Men and women…came bringing…gold objects of all kinds (35:22). Because the Hebrew wording is unusual, literally “the men on [or: over] the women came…,” many medieval commentators understood it as referring to relations between men and women. Rashi and Ibn Ezra understood the passage simply as “the men came with the women.” Nachmanides explained that the men followed the women’s example and donated jewelry only after the latter had already done so. Chizz’kuni said that the men collected the jewelry from the women in order to then donate it for the building effort. And Sforno interpreted the words to mean that husbands accompanied wives who were bringing gift offerings in order to indicate their approval. (Two other verses in this parashah, 35:25 and 38:8, also mention women bringing gifts for the building of the Tabernacle.)
all the skilled women spun with their own hands (35:25). “Skilled” in this verse is literally “wise-hearted.” This beautiful tribute to the work of women’s hands provides the proof text for Rabbi Eliezer’s infamous statement: “A women’s wisdom is only in (connection with) the spindle” (BT Yoma 66b). Rabbi Eliezer believed that women were unfit for Torah study, declaring that “anyone who teaches his daughter Torah, it is as if he taught her tiflut (licentiousness)” (BT Sotah 21b). His opinion expressed the dominant rabbinic attitude which limited Jewish women’s access to traditional Jewish learning for centuries. The sage Ben Azzai expressed the opposite point of view, “A man is obligated to teach his daughter Torah” (BT Sotah 20a); however, this remained a minority view.
He made the laver of copper and its stand of copper, from the mirrors of the women who performed tasks at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting (38:8). who were these women and what were they doing? Ibn Ezra, Chizz’kuni, and Sforno all agreed that this verse refers to women who had cast away their jewelry in order to devote themselves to God. They came to the Tent of Meeting to pray and hear either “words of the living God” (Sforno), the praises of God pronounced by the priests (Chizz’kuni), or words of mitzvot (commandments) (Ibn Ezra). By donating their mirrors they also renounced personal vanity. Ibn Ezra explained that the reference to their gathering at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting indicated that there was a large group of such women.
Rashi explained the significance of the mirrors through a midrashic tradition, in which Moses first rejected the mirrors, angry that objects associated with vanity and the Evil Inclination would be used in constructing something holy. But God told Moses to accept the mirrors because the Israelite women had used them for a most holy purpose during their enslavement in Egypt: when Pharaoh decreed that the men could not return home from the fields at the end of the day, the women went out to the fields, bringing their husbands hot food and drink. After their husbands had eaten, each women pulled out her mirror and held it up to catch the image of her husband’s face together with her own. “I am more beautiful than you,” she flirted with him. In this way, God explained, the women awakened desire in their exhausted husbands and ensured the Israelites a future generation of children. BT Sotah 11b cites this midrash along with other examples of women’s contributions to Israel’s survival and redemption, stating that it was on account of the righteousness of the women during the generations of slavery that the Israelites were taken out of Egypt.
—Ruth H. Sohn