Shabbat Replay: Reproductive Rights Are A Jewish Value

"...Halfway through the presidency of George W. Bush,  I stood on the Washington Mall and I held my sign. It said: Another Jewish woman who loves life and kids for choice."

In a time when abortion access is being restricted under the guise of "religious liberty," Rabbi Lizzi reminds us that our religious tradition upholds the right to choose.

This episode is a drash given at Mishkan's Friday night service on January 28th, as we celebrated Repro Shabbat. Repro Shabbat is an initiative by the National Council of Jewish Women, an opportunity for congregations, organizations, and communities to celebrate the critical importance of reproductive health. For full recordings of Friday services, click here. For upcoming Shabbat services and programs, check our event calendar. Learn more about Mishkan Chicago. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook.

Produced by Mishkan Chicago. Music composed, produced, and performed by Kalman Strauss.

Transcript

Transcript

[00:09] Producer
Welcome to Shabbat Replay, a selection of sermon highlights from Mishkan Chicago. The music you’re hearing is the stirring string stylings of Kalman Strauss, the composer of our theme music, playing during our Friday night service on January 28th, as we celebrated Repro Shabbat. Repro Shabbat is an initiative by the National Council of Jewish Women, an opportunity for congregations, organizations, and communities to celebrate the critical importance of reproductive health. In a time when abortion access is being restricted under the guise of "religious liberty," Rabbi Lizzi reminds us that our religious tradition upholds the right to choose.

[01:15] R’Lizzi Heydemann
In April 2004, it was a no-brainer for me as a senior in college — I completely checked out of my classes in California, to cross the country and go stand at the March For Women's Lives. This was halfway through the presidency of George W. Bush. And I stood on the Washington Mall and I held my sign. It said: “Another Jewish woman who loves life and kids for choice.” I really wanted to find that picture, there is a picture of me holding that sign. But Facebook had just been invented and I wasn't on it yet. so I don't have that picture. And I didn't personally come back with this bullhorn that was made for the occasion on April 25 2004. But Marlin Grossman, zikhronah livrakha, many of you may remember her, she was an early Mishkanite, an elder in our community, she came back with this pink bullhorn from that protest, and her wife, Sherry gave it to me, after she died a few years ago, to remember her by.

We were both at that march that day, as were thousands and thousands of Jews. The National Council of Jewish Women was a sponsor for that march because the freedom and health of pregnant people is a Jewish issue. It's worth saying, pregnant people, not just women — people of different gender expressions can and do get pregnant and require reproductive care, although I may use the shorthand of she and Mother throughout this drash. Reproductive health is also an issue of religious freedom, and religious freedom is a Jewish issue in a country where we are far from the majority. And we want to know that our religious beliefs and preferences will be respected not just in ritual and professional settings, but also in healthcare settings. There are not many political issues that American Jews can align on, in almost universal agreement, but freedom of religious expression in America, and the right to choose how to handle a pregnancy are actually two of those issues that we have near universal alignment in the Jewish community from secular to Orthodox.

Tonight, I want to explore this powerful intersection. Rights require our vigilance and action to protect — it doesn't happen by accident, and it's far from secure. It was ingrained in me from a very young age that Judaism as a tradition believes in cultivating, supporting, and saving life. Pikuach nefesh: the principle that saving life is the ultimate Jewish value, and that all other rules and rituals are suspended if there is even a question of life hanging in the balance. And so if there is ever a person whose life is compromised physically or psychologically by a pregnancy, they are permitted to terminate the pregnancy. Of course, it's not a choice any pregnant person undertakes lightly. But ultimately, caring for one's life holistically is the highest Jewish value. And this is one of the principles that undergirds our collective commitment as a people to giving people the autonomy to choose what happens inside of our bodies. I have to be honest, I don't know why I knew this was a Jewish traditional value growing up, but I knew it. And my mom, who does not come from a deep Torah background, she knew it too, because she taught it to me and she taught it to me in the name of Jewish tradition. This is one reason I imagine there were so many Jews at that rally that day, and so many Jews involved in organizations like Planned Parenthood. This sense of personal autonomy and caring for our health is a deeply ingrained Jewish value. It's actually a mitzvah to protect one's health. It's not like other peoples of the world don't value protecting their health. So what is motivating the opposite viewpoint on this particular issue?

There are hundreds and hundreds of laws now being proposed and on the books across the country banning or restricting abortion, even in the cases of rape and incest. This is also motivated by deep faith, faith that all human lives are sacred, and that and that life begins at conception. Therefore, terminating a pregnancy is tantamount to murder. Murder is illegal, so abortion should be illegal, and providers of abortion should be put in jail. It's hard for me to even say those words because they are anathema to me. They feel completely foreign in my mouth, like I'm saying something that I don't believe. I believe doctors who provide reproductive health care in poor and low income communities where it's hard to access health care are heroes, especially in the face of threats on their lives by “pro-life” protesters — the ultimate hypocrisy.

But with the same depth of conviction that I believe in a person's right to choose what is best for her, people coming from this belief have that same depth of conviction that life begins at conception. This is a commitment based on faith. And it's a particular kind of Christian faith, not all Christians share it, I know plenty who don't. But nonetheless, it's not the Jewish faith or tradition. It's not our belief system. And this is what makes it an issue of religious freedom, as much as it is an issue of reproductive health. Now, Jews and Judaism also believe that human life is sacred — actually, that life is sacred period. But the first thing we learn about the human being in the Torah is that we are created b’tselem Elohim, “in the image of God.” Jews also believe that something powerful and mysterious and miraculous happens at conception and throughout the development of an embryo into a fetus and eventually into a baby. I don't remember if it's a Midrash or just sort of an old tale that imagines that inside the womb, there's a little angel that teaches the fetus Torah by the light of a tiny little candle that somehow continues to burn even in the amniotic fluid sac. Jewish tradition holds the whole gestational process with much reverence and mystery. It's just that our tradition considers that process which is becoming life qualitatively different from and of a lower priority than the life of the person carrying it out, especially if her life is endangered physically or psychologically by its presence.

The foundational verses underlying this belief are found in this week's Torah portion, which is why National Council of Jewish Women chose this week for Repro Shabbat. So what happens in this week's Torah portion? Well, last week, you may remember, was Mount Sinai, the thunder and the shofar and the chaos of the Ten Commandments. And this week, and for many weeks hereafter, its laws — lots and lots of laws. But this week, specifically, it's a lot of very, very specific case laws, based in ancient scenarios. Like, what happens when your ox, who is known to be violent, kills my ox? You, as a person in 2022, might say, “What do I care? I don't have an ox.” However, rather than throw out all of the Torah because of its ancientness, the job of the Jewish reader in every age is to try to figure out what the ethical imperative is that flows from that case, and apply it to our world. And we get help — the Mishnah, and the Talmud, and lots of sages along the way have laid the groundwork. So in the case of the goring ox, if the owner knew that it was violent and didn't do anything to stop it, then they are responsible for all of the damage that ox causes. Because if you have control over something and it's likely to cause damage, or, God forbid, death to others, you have to do what is in your power to keep others safe. Like, for example, get vaccinated. Bam! Ancient example, modern application.

Rabbi Shai Held writes: “Biblical laws are to be understood not merely as concrete norms of their day but as paradigms.” In other words, they invite each generation to develop commentary and contemporary commitments that apply the eternal essence of the laws. So what's the eternal essence that we discover in this week's parsha that undergirds our commitment to reproductive freedom? In the story, we've just been liberated from Egypt. And so all of these laws that we are receiving come in the context of an attempt to create an anti Egypt, a new social universe where, at best, people proactively care for one another and for the most vulnerable. (See Rabbi Stephens intro in this week's newsletter!) And when that doesn't happen, when people don't proactively care for one another, when they hurt or injure one another, the Torah also provides measures for accountability for when injury and abuse do inevitably occur.

So this week, we read about the case in which two men are fighting, and they push a pregnant woman, and she miscarries. So the Torah states that if she incurred no other physical damage, she is owed for the value of the fetus. However, if her life were endangered, she would be owed eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life. And so by the time that the rabbis of the Talmud are writing and applying this law to their own times and context, almost 2000 years later, they no longer abided by the literal principle of eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life. However, they concluded from this case in the Torah that while ending a pregnancy can be devastating, it is not tantamount to homicide. Let me repeat that. From this case in the Torah, we understand that to end a pregnancy can be devastating, but it is not tantamount to homicide.

A couple of months ago, I talked about a different angle that Jews come at this issue from as well. I talked about the principle of the “rodef.” Rodef in Hebrew means “pursuer.” This is the category of self-defense, that you are permitted to take the first shot if somebody is coming at you with the intent to kill you. And through this lens, even if the fetus were considered a full person, as is the dominant “pro-life” lens, even in this case, it would be permitted to terminate the pregnancy if the pregnancy causes danger to the mother, because the fetus would be considered a rodef. Often, for people who experience rape or incest or for other reasons came to this pregnancy in a way that was traumatic, they experience that pregnancy as a rodef, as a pursuer. And the only way to resolve that deep disconnection with their own body is to terminate the pregnancy. Every person has a right to self-preservation and self-defense. So even orthodox legal authorities who take the commandment to be fruitful and multiply very seriously, they stand behind this. Remember, in the Jewish hierarchy of values, “Pikuach nefesh.” Saving the life trumps everything else. And we just learned that the Torah does not consider the life of the fetus to be of the same weight as the life of the mother. It's the life of the mother we're talking about here.

Rabbi Yaakov Emden was an 18th century German Orthodox rabbi. He permitted abortion to save a mother from great pain, even in the case of her life not being in direct jeopardy. Rabbi Mordecai Winkler from 19th century Budapest considered pregnancy through the lens of both mental health and physical health. Rabbi Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel, the chief Sephardic Rabbi of pre-state Palestine and the State of Israel until his death in 1953, he permitted abortion to prevent disgrace or shame.

Ultimately, Rev Aharon Lichtenstein, who was well known and respected rosh yeshiva in America, wrote: “It is clear that saving a life is not the only sanction for permitting abortion. Pikuach nefesh isn't the only reason why we as Jews would permit this very challenging and hard choice. We would permit it for Kavod HaBriyot, human dignity. We would permit it for Shalom Bayit, for domestic peace, and for tza'ar (ba'alei chayim) — a person who's about to undergo great pain. All of these categories carry significant halachic weight in other contexts and should be considered in making these decisions as well.”

This is of course not to say that anyone faced with a decision to terminate a pregnancy does it lightly. It is to say that Jewish tradition respects the sincere decision of the person faced with this choice. And our tradition insists that it is a choice. To prevent someone from having the choice goes against the foundations of Jewish tradition. And that is why this is as much an issue of religious freedom, as it is one of reproductive health, and therefore one that every one of us should be activated around. Until 1973, it was not guaranteed that a woman could get an abortion if she needed one in every state of the Union. It is still, sadly, not guaranteed. Since June of last year, there have been 561 measures restricting or even banning abortion introduced across the United States, 97 of which have already been enacted into law. Perhaps the most restrictive of these was the Texas law passed two months ago criminalizing abortion after six weeks, and allowing any civilian to bring a case against a provider of this kind of reproductive care, and have doctors face a $10,000 fine and jail time. So between laws making it harder to vote, and partisan gerrymandering of districts to minimize the impact of lower income and minority voters, these kinds of laws are being proposed in dozens of states, and it will succeed in limiting people's access to reproductive health care. The result will be devastating — the result will be lives lost. This will primarily affect lower income people who can't travel across state lines to get the care they need. Now, as usual, people with resources and means will be able to figure this out, and the people most directly affected will be the people who can't afford to come to Chicago.

If this all feels very overwhelming, it's because it is. This along with every other issue is weighing and pulling on our exhausted psyches. I'm tired too. But despair is not a strategy. It helps to do something, so I'm going to drop a link:

https://www.ncjw.org/act/ 

If you go there, you'll see a number of ways for you to flex your voice on some of these issues. They're all connected from voter suppression to helping people plan better for creating families by giving access to reproductive health for every person in this country. All of these things are connected. And these issues are woven deeply into a Jewish sense of a just and healthy world, a world in which we can operate from our own deeply held sense of values as much as our Christian brothers and sisters with different views can operate from theirs.

At the March in Washington, DC, I got on the train and I found myself sitting next to somebody who was about my age, maybe a little bit younger, who had come to the march from Arkansas. She was there with her mom and a bunch of people, I was meeting up with friends. We talked about how necessary and important it was for us to be there. And it eventually became clear to me that she was not there to stand next to me — she was there to counterprotest. When I got off the train, I saw her poster, which said: “My mother chose not to abort me.” And at that moment, I got what she was saying. She wanted me to know that was her story. God bless sister! Own it. But I want to say to her, keep your faith and your story out of my uterus. And to those deeply believing Christians behind all of this legislation, I want to say: I respect your right to your religious beliefs, but I do not share them. And as a Jew, I care deeply that all people have access to the kind of care that helps them protect their lives and live their healthiest lives and be able to bring life into the world only when it is their choice.

This is a personal topic. This is a hard topic. Everybody has a story. And if you don't, you know and love somebody who does. And the more we talk about it, the more we're able to support each other through these moments of discernment and sadness and loss and mystery. None of it is easy, not the decision to bring life into the world, and certainly not the decision to not. All of us at Mishkan —  rabbis, this whole community — we want you to know that we are here for you to support you. We will continue to be a Jewish Voice on this issue in our country. I get the frayed nerves and the exhaustion. And I hope that rooting deeply in our tradition helps you draw nourishment from this deep well of tradition as it helps me to fortify myself. These are hard decisions that our mothers and our grandmothers and our people made before us. We stand on their shoulders, and they strengthen us.

Shabbat shalom.