Water Wears Away Stone: Caring for Those We Can Only Imagine

Abstract:In this autoethnographic essay, I explore the confluence of my experience with early infertility and my scholarly work in both Jewish studies and feminist thought. I argue that, while feminist theorists' efforts to emphasize the political importance of "care work" and particular caregiving relationships contribute significantly to the field, they also risk ignoring some of the disorderly, unpredictable and painful ways that this "situatedness" can arise. In the context of rabbinic texts that make having children a prerequisite for holding positions of leadership within rabbinic society, and particularly those that describe "the pain of raising children" as the reason for this requirement, I consider how my own experience both matches up with and diverges from these descriptions, and from the experiences of caregiving described by feminist philosophers.