first and the quality of relation becomes the second and required issue. The demand from all three and these feminist voices is for care, compassion and community that is mindful of other as well as of self. This project proposes the Metaphysic of Pan-Relation as part of the movement that feminists and others wish to make away from patriarchy and dualism. The Metaphysic of Pan-Relation requires only that relation be the first consideration. It claims that relation qua relation is neutral and that the most important issue is the search for relation, followed closely by an inquiry into the quality of the relation--as it is, as it could be and as it should be. Thus, power is exposed as an expression of relation and God is transformed into the energy, power for ethical inclusion, tikkun and care that is inside relation. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
|
| Subject
|
:
|
Philosophy, religion and theology; Social sciences; Theory of justice; Buddhist ethics; Process philosophy; Justice; Buddhism; Jewish; Feminist; Relation; Religion; Philosophy; Womens studies; Theology; Judaic studies; 0453:Womens studies; 0751:Judaic studies; 0322:Religion; 0469:Theology; 0322:Philosophy
|
| Added Entry
|
:
|
P. Clayton
|
| Added Entry
|
:
|
The Claremont Graduate University
|
| |