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This is totally random, but I've had something on my mind lately and I realized that the people who could most likely answer my questions are...on my flist!
Some context: when I was still a Christian, I spent a lot of time appreciating the tradition of religious sisters and how that was a lifestyle it was possible to pursue. It just really made me feel good to know that there was this long tradition of women who chose to pursue faith and/or education instead of wifehood/motherhood/family/sex. You could step outside of that and you had a society-sanctioned option to become a nun, spend your life in a community of other women, and sometimes pursue an education or the arts. (Obviously I don't want to idealize life in a religious community, which could be abusive or poverty-stricken as the case may be. But so could marriage!)
Judaism is SO different and more family-focused (for understandable reasons), so I've kind of been missing that, especially since I've been thinking a lot about female mystics lately for Ann Lee reasons (though I am NOT mystic in any way at all and in fact am pretty anti-mystic in both my personality and experience, I find it endlessly fascinating). Were there different points or places in Jewish history, say, pre-19th century, in which women could pursue a different kind of life? Or, even if they married, is there a mystic tradition among Jewish women? I have the vaguest ideas about Jewish mysticism, but I only know it in the context of men.
Or is there something similar in Islam? I know there are Buddhist nuns, but I know little of that either.
I've been thinking a lot about the ways that female mystics in Christianity are both honored and seen as operating within a well-established tradition but also always dangerous and threatening to the power structure and the ways in which they kind of teeter between something that the masculine authorities approve of because they can use it (mostly to prove the power of God) and want to tamp down on because it threatens them, and how the women themselves are just concerned about their relationship with God and sometimes other women, and how complicated all that is. It's just really rich, and I've sort of wanted to write some speculative fiction inspired by it, but I want to draw from wider sources than just Christian ones and I don't know where to start!
I want to be clear that I'm looking for women operating within a patriarchal religion. Obviously there have been women religious figures throughout history--priestesses, shamans, etc.--who wielded great power, both religious and otherwise. Lots of that up to the present day in indigenous religions! And they are super interesting! I want to learn more about them at some point! But right now I'm looking for women who are inhabiting that weird place where them devoting their life to a religion with a male power structure is sanctioned by the larger society, but what they do with that might not be. And women whose experience of that religion is distinctly more mystical/untamed/transcendent than most people's. Give me some women who are married to the divine!
Some context: when I was still a Christian, I spent a lot of time appreciating the tradition of religious sisters and how that was a lifestyle it was possible to pursue. It just really made me feel good to know that there was this long tradition of women who chose to pursue faith and/or education instead of wifehood/motherhood/family/sex. You could step outside of that and you had a society-sanctioned option to become a nun, spend your life in a community of other women, and sometimes pursue an education or the arts. (Obviously I don't want to idealize life in a religious community, which could be abusive or poverty-stricken as the case may be. But so could marriage!)
Judaism is SO different and more family-focused (for understandable reasons), so I've kind of been missing that, especially since I've been thinking a lot about female mystics lately for Ann Lee reasons (though I am NOT mystic in any way at all and in fact am pretty anti-mystic in both my personality and experience, I find it endlessly fascinating). Were there different points or places in Jewish history, say, pre-19th century, in which women could pursue a different kind of life? Or, even if they married, is there a mystic tradition among Jewish women? I have the vaguest ideas about Jewish mysticism, but I only know it in the context of men.
Or is there something similar in Islam? I know there are Buddhist nuns, but I know little of that either.
I've been thinking a lot about the ways that female mystics in Christianity are both honored and seen as operating within a well-established tradition but also always dangerous and threatening to the power structure and the ways in which they kind of teeter between something that the masculine authorities approve of because they can use it (mostly to prove the power of God) and want to tamp down on because it threatens them, and how the women themselves are just concerned about their relationship with God and sometimes other women, and how complicated all that is. It's just really rich, and I've sort of wanted to write some speculative fiction inspired by it, but I want to draw from wider sources than just Christian ones and I don't know where to start!
I want to be clear that I'm looking for women operating within a patriarchal religion. Obviously there have been women religious figures throughout history--priestesses, shamans, etc.--who wielded great power, both religious and otherwise. Lots of that up to the present day in indigenous religions! And they are super interesting! I want to learn more about them at some point! But right now I'm looking for women who are inhabiting that weird place where them devoting their life to a religion with a male power structure is sanctioned by the larger society, but what they do with that might not be. And women whose experience of that religion is distinctly more mystical/untamed/transcendent than most people's. Give me some women who are married to the divine!
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But there's Hannah of Ludmir ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maiden_of_Ludmir ), who was involved in Chasidishe mysticism. And the tradition of amulet bowls ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incantation_bowl ) seems to be largely a female tradition, though as far as I know the actual crafters are anonymous to archeologists. And probably lots of other examples I don't know.
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But those seem like great places to start! Thank you so much!
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The only thing I remember from Scott's Ivanhoe is Rebecca's ending:
Scott, of course, a notorious expert on medieval Judaism (sarcasm content of the preceding: 100%), but at least he didn't convert his Jewish characters?
Anyway, you might be interested in The JPS guide to Jewish women : 600 B.C.E.to 1900 C.E, which has little sketches of a lot of interesting women.
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There are several attested women authors of tkhines anthologies, collections of personal prayers for women readers. Tkhines tended to follow the fashions of the time, so if you find anything from the 17th and 18th centuries by women, there's likely to be a Kabbalistic bent there. It might be worth exploring.