Recently, I\u2019ve had numerous encounters with middle-aged women. This isn\u2019t strange. I\u2019m talking to women who are a lot like me: dealing with school-aged kids, piano lessons, finding childcare, etc. What\u2019s remarkable is that the same conversation pops up \u2013 about work.<\/p>\n
One friend, an author and artist, said that she does the math every time she\u2019s invited to do a workshop or a special event. Will the cost of travel, supplies and teaching preparation be worth the return? She\u2019s often told, \u201cWell, we can\u2019t afford to pay you to teach\u201d but, when she shows up for the single event she agreed to do for payment, what happens? People surround her, saying, \u201cWell, if we\u2019d only known you were coming, we would have paid for you to do a multi-day workshop!\u201d<\/p>\n
Another woman explained that she is only now, after years of staying at home, getting back to very part-time work in her field. Why? The cost of childcare would have canceled out anything she would have earned with part-time work.<\/p>\n
Among women who juggle a full-time job with conventional hours, there\u2019s an acknowledgement that it\u2019s extremely hard to manage. In some cases, their partners step up to do the childrearing and run the household. In others, there are moms who are obligated to work full-time, be \u201con call\u201d as the primary caretaker and either do, or hire someone to do, all the household chores. For many, this works because everyone\u2019s healthy and they have support from extended family. In case of illness or lack of family support? Forget it. Of course, since these women do manage it, anyone who struggles is seen as \u201cnot as capable\u201d as a woman who \u201chas it all.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is a big topic, and it\u2019s also (surprise!) a Jewish topic. We\u2019ve been wrestling with it forever. In Exodus, the Israelites flee Egypt and slavery. Yet, in Exodus 14:12, the Israelites are afraid and they actually suggest to Moses that it would be better to return to Egypt and slavery (work without being paid) than to die in the wilderness. Lacking faith, they struggle with how they will be fed, and manna appears for them.<\/p>\n
The first question is, what is the value of our work? For the Israelites, they were willing to live for nothing more than food and housing, as Egyptian slaves, rather than cope with being tossed out into the unknown. They didn\u2019t value their work, and perhaps didn\u2019t have the confidence that things could be different. Yet, when they take that risk, miraculously, their basic needs are met.<\/p>\n
There are no guarantees. We can offer up our work for free \u2013 in whatever professional fields we\u2019re qualified to do so \u2013 but there\u2019s no surety that, at the end, we\u2019ll have any offer of full-time, paying work. I see women doing this all around me. There\u2019s an expectation that you\u2019ll volunteer to offer your presentation, and you\u2019ll also tack on free teaching, writing, editing, professional-level creative work or even childcare for others\u2019 children. (Yes, I\u2019ve been asked to do all these things for free.)<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the second question. Is the Israelites\u2019 manna in the desert the ancient equivalent of the \u201cguaranteed minimum income\u201d or \u201cbasic income\u201d concept? At what point in modern society do we decide that everyone should get enough to eat? When is it acceptable to say, \u201cEveryone should have a warm place to live, no matter what you earn or your special needs or other health challenges\u201d?<\/p>\n
In the Talmud, in Berachot 17a, the sages of Yavneh say that we are all G-d\u2019s creatures, those who learn Torah in the city and those who labour in the fields. That both kinds of people rise early. Neither one is superior. Their work has equal merit as long as they \u201cdirect his heart towards Heaven.\u201d This includes the idea that the labourer doesn\u2019t presume to do the Torah scholar\u2019s work and the scholar doesn\u2019t presume to do the labourer\u2019s. In this gendered ancient world, this leaves out women. Then Rav Hiyya acknowledges that women are offered \u201cease and confidence\u201d because they do an enormous amount to sustain Jewish learning through raising their kids Jewishly and supporting their husbands who study Mishnah.<\/p>\n
So, even in talmudic times, work was valuable and considered important, no matter what you did. Further, a woman who is doing \u201ctraditional\u201d things like taking care of her children\u2019s education or her husband is owed \u201cease and confidence\u201d for her efforts.<\/p>\n
Our work has meaning. It has important economic and social value. However, sometimes, when we compare our resum\u00e9s, we feel lacking; certainly if we are being asked to do work for free. It turns out that we shouldn\u2019t be expected to work for free, because our work, no matter what it is, is equivalent and necessary.<\/p>\n
A more modern reminder: Martin Luther King, Jr., preached that all work is crucial and deserves fair pay. He supported the Memphis Sanitation Workers\u2019 strike. To be healthy, we need trash collection. Garbage collectors matter.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also no such thing as being out of the workforce. That dinner you cooked, the snow shoveled, the cleaning you did to keep someone healthy, the child you kept safe \u2013 according to the rabbis, if you do your work with the right intention, it\u2019s all equally important.<\/p>\n
I was recently invited by a favourite undergrad professor of mine to submit a short bio for the Cornell University Near Eastern studies department\u2019s alumni page. I read some previous ones \u2013 doctors, rabbis, professors and others \u2013 and felt out of my league. Then I talked about it with my husband and thought about it. Being asked to share my work experience on that forum means, like the rabbis\u2019 view of work, mine is valuable too \u2013 and so is yours.<\/p>\n
Joanne Seiff <\/strong>has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including <\/em>From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner<\/a> or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Recently, I\u2019ve had numerous encounters with middle-aged women. This isn\u2019t strange. I\u2019m talking to women who are a lot like me: dealing with school-aged kids, piano lessons, finding childcare, etc. What\u2019s remarkable is that the same conversation pops up \u2013 about work. One friend, an author and artist, said that she does the math every […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[218,8302,2172,3021,9647],"class_list":["post-34172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-op-ed","tag-judaism","tag-lifestyle","tag-torah","tag-women","tag-work"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34172\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}