"שמע בני מוסר אביך ואל תטש תורת אמך"
“Hear, my child, the instruction of your father and forsake not the Torah of your mother.” (Proverbs 1:8)
This verse, from which we have taken the title of our book, has inspired and guided us through the long process of its gestation and birth. Torat imekha, the “Torah of your mother,” has always been a special part of Jewish tradition, which often speaks of distinctive maternal and paternal modes of guidance, of encountering others, of teaching and learning. On the verse, “Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob and tell the children of Israel” (Exodus 19:3), describing the giving of the Torah at Sinai, the well-known midrash says: “‘beit Ya’akov’ (the house of Jacob)—these are the women; ‘benei Yisrael’ (the children of Israel)—these are the men” (Mekhilta, Bahodesh 2). These words teach us that the Torah was given to the “Mothers” and to the “Fathers”; each was charged to pass on, from generation to generation, a unique aspect of that divine, eternal message.
We are privileged to be part of an era that has seen an unprecedented flowering of women’s learning and teaching of Torah. This book has grown out of our desire to bring to a wide audience the insights of many highly accomplished religious Jewish women teachers of our generation. For these women, love of Torah—in addition to their intellectual interest in Hebrew texts—is a central force in their lives. They strive not only to enhance their students’ skills in encountering the sources independently, but also to inspire that love, aid their human development, and enable them to draw personal meaning from the texts. Their teaching is analytically rigorous, but always connected to the spiritual dimensions of our lives.
And so, too, we intend this to be a book of “Torah teachings,” rather than a compilation of academic essays. A book which is meant to be “learned” as well as “read”—its messages slowly imbibed, savored and internalized. The Rabbis themselves likened the Torah to mother’s milk: vitally nourishing, ever renewed and available, the understanding and “taste” (ta’am) we draw from it is uniquely suited to each of our needs (Eruvin 54b).
R. Naftali Tzvi Yehudah Berlin, the “Netziv,” in his reflections on the nature of “the instruction of your father” and “Torah of your mother,” notes that the Written Torah, or the Humash (Five Books of Moshe) is conceived by the Rabbis, in one sense, as a “masculine” entity, emerging directly from God, original and yet incomprehensible on its own. The Oral Torah (beginning with the biblical prophetic books, or Nevi’im, in his view) is conceived, by contrast, as “feminine” insofar as it continually transfers its understanding of the Written Torah from one “vessel” to another, each vessel transforming the contents it receives according to its own form. The role of the prophets and later of the Rabbis and, finally, of every teacher is to enable the Divine Word to penetrate, speak to us, be grasped—in all our imperfection, whenever we are ready (Davar haEmek on Proverbs 1:8).
In this era of deep spiritual search, when the place and role of the Jewish woman in the synagogue, study hall, family and community are being reexamined, we believe that the teachings of women who have inspired so many, who have forged the path to a new level of Jewish commitment and study, have much to offer. The authors who contributed to this book have advanced educational backgrounds in both the Jewish and secular realms. The majority live in Israel; they teach in Hebrew and English in a variety of settings—yeshivot, universities, seminaries, adult education classes—and most have not extensively published their insights. Each speaks in her own distinct voice and takes a distinctive approach. Several of the topics our contributors have chosen deal with women as biblical characters, or “feminine” images and aspects of the Torah; others do not. There are also readings of biblical figures such as Avraham, Ya’akov, Moshe and of midrashic and talmudic passages on subjects such as creation, exile, teshuvah (repentance) and redemption. This multiplicity reflects our vision, for “Torah of the Mothers” is not confined to women or women’s issues. It extends and breathes a special life into all parts of Torah.
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The essays in this collection fall into four general categories. The first section, “Students and Teachers,” contains five articles in which the authors write personally of figures who critically influenced their development and were, in their eyes, true teachers in the traditional Jewish sense. That crucial interaction between Rav and talmid, or teacher and student, is described extensively in classical Jewish texts, usually on the model of male student and teacher. The new opportunities afforded our generation have enabled women Torah scholars to benefit from and describe such formative relations with their teachers as well. We placed this section first in the conviction that Torah is much more than a text printed on a page; ultimately, it is also an intensely lived interaction within a community of teachers and students, colleagues and friends, parents and children, generation and generation.
In the next section, “Readings of Biblical Texts,” we gathered the essays that focus on biblical figures and are based, primarily, on biblical narratives. These articles encompass a range of topics, from the infertility of the biblical matriarchs and the problems posed by infertility today, to the inheritance claims of the daughters of Tzlafchad as a model for navigating the issues of feminism and Orthodox Judaism, to the figures of Deborah and Esther as heroines, to Avraham’s relation to non-Jews, to the aging patriarch Ya’akov’s reflections on his life.
In the third section, “Readings of Rabbinic Texts,” we move to analyses of midrashic and talmudic texts. These essays carefully examine rabbinic views of Creation, images of King and Daughter in midrashic parables, the meaning of self-affliction on Yom Kippur and the process of teshuvah, and the significance of Jerusalem. Each article is a close literary and theological reading, seeking a deeper understanding of God’s relation to the world, to Israel and to human yearning.
In the final section, we brought together several articles dealing with the great paradigm of “Exile and Redemption” in Jewish, as well as human, experience: essays on Moshe as an adopted child and struggling leader, and the Children of Israel’s experiences in Egypt and the wilderness. The approaches taken by the authors and the sources and perspectives they bring vary widely, from linguistics to psychology to classical rabbinic methodology and interpretation, to hasidic readings and kabbalistic symbolism. They reflect the richness of background and approach contemporary religious Jewish women are bringing to Torah study.
The concluding essay leads us “Beyond the Study Hall” into some pressing social issues, and calls us to remember that the tradition of Torat imekha is also a tradition urging us to acts of lovingkindness, hesed—responding to whomever is vulnerable and in need. For when all is said and done, “Study is not the main thing, but deeds” (Kiddushin 40b). We learn, though, from this same text that study is essential nonetheless, because it guides us to proper action.
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In speaking of the biblical Miriam, in whose merit a well was said to have accompanied the Children of Israel in the desert to assuage their thirst (Exodus 20:1–2; Ta’anit 9a), R. Kalonymus Kalman Shapira (the Rebbe of Piaseczena and last spiritual leader of the Warsaw ghetto, martyred in the Holocaust) recalled his own departed wife, Rachel Hayyah Miriam. He writes, “She learned Torah every day and was a merciful mother to every despairing soul,” and comments that the merit of such righteous women sustained many souls in times of hardship. Their actions were motivated not by external compulsion (commandment), but by a force welling from deep within them. The community was nourished from these “feminine waters” drawn out of love and compassion (Eish Kodesh, “Dedication” and “Hukkat,” 5702/1942, page 183). Our hope is that the essays in this volume, like Miriam’s well, will be a source of living waters.
Rav Joseph Dov Soloveitchik also pondered the meaning of the maternal and paternal traditions alluded to in the verse from Proverbs 1:8—Mussar avikha, “the instruction of your father” and Torat imekha, “the Torah of your mother.” Drawing on his own experiences, the Rav said:
Most of all I learned [from my mother] that Judaism expresses itself not only in formal compliance with the law but also in a living experience. She taught me that there is a flavor, a scent and warmth to mitzvot. I learned from her the most important thing in life—to feel the presence of the Almighty and the gentle pressure of His hand resting upon my frail shoulders. Without her teachings, which quite often were transmitted to me in silence, I would have grown up a soul-less being, dry and insensitive.
(“A Tribute to the Rebbetzin of Talne,” Tradition, Spring 1978,
pages 73–83)
This sense of “living experience” embodied here in the mother emerges from the love, understanding and trust she shares with her child. The relationship between student and teacher, if it is built on the same values, is equally vital. To imbue words of Torah in the heart of a student, say the Rabbis, is tantamount to giving birth to that person (Sanhedrin 99b).
R. Elazar said in the name of R. Hanina: “All your children shall be taught of the Lord and great shall be the peace of your children” (Isaiah 54:13)—do not read “your children” (bannayikh) but “your builders” (bonnayikh).
May this book give birth to many “children,” to students blessed with the strength to build and to spread peace in the world. “May all who love Your Torah be blessed with peace and may their path not falter.” (Berakhot 64a)
Ora Wiskind Elper and Susan Handelman
Jerusalem
Elul, 5760
September, 2000