STANMORE & CANONS PARK SYNAGOGUE - Stanmore and ...

FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Jacob and his wives Jacob has the dream
with the ladder, he works for 14 years to
acquire his wives and he wrestles with the
angel. Meanwhile, Rachel conspires with
Leah so that Jacob marries Leah first, and
Rachel steals her father’s idol and then
misleads him about it.
Moses, Aaron and Miriam They are all
Jewish superheroes, but when Aaron and
Miriam bad-mouth Moses only Miriam
gets smitten with leprosy.
In each case (and there are others) either
the female is irrelevant or is portrayed
negatively, so maybe the revisionists have
something!
However, if you take the time and trouble
to study such stories you will see a number
of things that help mitigate a revisionist
view.
First, there were some females that were
truly bad. There isn’t much you can do to
paint Jezebel or Delilah in a good light.
Second, there are plenty of episodes that
involve females, and males are irrelevant.
For example, those involving the midwives
in Egypt and the rescuing of Moses from
the river Nile quickly come to mind. There
are also others where men and women
appear but where the woman is the hero,
for example, Judah and Tamar, Rahab and
the spies in Jericho, Deborah and Yael
versus Barak, leader of the Israelite army.
Third, Torah comes from the same root
as the word moreh, teacher. The Torah’s
purpose is to get messages across about
the right way to live, and it employs a very
concise style to do that. Consequently introducing
characters or imagery to make
it a ‘good read’ the way that you might in
a novel just isn’t appropriate. Sometimes
the Torah uses a man to be the medium
for the message, sometimes a woman,
sometimes both sexes and sometimes neither.
So if a male or a female presence is
not mentioned or enlarged upon it’s because
it isn’t necessary for the message. It
isn’t done to try to exclude or diminish
anyone.
But, even allowing for those explanations,
what about the situations we have
highlighted where women seem to come
off badly
Since the classic biblical case that could be
challenged by revisionists is the Garden of
Eden story let’s examine what really went
on. Hashem’s command was that the fruit
should not be eaten by Adam and Eve, or
they would die. Eve said to the snake the
fruit should not be eaten and the Tree
should not even be touched or she would
die. Eve is criticised by the rabbis for
saying more than she had been
commanded, so giving the snake the
chance to deceive her. (According to the
Midrash, the snake pushed Eve against the
Tree and convinced her that as she did not
die when she touched it she also would not
die if she ate its fruit.) But, in her defence,
she was trying to keep away from sin, and
she was up against what the Torah says
was the most cunning of creatures. Now
look at what Adam’s position was. The
Torah says simply, “…and she did give
him and he did eat.” Adam didn’t try to
stop himself or protest to Eve. And then
when G-d asks him to account for his
actions he replies, “The woman that You
gave me gave me of the Tree and I ate.” In
other words he makes two attempts to
pass off blame. It’s your fault, Hashem, for
giving me a poor quality wife, and it’s my
wife’s fault for putting temptation in my
path. Eve, by contrast, tells it the way it is
when she explains, “The snake deceived
me and I did eat.” Consequently, who
should really want the story to be revised,
the woman or the man
While there are other stories that the
revisionists could attack, each such attack
could equally be refuted by a more
balanced or better understood appraisal of
events. And a further idea refuting antifemale
bias will be drawn from the weekly
progression of the sedrahs.
In each sedrah up to and including Yisro
there is direct reference to females. In
most weeks the women are named.
However, after that sedrah there are very
few direct references to women in the
Chumash. Why is this I don’t know, but
I’d like to offer this suggestion. The sedrah
of Yisro contains the giving of the Torah.
Men have to perform all of the
commandments in the Torah, but women
do not. This is partly for practical reasons;
women are not required to perform timedependent
mitzvahs. But it also recognizes
that women are spiritually superior to men,
who need the moral and spiritual
framework that the Torah gives them.
Prior to the giving of the Torah, observing
it was voluntary. We know that our
patriarchs did perform the mitzvahs, but
there was no requirement for them to do
so, and so there was also not the same set
of boundaries within which they had to
live. And this is why the women had to be
prominent and keep appearing in Torah
episodes at that time, because their
spiritual superiority gave the men the extra
direction that was missing up till the giving
of the Torah. Indeed the rabbis say that
the the Jews were redeemed from Egypt
in the merit of the women. And maybe
this is why in Genesis, Chapter 2, woman
is called ezer k’negdo, which is normally
translated as ‘help meet’ but is more
accurately ‘against / opposite help’; in
other words, woman helps by opposing
what man’s inclination is!
Education is a big thing in Judaism. We are
expected to review our understanding of
even the most familiar stories, rituals or
mitzvahs so that we get fresh insights and
achieve greater attachment to our belief
system. It is to be hoped that those who
would set themselves up as revisionists
would get a better understanding of what
they are critical of. They may then
conclude that there is one thing in this
world, the Torah, that does not need
revision, and that one of its less obvious
messages is that it really is written in praise
of women.
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