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University of Central Oklahoma Edmond, Oklahoma College of Graduate Studies & Research University of Central Oklahoma Edmond, Oklahoma College of Graduate Studies & Research “the invisible Spirit alone”: the Romance of Reform in Grace Aguilar‟s Theological Writings A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTERS OF ARTS IN ENGLISH By Lindsay Dearinger Edmond, Oklahoma 2011 ABSTRACT OF THESIS University of Central Oklahoma Edmond, Oklahoma NAME: Lindsay Dearinger TITLE OF THESIS: “the invisible Spirit alone”: the Romance of Reform in Grace Aguilar‟s Theological Writings DIRECTOR OF THESIS: Dr. G.S. Lewis PAGES: 114 The Anglo-Jewish author Grace Aguilar lived in the early nineteenth century when England was experiencing revolutions and reforms in philosophy, politics, and religion. The daughter of Sephardic immigrants, Aguilar authored novels, poetry, essays, theology, and midrash. She is perhaps the most well-known and the most prolific nineteenth-century Anglo-Jewish woman writer. Aguilar‟s works, especially her theology, channel various ideological streams that were running through English thought in the early nineteenth century. Aguilar, who is usually considered a “traditionally observant” Jew, presents herself as a Victorian woman who values the very “Victorian” concepts of domesticity and womanhood present in much nineteenth-century literature for women. The ideal Victorian woman is pure and good, tends to the needs of her children, husband, and home, and is the religious center of the home; Aguilar preached the importance of these domestic values in her theological work. Though ostensibly traditional in these respects, her theological works argue for the political emancipation of the Jews, for radical reforms in Jewish belief and practice, and for the value and dignity of Jewish women, all while she defends Judaism against disparagement from Christians and provides a model of conduct for Jewish women. This work seeks to present the “spirit” of Grace Aguilar‟s theological works The Women of Israel (1845) and The Spirit of Judaism (1842) through three different historical lenses. By “spirit” I mean the driving force behind her theology, that which moves her arguments: her own unique concept of the “Jewish spirit.” TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 4 Chapter 1 “On the sprit awakening in England”: Aguilar‟s Encounter with Victorian England‟s Literary and Christian Cultures 11 Chapter 2 “Yet wherever the Hebrew is FREE a new spirit is awakening”: Conflict with Christian Culture and the Revival of the Jewish Heart in The Spirit of Judaism 43 Chapter 3 “Make you a new heart, and a new spirit”: Women, the Rabbis, and the Spirit of Reform in The Women of Israel 74 Conclusion 106 Works Cited 110 Dearinger 4 Introduction “Judaism is a doing which can be grasped only by the heart.”1 —Julius Lester At the beginning of the daily morning prayers, traditionally observant Jewish men recite a brief passage that has provoked much debate over the status of women in Judaism: “Blessed are you, O Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, Who did not make me a woman.” At the same time, women thank God for making them “according to God‟s will.” Many have interpreted the men‟s blessing as incredibly disparaging to women and cite this blessing as evidence of rabbinic misogyny. Others attempt to explain and justify this passage in order to refute claims that Judaism disparages women. Judith Hauptman explains that the context of this passage in the Tosefta is a discussion of the blessings a Jew recites before performing a mitzvah, such as putting on tzitzit or tefillin.2 R. Judah, who argues for daily recitation of this and two other “who has not made me” blessings, explains why each is recited.3 The blessing is not intended to imply that women are defective by nature. Hauptman points out that, according to R. Judah, men recite this statement in order to express their gratitude for their higher level of ritual obligation (235, 222). But R. Judah‟s explanation does mark women as inferior because they have fewer religious demands made upon them. Hauptman believes that the blessing intends to point out that women occupy a lower social status than men (236). In nineteenth-century England, Christian women used this blessing to validate their claims that Christianity, above all other religions, best appeals to woman‟s nature. In 1839 Sarah Lewis released Woman’s Mission, a book based on Louis Aimé Martin‟s Sur l’éducation des meres (1834). Woman’s Mission reflects quintessential Victorian ideals about women and motherhood, and celebrates what Lewis regards as woman‟s newly Dearinger 5 exalted position in nineteenth-century Christian England (Helsinger 3, 5). Women owe this exaltation to Christianity: “For woman never would, and never could, have risen to her present station in the social system, had it not been for the dignity with which Christianity invested those qualities, peculiarly her own” (Lewis 140-41). For Lewis, Christianity accords women freedom that other religions do not, and she questions how women can “be anything but Christians, when they hear the scornful thanksgiving of the Jew, that he was not born a woman” (142). Six years after the publication of Woman’s Mission, Grace Aguilar released The Women of Israel, in which she addresses both of Lewis‟ claims: that Christianity exalts women and that Judaism degrades women. According to Aguilar, Christian writers of moral and didactic works are compelled by “education and nationality” to “believe that „Christianity is the sole source of female excellence‟”: [. .] that to Christianity alone they owe their present station in the world, their influence, their equality with man, their spiritual provision in this life, and hopes of immortality in the next;—nay more, that the value and dignity of woman‟s character would never have been recognised, but for the religion of Jesus; that pure, loving, self-denying doctrines were unknown to woman: she knew not even her relation to the Eternal; dared not look upon him as her Father, Consoler, and Saviour, till the advent of Christianity. (1: 2) Aguilar empathizes with Lewis‟ love for Christianity and shares her scorn for “the Heathen and Mahomedan.” But Aguilar implores Lewis not to “be so unjust as to count the Jewish religion amongst those in which woman, in her clinging and truly feminine character, is uncared for and unvalued” (2: 422). Grace Aguilar‟s The Women of Israel demonstrates how Judaism similarly exalts its women. Regarding the “scornful thanksgiving of the Jew,” Aguilar falls into the apologist category since she seeks to vindicate the Jewish religion. Invoking “[t]he thanksgiving in Dearinger 6 the Isralitish morning prayer, on which so much stress is laid as a proof how little woman is regarded” is a “false and foolish reasoning on the subject; almost, in truth, too trivial for regard” (The Women of Israel 1: 3). Some Christians intentionally construe the blessing to mean whatever will suit their aims, but Aguilar insists that the blessing betrays “neither scorn towards [women], nor too much haughtiness for [men].” It is “but one of those blessings in which the pious Israelite thanks God for all things, demanding neither notice nor reproof” (1: 3). Gentiles argue that the Talmud originated the blessing in order to inculcate the “moral and mental degradation” of Jewish women, a supposition which Aguilar rejects. She claims that Jewish women are so exalted by the word of God that the blessing need not even be abolished from the morning service (1: 3-4). This is one among many examples of how Aguilar answers charges against Judaism brought by Christians. Aguilar lived in the early nineteenth century when England was experiencing revolutions and reforms in philosophy, politics, and religion. The daughter of Sephardic immigrants, Aguilar authored novels, poetry, essays, theology, and midrash.4 She is perhaps the most well-known and the most prolific nineteenth-century Anglo-Jewish woman writer. Aguilar‟s works, especially her theology, channel various ideological streams that were running through English thought in the early nineteenth century. Aguilar, who is usually considered a “traditionally observant” Jew, presents herself as a Victorian woman who values the very “Victorian” concepts of domesticity and womanhood present in much nineteenth-century literature for women. The ideal Victorian woman is pure and good, tends to the needs of her children, husband, and home, and is the religious center of the home; Aguilar preached the importance of these Dearinger 7 domestic values in her theological work. Though ostensibly traditional in these respects, her theological works argue for the political emancipation of the Jews, for radical reforms in Jewish belief and practice, and for the value and dignity of Jewish women, all while she defends Judaism against disparagement from Christians and provides a model of conduct for Jewish women. The writings and experiences of Georgian era Jews in England are marked with unique tensions and contradictions. The tension exists between desires to remain Jewish while confronting modernity and contributes to the contradictions and ambiguities present in the work of Aguilar and other Anglo-Jewish writers. Moses Mendelssohn, often called the father of the Jewish Enlightenment, wanted to help Jews live in both the world of the modern state and the world of the Jewish community.5 He advised Jews to “[a]dapt yourself to the morals and the constitution of the land to which you have been removed; but hold fast to the religion of your fathers, too. Bear both burdens as well as you can” (qtd. in Taitz 201). Aguilar, an admirer of Mendelssohn, similarly deals with issues of assimilation: to what extent are Jews loyal to Judaism? To what extent are Jews loyal to the state? How can these dual loyalties cohere? Mendelssohn grappled with Jews‟ encounters with the modern state, which consequently contributed to the collision of ideas within Jewish communities all over Europe during this period.
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