#14. What is the role of the Jewish woman, and are why are women different than men in Jewish life?
When you look at the sweep of rabbinic literature, there is no one single unified approach to women. For every statement that declare women inferior to men, you have another statement that makes them superior. As a direct result of this, you have feminists scouring the literature and indeed finding all kinds of horrible statements by rabbis against women. They quickly come to the conclusion that Orthodox Judaism is misogynist. That’s what happened in the Sixties.
Then you have the Orthodox apologists scouring the literature and finding all kinds of wonderful statements by rabbis declaring how great and wonderful women are. That’s what happened in the Seventies and Eighties.
So which view is the correct view? The typical Jewish answer applies here: “They’re both right.”
For a partial explanation of this contradictory view of womankind we start with Parshas Bereishis.
We have the creation of Woman—before the sin of the Tree of Knowledge. Chazal say that Adam Harishon was man and woman in one being--fused in the back. The creation of woman “from man’s side” was simply a separation of the female side of Adam from the male side. The separation was made so that woman can serve the role of “eizer kinegdo”. Chazal say there are two roles here: eizer and kinegdo. A helper if man is on the right path and an opponent if he is on the wrong path. The direct implication is that man might be right and man might be wrong, but the woman is ALWAYS right. She has the more accurate moral compass and can judge if man’s direction is positive and needs to be encouraged, or negative and be discouraged.
Then comes the sin of eating from the tree of knowledge. Here we see the weakness in Woman’s character. She is susceptible to seduction and can be blinded by jealousy and the threat of being replaced.
The curses of Eve are an existential reality for womankind, but they are not obligatory or mandatory. Whenever possible, the halacha tries to relive the woman (and man) from the negative effects of a curse. Women are allowed to take medication to reduce the pain of labor and childbirth. They are given favored halachic status and protection to avoid being taken advantage of due to their vulnerabilities.
Judaism sees the differences between men and women as a part of the reality of mankind, but this reality views women as more morally developed and mature and less in need of refinement through the mitzvos. Men are more morally loose and dangerous and require more regulation and safeguards to refine them. This can explain women’s reduced level of obligation in Jewish ritual law.
To debunk a few myths about Jewish Women in Jewish Law:
· Marriage in Jewish law does not mean the husband acquires the wife’s body as a personal slave. The unique method of acquisition of slaves' bodies--Chazaka-- is completely inapplicable to the marriage acquisition process.
- Women are disqualified from court testimony not because they are less trustworthy than men. Even Kings and High Priests are barred from public testimony because it is beneath their dignity. Even brothers who are personally unaffected by the testimony are disqualified. Women are completely trusted to testify informally regarding extremely grave matters of purity and kashrus.
