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By Steve Israel

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CHAPTER FIVE:Those Who don’t Fit the Model: Family Situations and Status in Judaism and the Jewish World

C: EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES

21. Merry Widows?
(An hour and a half to two hours)

• Open this session with a whip-round to collect spontaneous associations with widows and widowers.
• Now bring in the following four excerpts from the Tanach about the situation of widows in the Israelite Biblical community.
• After reading them to and with the group:
  • Ask what they suggest about the situation of the widow.
  • Explain that there are no parallel passages for widowers in the Bible. Ask why this might be; go on to explain the reasons if they are not brought.

  You shall not mistreat a stranger nor oppress him because you were strangers in Egypt. You shall not take advantage of a widow or an orphan. If you do and they cry out to Me, I will certainly hear their cry. My anger will be aroused and I will kill you with the sword: your wives will become widows and your children fatherless.
  Shemot 22:20-23

  A father of the fatherless and a judge of widows is G-d in His holy habitation.
  Psalm 68:6

  Do not deprive the alien or the fatherless of justice or take the cloak of the widow as a pledge… When you are harvesting in your field and overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the alien, the fatherless and the widow… When you beat the olives from your trees, do not go over the branches a second time. Leave what remains for the alien, the fatherless and the widow. When you harvest in the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the alien, the fatherless and the widow.
  Devarim 24:17-21

  The word of the Lord came to [Elijah]. “Go at once to Zarephat … and stay there. I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food.” So he went to Zarephat. When he came to the town gate, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and asked “Would you bring me a little water in a jar so that I may drink? … And bring me, please, a piece of bread.”
  “As surely as the Lord your G-d lives”, she replied, “I don’t have any bread – only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it [before] we die.”
  I Kings 17:8-12

• Explain that Judaism encourages widows and widowers to remarry.
  • Explore how the mechanism in the Halachah about the time of remarrying subtly encourages thoughts of remarriage.
  • Discuss whether the push towards remarriage is a good thing.
  • Are there pros and cons?
• Invite one or more older widows or widowers from the community to come and talk about their situation. (Do not bring in people who have recently lost their spouse, but those who have been of this status for several years.)
• Ask whether they feel that the Jewish community “counts” them in and takes pains to include them.
• The group now draws up a detailed proposal for a Jewish community campaign to attract more involvement of widows and widowers.
• Firstly, the group should suggest reasons why more widows and widowers are not actively involved in the community.
• Following this, they should try and analyse the needs of this group that the Jewish community could conceivably meet, or at least begin to address.
• Finally, a series of activities should be planned, possibly with an advertising campaign aimed at bringing widowed people into the community.