Chanah’s Voice - Rabbi Haviva

Chanah’s Voice:

A rabbi wrestles with gender, commandment, and the women’s rituals of baking, bathing and brightening (Ben Yehuda Press, 2014)

By Haviva Ner-David

As an Orthodox feminist, Rabbi Haviva Ner-David had adopted and privileged rituals that were considered primarily for men…

As an Orthodox feminist, Rabbi Haviva Ner-David had adopted and privileged rituals that were considered primarily for men, breaking deeply engrained taboos and communal norms, but in the process, neglecting rituals that were considered for women and therefore less important. The year before Ner-David received rabbinic ordination and became the first woman publicly ordained by an Orthodox rabbi, she spent the year delving into her relationship with the three Jewish rituals that are traditionally considered primarily for women. Chanah, the Biblical figure who prayed for a son by moving her lips but not raising her voice, is a symbol of Jewish women’s modesty, and it is her name that is the acronym for these three women’s rituals: Challah, Nidah, and Hadlakat-haner (CHaNaH).

In Chanah’s Voice, Ner-David sets out on a journey to discover Chanah’s voice through delving into the deeper meaning and practice of these three rituals, but in the process, she does more than create a relationship with these rituals. The voice she hears challenges her to be true to her egalitarian worldview rather than contort herself to fit a more traditional one. After this transformative year, Ner-David went on to accept the ordination but call herself a post-denominational rabbi instead of an Orthodox one, despite the years she had devoted to fighting for Orthodox ordination. As opposed to her first memoir, which weaves memoir with Jewish legal texts, Chanah’s Voice weaves memoir with Kabbalistic and Hassidic texts, which she associates with a more feminine side of Judaism.

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“This profound meditation on spiritual integrity, vulnerability and holiness is a must-read for anyone who values Judaism.”

“Haviva Ner-David is one of the most original thinkers on the Jewish scene today. Ner-David’s powerful stories of family, tradition and love will inspire readers to find deeper meaning in their Jewish lives.”

“Haviva Ner-David is among the leading “refusers” of our time—refusing to choose between traditional Jewish practice and feminism, refusing to be cowed by those who cannot comprehend a woman ordained by an Orthodox rabbi. Chanah’s Voice marks a new and important phase in her defiance of expectation and boundary. Here, the iconoclastic halakhic feminist turns to the most traditional of Jewish women’s mitzvot, and finds not the bromides of hearth and home, but new challenges, new insights, and, at times, new theological innovations. This is a deceptively simple book, which is to say, not simple at all. Read it and have your horizons expanded.”

“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 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. She questions and questions, while swimming, partying, raising children, dealing with illness, learning, teaching and more. Haviva wrestles on her journey through life, interfacing every day events and ritual acts with classical assumptions about tradition, the psycho-social understanding of the Rabbis, the new roles for men and women, and her longing for the Divine spark within. Through her ruminations, her arguments with herself, her changes of mind, we see that new roles are not simply the taking on or putting down of this tradition or that behavior, but rather a cosmic change in the universe as we have known it. We watch, as her newfound sense of freedom grows along with her sense of holiness in all things.”

About the Author

Haviva Ner-David is a writer and rabbi. In 2006 she became the first woman to publicly receive Orthodox rabbinic ordination, only to leave Orthodoxy and call herself a post-denominational rabbi. Ten years later, she received interfaith ordination from the One Spirit Interfaith-Interspiritual Seminary and now goes by post-denominational inter-spiritual rabbi.

She writes both fiction and non-fiction and is the author of three spiritual journey memoirs, a novel, short stories, essays, a blog on Times of Israel, scholarly articles and a guidebook for engaged couples. Her short story, “Blame,” won the 2016 Lilith Magazine short fiction contest.
Link to short story.

Her rabbinic specialties are spiritual companionship, water immersion rituals, wedding and marriage preparation, coming of age ceremonies and other ritual and ceremony creation and innovation. Founding rabbi of Shmaya: A Mikveh for Mind, Body and Soul on Kibbutz Hannaton in the Lower Galilee, she officiates and helps create on-site personalized immersion ritual ceremonies and facilitates group mikveh workshops. As a spiritual companion, she works with individuals and couples and specializes in dreamwork, inner child work and nature soul work, as well as general sacred listening.