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Women Wearing Tefillin and Tallit and holding Services – what does Jewish law say?

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Women Wearing Tefillin and Tallit and holding Services – what does Jewish law say?

Can a woman wear Tallit? – Yes

Can a woman wear Tefillin? – Yes

Can women read the Torah scroll, have an Aliyah to the Torah and lead Prayer? – Yes

These are the short answers.   The longer answers are somewhat more complicated:

An anonymous statement in the Mishna (Kiddushin 1:7) supports much of the argument people use to distance women from mitzvot.

“All obligations of the son upon the father, men are obligated, but women are exempt.*   But all obligations of the father upon the son, both men and women are obligated. **  All positive, time-bound commandments, men are obligated and women are exempt.   But all positive non-time-bound commandments both men and women are obligated. And all negative commandments, whether time-bound or not time-bound, both men and women are obligated, except for, the prohibition against rounding [the corners of the head], and the prohibition against marring [the corner of the beard], and the prohibition [for a priest] to become impure through contact with the dead.”

*(brit milah/Pidyon haben etc)

**respecting parents etc

This has been described by Shimon bar Yochai as the principle “ Women are exempt from all positive(active) time-bound/based mitzvot –  Mitzvot Asset She’hazman Grama” (Sifrei Bemidbar 115 and Mechilta)

The Talmud however is littered with exceptions to this “principle” – women are obliged to many positive and time bound mitzvot – eating matza/drinking 4 cups at seder: Megillah reading; Chanukah candles; Kiddush and other shabbat mitzvot, niddah, Yom Kippur fasting, amidah, Birkat Hamazon etc etc

What becomes very clear the more one examines the literature is that the statement in the mishnah is not “prescriptive” but “descriptive” i.e. it is what they see happening; Also that the reason why women were not always performing the mitzvot was because they had a subordinate role in the household and the ritual of mitzvot was subject to status (think of the frequent phrase “women, slaves and minors” – i.e. the people with the lower social status in the household).

The second thing to notice is that exemption does not mean one is not allowed to do something, only that the person is not obligated to do it.  So mitzvot such as tallit and tefillin, which are arguably positive and time bound mitzvot are seen as performed as an obligation by the higher status individuals (free men) and there is no reason why women cannot do them.

We also see that women are given roles in important mitzvot – taking the challah, preparing matzot, Shabbat observance for the household which had implications for the men’s observance. etc – There is no doubt that the rabbis knew the women were capable of being responsible for important mitzvot – they were operating on a world view about social status, not about ability to be responsible.

By the medieval period, the “principle” which was not a principle had become hardened in the minds of many, and the rabbis turned to explaining it: they had to look after their husband’s needs, for example, and that might conflict with the needs of the mitzvah (and by implication God). Or women were “separate but equal” with different responsibilities that would get in the way of such an obligation. Or women are innately much holier than men and therefore do not need to be obligated because their souls will reach heaven anyway. (One dissenting voice suggests that women’s souls may not arrive in the afterlife precisely because they have not done so many mitzvot, but concludes that they achieve the afterlife because they helped their husbands to do them)

And always there is the subject of the domestic domain of women – they will either be doing the housework or holding the baby (or both at the same time), and therefore to also have the burden of the obligatory mitzvot would be unfair.

The responsa from the medieval period onwards mostly assume that the exemption to some obligations given to women implies the mitzvot are forbidden (or “it is preferable women do not do this”) and many women have sadly accepted this as the true state of Jewish law. In part because Torah study (another realm of the “high status male”) has been closed to women generally (with notable exceptions) until modern times.  The “proof text” for women not learning Torah is found from Deuteronomy 11:19 where the phrase “your sons” “v’limadechem otam et bneichem” is narrowly understood to mean ONLY “your sons” even though the next use of the word two verses later is understood to mean, as it normatively does, “your children” – an extraordinary distortion of a text in order to support a questionable premise, albeit the distortion is done by R.Yose ben Akiva whose mother Rachel sacrificed her married life in order for his father Akiva to be able to learn and about whom Akiva told his students “My torah and  your torah are hers” because of this. (maybe Yose thought that all women should work themselves to the bone for their husbands to study torah  – a warning to all mothers of sons J )

Most frequent objections heard today:

  • “It is not (our) tradition”
  • “Tefillin and Tallit are time bound mitzvot from which women are exempted”
  • “These are men’s garments and it says in the bible (Deuteronomy 22:5)
 לֹא־יִֽהְיֶ֤ה כְלִי־גֶ֨בֶר֙ עַל־אִשָּׁ֔ה וְלֹֽא־יִלְבַּ֥שׁ גֶּ֖בֶר שִׂמְלַ֣ת אִשָּׁ֑ה כִּ֧י תֽוֹעֲבַ֛ת יְהוָֹ֥ה אֱלֹהֶי֖ךָ כָּל־עֹ֥שֵׂה אֵֽלֶּה:

A woman shall not wear that which pertains to a man; neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment; for whosoever does these things is an abomination to the Eternal your God.

(They are not  “clothing”, even if the four cornered shawl that would attract the obligation of tzitzit may once have been used by both men and women to cover themselves)

  • “Women are showing off or trying to assert something about their power”
  • “Women are showing excessive piety which is not a good thing”
  • Tallit and Tefillin are sacred items which should be given proper respect
  • Women might be doing things that are improper while wearing them – e.g. changing a dirty nappy…. Or may not be alert to hygiene (guf naki)
  • Wearing Tzitzit / Tallit refers to the obligation and adherence to the mitzvot, many of which women are exempt from.
  • Wearing Tefillin refers to the obligation to study – women generally do not study and “therefore” should not wear Tefillin.

Women have always been obligated for almost all the positive mitzvot and all the negative ones except the ones that refer to the male body (e.g. beards) or priesthood. Women are obligated to pray daily (though there is debate about what constitutes prayer) and the objections to women praying together with a woman leading prayer for women rest on even shakier ground than the objections to women accepting upon themselves ritual mitzvot.  The Talmud records that women can have an Aliya to the torah/read from the Torah, and the only obstacle is “the dignity” of the community – i.e. people might think a woman is doing it because the men cannot.

Why have women historically fallen away from their role in public community? A mixture of social mores and misogyny explains much of it.  Society today (mostly) accepts women are not of a lower social status than men de facto, and also women are seen much more in the professions and in the public space, albeit this is still a battle for full equality to be finally won.

Misogyny (albeit dressed in different language) is no longer the acceptable defence it was – although some of the modern diatribes about women’s unholy pride/ aggressive feminism/ asserting themselves/ lack of modesty retain the same emotional base as the earlier responsa that explicitly remind women to be subordinate to their men.

That women come to pray together at the Kotel should never have been an issue for those who know the sources. That women come wearing tallit and tefillin is also not problematic for the Halacha.

There is no reason why women should not do all these things – particularly in the separate and divided public space at the Kotel, and there is every reason why they should be given respect and space to fulfil the mitzvot they have taken upon themselves.

Blu Greenberg wrote many years ago that “where there is a rabbinic will there is a halachic way”. In truth there is already a halachic way, now we need the rabbis to have the will to acknowledge it and to teach it.

Donne che indossano Tefillin e Tallit e tengono funzioni – cosa dice la legge ebraica?

Può una donna indossare il Tallit? Sì

Può una donna indossare i Tefillin? Sì

Può una donna leggere dal rotolo della Torà, salire a Sefer e condurre la preghiera? Sì

Queste sono risposte brevi. Le risposte più lunghe sono in qualche modo più complicate:

Un’affermazione anonima nella Mishnà (Kiddushin 1:7) supporta molte delle argomentazioni che vengono usate per tenere a distanza le donne dalle Mitzvot.

“In merito a tutti gli obblighi del padre verso il figlio, gli uomini sono tenuti, ma le donne sono esentate. * Ma in merito a tutti gli obblighi del figlio verso il padre, sia gli uomini che le donne sono tenute. ** In merito a tutti i comandamenti positivi, legati a un tempo specifico, gli uomini sono tenuti e le donne sono esentate. Ma in merito a tutti i comandamenti positivi senza limiti di tempo, sia gli uomini che le donne sono tenuti. E in merito a tutti i comandamenti negativi, siano essi legati o meno a un tempo specifico, sia gli uomini che le donne sono tenuti, tranne che per il divieto di arrotondare [gli angoli della testa] e il divieto di rovinare [l’angolo della barba], e il divieto [per un sacerdote] di diventare impuro attraverso il contatto con i morti.”

*Circoncisione, riscatto del primogenito etc…  ** Rispettare i genitori etc…

Questo è stato descritto da Shimon bar Yochai come il principio: “Le donne sono esentate dalle mitzvot positive (attive) legate ad un tempo specifico” – Mitzvot Asset She’hazman Grama (Sifrei Bemidbar 115 and Mechiltà)

Il Talmud è comunque disseminato di eccezioni a questo “principio” – le donne sono tenute a molte mitzvot positive legate a un tempo specifico – mangiare la matzà e bere le 4 coppe al seder, leggere la Meghillà, accendere le candele di Chanukà, fare Kiddush e altre mitzvot dello Shabbat, la niddà, digiunare a Yom Kippur, recitare l’Amidà, fare la Birkat Hamazon etc…

Quello che diviene chiaro, più uno esamina la letteratura rabbinica, è che l’affermazione nella Mishnà è descrittiva più che prescrittiva. E’ quello che vedevano accadere;  inoltre la ragione per cui non sempre le donne compivano le mitzvot è perché avevano un ruolo subordinato nella vita domestica e il rituale delle mitzvot era soggetto allo status (pensate alla frase frequente “le donne, gli schiavi e i minori” – persone con uno status sociale inferiore nella vita domestica).

La seconda cosa che si deve notare è che esenzione non significa che a una persona non sia consentito di fare qualcosa, ma solo che una persona non è obbligata a farlo. Quindi mitzvot come Tallit e Tefillin, che sono mitzvot positive discutibilmente legate a un tempo specifico, sono viste come eseguite come obbligo dalle persone con status più alto (gli uomini liberi) ma non c’è ragione perché le donne non possano farle.

I responsa dal periodo medioevale in poi assumono, per la maggior parte, che l’esenzione ad alcune mitzvot data alle donne implichi che le mitzvot siano proibite (o “è preferibile che le donne non le facciano”) e molte donne lo hanno, tristemente, accettato come il vero stato della legge ebraica. In parte perché lo studio della Torà (altro regno del maschio di alto rango) è stato chiuso in generale alle donne (con alcune notevoli eccezioni) fino ai tempi moderni. Il testo che “proverebbe” che le donne non devono studiare Torà si trova in Deuteronomio 11:19 dove l’espressione “i tuoi figli” “v’limadechem otam et bneichem” è compresa in modo restrittivo a significare SOLO “i tuoi figli (maschi)”, anche se l’uso successivo della stessa espressione, due versetti dopo, è compreso significare, come normalmente avviene,  “i tuoi figli (maschi e femmine) – una straordinaria distorsione di un testo, in modo da supportare una premessa discutibile; sebbene la distorsione sia fatta da R. Yosè ben Akivà la cui madre Rachel ha sacrificato la sua vita matrimoniale per permettere a suo padre Akivà di poter studiare e di cui Akivà diceva ai suoi studenti: “la mia Torà e la vostra Torà è sua (intendendo della moglie) a causa di questo”. (Forse Yosè pensava che tutte le donne dovessero impegnarsi fino all’osso affinché i loro mariti studiassero Torà – un avvertimento per tutte le madri di figli maschi).

Le obiezioni che si sentono oggi più di frequente:

  • Non è la (nostra) tradizione
  • Tefillin e Tallit sono mitzvot legate al tempo da cui le donne sono esentate
  • Sono indumenti maschili ed è detto nella Bibbia

לֹא־יִֽהְיֶ֤ה כְלִי־גֶ֨בֶר֙ עַל־אִשָּׁ֔ה וְלֹֽא־יִלְבַּ֥שׁ גֶּ֖בֶר שִׂמְלַ֣ת אִשָּׁ֑ה כִּ֧י תֽוֹעֲבַ֛ת יְהוָֹ֥ה אֱלֹהֶי֖ךָ כָּל־עֹ֥שֵׂה אֵֽלֶּה

Una donna non deve indossare ciò che appartiene a un uomo, nemmeno un uomo deve indossare indumenti da donna, perché chiunque commette queste cose è un abominio per l’Eterno tuo Dio.

(Tallit e Tefillin non sono capi di abbigliamento, anche se lo scialle coi quattro angoli che doveva richiamare l’obbligo degli tzitzit poteva essere usato in passato sia dagli uomini che dalle donne per coprirsi).

  • Le donne si mettono in mostra o cercano di affermare qualcosa a proposito del loro potere
  • Le donne mostrano un’eccessiva devozione che non è una buona cosa
  • Tallit e Tefillin sono oggetti sacri a cui deve essere dato adeguato rispetto
  • Le donne potrebbero fare qualcosa di inappropriato indossandoli, come cambiare un pannolino sporco … o potrebbero non essere attente all’igiene (guf naki)
  • Indossare Tallit e Tefillin fa riferimento all’obbligo e all’adesione alle mitzvot, da molte delle quali le donne sono esentate
  • Indossare i Tefillin fa riferimento all’obbligo allo studio, generalmente le donne non studiano e quindi non dovrebbero indossare i Tefillin

Le donne sono sempre state obbligate a quasi tutte le mitzvot positive e a tutte quelle negative, con l’eccezione di quelle che si riferiscono al corpo maschile (la barba) o al sacerdozio. Le donne sono obbligate a pregare quotidianamente (sebbene ci sia un dibattito su cosa costituisca la preghiera) e le obiezioni al fatto che le donne preghino assieme con una donna che conduce la preghiera per altre donne poggia su un terreno ancora più instabile rispetto all’obiezione a che le donne accettino su di sé mitzvot rituali. Il Talmud registra che le donne possono avere una salita a sefer o leggere dalla Torà, e che l’unico ostacolo sia “l’onore del pubblico” – la dignità della comunità – ad esempio che si pensi che lo fa una donna perché gli uomini non sono capaci.

Perché storicamente le donne sono decadute dal loro ruolo pubblico nelle comunità? Un misto di usanze sociali e misoginia spiega molto di tutto ciò. La società oggi, nella maggior parte dei casi) riconosce che le donne non sono de facto di uno status sociale inferiore a quello degli uomini, e le donne sono anche più visibili nelle professioni e nello spazio pubblico, sebbene la battaglia per una piena parità sia ancora da vincere pienamente.

La misoginia (sebbene travestita in un linguaggio differente) non è più la difesa accettabile che era – anche se alcune delle diatribe odierne a proposito dell’empio orgoglio delle donne, del femminismo aggressivo, dell’autodeterminazione, della mancanza di modestia, conservano lo stesso fondamento emotivo dei precedenti responsa che volevano le donne esplicitamente sottomesse ai loro uomini.

Che le donne vadano a pregare assieme al Kotel non avrebbe mai dovuto essere un problema  per chi conosce le fonti. Che le donne indossino Tefillin e Tallit non è problematico per l’Halachà.

Non c’è ragione alcuna per cui le donne non possano fare tutte queste cose – particolarmente nello spazio pubblico separato al Kotel, e ci sono invece tutte le ragioni per cui si dovrebbe dare loro rispetto e spazio per adempiere alle mitzvot che hanno preso su di loro.

Blu Greenberg ha scritto molti anni fa che “dove c’è volontà rabbinica, c’è un modo nella Halachà”. In verità c’è già un modo nell’Halachà, ora abbiamo bisogno che i rabbini abbiano la volontà di riconoscerlo e di insegnarlo.

Traduzione dall’inglese di Martina Yehudit Loreggian

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tu b’Av: an especially joyful festival to be reclaimed

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The three weeks that lead from the 17th Tammuz (breaching of the walls of Jerusalem)  to the 9th of Av (Tisha b’Av) are traditionally a period of mourning, known as bein hametzarim – in the narrow straits. So it is all the more surprising that just one week after Tisha b’Av comes an especially joyful festival – the full moon of Av brings us Tu b’Av – when we are told:

Rabban Simeon ben Gamliel said: Never were there any more joyous festivals in Israel than the 15th of Av and the Day of Atonement, for on them the maidens of Jerusalem used to go out dressed in white garments – borrowed ones, however, in order not to cause shame to those who had none of their own. These clothes were also to be previously immersed, and thus the maidens went out and danced in the vineyards, saying: Young men, look and observe well whom you are about to choose; (Mishnah Ta’anit 4:8)

The rabbis of the Gemara are perplexed – ““On the 15th of Av and on the Day of Atonement,” etc. It is right that the Day of Atonement should be a day of rejoicing, because that is a day of forgiveness, and on that day the 2nd tablets of the Law were given to Moses; but why should the 15th of Av be a day of rejoicing?”

And so begins a fascinating rabbinic journey into what is behind the celebration of the fifteenth (Tu) of’Av :

“ Said R. Yehudah in the name of Samuel: “On that day it was permitted to the members of the different tribes to intermarry.” Whence is this deduced? Because it is written [Num 36: 6]: “This is the thing which the Eternal has commanded concerning the daughters of Zelophehad,” they claim that “this is the thing” implies the decree was only for that generation, but for later generations the decree doesn’t apply.

  1. Joseph in the name of R. Nachman said: On that day the members of the tribe of Benjamin were permitted to intermarry with the other tribes, as it is written [Judges 21. 1]: “Now the men of Israel had sworn in Mizpah, saying: Not any one of us shall give his daughter unto Benjamin for wife.”

Rabba bar bar Hana said in the name of R. Johanan: On that day the last of those who were destined to die in the desert died, and the destiny was thus fulfilled;

Ulla said: “On that day the guards appointed by Jeroboam to prevent the Israelites from coming to Jerusalem were abolished by Hosea the son of Elah, and he said: ‘Let them go wherever they choose.'”

  1. Matnah said: “On that day permission was given to bury the dead who were killed in battle at the city of Beitar”

Rabba and R, Joseph both said: On that day they ceased to cut wood for the altar, as we have learned in a Baraita: R. Eliezer the Great said: “From the fifteenth day of Av the heat of the sun was lessened and the timber was no longer dry, so they ceased to cut wood for the altar.”

There is a golden rule in rabbinic exposition – the more explanations given for something, the less likely it is that anyone knows what the explanation actually is. Clearly a celebration on the 15th of Av, which coincided with the beginning of the grape harvest, is part of the custom and practise of the Jews by the time of the Talmud, but its origin is already lost in the mists of time.

Let’s look briefly at the Talmudic explanations before looking at the festival itself.

The story of the daughters of Zelophehad is told in the book of Numbers- a rare piece of case law in that book and a powerful piece of text about women confronting Moses in order to attain fairness under the law. Zelophehad is dead, he had 5 daughters and no sons, and according to the rules of inheritance at that time, the girls would be left without anything. They approach Moses and argue their case, including the fact that their father will be forgotten in his tribe. Moses has to ask God about the merits of the case, and God tells him that the case of these daughters is valid; they should indeed inherit from their father. Later a problem arises, the leaders of the tribe of Manasseh – which the family of Zelophehad belong to – also bring a petition to Moses. Should daughters inherit when there is no son, and then marry into another tribe, the inheritance and land that would normally stay within the tribe will be given to the tribe that the woman marries into.

So the law is amended – such women who inherit land from their fathers must marry only within their own tribe – a limiting phenomenon that itself causes problems. So Rabbi Yehuda quotes Samuel by saying that tribes may now intermarry freely – and the date of this decision was the fifteenth of Av on the last year before the Israelites entered the Land of Israel.

The second explanation in the gemara is from a much darker story found at the end of the book of Judges, where a woman staying overnight in the territory of the tribe of Benjamin, was gang raped until she died. The other tribes went to war against the Benjaminites who would not give up the criminals for justice, and a ban was proclaimed which meant no one could marry into that tribe. This ban was eventually lifted on the fifteenth of Av. One assumes that this idea comes from the commonality of Tu b’Av to the statement in the Book of Judges ““And see, and, behold, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in dances, then come out of the vineyards, and let every man catch  his wife of the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin.” (21:21)

The third explanation – This comes from a midrash found in the Jerusalem Talmud amongst other texts, which say that the generation who were to die in the desert because of their connection to the sin of the Golden Calf expected to die on Tisha b’Av. This would cause a problem – if there were to be so many deaths on one day, then who would be able to dig the graves and bury the people? So Moses sent out a decree: On Tisha b’Av everyone must dig their own grave and sleep in it. Those who would die would die, and the survivors would simply have to fill in the graves with the bodies already in them. But many did not die who felt that they too were destined for this fate, and so they continued to sleep in the graves they had dug for themselves until they saw the full moon of Av and realised that Tisha b’Av was well and truly behind them. They would live!

The fourth explanation: King Jeroboam (c900BCE) had challenged Rehoboam the son of Solomon, because of his authoritarian rule, and took the ten Northern tribes with him to his capital Shechem. He built two temples as rivals to the one in Jerusalem (Bethel and Dan) and banned his people from going to worship in Jerusalem.  Fifty years later, the last King of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, rescinded the ban – on Tu b’Av – and the joy that ensued is encoded in the festival.

The fifth explanation also involves graves, in this case the ones slaughtered in the rebellion against Rome led by the false messiah Shimon bar Kochba in 135. The massacre of the Jews by the Romans was estimated by one Roman historian as being at least 580 thousand dead and many more taken captive into slavery in other parts of the empire. The majority of the Jewish population was exiled from the land and the land given a new name by the Romans – Syria Palestina – to try to sever the connection between the land and the Jews. Tisha b’Av saw the final destruction of Temple and hopes, and the fortress of Beitar was breached and its inhabitants murdered and left unburied. So Rav Matnah’s explanation for Tu b’Av is that 6 days after the tragedy (some stories say a year and six days), the Romans finally permitted the burial of the slaughtered Jews – on Tu b’Av.

After such dramatic explanations the final one in the list is more prosaic, but also most likely to be the case. Simply that the full moon of Av is around the summer equinox, the days are beginning to shorten and one might be less sure of enough dry weather for the wood cut down for the Temple sacrifices to be sufficiently prepared for its use, and any wood cut down later would be liable to smoke unpleasantly. This explanation is bolstered by the fact that we know of customs in the near East whereby the end of the season for cutting wood is marked by celebration including dancing and music.

So having established that Tu b’Av was being celebrated in Mishnaic times, that the young women would go out into the vines wearing white dresses they had borrowed so as not to be identified by their clothing, that they danced and sang and that clearly a shidduch market was in full swing on that date – the young men would chase them and choose their brides – the rabbinic tradition tried to explain the event using stories of rape, graves, massacre, orphaned women claiming economic rights and hence losing the right to marry outside of their tribe, civil war and rebellion against both internally among the Jewish people and also against an oppressive occupying power. One has to wonder why.

I am reminded of a recent “tweet” that asks why a prominent politician is tweeting terrible racism, and suggests that the deflection is to stop people paying attention to something worse – the statutory rape of underage girls.  Here the rabbinic tradition has a clear story of strong young single women in public space, helping each other with their clothing and “seductively” dancing and singing among the grape vines, with their symbolism of wine and wealth and fertility. So immediately there is a deflection – Beitar! Bnot Zelophehad! Possibly the darkest story in bible of a young concubine gang raped and murdered, whose fate was to be cut into twelve pieces each of which was sent to one of the tribes of Israel! Sin and death and lying in the grave! Rebellion and Massacre!

It seems to me that the Tannaim (the rabbis of the Mishnah, c50-200CE) were fine with the celebrations of Tu b’Av and the fact of young girls out on a summer evening enjoying their bodies, their strength and their music, but the Amoraim (the rabbis of the Gemara c200-500CE) were decidedly not. So Tu b’Av became a date more often ignored than celebrated. The single attention was liturgical – Tachanun (the penitential section of prayers of supplication and confession) are not said on Tu b’Av. Only since the modern State of Israel has been established has Tu b’Av been celebrated – it has become a kind of Jewish “Valentine’s Day”, a day for love, for weddings, for romance. The 19th century Haskalah poet Judah Leib Gordon wrote about its celebration in the newly planted vineyards and certainly for the more secular Israelis this is a Jewish festival to take to their hearts.

It’s worth noting the framing of the Mishnah where Tu b’Av is recorded. It is mentioned in the same breath as the most solemn day in the calendar – Yom Kippur, the Sabbath of Sabbaths, the white fast. On this day people traditionally wear kittels – the white shrouds they will be buried in. The day is a day of joy as well as penitence, because when we have truly repented, God will forgive us. We leave the day lightened by our activities and return more able to continue with living our lives.

There are real similarities between the two festivals, albeit one is a day out of time “as if dead” and the other a day of sensuous delight. Each reminds us of the importance of living our lives as fully and as well as we can. Each reminds us about living” in the now”, each helps us create our future selves.

So – let’s reclaim Tu b’Av, the full moon that follows three weeks of mourning,  that takes place 6 days after the blackest day in the calendar. Let’s remind ourselves that life must continue, joy must be part of our living, that relationships with others matter and that the future is ours to create

Shofetim: authority cannot be taken it must be given, so stop the bullies and stand up for diversity in the Jewish world and beyond

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“This parashah, more than any other in Deuteronomy, is concerned with what we would call authority: rightful action in a world full of wrongdoing; power that is right and not merely effective; rule by those who have a right to rule. A parade of authorities is delineated, starting with the word that opens the parashah and gives it its name—magistrates—and followed by officials, judges, priests, prophets, elders, kings, and, of course, the immediate and ultimate authors of the book who are the sources of its authority: Moses and God. We need authority desperately, the Torah teaches, because our very lives depend upon doing what is right—and that is difficult for us.” (Professor Arnold Eisen, chancellor, JTS. 2011)

I have been thinking about the whole idea of authority recently. Defined in dictionaries as being the ability to make decisions, to have power and control politically or administratively, to give orders and to enforce obedience, authority has a different meaning in Judaism – or at least it used to have.

Authority was always multifaceted – there were different groups who could wield only one part of the whole – the monarchy, the priesthood and the prophets all held authority, and in biblical times they kept each other in check.   The most dangerous of these was generally held to be the monarchy, God had not wanted the Jewish people to have a monarch at all, but acceded to the request in the book of Samuel after Samuel had warned the Israelites of how a king would exploit them if they insisted on having one but “Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, ‘No, but we will have a king over us; that we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles’. (I Sam. 8:11-21).. and so began the unhappy monarchy of King Saul.

In Judges 9:7-21 we have the mashal of Jotam, a story that is sometimes told on Tu B’Shevat and reads a bit like a fairy story, but is in reality a biting allegory against monarchy:
Jotham, the youngest son of Gideon is the only one left alive after his older brother Abimelech has murdered all the other brothers and anointed himself as king. He escapes to Mount Gerizim, near Shechem and recounts the story of “the trees who went forth to anoint a king over them.”

The trees first ask the olive tree to be their king, but it refuses. “Should I give up my oil which honours God and people, in order to have power over trees?” The trees then ask the fig, and then the vine, both of which turn down the offer of sovereignty over the trees because they are already producing good fruits which honour God and people and each tree repeats the idea that they cannot do the good work they already do in producing fruits/oils/wines which benefit society at the same time as holding the monarchy.

Finally the trees ask the Atad – a bramble or thorn bush – to be their monarch  and this plant which produces nothing and has nothing to offer society except some shade, agrees to reign – and at the same time it issues a threat: ‘If you really want to anoint me sovereign over you, come and take refuge in my shade; but if not, then let fire come out of the Atad and consume the cedars of Lebanon!’ (Judges 9:15).

The Atad is a thorny tree, its shade is patchy, it has a wide ranging root system which drains the water and nourishment from the soil around it. It produces no fruits and has no benefits whatsoever to anyone else, though it is well adapted to survival in difficult terrain.

The allegory is clear in its context – the good people either do not want to be sovereign because they are already contributing greatly to society and this would suffer, or they see no point in acquiring a pointless status. The thorny unpleasant and selfish person/plant not only accepts the power with alacrity, but begins its reign with bullying and threats in order to keep the power.  Abimelech is the thorn in the context of the parable, but we see so many who take over power undeservedly or with bullying in our own world.

Leaving aside the current world political situation where leaders who are Atadim are grabbing power and manipulating and bullying others, I was thinking of our own Jewish world, where the mansplaining, the power grabbing over women’s bodies and voices, the conferences on women’s health or activities which are led by men, the advertising or even news stories where pictures of women have been edited out or the women completely disappeared – these are the Atadim grabbing power they should not have, and certainly there needs to be other power bases who can challenge and contain them, as in the biblical model of the three separate strands of authority.

Who will challenge them? There is “Flatbush Girl” who photoshops pictures from the frum community, there is the hashtag #frumwomenhavefaces ; there are Women of the Wall at the Kotel and there is attorney Batya Kahana-Dror—who petitioned the high court and is currently vying for the position of Rabbinical Courts director, and these all do good work. But where are the voices from the rest of the Jewish world? Where are the people challenging the Israeli Government demanding equality for all the citizens, male and female, Jewish and non-Jewish, as the declaration of Independence proclaims. Where are those people who can promote and defend a halachic system that is multifaceted and diverse?

The problem is with the word “authority” which has come to mean a singular, all powerful monopoly that cannot be challenged and that does not need to explain itself.

This is a modern phenomenon. Heck, even I am older than it, I can still remember the norm of rabbis being independent thinkers, of different regions having different and equally valid customs and practises, of vibrancy and creativity and innovation in the responsa literature. Now I meet people whose only approach is that that someone else told them the line they are taking and it cannot possibly be challenged.

Authority ultimately is seen as coming from God. We have in Talmud a series of blessings upon seeing leaders – In Berachot 58a we read :

The Rabbis taught: ‘On seeing sages of Israel one should say: “Blessed be the one who has imparted  wisdom to them that have awe of God.”

‘[On seeing] sages of other nations, one says: “Blessed be the one who has given wisdom to flesh and blood.”

‘On seeing kings of Israel, one says: “Blessed be the one who has imparted  glory to them that have awe of God.”

‘[On seeing] kings of other nations, one says: “Blessed be the one who has given glory to flesh and blood.”‘

It is clear from this that the wisdom and the glory that leaders have are divinely given, and in the context of Jewish leadership there is a relationship of awe and perspective between the human beings and God.   It is also clear that leadership exists in a number of different contexts and that different populations have different and valid leaderships. And it is abundantly clear that each leader must make of their leadership what they can, from their own skills, creativity and perceptions and that each is only a Jewish leader if they are not out for themselves but out to increase God in the world.

Sadly we seem increasingly in the orthodox world to have leaders who are more thorn bush than cedars, whose fruits are only about increasing their power and control over others and not about honouring God and people or about developing a thriving society where everyone can take part. Whether it be newspapers editing women’s faces (or whole selves) out of photographs, so that even Angela Merkel or Hillary Clinton have disappeared from recorded images, or adverts where apparently men only households eat the cereal or whatever is being advertised, or women being refused access to work positions, or women not being allowed to sing…… this is getting more and more ridiculous and the parable of Jotam increasingly relevant. We don’t need a centralised leadership in Judaism and up till now we have never had one. We don’t need the people who want to be powerful to take power over us – indeed we want them NOT to have access to the levers of power. And if we are stuck in a position like Yotam where it is happening anyway, then we must protest, we must raise our voices and say “not in my name” and most of all we must mistrust anyone who claims to have this authority and be clear that we are not about to cede it to them.

Authority ultimately must be consensus driven and agreed or it is bullying and oppression. And any threats from the Atad claiming their power or else there will be trouble must be faced and faced down.  We have history and authenticity on our side, let’s take our own authority too

#frumwomenhave faces #allwomenhavefaces #maleandfemalecreatedequal #halachahisdiverse

 

 

 

Parashat Pinchas: #Girlpower; Or: The real stars of the sidra are the five women siblings who transform society and create justice.

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‘Va’tikrav’nah b’not Zelophehad’ – the daughters of Zelophehad approached …. so begins one of the most intriguing stories to take place in the wilderness, a story where the bones of the developing society are laid bare for us to see, a rare narrative of the evolution of the legal code, and of the organising principles of our ancestral community.  And how much richer and more rewarding a text than we might imagine – it begins with this proactive and dynamic move – the daughters of Zelophehad, a man whom we have never heard of up until now, a man who is distinguished at this point only through his death – approach Moses and demand what they see to be their, and their father’s right – inheritance of land for them, and continuation of name and memory for  him.

The very first word on the story is unusual – the feminine plural form of any verb is a rarity in biblical Hebrew grammar, which defaults into the masculine with even a hint of testosterone, however many women there are involved.  And this is an active verb – the action of drawing close to another, used routinely in the search for God with the ritual of korbanut – of offering something precious to God as a sacrifice.  The verb one might expect – of simply coming to speak to Moses, is rejected in favour of injecting a sense of closeness – even of implying relationship.  These are no supplicant outsiders, but people whose perception of themselves is of being at the core of the community, who are able to treat Moses with proper respect but without needing to beg.

Machlah, Noa, Hoglah, Milcah and Tirzah are clearly of interest to the biblical narrator – not only are all their names recorded, but in the book of Joshua they appear again – and once again all the names are listed – to demand that what God had commanded Moses here in the wilderness was honoured once the people reached the land.  They obviously made a huge impression in their determination to inherit the land of their father, and in their determination to work together – five women, siblings, jointly fighting for their principles and their rights.  Given the terrible sibling stories in the bible – the first murder is fratricide and takes place in the very first generation to be born into the world – the relationships each of the patriarchs had with this brothers and the behaviour of Joseph’s older brothers towards him – you might think that it wasn’t even possible to get along with, let alone work with, your peer generation relatives!  There is a vestige of a hint that sisters might get along as long as they weren’t interested in the same man, in the midrash on Leah and Rachel, but actively co-operating with each other for joint good – that is unique I think to these five women.  Small wonder they are remembered with such particular definiteness.

Machlah, Noa, Hoglah, Milcah and Tirzah break the mould of sibling relationships – but they break other moulds too.  Up until this point no-one has come along with their own interpretation of Torah – God has simply given out commandments, either at reaching a new geographical place or during a social crisis.  At no point has anyone so much as solicited a legal opinion from God on a matter God has not yet discussed, let alone come up with their own innovation.  This is something entirely new in the narrative – for someone to come to Moses with a principled resolve based on what they understand to be the right thing to do, and a clear vision of what a Godly society should do.

Rather than merely following rules which have been transmitted to them, these women are willing to innovate, to change the world in accordance with their own principles.  As other women have done before them:– Sarah persuading Abraham to have a son by Hagar, Rebecca disguising the young goat as venison so as to claim the birthright blessing for her favourite son Jacob – the daughters of Zelophehad have taken matters into their own hands and changed the course of history.  This is a radical shift in the development of the Jewish people.  While one can make the case that since Eve in the Garden of Eden, men have tended to follow the rules which are laid down (or at best to interpret them within a narrow focus), women have brought about disjunction and change, this is the first time that the women’s behaviour has been given the imprimatur of God – ‘ Kein b’not Zelophehad dovrot – the daughters of Zelophehad speak right’  – there is divine approval for the different model of approaching the world, that of creating something new that is not connected with what was already in place, of breaking new ground because one is driven to do so by a sense of justice, of the absolute rightness of the new action.

The story of the daughters of Zelophehad is a story designed to remind us to stand up for rights, even if they are not yet perceived to be rights;  it is a story to remind us that all things might be possible, even with a God who seems to have it all sorted out already, even in a wilderness where the right might seem to be too abstract or too unfulfillable to be relevant.

The daughters of Zelophehad did groundbreaking work, which emerged from their confidence in themselves and the justness of their cause, from their supportive relationship with each other, from the need to link the past with the future and identify themselves within that future.  They established a legal presence and right for themselves and for all women in the future – the right to control their own economic provision.  We know that later on the right was constrained to daughters who married within their own tribe, that while they achieved economic power for women they were still kept away from the more potent power of the time – that of religious decision making – at least within the public and recorded sphere, but that should not change how we view this radical model of behaviour – you  still have to stand up and claim your rights and responsibilities even if you don’t immediately or easily achieve them – you need to challenge even God if necessary, to battle for what you believe to be important, to make your mark upon the world by fighting to make the world a better place.

The world hasn’t changed since the days of Machlah, Noa, Hogla, Milcah and Tirzah – it still seems that generally speaking men tend to operate by following or implementing the rules  and that women work by transforming them.  You only have to look at the impact women have had on the rabbinate to see that generality in action!   The question we need to be asking ourselves is not ‘why is the world so unfair’ but ‘in what way will I change the world because of what I believe in, because of my own faithfully held principles?’

(Adapted from the sermon for my daughter’s batmitzvah parashat Pinchas 2000 – a true disciple of the b’not zelophechad school of women fighting for social justice. Dedicated to the formidable Charlotte Fischer)

 

The minor daughter sold to another man:parashat mishpatim asserts her rights.

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“And if a man sell his [minor] daughter to be a maidservant (le’amah) she shall not leave as the male servants do. If she does not please her master who should be espoused to her/ who is not espoused to her, then he shall let her be redeemed.  He has no power to sell her on to a foreign people for he has dealt deceitfully with her. And if he espouses her to his son then he will treat her as he would treat a daughter. And if he takes another wife [having married her himself] he must not diminish her food, clothing allowance or conjugal rights. And if he fails to provide her with these, then she shall be able to leave freely, without any money to be paid” (Exodus 21:7-11)

Sometimes in bible we are taken aback at the worldview of the text, a perspective that is so far from ours as to seem it comes from a completely different universe.  One response has been to effectively excise some texts from the biblical canon, never going to far as to physically remove them perhaps, but certainly to ensure that they are not read or brought forward to support our current system of beliefs or actions.

At first reading the fate of a minor daughter seems to be that she is powerless and of use only insofar as money can be made from her. It appears that the daughter is an asset to be leveraged for the benefit of the father or the family. And this must have seemed to be reasonable to some, for otherwise why would we find in the Babylonian wisdom literature the maxim – “The strong man lives off what is paid for his arms (strength), but the weak man lives off what is paid for his children” which is surely warning people not to sell their children for profit.

Bible however is a subtle text and we cannot simply read the first half of the verse without the conditions required in the second half and the following verses on the subject. It begins with the presumption that a man may sell his daughter to be a maidservant   (AMAH ).  Immediately we note that this must be a minor daughter over whom the father has authority, which already limits the possibility for him to take this action. Then we see that while the word ‘AMAH’ is used and is posited against the male servants (AVADIM) the word that is NOT used is ‘SHIFCHA’ a word which is more servile in its usage. AMAH can be used of a free woman when speaking to a social superior; SHIFCHA is not used in this way. So she is being sold not as a slave but as an AMAH, a status that Hagar, Bilhah and Zilpah are also described as having, and as Ruth and Hannah, Abigail and Michal will also  describe themselves later in bible.

After this introductory phrase that must have been familiar to the original audience for the biblical text, that a many might sell his daughter to another, comes a set of conditions that make clear that whatever the girl is being sold for, her rights are clearly stated and they are tightly drawn and powerfully asserted.

First – she is not someone who is sold as a male slave for whom the sabbatical year of jubilee year will end the contract being made and from this we can clearly deduce that while the context of the narrative is the rights of the Hebrew slave, the rights of this minor girl are different. Something else is happening here and the contract is quite different.

The first clue is the expectation that she is being sold into the household of a man who will later expect to marry her and raise her status accordingly. What is she doing in his household? She is learning the business of becoming a wife and director of the household, something that for whatever reason she does not have access to in her own parental home.

The text then goes on. If the master of the house does not wish to marry her at the appropriate time of her maturity, then he must arrange that she is redeemed from the contract. Rabbinic law assumes that someone in her family will act as go’el and pay out the remaining debt her father has incurred.

The master of the house is expressly forbidden from passing her on to another family – she is not property to be sold on, she is not to be given in prostitution. The bible is absolutely clear – if he does not marry her then he has broken the original contract and so he now has no legal power or ability to direct her future.

The one curiosity here is that there is a kerei ketiv – that is the text is written in one way but understood differently. The negative LO (Lamed Alef) is written, but the text is read as if the word were LO (Lamed Vav). As written it would read “Her master who has not become espoused to her”, as read it is “Her master who has become espoused to her”.  It seems that the Masoretic text cannot imagine that her master did not begin by arranging the engagement, the first part of the marital contract, and instead they think he must have changed his mind once she grew up and was unwilling to go through with it. I think this underlines just how deeply the assumption was that the contract between the father of the girl and the master of the house was that she was being given up early to be married in the future – either because the father was too poor to offer a dowry at the time it would be needed, or too poor even to support her while she grew up. It may even have been done in order to settle the girl’s future in times of political unrest. We know that the Jewish marriage ceremonies which are nowadays done either in one day or at least very closely together were originally separated into the two ceremonies of betrothal and subsequent marriage and that these could take place years apart from each other, the ‘bride’ and ‘groom’ continuing to live in their respective homes after the betrothal for many years before the actual marriage took place and the couple came together as a new family.

Bible gives the possibility that should she not marry the father of the house, then she might marry the son of the house – something which may have delayed her future status but not otherwise significantly alter it. And if she did marry the son rather than the father, her rights as a full member of the family are once again asserted. She is to be treated in every way as a daughter of the house.

The passage then lays down the rights of the girl should she subsequently find that her husband takes another wife – something that might damage her status in the home and leave her marginalised and potentially poorer than before he did so. Thus bible clarifies that the rights of the wife to food, clothing and sex are absolute, and that nothing and nobody can diminish these rights.

It ends with the clear statement about the limits of the contract even if the man has broken it by espousing the girl to his son and therefore lost all rights of ‘ownership’ or privilege.

Should the girl find that she is not being given the full status of married woman, that she is not given the food, clothing and sex that are her rights, then she is free to go – the man has broken his contract and has no hold over her whatsoever – she does not need to be redeemed by a goel or even pay any remaining debt incurred by her father and by her own maintenance in the household – she is a free woman in every way

This passage, which on first reading appears to say that a minor girl can be treated as a chattel to be sold at the whim of her father to a man who would then establish his own ownership is nothing of the sort. The bible actually stops a man selling his daughter as a slave for the purposes of prostitution, and in this first and only legislation in the ancient near east to discuss the rights of a girl who is sold, the girl is protected by some quite draconian legislation, her rights and the obligations to her spelled out beyond the possibility that someone might try to reinterpret what is happening.  Interestingly any obligation of the girl is not mentioned. While we assume she will work to pay for her maintenance, this is not specified. The text is interested only in protecting her and putting boundaries around what the men in her life may think they are able to do with her.

While it would be nice to think that she would be consulted in the betrothal as Rebecca was (albeit without seeing Isaac) we must be grateful for what we get in the world view in which bible was formed. We have here the basis for the rights of all wives – to food, clothing and a home/ sexual relations. Rabbinic law took the text from here in order to provide a basic minimum for every woman who threw her lot in with a man in marriage, and thus protected women in a world which was otherwise potentially disrespectful and without care for her needs.

The unknown AMAH of Mishpatim is the beneficiary of quite phenomenally forward thinking law. Her personhood was respected far more than the mores of the time. There might even be a case to say that a girl from a poor family who might otherwise only be able to look forward to a life of hardship and work either married to a man too poor to offer her much or not able to provide a dowry in order to be married at all, would in this way be able to jump out of her impoverished setting into one of economic security.  One cannot help but think of the women from less economically thriving countries offering themselves in marriage on the internet to men from wealthier countries in order to better their own standard of living.

I cannot say I am thrilled by this passage, but we must be aware of the context of the narrative and the legal codes it comes to replace. The sale of minors was common throughout Assyria and Babylonia and there are documents to suggest it was also in practise in Syria and Palestine. And we see in the book of Kings (2K 4:1) that children might be seized into slavery by their dead parents’ creditors. Nuzi documents show that sale into a conditional slavery was practised, whereby the girl would always be married but not to the master of the house, rather to another slave. The genius of the biblical amendment was that the girl was to be raised in status and treated properly for her whole life, and that she would be freed if certain conditions were not met.

The minor daughter of a man who needed to be free of the economic burden she represented was vulnerable. To this day in some societies daughters are perceived as less valuable, less giving of status to the family, and as people who will never be as economically worthy as sons. It remains true of course that women’s work is not valued in the same way that work done by men is and sadly many women have bought into this viewpoint so even high flying career women will see an increasing gap between their remuneration and that of their male colleagues.

It would be wonderful for this perception to be erased. There is no intellectual or scientifically validated case for it to be held, and yet even in modernity it holds great power in society.  Bible cannot help us here, but it is something to hold on to – that bible restricts the rights of men over their vulnerable daughters and over the defenceless women in their household and it clearly and powerfully ascribes and asserts rights for those women, rights which Jewish legal codes have had to uphold even in highly patriarchal and paternalistic times and groups.

It looks to me from this text that God is aware of the problem humans seem to have with gendered power, and has set a model for dealing with it we could emulate. As the Orthodox Union just tried to curtail the rights of women in scholarship and leadership positions with a  responsum so out of touch and lacking respect for its own constituency, it is good to see that this ancient text gives a lead on the building of the status of women who may need such building, and does not try to either take advantage of them nor to diminish their place in the world.

 

To study further I recommend reading:

“Slavery in the Ancient Near East”. I Mendelsohn in “The biblical Archaeologist”  vol 9 number 4

Josef Fleischman in The Jewish Law Annual ed. Berachyahu Lifshitz. Taylor & Francis, 1 Sep 2000

http://www.jta.org/2017/02/02/top-headlines/ou-bars-women-from-serving-as-clergy-in-its-synagogues