25 Feb-3 Mar

Q: How does the Torah view men and women as being both equal and not equal?

ABSTRACT

In the current debate raging in academic literature on the differences between men and women, at one end are 'essentialists' who maintain that destiny is determined completely by biology. At the other end are 'difference deniers' who maintain that though there are a few physical differences between men and women, destiny is determined completely by cultural conditioning, and differences can be leveled out almost completely. Normative Judaism resolves this dialectic by incorporating these seemingly mutually exclusive views. The Torah expounds an axiom of dissimilar equality of the two genders. On the level of Creation, women and men have equal moral potential and responsibility. On the level of halakha (Jewish law), women do not have the same obligations as men do. The moral quality of a person's life is more important than his or her biological functioning.

The Torah expounds an axiom of dissimilar equality of the two genders. This doctrine comes to expression at the level of Creation and at the level of halakha (Jewish law).

The twofold narration of the creation of humankind in the book of Genesis reflects a multi-faceted approach to the relationship between men and women. This can be illustrated by juxtaposing the above coed who was rebuked by a male, to a young biblical woman, who was also rebuked by a man for being an essentialist. The biblical matriarch Rachel saw her sole purpose in childbearing (Genesis 30:1) when she demanded of her husband Jacob, "Give me children or else I die."

How puzzling and unsympathetic is Jacob's response: "Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel and he said: 'Can I take the place of G-d who has denied thee the fruit of the womb?'" (Genesis 30:2)

Rabbi Isaac Arama, the fifteenth century biblical commentator from Spain, speaks to modern sensibilities when he explains Jacob's fury as being directed at Rachel's forgetting the true and chief purpose of her existence, which is no different from that of her husband. He refers us back to the first chapters of Genesis:

The two names, "woman" (in Hebrew: isha) and "Eve" (in Hebrew: Hava, mother of life) indicate two purposes. The first teaches that the word "woman" was taken from man (ish) stressing that like him you may understand and advance in the intellectual and moral field. The second name alludes to the power of childbearing. A woman deprived of that power would be deprived of the secondary purpose. But she would be left with the primary purpose in life, the joint purpose, the ability to do evil or good.

Jacob was angry because Rachel, in yearning for a child, saw her whole world circumscribed by the secondary purpose of woman's existence. "This was a treasonable repudiation of her function, a rejection of her destiny and purpose, not in virtue of the 'Eve' aspect, but in virtue of her being a human being."

If we were to summarize this commentary on the relationships between men and women, we could express it in an algorithm. (1) Vis-?-vis the name/function, isha, there is equality; (2) with respect to the 'Eve' aspect there is difference:

(1) M=W

(2) M?W.

BIO
Shira Leibowitz Schmidt was raised in an assimilated Jewish home in New York, and became observant while studying at Stanford University in California. In June 1967 she told her engineering school professor she would miss the final exam because she was going to Israel to volunteer during the Six Day War. "That's the most original excuse I have ever been offered," he responded. She arrived during the war and stayed, receiving her BSc in absentia. She subsequently met and married the late Elhanan Leibowitz, and they raised their six children in Beersheba. Shira acquired a Masters in Urban & Regional Planning from the Technion, and an MSc in Civil Engineering from University of Waterloo. She remarried Dr. Baruch Schmidt, and they live in Netanya where she currently works as a translator and writer, and does volunteer work for the Shas Ha'maayan Torah day schools.

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