Misogyny (part 2)

Parshat Ki Tavo

Last week we saw various passages that give a viewpoint of how the Torah views women.  We stuck mainly to the Torah, since in traditional Judaism it represents the most direct manifestation of divine will.  However, Rabbinic Judaism practiced today by various sects of Orthodoxy is not really based on the Torah, it is more firmly rooted in the Talmud and the Jewish law, halacha, that has been developed throughout the ages.  The Talmud represents the first written account of Jewish law and all subsequent rulings are required to adhere to it. We will begin our exploration of how Judaism treats women with the Talmud.  A bit later we will look briefly at how some of the views on women from the biggest Rabbis in the medieval period (the Rishonim).  Finally, we will see how women are treated in some of the more right-wing sects of Judaism today. We entirely skip the development of the halacha between the Talmud and modern day because that would change this post into a book.

Talmudic Explanations of Misogynistic Torah Passages

In Talmudic times, already some of the biblical laws regarding women were seen as barbaric and old-fashioned.  As such, the Rabbis recast some of them to be less obviously misogynistic.  However, their view of women is still different from our own, and is nowhere near gender equality.  In some cases the view on the Mishnah/Talmud is even more misogynistic than in the Torah.  For example, with regard to the Sotah (suspected adulteress) mentioned above, the Mishnah states that if a husband warns his wife (in front of witnesses) not to meet with another man and she meets with him then the husband can bring her out to the priest for a trial.  During the trial (Mishnah Sotah 1:5, translation from Sefaria):

And a priest grasps her garment--if it tears, it tears; if it unravels, it unravels--till he has bared her bosom, and he loosens her hair. Rabbi Yehudah says: if her bosom is beautiful, he does not bare it; if her hair is beautiful, he does not loosen it.

In addition to baring her head, they also strip her top off.  But not if she's "beautiful" which you can imagine is even more insulting towards women who are not considered "beautiful."  Nevertheless, even so, the practice was abolished in Mishnaic times as Sotah 9:9 records (translation again from Sefaria)

When adulterers multiplied, the ceremony of the bitter waters ceased and it was Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai who discontinued it.

There are more overt misogynistic statements in the Talmud. Still in Mishnah Sotah we see (3.4, translation from Sefaria)

From here Ben Azai says: A man is obligated to teach his daughter Torah, for if she drinks [the magic Sotah potion], she will know that the merit suspends it for her. Rabbi Eli'ezer says: Whoever teaches his daughter Torah is considered as if he taught her foolishness [lit. lewdness]. 

Of course we know now that one of the surest ways to keep women as a secondary class is to withhold education from them.  We'll see this topic come up a bit later when we get to the Rishonim (Medieval era rabbis)

Overt misogyny is found in other places as well. For example, Pirkei Avot is a section of the Talmud with only Mishnah.  It includes general all purpose advice.  Pirkei Avot 1:5 has some advice which gives one Rabbi's views on dealing with women (my translation)

Yosi ben Yohanan, from Jerusalem said: ... Do not speak with women more than necessary.  They said, he's talking about his wife.  How much moreso the wife of his friend.  From here the "wise men" said, all the time that a person speaks with a woman, he causes evil to himself, and is neglecting learning Torah, and in the end will deserve to be in Hell (lit. Gehinnom, not quite equivalent to Christian Hell).

Talmudic Apologetics

The Talmud also included some apologetics which attempt to keep women satisfied with their second-class citizen role. One of the more troubling prayers for this topic is the morning prayer that thanks God for, "not making me a woman."  The female version, highlights this negative aspect to femininity in that is doesn't thank God for not making one a man, rather it thanks God for "making me according to his will."

This prayer is old.  We don't know how old, but it was already established when the Talmud discusses it.  The Talmud Yerushalmi (Jerusalem Talmud) asks whether there actually is something negative about being a woman in Berachot 63b and comes up with one of the most common apologetic answers that is the go-to answer for religious Jews today who are somewhat bothered by this prayer.  It says (my translation):

Blessed for not making me a woman: Because women are not obligated in commandments.

Of course women are obligated in some commandments, so other sections of the Talmud qualify this as being the specific set of commandments that women are not obligated in.  Of course the reasoning falls flat if only one wonders why the blessing didn't say, "for obligating me in commandments" instead of the roundabout "for not making me a woman."

I will note that in other places the Talmud doesn't use this apologetic answer.  For example, in a brief aside in Megillah 23a the Talmud says (my translation):

The wise men said, "a woman should not read from the Torah because of the "honor of the community."

This idea that a woman reading from the Torah somehow reduces the honor of the community (Hebrew kavod hatzibur) has caused significant problems and has required significant maneuvering by later apologists to explain how it's really a dishonor because women aren't obligated in time bound commandments.

Bruriah

A discussion of the role of women in the Talmud would not be complete without mentioning Bruriah, the wife of Rabbi Meir and someone who was considered on the same intellectual level as the male Rabbis, yet still, she was locked out of making Halachic rulings because of her gender.  I would like to bring up one passage that to me looks like someone mocking the senseless rules regarding treating women as if they were some sort of dangerous substance that you shouldn't talk to too much.  The story goes like this (Eruvin 53b, my translation)

Rabbi Yossi, the Galilee was walking and met Beruriah, he asked her, "On which path would you walk to Lod [using 4 Hebrew words]" She told him, "Stupid Galilean! Didn't the wise men say not to speak with women more than necessary?  You should have just said 'which to Lod?'"

Part of me wonders if the sarcasm flew over the Rabbis heads as they were writing it.

Of course later Rabbis took it upon themselves to discredit Bruriah.  In Avodah Zarah 18b, the Talmud mentions that Rabbi Meir fled to Bavel (Babylon) after Ma'aseh deBruriah or something that happened with Bruriah.  Rashi provides an explanation (my translation).

One day [Rabbi Meir] was taunting here that the "wise men" said women have weak minds. He told her that one day she will admit that they are right.  In order to do this, he commanded one of his students to test her by tempting her to sin [presumably to sleep with him, smart guy this Meir].  Eventually after a lot of trying he succeeded.  When the matter became known, she hung herself, and Rabbi Meir left [to Babylon] because he was embarrassed.   

Anyone can probably figure out where Rashi got this story from.  Some person was probably ashamed that the Talmud had such glowing words to say about a woman, and took it upon himself to reduce her to a "weak minded" individual who couldn't control her sexual desires. We'll get to the Rishonim in a bit, but first we need to look at one more topic.

Rewriting the Biblical Women - "Modesty"

The ideal woman of the Talmud is one who in many ways differs from the women in the biblical stories.  Specifically, the talmudic ideal woman engages in a form of "modesty" (Hebrew Tzniut) that involved essentially removing herself from the public sphere.  As such, the Talmud engages in rewriting some of the biblical women to enforce this trait upon them, often in ridiculous ways.  For example, regarding Sarah, the Talmud says (Bava Metziah 87a, my translation)

They [the angels] asked him, where is Sarah your wife.  He [Abraham] answered them, she's in the tent.  This is to let us know that Sarah is modest (tznuah) 

The humorous part of this exegesis is that the Talmud skips over the parts were Sarah wasn't modest enough to keep herself from enticing two kings who after seeing her wanted to take her for themselves.  Sarah isn't the biggest revision here.  There's two more that are far more silly.  The first is Tamar.  The Biblical story in Genesis 38 goes that Tamar was married to Yehudah's (Judah) son, who was killed by God.  By the law of levirate marriage (yibum) she married Yehudah's second son, but he was also killed by God.  Yehudah didn't want her to kill his third son, so he sent her off.  She got angry at being forgotten and dressed up as a prostitute to seduce Yehudah one day, and then finagled his staff and seal as a manner of collateral payment. When she got pregnant, and Yehudah tried to kill her for prostitution, she outs Yehudah as the father making him look like a hypocrite. The Gemara manages to spin this story so that Tamar is a super modest individual.  Let's see how. Megillah 10b says (my translation)

Rabbi son of Nachmani said in the name of Rabbi Yonatan, any bride who is modest (tznuah) in the house of her father in law merits to have descendants who are kings and prophets.  From where [do we learn this]?  Because it is written [about Tamar] that [Judah] thought she was a prostitute because she covered her face (Gen 38).  Not because she covered her face [at this point in time] and that's why Judah thought she was a prostitute, but rather, because she covered her face all the time in Judah's house [so presumably he didn't know what she looked like.]

Tamar is actively going out and seducing her father in law and the Talmud manages to rewrite the story so that she is so modest that she never let him see her face. The Talmud's interpretation of the story is ridiculous, but the actual biblical story is that of an active woman who uses sexuality to get what is rightfully hers, and that's anathema to the Talmudic generation.  Women shouldn't do that.  One more revision story ahead, that of Ruth.  The Talmud says in an aside about collecting crops that Boaz was attracted to Ruth because (Shabbat 113b, my translation)

He saw something modest (tzniut) in her.  She would stand to pick the standing crop, and sit to pick the fallen crop [so as not to bend over].

According to the Talmud, Boaz was attracted to Ruth because of excessive modesty in gathering crops. However, Boaz wasn't turned off when Ruth stalked out his sleeping location and came into his bed uninvited one night and lay down with him (Ruth 3:1-9), which is hard to really spin as modest behavior.  About the prophetess Devorah the Talmud is remarkably silent, only mentioning her with regards to prophecy a few times, and never once talking about her role as a public leader and judge.  The Talmud also describes some highly reactionary opinions regarding women's dress and behavior that serve the purpose of removing them from the public.  Berachot 24a says (my translation):

Rabbi Yitzchak says, a handbreadth (tephach) of exposed skin [on a woman] is lewdness [Hebrew ervah, literally means nakedness, but in a sexual context].  How so?  If you are looking at it.   Didn't Rav Sheshet say, why is it written in the Torah about inner garments and outer garments?  To teach you that anyone who looks at the little finger of a woman is as if he looked at her vagina.  No [the talmud actually rejects this reasoning] this is only talking about someone's wife and while he's reciting the Shema.  Rav Hisda says, the thigh of a woman is nakedness, because it says (Is 47.2) "reveal a thigh to cross a river" and then later "reveal your nakedness [ervah] and show your embarrassment."  Shmuel says, the voice of a woman is lewdness because it says (Song of songs 2:14) "your voice is sweet and your appearance is pretty."  Rav Sheshet says, the hair of a woman is lewdness because it says (Song of songs 4:1) your hair is like a flock of goats [sexy, sexy goats].  

Note that a woman's hair is considered lewd, but when it comes to men's hair which was discussed right before this passage, the Talmud says:

Rav Meri said to Rav Papa, A hair that escapes from a man's clothes, can you read [the shema] with it [in sight]?  [Yes of course, because] A hair is just a hair.

Men's hair is ok, but women's hair is lewd.  Covering the hair and the restrictions on hearing women's voices comes up a lot in modern practice as we'll get to a bit later.  The idea that you can't even listen to a woman because somehow her voice is lewd is repeated in one other place in the Talmud, along with other ridiculous sexualization of women Kiddushin 70a-b (my translation):

He (the speakers here are anonymous people I think) said to him, "Let [my daughter] Donag come serve drinks." He replied, "Shmuel said, do not make use of a woman [because she'll be sexual objectified presumably.]  He replied, "but she's a little girl!" He answered, "Shmuel said it doesn't matter if she's little or big." He said, "Can you send a message to [a woman, presumably his wife] in Yalta?  He replied, "Shmuel said, the voice of a woman is lewdness." He replied, "then use a messenger" He answered, "One must not ask about the welfare of a woman."  He said, "what about a husband?" He answered, "It doesn't matter, no one should ever ask about the welfare of a woman."

To conclude in a section of advice by Rabbi Hisda, the Talmud mentions some advice he gave to his daughters. I'll quote from Shabbat 140b (my translation):

Rav Hisda told his daughters.  Be modest (tznuah) before your husbands.  Do not eat bread in front of your husbands [presumably because you might stuff yourself and that's not womanlike], don't eat vegetables at night [you might get bad breath and be unappealing for sex], do not eat dates and drink beer at night [a laxative and a diuretic respectively] do not poop where your husbands poop [regardless of whether he's anywhere nearby], when a person comes to the door say "who is she" instead of "who is he."

This section wasn't going to be so long but it turns out that there were just so many objectionable things in the Talmud on this matter, it was hard to stop.  But I will stop now.  Let's move on.

 Misogyny in the Rishonim

Turning to the Rishonim, I will limit myself to two thoughts.  The first is from Rashi, which I've chosen not because it contains overt misogyny, but rather because it is prototypical for discussing the completely masculine dominated viewpoint of biblical exegesis.  It is in regard to the captive wife in last week's parsha. The section involves a man who goes to war and after dutifully slaying the enemy males, sees a desirable woman, and takes her home as a wife.  The Torah specifies some strange requirements for what the man needs to do to his captive (Deut. 21:12-13)

12 then thou shalt bring her home to thy house; and she shall shave her head, and pare (lit. do) her nails; 13 and she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thy house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month; and after that thou mayest go in unto her, and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife.

Rashi comments on these verses quoting mainly from Sifrei (my translation).

Do her nails: let them grow so she'll be repulsive (and the guy won't want to marry her).  Put the raiment of her captivity from off her: Because it's pretty.  Women would make themselves nice at war to seduce enemy men to have sex with them. and shall remain in thy house: In the house that you use, so that you will stumble on her when you go in and out, and see her crying, and she'll be ugly so you'll begin to despise her.

The thing that I notice immediately in this passage is that not a care is given to the thoughts or desires of the captive woman.  Not only has her family and perhaps previous husband just been killed and she has been carted off to a foreign land, but she's forced to undergo, at least according to Rashi, additional humiliations. And these humiliations are for the sole purpose of inducing a desired behavior in the husband, so that he doesn't marry her.

Turning to the second opinion, we look to the Rambam, and see more overt misogyny. We revisit the commandment on whether or not to teach a woman Torah.  The Rambam says (Hilchot Talmud Torah 1:13, my translation)

Our sages commanded that one should not teach his daughter Torah.  Because most women do not have enough intelligence to learn, and they will make words of Torah into nonsense, because of the poorness of their intelligence.  Our sages taught, whoever teaches the daughter Torah it's as if he taught lewdness.  What are they talking about? Oral Torah.  But with written Torah, ideally you should not teach it to her, but if you do, it's not lewdness.

Here we see the Rambam holding to an unfortunate stereotype that's been with us until today.  The stereotype that women's minds are somehow inferior to male minds.  One can't really blame Rambam for holding a false opinion.  However, one can blame the myriad people since then that have used this passage and its source in the Talmud to withhold knowledge from women. I'm old enough that I can still remember a time when teaching Talmud to women was controversial. It still is forbidden in many Hasidic sects.

Treatment of Women in Judaism Today

Now we'll turn our attention to some glaring issues that appear in religious settings today. These stem directly from the checkered history of Jewish law as it relates to women.  Specifically I'm approaching this from Orthodoxy, and even more specifically Modern Orthodoxy which is what I grew up with.  We'll look at four issues in particular, many of them were discussed earlier with regard to the Talmud.  We will discuss, the asymmetry regarding divorce law, the ramifications of "the voice of a woman is nakedness" leading to the modern practice of kol isha.  We'll talk about the treatment of non-Orthodox women who take it upon themselves to do traditionally male practices like reading from the Torah.  Finally we'll close out with the dire treatment of women in some of the more right wing Hasidic communities.

Each of these topics could have a full post dedicated to it with a large amount of halachic sources throughout the ages.  I do not have the time to engage in this, so instead I will just provide a summary.

Divorce Law

In Jewish law (last week's parsha) we learn about how Jewish divorce proceedings go.  Very briefly, we have (Deut 24:1):

When a man taketh a wife, and marrieth her, then it cometh to pass, if she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some unseemly thing in her, that he writeth her a bill of divorcement, and giveth it in her hand, and sendeth her out of his house

From here we get the halachic ruling that it is a man that has the sole capability of divorcing his wife. There is no similar option for a woman, she has no right of divorcement.  However, this leads to the situation where a man and a woman separate but the man doesn't initiate divorce proceedings.  What happens then? According to halacha, the man is allowed to marry again (since men can have multiple wives) but the woman is unable to (since women cannot have multiple husbands). This leads to a situation for the woman called agunah which literally means "chained."

The Talmud talks about the agunah in the context of a woman who's husband is lost at sea without witnesses.  Since there's no proof that the husband is dead, she cannot remarry.  She's "chained" to her dead husband.  However the same situation occurs for women in religious communities where the husband withholds the religious divorce papers.  She is forbidden from remarrying.  It is telling that after 2000 years of Jewish halacha this issue has not been resolved. Had women been equal partners in the fashioning of Halacha, the inequitable treatment would not have survived this long.

Kol Isha and Tzniut

Modern communities (at least in Modern Orthodoxy) don't follow the insane Talmudic guidelines of never speaking to a woman at all.  However, they do use the argument that a woman's voice is lewd to prohibit certain behavior among women. Specifically, singing in mixed company is forbidden (some permit it if there are enough male voices around that you can't distinguish the female ones). This includes religious singing, like during prayers. Of course there's no problem with men singing, that's perfectly fine. But women cannot sing, except for audiences consisting solely of other women.

Clothing is also heavily prescribed. Oddly, in this case the Hassidic communities appear to be somewhat more gender egalitarian than the Modern Orthodox in that both genders have very specific clothing that they are required to wear.  In Modern Orthodoxy though, the restrictions for women are considerably more onerous than those on men.  Women are restricted to wearing skirts to at least below the knees, married women must cover all their hair (leading to the purchase of fancy wigs, because fake hair is ok), and shirtsleeves must be of considerable length (usually elbow length).  For men, the restrictions are much less problematic, and Modern Orthodox men are often seen in shorts and t-shirts.

Women and Religious Participation

Stemming from the Talmudic discussion of Kavod HaTzibur, the honor of the community, women were forbidden from reading publicly from the Torah.  This continues in Jewish communities today from the right wing of Conservative Judaism through all branches of Orthodoxy. Women are forbidden from reading from the Torah or from leading services. In the more right wings of Orthodoxy, women are forbidden from public speaking at all, although thankfully this is not followed in Modern Orthodoxy.

The question then arises about what happens when women who are not Orthodox take it upon themselves to participate in religious behavior, such as reading from the Torah. This is actually a flash point in Jewish religion today, as a non-Orthodox religious group, called the "Women of the Wall" has taken it upon themselves to publicly read from the Torah at the western wall once a month. Their brazen disregard of millennia old societal norms has prompted the Hasidic groups to protest them en-masse often leading to disgusting scenes.

Of course there's the additional problem noted above that women have throughout the ages been shut out entirely from Halachic decision making.  It's unsurprising that misogynystic laws abound when women have no say in those laws.  In fact, for most of Jewish history women were forbidden from even gaining that knowledge, since teaching women Halacha was forbidden!

I will note that in some Modern Orthodox communities, there does finally appear to be some progress on these fronts. Some communities have "partnership" services which are women-led (but not mixed-gender). Also, the idea that women should not learn halacha has fallen by the wayside in Modern Orthodoxy. Still women are locked out of the traditional leadership roles (Rabbis) which are exclusively male only.

Misogyny in Hasidic Communities

Finally we turn to Hasidic communities. From this point I'm speaking as an outsider, yet I feel required to point out some of the more disgusting practices. This will essentially be a run-down of misogynistic practices that appear in the most right wing Jewish communities. I will make no effort to identify practices with specific sects, so a given behavior might be specific to only one small community. So keep that in mind as you read.

• In some communities, women are completely erased from public life, to the point that women politicians are edited out of newspapers since it is immodest to show the image of a woman.
• In some communities, the practice of married women covering their hair is not extreme enough and they require women to completely shave their heads upon marriage.  They even have modesty police that come and ensure that your hair is shaved off under your wig.
• Birth control is forbidden in Hasidic communities (and indeed in many non-Hasidic Orthodox communities).  In addition regular sex is required by halacha. The net result is that Hasidic women get pregnant a lot, whether they want to or not.
• Hasidic communities have commandeered bus lines and enforced gender separated seating (women in the back of course).
• Similarly, Hasidic communities have attempted to put up street signs asking non-Hasidic women to only walk on one side of the street so that the men won't have to come near them.

There are probably more instances of this, feel free to point them out in the comments.

Yeridat HaDorot

Yeridat HaDorot, literally the descent of generations, is a topic in Judaism that I have not discussed much. We will look at it a bit next week when we talk more specifically about the role of the Oral Torah. But for now a basic description will suffice. The principle states that each generation is further removed from a divine experience (namely Sinai) so that it has less capability to decide what is religiously appropriate. Therefore, it is impossible to overrule a previous generations' ruling, and furthermore, the earliest generations of Rabbis are idolized as super-intelligent individuals.

This type of principle is very good at keeping a stable and conservative religion, but it makes it impossible to overcome clear problems introduced by previous generations. The agunah problem mentioned earlier is one of these issues that are impossible to resolve Halachically because Orthodox Rabbis today can't abrogate rulings from earlier generations.

Because the Talmudic generations are treated as some sort of quasi-divinely inspired arbitrators, their rulings on women are handled with a lot more weight than they have any right to be. For a modern reader it is jarring to see some of these clearly misogynistic statements held today as representing an enlightened generation. They clearly belong in the first millennium CE where they were formulated.