JTA — On the second night of Rosh Hashanah, in my second year of rabbinical school, while working at my first-ever High Holiday pulpit, I accidentally conceived.
Accidentally?? It seems clear from her story that she is not married and she quite intentionally did what people do in order to get pregnant [and I guess the protection didn't work]. So on Rosh Hashana night - after "working" her pulpit - she has relations with someone other than her husband. HOLY!! אימת הדין!!!
I prayed. I read every piece of Jewish literature on abortion that I could find. I read every opinion article on the internet about “why I’m happy I had an abortion” or “how I came to regret my abortion.” I made a pros and cons list. I consulted the would-be father [she consulted him but he really has no say b/c it is HER body!!! What did he say??? We are not told. B/c it doesn't matter....] as well as my rabbinic mentor, Rabbi Jen ["I love doing Zen"] Gubitz [she should have consulted the unborn baby and had an imaginary conversation starting with the question "Would you like the gift of life or to be killed in utero??"] I cried on the phone with my mom. Ultimately, I made the choice using the instinctual wisdom [SO WISE!!!] inside myself, heeding nobody’s opinion but my own. And perhaps God’s.
I prayed. I read every piece of Jewish literature on abortion that I could find. I read every opinion article on the internet about “why I’m happy I had an abortion” or “how I came to regret my abortion.” I made a pros and cons list. I consulted the would-be father [she consulted him but he really has no say b/c it is HER body!!! What did he say??? We are not told. B/c it doesn't matter....] as well as my rabbinic mentor, Rabbi Jen ["I love doing Zen"] Gubitz [she should have consulted the unborn baby and had an imaginary conversation starting with the question "Would you like the gift of life or to be killed in utero??"] I cried on the phone with my mom. Ultimately, I made the choice using the instinctual wisdom [SO WISE!!!] inside myself, heeding nobody’s opinion but my own. And perhaps God’s.
"Heeding nobody's opinion but my own." That is IT! It is all about ME!!! "Perhaps God's"?? The theme of this piece? G-d is on my side!!! He is pro abortion!! B/c God also voted Obama, supports Black Lives Matter, is a proponent of transgender surgery and His BIGGEST problems are global warming and that not enough women become mathematicians.
We Jews are commanded, in lines that appear in this week’s Torah portion: “I have put before you today blessing and curse, life and death. U’Vacharta B’Chayim, Choose life.”
That commandment has been coopted as a rallying cry for those who support restrictions on abortion, such as the Texas ban on abortions after six weeks that went into effect this week when the US Supreme Court declined to block it. But for me and so many others, this verse is a clear rebuttal to that law, the most significant infringement on abortion rights in America since Roe v. Wade protected a women’s right to choose 48 years ago.
We Jews are commanded, in lines that appear in this week’s Torah portion: “I have put before you today blessing and curse, life and death. U’Vacharta B’Chayim, Choose life.”
That commandment has been coopted as a rallying cry for those who support restrictions on abortion, such as the Texas ban on abortions after six weeks that went into effect this week when the US Supreme Court declined to block it. But for me and so many others, this verse is a clear rebuttal to that law, the most significant infringement on abortion rights in America since Roe v. Wade protected a women’s right to choose 48 years ago.
So to KILL her unborn baby is to choose life!!! A Torah command!!! WOW!!! What meds is she ON???
I chose life when I left Literary Artistry of the Bible [before the weekly Chaburah in Ktzos Hachoshen] early on a Thursday afternoon to walk the few short blocks from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion’s New York campus to the Margaret Sanger Planned Parenthood on Bleecker Street. ["Planned Parenthood" is really a cover name for "killing babies to prevent parenthood"] I took the first pill in a quiet office, sitting across from a doctor who looked just like me. The next morning, my Medieval Jewish History class took a field trip to the Met Cloisters. Our professor was late because she had to prepare her brisket for Shabbat dinner [poor excuse Prof.!!]. I felt so sick I could hardly stand. That night, I livestreamed Shabbat services [!!!!!] while holding the four Misoprostol pills in the four corners of my mouth, waiting for them to disintegrate. I bled all night.
A week after the bleeding stopped I went to the mikveh, the Jewish ritual bath, with ImmerseNYC, a liberal mikveh project [!!!!! even mikvahs are liberal these days] founded by [Hageona] Rabbi Sara Luria [with such a last name I can only imagine what Tzadikim she is descended from]. I did an adapted version of a post-abortion ritual written by Rabbi Tamar Duvdevani [note that every rabbi she mentions is female. Are there any male reform rabbis left??] I listened to Debbie Friedman’s “Sow In Tears, Reap In Joy” on repeat the entire way there and the entire way home. I felt weak and I felt strong.
I chose life when I left Literary Artistry of the Bible [before the weekly Chaburah in Ktzos Hachoshen] early on a Thursday afternoon to walk the few short blocks from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion’s New York campus to the Margaret Sanger Planned Parenthood on Bleecker Street. ["Planned Parenthood" is really a cover name for "killing babies to prevent parenthood"] I took the first pill in a quiet office, sitting across from a doctor who looked just like me. The next morning, my Medieval Jewish History class took a field trip to the Met Cloisters. Our professor was late because she had to prepare her brisket for Shabbat dinner [poor excuse Prof.!!]. I felt so sick I could hardly stand. That night, I livestreamed Shabbat services [!!!!!] while holding the four Misoprostol pills in the four corners of my mouth, waiting for them to disintegrate. I bled all night.
A week after the bleeding stopped I went to the mikveh, the Jewish ritual bath, with ImmerseNYC, a liberal mikveh project [!!!!! even mikvahs are liberal these days] founded by [Hageona] Rabbi Sara Luria [with such a last name I can only imagine what Tzadikim she is descended from]. I did an adapted version of a post-abortion ritual written by Rabbi Tamar Duvdevani [note that every rabbi she mentions is female. Are there any male reform rabbis left??] I listened to Debbie Friedman’s “Sow In Tears, Reap In Joy” on repeat the entire way there and the entire way home. I felt weak and I felt strong.
"Post-abortion ritual written by Rabbi Tamar Duvdevani". So abortion has become for the progressives a religious act deserving of a type of "bracha acharona"!!! WOW!!!
The next morning, our class took a field trip to that same mikveh. I asked five of my classmates, now colleagues, to come early. They were pretty much my only friends in New York at the time and some of the only people that I had told about my abortion. We stood on the corner of 74th and West End Avenue on a windy morning with a challah that I had baked and a little bit of honey and finished the ritual together. We dipped the challah in the honey, a symbol of sweeter times ahead. I cried. We stood in a circle and they wrapped their arms around me. “Hazorim b’dimah b’rinah yiktzoru,” I repeated, “those who sow in tears will reap in joy.”
I have toiveled in that mikva but not after I crushed my unborn baby to death.
The next morning, our class took a field trip to that same mikveh. I asked five of my classmates, now colleagues, to come early. They were pretty much my only friends in New York at the time and some of the only people that I had told about my abortion. We stood on the corner of 74th and West End Avenue on a windy morning with a challah that I had baked and a little bit of honey and finished the ritual together. We dipped the challah in the honey, a symbol of sweeter times ahead. I cried. We stood in a circle and they wrapped their arms around me. “Hazorim b’dimah b’rinah yiktzoru,” I repeated, “those who sow in tears will reap in joy.”
I have toiveled in that mikva but not after I crushed my unborn baby to death.
You may have noticed that my abortion story is very Jewish. Everything from the timing of the accidental conception to the decision and procedure itself was brimming with my Jewish practice, learning and living. It is impossible to extricate my Judaism from my abortion.
So JEWISH!!! Maybe feeling a little healthy Jewish guilt?? So she makes it all Jewish. Like homosexual couples who have chuppahs and ksubas as if what they are doing is a legitimate Jewish act. Pretty sick.
And yet you might also assume that my abortion would not have been Jewishly “okay,” permissible under halacha, or Jewish law, because I simply did not want to be pregnant – because mine is the kind of abortion that anti-choicers most disdain. The standard Jewish line on abortion is that Judaism traditionally permits abortion when the pregnancy endangers the life of the mother. This derives from Mishnah Ohalot 7:6, which states that “[for] a woman who is having a hard labor – makshah leiled – they cut up the fetus in her womb and remove it limb by limb, mipnei shechayeiha kodmin l’chayyav, because her life comes before its life.” Chayeiha kodmin l’chayyav, her life comes before that of the fetus.
What does it mean that the life of the pregnant person comes before that of the fetus? Over the centuries, various rabbinic authorities have offered their answers. It means that her physical needs and pain levels are prioritized over the birthing of the child (Rabbis Josef Trani - his name is actually Rabbi Josef Mitrani but since she has never heard of him before he wouldn't know that - and Jacob Emden). It means that her mental health is prioritized over the birthing of the child (Rabbi Mordecai Winkler). It means that her dignity and her honor are prioritized over the birthing of the child (Rabbi Ben-Zion Ouziel). It means that the primary consideration in the Jewish question of abortion is the needs of the person giving birth, their life, their health and their dignity.
And yet you might also assume that my abortion would not have been Jewishly “okay,” permissible under halacha, or Jewish law, because I simply did not want to be pregnant – because mine is the kind of abortion that anti-choicers most disdain. The standard Jewish line on abortion is that Judaism traditionally permits abortion when the pregnancy endangers the life of the mother. This derives from Mishnah Ohalot 7:6, which states that “[for] a woman who is having a hard labor – makshah leiled – they cut up the fetus in her womb and remove it limb by limb, mipnei shechayeiha kodmin l’chayyav, because her life comes before its life.” Chayeiha kodmin l’chayyav, her life comes before that of the fetus.
What does it mean that the life of the pregnant person comes before that of the fetus? Over the centuries, various rabbinic authorities have offered their answers. It means that her physical needs and pain levels are prioritized over the birthing of the child (Rabbis Josef Trani - his name is actually Rabbi Josef Mitrani but since she has never heard of him before he wouldn't know that - and Jacob Emden). It means that her mental health is prioritized over the birthing of the child (Rabbi Mordecai Winkler). It means that her dignity and her honor are prioritized over the birthing of the child (Rabbi Ben-Zion Ouziel). It means that the primary consideration in the Jewish question of abortion is the needs of the person giving birth, their life, their health and their dignity.
In other words - Judaism says that the mother can do whatever she wants. INCREDIBLE how much one can distort halacha and Torah. Her aveirah has been transformed by her into a mitzva.
The Torah was here before Leftist progressive politics and will remain long after it is swept away in the dustbins of history.
May Hashem show her and the millions of Jews like her the light of Torah and may they understand the importance of subservience to Hashem and not to one's own desires and comfort.
