This work, Torn: Mothers and Sons, is a study of the roles of an Orthodox Jewish woman in the growth of her sons. It draws in part from my learning for three years as a Drisha Scholar, and a year as a student in Yeshivat Mahara"t. At the same time it draws from my experiences growing up and living in and/or running an observant Jewish home as a daughter to father and mother, a sister to both male and female siblings, a mother of sons and daughters, and a grandmother to male and female grandchildren.
Though apparently every male human to date, with the exception of the first Adam, was born to a mother who possibly fed, grew, loved and nurtured him, many societies including that of Orthodox Judaism successfully perpetuate patriarchy. For years, I have puzzled over the ways in which we women contribute to patriarchal attitudes in our men, enabling them to grow and continue on these paths. How can our attitudes, raised awareness and actions in both Jewish and secular realms effect change for them and for us?
For these studies I chose to portray various significant vignettes of motherhood, viewed in part, through the Halakhic framework of the laws of Tzitzit, fringes that are mandated by the Torah on four-cornered garments as a reminder of all the mitzvot (Numbers 15:39). As we recite twice daily in the third paragraph of the Shema, this law originally related to and was mandated for all garments with four corners, regardless of the gender of the wearer. As clothing and norms changed, the Rabbis mandated this ruling only for men, to the extent that there are still some today who consider them forbidden for women.
The first vignette illustrates a nursing mother covered in a four cornered garment with tzitzit, the second, a mother teaching her son to wear a four-cornered garment with tzitzit when she herself does not have one, and the third refers to a law that says tzitzit are not worn visibly in front of a dead body or in a graveyard, because this is לעג לרש, literally: ‘mocking the impoverished’, but meaning teasing the dead who can no longer do the mitzvot. Ironically, there is a halakhic discussion that looks at whether this law applies to the body of a dead woman (Pri Megadim Orakh Haim 23:5), since she is not considered to be obligated in the law of tzitzit, something no one considers at all about women who are alive, since many men wear their tzitzit out on a daily basis in open view to all.
To see this work close up, click here.