Women on Women

No, that's not what I meant.

Along with what seemed like the entire Modern Orthodox community in the NY/NJ area, I attended a morning of learning at Yeshiva University devoted to "controversial" figures in Tanach. Overall, I'd say it was a very positive experience -- people who devote themselves towards thinking about Tanach most often have very interesting insights, and since most of Tanach is interpretation anyway, it's hard to have solid refutations if the speaker is coming at the material from a logical perspective.

Once exception: I was silly enough to attend a lecture devoted to the character Devorah. The shiur basically started by talking about how Devorah wasn't really contreversial or ambiguous. She was a great leader, with great religious morals and standards, who kept the nation of Israel at peace for 40 years under her rulership. Error #1: As the speaker before noted, no figure in Tanach is uncontroversial. All have ambiguities -- things about them that don't seem to clear. Devorah is called "eshet lapidot" by the text. She is either the wife of a man named lapidot or she is a woman of wicks, whatever that means. Assuming that the text means to say that her husband's name was lapidot, as is the plain meaning of the verse, it seems a bit sketchy that she's spending so much time with this guy Barak. Many mepharshim note this, and try to come up with a reconciliation in that Barak's other name was lapidot. Not necessarily the interpretation I would go with considering some of the other things that happen in the text, but at least it's being grappled with. The speaker today barely addressed that, treating the situation as though Devorah could not possibly have ever done anything wrong.

Ok, that's a common feeling among religiously naive, but I'll go with it and say that upon further study I could potentially agree that the text meant to portray Devorah as completely upright and righteous.

Then, the speaker made Error #2, going on to note that the midrashim and rishonim have major grapples with the fact that Devorah was a woman, and went on to delineate the ways in which the commentaries attempted to resolve this "problem." HUGE problem! This is the perfect example of when historical contexts need to be acknowledged and discussed. The commentaries all lived at time when there was a huge patriarchal influence in Judaism, and in the world at large. Of course they couldn't understand how a woman could rule a nation, when women were barely allowed out of their houses! Considering the fact that the text (you know, that thing that we talk about as being divine, or at least of primary importance in our religion) doesn't make a big deal out of her being a woman at all, it's ridiculous to ask these questions in a modern capacity as though its unimaginable that a woman could hold a position of power.

The worst part about this was that the speaker was a woman. Now, I've never conducted a scientific study on this or anything, but I find that women speakers overwhelmingly downgrade women characters in Tanach to traditional gender roles far more than male speakers do. Perhaps the males are more sensitive to offending their audience, whereas women think that they have the right to speak about women however they please. Whatever the reason, it's pretty terrible and very offensive. I can't understand what propels these women to think along terms in which they have a secondary status to men in the Jewish religion. These are not question we should be asking in our terms. Period.