By Keiko Zoll, (From Hannah Wept, Sarah Laughed, June 18, 2011)
Today’s post is in conjunction with the Blog-A-Licious Blog Tour: a fantastic blog hop that brings together bloggers of all genres, backgrounds and locations. In today’s hop, the blog featured before mine is Karen’s But I Digress. The blog featured after me is the captivating Catherine at Idea City. Do stop by and say hello plus some of us are having giveaways and contests. Enjoy!
For this Blog Tour, we were asked to write about the book that inspires us the most. I’m glad I’ve gotten the prompt to write about a book that has meant so much to me over the years and has in many ways, shaped the way I view myself as Jewish Woman (yes, with capital J and capital W).
Every woman shou
ld read Anita Diamant’s The Red Tent
. I have often called it Required Reading for Every Woman because it is a remarkable, gorgeous, sensuous work of historical fiction that celebrates both the darkest and most glorious parts of what it means to be Woman.Seriously? Go read it this weekend.
Very briefly, because I don’t want this to feel like a book report – The Red Tent
unearths the story of Dinah from the dusts of the Torah, a Biblical figure who receives little more than passing mention in Genesis 34. Jacob is known as one of the great Patriarchs of Judaism with two Matriarchs at his side, Rachel and Leah, and a whole host of a dozen sons who became the Twelve Tribes of Israel. But among his boyish brood exists a lone daughter: Dinah. Her story is often known as “The Rape of Dinah” as a prince of Shechem “defiles” her, and Dinah’s brothers Levi and Simeon avenge her rape by massacring the city of Shechem, leaving no survivors.
And with that, Dinah fades back into the dust of the Torah, never to be mentioned again. This is where Diamant picks up, fleshing out the story of Dinah’s youth and relationship to her four mothers: Rachel, Leah, and Jacob’s concubines Zilpah and Bilhah, as well has her grandmother, Rebecca. She weaves the tale of Dinah falling in love with the Prince of Shechem and that her brothers’ crusade was bent on murderous rage. After the massacre, she flees to Egypt where she gives birth to a son and becomes an devoted and talented midwife.
refers to something we talk about a lot in the infertility community: our menstrual cycles. As happens in many confined living arrangements, the women would often cycle together, in a phenomenon known as menstrual synchrony or the McClintock effect. Ancient tribes of women would gather in a menstrual tent or hut during their blood cycle, often cycling with the moon. Dinah learns of her rich heritage, not just as a third generation of monotheistic Jews, but as a Woman in her place in a Long Line of Women Before Her.
As I’ve said before, we shouldn’t be ashamed or grossed out by our periods, because our menstrual cycles are a vital indicator of women’s health. The Red Tent
reminds us of this and inspires us to be mindful of the miracle and wonder of our own human forms.
You may have also read posts where I speak of the Red Tent Temple, the women’s group I go to every month. The Red Tent Temple movement was born out of Diamant’s novel by ALisa Starkweather, a Wise Woman and Women’s Empowerment Practitioner. I’m also so pleased to know filmmaker Isadora Leidenfrost who is making a documentary of the Red Tent Temple Movement: Things We Don’t Talk About. This one-hour film is slated to be released next year. I have eagerly been awaiting the trailer; hopefully I’ve made the cut from hundreds of hours of footage that Isadora shot herself at Red Tent Temples all over the country. She’s also looking for some more financial support to stay on track with her production and release schedule, so if you know of women-empowered businesses or organizations who’d be willing to help out an empowered woman filmmaker, please head over to her site and drop her a line.
The Red Tent in its modern iteration has become a place of community wisdom and social healing, a sisterhood of empowerment. In reading The Red Tent
and participating in the Red Tent Temple in my own community, I’ve realized that their is indeed power to be had in gathered groups of women. We need more dialogue circles like this, more Red Tents, to share our collective womanhood experiences; there is so much we can learn from one another as women when given the opportunity.