JEWS HAVE TRADITIONALLY BELIEVED that each of the books that comprise the Hebrew Bible reflects God’s word in some way. As a “religion of the book,” Judaism has looked to these revealed writings for guidance in every aspect of human life. Yet a religion based upon static texts, however holy, cannot easily adjust to the ever-varying conditions of human life. That Judaism has endured is due, in large part, to our traditions of biblical interpretation. In every generation, expositors of the divine message have discovered new meanings in the Hebrew Scriptures and demonstrated their relevance to an ever-evolving Jewish community.
For each parashah, The Torah: A Women’s Commentary includes a section titled Post-biblical Interpretations. Rabbinic biblical commentaries, written from the 3rd through the 19th centuries, have played a central role in shaping how Jews have understood the Torah. Like The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, these interpretations endeavored to keep biblical teachings alive, relevant, and compelling. The authors of our Post-biblical Interpretations have chosen from this vast treasury those passages that they believe will illuminate our contemporary understandings of biblical texts. Wherever possible, these selections focus on female characters and larger issues concerning women in Jewish law and Jewish life.
This essay presents an historical overview of the Jewish commentaries and commentators cited in the Post-biblical Interpretations sections.
Written Torah and Oral Torah
Jewish biblical interpretation is already present in the Bible, since later biblical books often (directly or indirectly) interpret earlier writings. Following the destruction of the Second Temple (70 C.E.), textual scholars and interpreters, generally referred to as “the Rabbis,” emerged as Jewish spiritual leaders. During the rabbinic period (from the beginning of the Common Era to the end of the 6th century), much of their intellectual endeavors concentrated on recording, preserving, and expanding the biblical interpretations that they deemed essential for the conduct of day-to-day Jewish life.
The Rabbis adapted the Bible to their own world—a society oriented toward men.
The word “torah” can be understood broadly as “teaching” or “revelation.” Rabbinic teachers enlarged the meaning of Torah itself to include the entire body of rabbinic interpretive literature. Thus, “Written Torah” came to refer to the Bible, and “Oral Torah” became a designation for the voluminous rabbinic texts that grew up around the Bible. The oral tradition of Torah interpretation assumed the sanctity and inviolability of the written word. The Rabbis taught that both components of divine revelation were delivered to the people of Israel at Mt. Sinai and subsequently passed down through later prophets and other recognized authoritative figures (Mishnah Avot 1).
Rabbinic interpretation begins with the premise that Torah in all of its parts, both written and oral, is of divine origin and authority. Sometimes God’s will is evident in the plain sense of the words, what is called the p’shat. This term refers to the contextual meaning of a biblical passage that is evident through a straightforward reading of a text. More frequently, the Rabbis believed, the actual import of biblical words can be discerned only by those who know how to penetrate to the d’rash, the deeper sense that lies beneath the surface. They sought to discover and elucidate those inner meanings, and in this way they maintained continuity with the past while adapting law to the changing conditions of the present and the needs of the future.
Rabbinic Literature
The rabbinic method of biblical interpretation is called midrash, frequently translated as “exposition” or “elucidation.” There are two types of midrash, legal and non-legal. Legal midrash contains a composite of ceremonial ordinances, ritual teachings, ethical rulings, and civil, criminal, and domestic laws that generally find their origin in a biblical statement or commandment. Since biblical laws are often vague or incomplete, rabbinic elaboration provides the details to allow for their implementation in a variety of particular situations. As later generations sought to follow the laws and teaching of the Bible, many topics required elucidation, such as the proper way of keeping Shabbat or how to solemnize a marriage or write a bill of divorce. Thus, rabbinic law enlarged and clarified the biblical text, applying scriptural principles and contemporary practices to an ever-broader variety of cases, while also considering a greater number of contingencies.
The other type of rabbinic biblical interpretation is non-legal in nature and includes expansions of biblical narratives, folktales, and anecdotes about the Rabbis themselves. These rabbinic writings also contain homilies (sermons) that teach religious beliefs and ethical behavior, and that comfort the downcast of Israel with promises of future redemption. Convinced that biblical texts contained neither contradiction nor repetition, the Rabbis creatively exercised their interpretive powers to demonstrate that this was so. Most of the “Post-biblical Interpretations” in this volume focus on this second type of interpretation, known as midrash aggadah.
Eventually, the Rabbis collected what is known as the “Oral Torah” into compilations that preserve competing interpretations and opinions; while majority views are generally honored, minority opinions are recorded as well. These complex texts interweave traditions, motifs, and influences from a variety of sources, time periods, and diverse environments, reflective of the extended duration of their composition and editing. Those texts from the Land of Israel incorporated and responded to Greco-Roman and early Christian cultural influences. Other texts were shaped in the very different world of mostly pre-Islamic Iraq, known in Jewish tradition as Babylon. The main collections are the Mishnah and the Talmud (usually cited as BT or JT, see below for details).
Women in Rabbinic Writings
The shapers and expositors of rabbinic Judaism were men, and the ideal human society that they imagined was decidedly oriented towards men. Nevertheless, women were a part of these men’s lives and a number of rabbinic writings address issues involving women. An entire division of the key rabbinic texts, the Mishnah and Talmuds, is entitled Nashim (“Women”), and its seven tractates deal with women in their legal relationships to men in matters of betrothal, marriage, levirate marriage, divorce, suspected adultery, and women’s limited ability to make vows of various kinds. Another section, Niddah (“The Menstruating Woman”), one of the twelve tractates in the division Tohorot (“Ritual Purity”), is mainly concerned with strict definitions of female impurity during and after menstruation and following childbirth, in order to prevent communication of this ritual impurity to men.
With few exceptions, female voices are not heard in rabbinic literature. When they are, they are usually mediated through rabbinic assumptions about women’s lesser intellectual, spiritual, and moral capacities, reflecting set views of women’s appropriate roles in life, which were believed to differ from those of men. Rabbinic texts do not grant women a significant role in any aspect of rabbinic Judaism’s communal life of leadership, study, and worship. Neither women’s religious rituals—which undoubtedly existed—nor female understandings of their lives, experiences, and spirituality are retrievable in any significant way from rabbinic Judaism’s androcentric writings that became so central to a millennium-and-a-half of Jewish existence. From rabbinic literature alone, a reader would never know, for example, that in various parts of the Roman Empire, some Jewish women held leadership roles in synagogue life and other public arenas. (Archeological evidence shows that such was the case in the first six or seven centuries of the Common Era. Some of the women involved, who appear to have been independent and wealthy, may have been converts to Judaism. See Bernadette Brooten, Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue, 1982.)
In their interpretive writings, the Rabbis praised biblical women who played central roles in the destiny of the people of Israel, including the matriarchs (imahot). According to the Babylonian Talmud (abbreviated as BT), Sarah, Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, Abigail, Huldah, and Esther have the status of prophets (M'gillah 14a); and the midrash collection B’reishit Rabbah declared that all four mothers of Israel were prophets (67.9 and 72.6). The Rabbis also lauded the women whose supportive roles in the domestic realm enabled husbands and sons to participate in public worship and communal study. For example, they extol Rachel, wife of Rabbi Akiva, as an exemplary woman who sacrificed her own comfort for her husband’s scholarship (Judith Baskin, Midrashic Women, 2002, pp. 101–3). On the other hand, the Rabbis condemned as immodest women who appeared unveiled in public or gathered in groups with other women, or those whose voices the Rabbis considered too strident. Similarly, some sages criticized women who asserted themselves as public leaders. Thus, the Babylonian Talmud goes on to denigrate the judge Deborah as a hornet and the prophet Hulda as a weasel (the meaning of their respective names), since they held powerful positions usually associated with men (M’gillah 14b; Baskin, Midrashic Women, 2002, pp. 31–32, 109–14, 140–54).
The midrash about Rahab the harlot is a good example of the creative and transformative powers of rabbinic commentary when applied positively to a biblical woman. Rahab appears in Joshua 2 as a prostitute who lived independently in the city of Jericho. She is a righteous woman who hides Joshua’s two spies in her house and saves them from capture. According to Joshua 2:9–11, Rahab recognizes the overwhelming power of God and foresees the future victory of Israel.
The Rabbis taught that Rahab became a convert to Judaism; and her statement of faith in Joshua 2:11 earned her the highest place among all biblical proselytes (M’chilta Amalek 3; D’varim Rabbah 2.26–27). A midrash recounts that she became the ancestor of priests and prophets in Israel (B’midbar Rabbah 8.9). According to the Rabbis, Joshua himself married her. Thus, his illustrious descendants were also hers (BT M’gillah 14b). (On how priests and prophets could be descended from a non-Israelite prostitute, see Sifrei B’midbar 78 and the discussion in Baskin, Midrashic Women, 2002, pp. 154–60.) Her rabbinic rehabilitation as a wife and mother demonstrates how the Rabbis preferred to imagine women, even as it provides a firm precedent for our own contemporary reconstructions of biblical women and men in ways that reveal meanings from the ancient text that speak to our own lives and concerns.
Rabbinic literature also preserves anecdotes about contemporaneous admirable women. These include Imma Shalom (1st century C.E.), whose husband was Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus and whose brother was the Patriarch Gamliel II (BT Shabbat 116a, BT Bava M’tzia 59b); she mediated a bitter quarrel between those two men. Traditions associated with Beruriah (2nd century C.E.), whose father and husband were rabbis, acknowledge the possibility of a learned female. A number of passages depict Beruriah as having a profound knowledge of rabbinic biblical exegesis and outstanding intelligence (for instance, BT P’sachim 62b, BT B’rachot 10a, and BT Eiruvin 53b–54a). However, beyond one very early attribution, which is repeated nowhere else, no actual legal rulings are ever credited to her (Tosefta Keilim, Bava M’tzia 1:6). Moreover, Beruriah’s reputed scholarly expertise became a problem for rabbinic Judaism. In a medieval reference, which may reflect earlier sources, she reaps the tragic consequences of the “light-mindedness” supposedly inherent in women. Rashi (see below) relates a tradition that Beruriah was seduced by one of her husband’s students and subsequently committed suicide (Rashi’s commentary on BT Avodah Zarah 18b; Baskin, Midrashic Women, 2002, pp. 81–83).
Seven aggadic narratives in the Babylonian Talmud discuss Yalta, an aristocratic Jewish woman of notable learning who exercised significant communal authority in the Jewish community in Babylon. Clearly, the Rabbis were aware of women like Yalta whose strong personalities, control of significant financial resources, and exalted lineage afforded them far more communal respect and power than ordinary women could imagine. While several of the stories about Yalta report her ability to act independently against Jewish rabbinic and political rulings when necessary, at least two of the anecdotes (BT Kiddushin 70a–b and BT B’rachot 51b) demonstrate a rabbinic desire to curtail such female pretensions to independence and power (Baskin, Midrashic Women, 2002, pp. 83–87).
Why Rabbinic Literature Is Included Here
The Rabbis adapted the Hebrew Bible to their own circumstances and attitudes, but always with the conviction that they were proceeding with divine authority. The traditions they established about the inappropriateness of women’s presence in the communal domains of worship, study, and leadership were continued, with few exceptions, in medieval and early modern Judaism. They persist in some Jewish communities up to the present day. Although the patriarchal approach toward women that is typical of rabbinic and medieval biblical commentary was never unique to the Jewish community, the consequences of this attitude have been long lasting in stifling female intellectual, spiritual, and leadership roles in Judaism. Contemporary women may well ask what this androcentric literature, written and transmitted by men, has to offer and why they should read it. Why have we included “Post-biblical Interpretations” in this volume at all?
For one thing, this complex and multifaceted literature is a rich part of our Jewish heritage. The Rabbis and later exegetes were profoundly immersed in biblical literature and had considered deeply its wide range of meanings and possible applications. The many dimensions they read into and out of the biblical text over the centuries have shaped the course of Jewish intellectual and spiritual history—and continue to amaze and enlighten us today. Moreover, rabbinic exegesis has always been sensitive to the multilayered and multivocal qualities of the Hebrew Scriptures. While the majority of exegetical teachings about women’s intellectual capacities and public roles tend to be negative, differing points of view have also been preserved. One example that acknowledges the injustice of arbitrary limitations on female roles appears in the midrash collection Sifrei Numbers 133, in a discussion of the redoubtable daughters of Zelophehad (Numbers 26): “The compassion of God is not like human compassion. Human rulers favor males over females but the One who spoke and brought the world into being is not like that. Rather, God shows mercy to every living thing” (see parashat Pinchas). Thus, our commentary includes “Post-biblical Interpretations” because they are part of our legacy of Oral Torah, because they have a great deal to teach us about biblical writings, and because they represent the diverse points of view that have always been a part of the way Jews read the Torah.
When thinking about women, it is especially important that we pay attention to this immense body of post-biblical interpretive literature which is a central part of Jewish tradition. Contemporary interpretations of Jewish texts have played a leading role in bringing about positive changes in women’s status in Judaism and in the larger world, and in enlarging women’s access to the realms of Jewish learning. Indeed, the many scholars who have contributed “Post-biblical Interepretations” to this volume demonstrate that women are now expert in rabbinic writings. As educated women and men advocate for a Judaism that is egalitarian and forward looking, it is essential that we become knowledgeable about all aspects of our heritage and build on those teachings of the past.
Documents of Rabbinic Judaism
The Mishnah is the earliest written document of rabbinic Judaism. It is a legal compilation based on biblical law, actual practice, and spiritual vision. This work, edited in the early 3rd century C.E., is written in Hebrew and is organized according to six subject divisions, which are further separated into a total of sixty-three tractates. The Tosefta, generally held to be a slightly later collection of legal rulings, follows the order of the Mishnah and supplements it. These works are attributed to the rabbinic sages from the 1st to 3rd centuries C.E. In the following centuries, rabbinic scholars in the land of Israel and in Babylonia (today’s Iraq) produced extensive commentaries on the Mishnah, known as Gemara. Much of the Gemara is written in Aramaic, a language close to Hebrew that was dominant in Western Asia in that period. In the 6th century C.E., the Mishnah and this more extensive Gemara were combined and edited by several generations of Rabbis to form the Babylonian Talmud (cited here as BT). This work became the definitive compilation of Jewish law and tradition for many centuries to come. The Talmud of the Land of Israel (cited here as JT), completed at the end of the 4th century C.E., although less comprehensive than the Babylonian Talmud, also became an important part of the larger body of rabbinic literature.
Parallel to the Mishnah, Tosefta, and Talmuds are midrash collections that either provide a running commentary on a specific biblical book or are organized according to cycles of scriptural readings. These midrash compilations, typically named after biblical books (for example, B’reishit Rabbah, also known as Genesis Rabbah), are mainly in Hebrew and share numerous interpretations and rulings in common with the Mishnah and Talmuds. The dates of composition for these midrashic documents extend from the period of the Mishnah into the early Middle Ages and are often difficult to determine with any exactitude.
Medieval Biblical Interpretation
During the medieval period (from 600 C.E. to 1500 C.E.), many important biblical commentaries were written by scholars throughout the Jewish world. Several of these exegetes are cited in the “Post-biblical Interpretations” entries in this volume. The most famous medieval commentator is Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac (known by the acronym Rashi), who lived in France between 1040 and 1105. Best known for his commentaries on both the Babylonian Talmud and most of the biblical books, Rashi’s exegesis has long been admired for its clarity and for his attention to the p’shat or contextual meaning of a biblical passage. Only after he had explicated the plain sense of a text as he understood it, did Rashi turn to d’rash, using midrash aggadah to expand his readers’ understanding of the Bible. Rashi had only daughters and they were apparently well educated. Most of his grandsons became important interpreters of Jewish texts.
Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra (died 1165), a native of Spain whose first language was Arabic, is often considered the most original of medieval Jewish biblical interpreters. He composed commentaries on all the biblical books, as well as Hebrew poetry and works on astronomy and science. As a scientist and philosopher, Ibn Ezra used his knowledge of Hebrew and Arabic grammar to demonstrate the contextual meaning (p’shat) of biblical words and phrases; he had little interest in the elaborations of midrash aggadah that appealed so much to Rashi. His approach to the Bible is in many ways a precursor to modern biblical scholarship. Another important Spanish exegete was Rabbi Moses ben Nachman (1194–1270), also known as Nachmanides or by his acronym, Ramban. He lived most of his life near Barcelona, spending his final days in the Land of Israel. He is well known for his commentary on the five books of the Torah and for the strong influence from Jewish mysticism that infuses his interpretation.
The Mikraot G’dolot (“Rabbinic Bible”) became a popular repository of medieval biblical commentary for later generations. Published with the vocalized text of the Bible, an Aramaic translation, and selected Masoretic notes, the typical volume of Mikraot G’dolot contains the commentaries of Rashi; Rabbi Samuel ben Meir (1085–1158), one of Rashi’s grandsons who is also known as Rashbam; Abraham ibn Ezra; Nachmanides; and Obadiah Sforno (1475–1550), an Italian rabbi, physician, and commentator.
Pre-modern Jewish Women and Hebrew Scriptures
Most Jewish women in rabbinic and medieval times lacked access to the Torah and interpretive writings, since very few women learned to read Hebrew. The greatest Jewish philosopher of the Middle Ages, Moses Maimonides (1135–1204), who was born in Spain and spent most of his life in Cairo, discouraged girls’ education in traditional texts, on the grounds that women had no halachic obligation to study. He also believed that women were deficient in the mental skills required for serious Torah learning. In his famous law code the Mishneh Torah, Maimonides wrote, “Our sages said: ‘Whoever teaches his daughter Torah, it is as if he taught her frivolity [or: lasciviousness]’ (Mishnah Sotah 3:4). This all refers to the Oral Torah. However, regarding the Written Torah he should not set out to teach her; but, if he does teach her, it is not considered as if he taught her frivolity” (Mishneh Torah, Study of Torah 1:13). The French scholar Moses of Coucy (early 13th century) explained that although “a woman is exempt from both the commandment to learn Torah and to teach her son, even so, if she aids her son and husband in their efforts to learn [by supporting them financially], she shares their reward for the fulfillment of that commandment” (Sefer Mitzvot Gadol, Positive Commandment 12).
The invention of printing in the 15th century and the spread of printed works in vernacular languages transformed Jewish women’s educational opportunities. Most rabbinic leaders agreed with Maimonides that the rabbinic injunctions against female study applied to the Talmud but not to the Bible or the legal rulings necessary for women’s everyday activities. It is no accident that translations and paraphrases of portions of the Bible into Yiddish were among the first printed Jewish books intended for a female audience. (These were also important works for the large number of Jewish men who also lacked a good understanding of Hebrew.) Particularly popular were the Taytsh-khumesh (“Yiddish Five Books of Moses”) by Sheftl Hurwitz of Prague and first published in 1590, and the Tsenerene (or Tzenah U’renah, “Go Out and See”), by Rabbi Yaakov son of Isaac Ashkenazi. Both of these biblical paraphrases included homilies on the weekly biblical readings from the Torah and Prophets, as well as stories, legends, and parables from rabbinic literature, the Zohar, and other mystical texts. The Tsenerene was particularly popular and appeared in more than three hundred editions. As Chava Weissler has written, “Women read it for inspiration and catharsis, often weeping over the text, as a regular part of their Sabbath afternoon activities” (Voices of the Matriarchs, 1998, p. 6). In this way, for the first time, large numbers of women became familiar with the Torah and haftarah portions of the week, a wide variety of midrash aggadah, and the teachings of the best-known commentators. Aspects of this knowledge, particularly about biblical women, was also incorporated contemporaneously into women’s vernacular supplicatory prayers (tkhines), at least some of which were composed by women (see Voices of the Matriarchs). Thus, a new technology in the larger culture (namely, printing) transformed the piety and possibilities of Jewish women, just as the technological and social changes of the past hundred years have profoundly altered the opportunities available for Jewish women at the beginning of the 21st century.
—-Judith R. Baskin