A Kaleidoscope of Liliths: The World\u27s First Woman and Her Dance with Tradition

This paper examines the process by which tradition is reappropriated and transformed to gain new relevance and meaning for contemporary practitioners. Tracing the figure of Lilith from her demonic Babylonian origins to her present-day role as feminist role model, I argue that the production of contemporary feminist midrashim on Lilith functions as a ritual process whereby Jewish women are able to produce new models of womanhood and relationship. Catherine Bell sees ritual as a mediating process in which two opposing constructs are reconciled or integrated. An examination of the Lilith midrashim reveals that they mediate between three major dichotomies: the communal and the individual, tradition and change, and communitas and a formalized social order. As part of a ritual process, these contemporary midrashim gain the power to negotiate authority, selfhood, and societal norms. While the exegesis of individual midrashim yields fascinating results, the midrashim must be read as a whole in order to fully grasp how Lilith has been reenvisioned as a deeply human woman. In their reclamation of Lilith, contemporary Jewish women are recognizing her bold and powerful attributes as positive. Lilith has become a figure with whom modern women identify, and her reappropriation through these midrashim allows women to truly transform the symbols governing their conceptions of womanhood and relationship, and renegotiate their place within the Jewish tradition