The role of women in Judaism is established by the Hebrew Bible, the Jewish Law, by custom, & by secular, cultural factors. The Hebrew Bible and Jewish teachings acknowledge various powerful female role models. Also, the religious law treated women differently than other religions have, typically dating from the beginning of Judaism up to current day.
Although to some people it may seem like Jewish women do not have as much of a say or position in the Judaic community because they are female, that is not the case. Even though the role of men in Judaism is different from the role and responsibilities of women, each role is still just as important as the other, and it could even be said that women have better understandings and inner powers than men as well in some cases, as stated in the Talmud (Jewish Law).
In Judaism, men and women are seen as equal because it is believed by them that God has both masculine and feminine aspects – not only masculine. God is referred to as masculine by many simply because of the convenience of it. In the Hebrew Bible and the Torah, it may be a bit confusing when it comes to how the women are viewed. Sometimes, women were portrayed as men’s equal, and at other times, were seen as lesser than man, and portrayed as property.
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However, women being under the rule of the patriarch was a very common ideal that took place in almost every religion and ethnicity in history – it was just how the lifestyle was thought to be like for people who lived during those times of gender inequality. In the typical patriarchal culture, the function of women was to be daughters, mothers, and wives, and the father or brother was always the head of the family. The men were the ones that went out and got jobs to support their families, and the women tended their households – this concept has been heard frequently in almost every culture known to man.
Even though in this type of society the duty of a woman was to be keeper of the household, this responsibility is greatly respected in the Judaic religion. If they were discouraged or prevented from doing something, it was because that certain thing would interfere with or sidetrack their important role of the house. For example, Jewish women are discouraged from higher education, studying the Talmud & other Judaic laws, and going on religious pursuits because it could cause the women to disregard their essential duties of a mother or wife.
Also, according to the Halakha (Jewish Law), women in the Jewish religion are exempted from any mitzvah, or commandment, that is supposed to be performed at a certain time of day or year. This is because the woman is not expected to leave dinner unattended or to leave her baby to perform a mitzvah, such as daven ma’ariv, prayer services that are performed three times a day.
It is sometimes mistaken that Jewish women are fully prohibited from performing mitzvot (plural for mitzvah) because they do not participate in them most of the time. It is also mistaken that because of the exemptions, women do not have a role in the synagogue or religious Jewish life. These misconceptions are not true, however, because a woman is allowed to perform a mitzvah at a certain time whenever she pleases, and they do indeed still have a religious life because the home is the center of a religious life – not the synagogue.
There are three mitzvot, or commandments, that are held for women in the Jewish religion: the Challaht, Niddah, and Nerot. The Nerot is the lighting of candles when it is the beginning of the Sabbath or a Jewish holiday. The moment that the candles are lit, all restrictions and rules for that holiday go into effect, along with setting in the sacred atmosphere. The Challah is the separating a piece of dough from bread before baking on Sabbath because in the book of Numbers, it is said that the portion of the dough goes to the priest (kohein).
The last mitzvah is the Nibbah, which is the sexual separation of a man and woman during the woman’s menstrual period, since the Torah is against it. At the end of the menstrual period, a ritual bath of the woman is to be taken place to end the separation. If a woman is not able to be present for the Nerot and the Challah, a man is allowed to take the place and perform the mitzvah. However, due to the biology aspect of the Nibbah, the mitzvah is only subject to women.
Women’s role in the synagogue is not a very big one because of the fact that they are not obligated to participate in certain mitzvot. In the Judaic religion, it is thought that the obligations and strains of the commandments are a form of privilege for those that practice them. They see it as more important or having greater value to complete a task by command than by completing a task because they choose to do so.
With this being the case, since women can be exempted from performing commandments, they are seen as not having that much of a role in the synagogue. Voluntary prayers and readings by women from the Torah do not count in the synagogue since it does not have as much merit as it would if the task were to be performed by a man, who has the absolute obligation to do the commandments. They are also not able to lead services because of the exemptions as well.
So, the Jewish women are seen as having less privilege in the synagogue because they are not obligated to mitzvot due to their household responsibilities. It is also tradition that women wear a head covering in the synagogue and during daily life, but it is not a law to do so, so some women may choose only to wear it during their time in the synagogue – not the entire day. Another important thing about the synagogue is the separation of man and woman during prayer according to the Jewish Law. They are either separated using a wall or a mechitzah (curtain), or women were placed on a second floor balcony if there was one in the synagogue. The reason for this is that the men and women are supposed to only focused on prayer, and not being distracted by one another.
Also, the gender separation was put into effect to prevent the people from thinking sexual thoughts about the opposite sex so that they may be only focused on God and the sacred prayers. Because women do not have as much of a merit that men do in the synagogue, and because they have to be separated from the men, some of these Jewish women may feel inferior or out of place in the synagogue. However, these factors do not mean that women do not have a religious Jewish life – to them it is their everyday way of life that determines it.
The status of women seems to be brought up a decent amount of times in many rabbinic literatures and writings, especially the Talmud. The Talmud is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law and Jewish theology. This particular work sees women both in a positive light, and also in a negative way as well. The negative parts state that women were jealous, lethargic, arrogant, greedy, and gossipy. It would also be said that women couldn’t practice or pursue certain things because they would abandon their important duties and be too devoted whatever else they would be aiming to do. On the other hand, the Talmud also states the positive qualities women hold.
For example, it is said that greater rewards are given by God to the righteous woman than to the righteous man. Women possess more intuition (binah) and greater powers of discernment than men, too. Women are said to be tenderhearted and have more faith than men do. Men do not have joy unless they have a wife according to the Talmud, and they should be respected by the men at all times, more than himself. All of these sayings and qualities in this piece of literature show that the women in the Jewish religion indeed are seen as important and highly respected by the religion, and are not just seen as the lower individual when it comes to status.
In the Jewish tradition dating back a few hundred years, women still had rights such as having, buying, and selling property, along with having the right to make contracts and be consulted when it comes to their own marriage. The topic of marital sex was also considered the woman’s right, not the man’s. The issue of rape in the religion highly favored the woman’s side, and even beating or mistreating a woman was not allowed in the faith by any means. Altogether, women of the Jewish faith had been given their own sense of dignity when many other religions had not seen their women in the same light, and to this day are still just as, or even more, revered than earlier times.
Throughout history, there have been many female role models that have played a very important part in the Judaic religion, and many have looked up to these powerful women. Some of the very important matriarchs in the Hebrew Bible included Sarah, the wife of Abraham and the mother of Isaac, two very, very important figures in the Old Testament. There was also Rebecca and Rachel – Rebecca was known as a prophet, the wife of Isaac, and the mother of Jacob and Esau. Rachel was also seen as a prophet and was the favored wife of Jacob. She was the matriarch that had the two sons out of Jacob’s twelve sons – Joseph and Benjamin – and they were both favored the most by him.
Leah had been the sister of Rachel and the wife that was the least favored by Jacob, since he was tricked into marrying her when he wanted to be married to Rachel. Miriam was also an important female figure in the Bible – she was the sister of Moses and Aaron, and was the one that had put Moses in the basket in the river so that he would eventually be put into Egyptian royalty and from there, free Israel. She is also considered a deliverer of the children of Israel as well. Deborah was a prophetess and the only female judge in the Old Testament. Esther was an especially important role model for women – she was an orphan Jewish girl that ended up becoming the Queen of Persia.
Other than the women in the Torah, there were also women in the rabbinic culture that had been role models and have had a great impact on their husbands. Bruriah, the wife of Rabbi Meir, was a an important intellectual whose opinions on the Jewish law were at many times always accepted over the opinion of the male colleagues. Rachel, wife of Rabbi Akiva, highly encouraged her husband to study the Torah and was willing to make sacrifices in order to make it happen. Yalta, the wife of Rabbi Nachman, was known for breaking four hundred jugs of wine because of sexist comments directed to her, and indirectly, to women in general (was not given a cup of wine because it was seen as a waste).
The wife of Rabbi Eliezer had counselled her husband to take leadership over the Sanhedrin – the supreme court of ancient Israel. All in all, there were plenty of feminine heroes in the Jewish religion that proved that women were very important and respected individuals since the beginning of the Old Testament up to present day. The role of women is seen as just as important as men in the Judaic religion, and continues to be seen in the respected individuals when it comes to the Torah, Halakha, Talmud, other Jewish writings and teachings, religious cultures and practices, and in society as well.
Citations
- Lacks, Roslyn. Women and Judaism: Myth, History, and Struggle. Doubleday, 1980
- Greenberg, Blu. On Women and Judaism: a View from Tradition. Jewish Publication Society of America, 1998.
- Biale, Rachel. Women and Jewish Law: an Exploration of Women’s Issues in Halakhic Sources. Schocken, 1984.
- Rich, Tracey R. “The Role of Women.” Judaism 101: The Role of Women, 2011, www.jewfaq.org/women.htm.
- Kohn, Leah. “Women in Judaism Archives • Torah.org.” Torah.org, torah.org/series/women/.
