Shma;An Online Journal of Jewish Responsibility

Torah of The Mothers: Contemporary Jewish Women Read Classical Jewish Texts Edited by Ora Wiskind Elper and Susan Handelman (Urim Publications, 2000 pp 510 $30.00) The Women's Torah Commentary Edited by Elyse Goldstein (Jewish Lights Publishing 2000 pp 496 $34.95)

Reading difficult texts? What texts aren't difficult if the literature you study was written by men and for men, and you are a woman entering into that conversation?

The Women's Torah Commentary is an anthology of brief divrei Torah on the 54 weekly Torah portions written by women rabbis ordained by the Conservative, Reconstructionist, and Reform movements. Most of the commentaries deal with female characters or legal issues pertaining to women using a range of feminist methodologies including new feminist narratives; some, like Rabbi Lucy Dinner's commentary on Bo, apply a general theme to an experience of women-eg., the idea of liberation is applied to the psychological and spiritual transformations wrought by women. These are creative readings, drawing freely on midrashic sources; some, however, are more plausible than others.

Rabbi Elyse Goldstein, who edited the volume, claims in her introduction that "the very existence of a commentary of women rabbis on all 54 weekly readings calls into question the marginality of feminist discussion." This may be true in general, but a commentary that asks the reader to see lot's wife as a pillar of support (Vayera) seems to be somewhat on the margin. To my mind, that is the price and the value of originality. These commentaries push the conversation of Torah commentary to new areas and new concerns; it will be the task of the students of these rabbis to continue and extend these conversations.

Torah of The Mothers (TM) is a striking collection of 23 essays by Orthodox women on a variety of topics. The essays are divided into four sections: "Students and Teachers," "Readings of Biblical Texts," "Readings of Rabbinic Texts," and "Exile and Redemption." The first essays, memorializing teachers are strikingly intimate, recalling the personal impact of Rav Soloveitchik, Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, Nechama Leibowitz, Chana Balanson, and the Lubavitcher Rebbe. The other three sections address "difficult texts" more directly, although, unlike the Women's Torah Commentary, few of the essayists in TM seem to have real personal difficulties with their chosen topics.

On the contrary, these women seem very comfortable with texts that go beyond standard Talmud, Midrash, and Bible commentaries; many also refer to hassidic and kabbalistic masters (see especially Miriam Birnbaum's fascinating study of the imagery of spiritual exile and Ora Wiskind Elper's description of hassidic images of the feminine in the Exodus). Following the style of Aviva Zornberg (who is mentioned in the acknowledgments), quite a few draw on the insights of literature (Thomas Mann, Hayim Gouri, Emily Dickinson, John Milton, and Dylan Thomas) as well as non-Orthodox Jewish scholars (Tikva Frymer-Kensky, Rabbi Michael Gold). The commentators' comfort also allows for the creation of a blend of writing style that is part academic (extensive footnotes which sometimes seem pitched to a target audience with very little background) and part confessional. Tamara Goshen-Gottstein expresses her own tentativeness in a plea to the reader: "Do not be limited by my current perspective of the texts. Every year, open your life anew; notice details in the text that may never have caught your heart before" (page 124).

Only a few of the essays actually deal with issues facing Orthodox women as such: Sarah Idit (Susan) Schneider's fascinating piece on the "The Daughters of Tzlafchad" draws lessons both from the daughters and from Moshe's response, delineating a "methodology of attitude" that can allow for empathetic and discerning responses to the halakhic petitions of Orthodox women. And Goshen-Gottstein's essay on "physical infertility and spiritual fecundity" deals with the spiritual opportunities brought on by the crisis of infertility. While some of the essays deal with biblical women (Deborah, Serah bat Asher, Esther) or feminine imagery, most are simply thoughtful, creative readings of texts in conversation with a broad range of traditional sources. Esther Sha'anan's concluding essay reflects on the authenticity of the new "Torah of our Mothers." Emerging in this generation by adjuring women engaged in Jewish learning, a subtext is to focus on social issues and, in particular, the difficulties of single-mother families in the Orthodox community. She writes, "If I am worried about my ritual...place in the synagogue when I haven't considered the place of the [marginalized member of the Jewish community]...I am losing touch with the essentials of Judaism." To the credit of the 77 contributors, Sha'anan's conclusion speaks for both of these volumes.

Jeff Spitzer is producer of JSkyway, a sistance learning prject for Jewish Day school educators.

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