{"id":68188,"date":"2020-01-06T09:09:55","date_gmt":"2020-01-06T07:09:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=68188"},"modified":"2023-07-31T12:14:18","modified_gmt":"2023-07-31T09:14:18","slug":"beruriah-and-womens-voices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/beruriah-and-womens-voices\/","title":{"rendered":"Beruriah And Women\u2019s Voices"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[483,410,600],"acf":{"old_id":"68188","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":41525,"related_cahpter":"388","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"The task that we inherit from our teachers is to make a world in which a Beruriah could thrive","content":"

For the final entry in this<\/span> series on feminine imagery in the Book of Isaiah<\/span><\/a>, I want to participate in a revolutionary chain of transmission. Throughout this series I have considered the patriarchal misogyny of the Book of Isaiah and how it was cultivated by the Rabbis. But just as biblical women deserve a voice, so, too, do the Rabbis\u2019 female contemporaries.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the Talmud, in tractate Berakhot, a heretic approaches the great Talmudic scholar Beruriah. He quotes to her from Isaiah 54:1, saying, \u201cSing, barren woman who has not given birth,\u201d then mocking her with the challenge, \u201cA woman who has not given birth should sing and rejoice?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Beruriah responds by calling the man a fool. \u201cGo to the end of the verse,\u201d she tells him, evincing an encyclopedic knowledge of Torah, \u201c[where God tells us that] \u2018the children of the forsaken shall be more numerous than the children of the favored wife.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Beruriah bests the heretic, suggesting that Isaiah 54:1 teaches that the People Israel should sing because they \u201cdid not give birth to children [destined] for [eternal damnation] like you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In this scene, the heretic is \u201cstopped in his tracks by a woman learned enough to direct him to read to the end of the verse\u2026 Not only does Beruriah resist the [heretic\u2019s] temptation to argue that the text does not represent women’s experience, she vehemently rejects all kinship with him\u2026 [T]he Beruriah of this story views herself as a representative of the normative tradition. It is not she but the [heretic] who is marginal: the implication of her taunt is that he is not a member of the community of Israel at all\u201d (<\/span>Rachel Adler<\/span><\/a>).<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite being \u201cother\u201d because of her gender, Beruriah is known as a great Talmudic scholar in her own right, and she repeatedly bests her male interlocutors.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As Rachel Adler — next in the revolutionary chain of transmission that is feminist Torah — reminds us, <\/span><\/p>\n

To imagine and transmit a legend about a female scholar through a thousand years of patriarchal culture is nothing if not a transcendence of context. But such insights are precious and fragile. They can survive only if we build a new world to sustain them. The task that we inherit from our teachers is to make a world in which a Beruriah could thrive.<\/span><\/p>\n

As we enter a new year, a new decade, a new age, although we still suffer from <\/span>an Isaian patriarchal misogyny cultivated by the Rabbis<\/span>, we must not forget the women who have risen up in the face of their oppression. I, for one, am dedicated to joining their ranks and making this a world in which Beruriah could thrive.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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