Dedicated in Memory of Maria and Bertalan Siegelstein and Miriam and Louis Novick, who matched dedication to tradition with openness to a changing world
What are the benefits of women engaging directly with halachic texts?
An introduction to Deracheha.
In Brief
How do we transmit Jewish tradition? Should we emphasize intellect or experience?
Rav Yosef Soloveitchik says we emphasize both: Mussar avicha, the intellectual-moral discipline of Torah and Torat imecha, the lived experience of God and Torah in the home, which he identifies chiefly with women.
What are the sources of traditional halachic authority?
Dr. Haym Soloveitchik identifies two traditions, each with halachic weight: A textual halachic tradition transmitted through study, and a mimetic tradition learned through imitation and informal teaching.
Where have women traditionally fit into these frameworks?
Women have passed on halachic knowledge to children through the mimetic tradition, and have exercised halachic authority when making day-to-day practical-halachic decisions in the home.
Have there been women who combined the worlds of text and mimietic tradition?
Yes, Rebbitzen Bayla Falk (17th-century Poland) was a model of how to integrate exceptional halachic knowledge with full participation in the experiential tradition.
Is this still relevant today?
Fast-paced changes of modern life have weakened the authority of the home. In many communities, a woman’s traditional role has lost its authority to texts.
Where do we go from here? What happens now?
Textual knowledge can help enable women to observe, preserve and transmit Halacha.
Women should directly encounter more texts, and work together to understand halachic issues through the standpoints of both text and mimetic tradition. That is the goal of Deracheha.
Read more about Deracheha’s approach to Halacha study here.
In Depth
Rav Ezra Bick, Ilana Elzufon, and Shayna Goldberg, eds.
Deracheha focuses on halachic education, presenting a range of perspectives.
A few pieces, like this one, focus more on ideas, and take a clear point of view. We hope you find it thoughtful—and thought provoking.
Religious Influence
How do we transmit Jewish tradition? Should we emphasize intellect or experience?
A verse at the beginning of Mishlei points to parents as a child’s primary teachers.
משלי א:יח
שְׁמַע בְּנִי מוּסַר אָבִיךָ וְאַל-תִּטֹּשׁ תּוֹרַת אִמֶּךָ:
Mishlei 1:8
Hear, my son, the instruction of your father (mussar avicha) and do not abandon the teaching of your mother (torat imecha):
What are the parents’ lessons that the verse instructs the child to follow? Mishlei is a book of parables. Midrash Mishlei takes this verse very broadly: father’s instruction is a parable for Written Torah, and mother’s teaching refers to the oral teachings from Sinai.
מדרש משלי פרשה א סימן ח
ד”א שמע בני מוסר אביך. זו תורה שבכתב. ואל תטוש תורת אמך. כל מה שנתפרש לך בסיני מפי הגבורה
Midrash Mishlei 1:8
‘Hear, my son, the instruction of your father (mussar avicha)’ – this is written Torah. ‘And do not abandon the teaching of your mother (torat imecha)’– all that was explained to you at Sinai from God’s word.’
The parents’ teachings stand in for the whole of Torah. Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik explains that this verse is not just a parable referring to the giving of Torah from Sinai, but a fine-tuned presentation of two complementary tracks for transmitting that Torah, the written and the unwritten.1 In his eulogy for Rebbitzen Rivka Twersky, known as the Talner Rebbetzin, Rav Soloveitchik explains this distinction in real-life terms.
Rav Y. D. Soloveitchik, 'A Tribute to the Rebbitzen of Talne', pp. 76-77
Father teaches the son the discipline of thought as well as the discipline of action. Father’s tradition is an intellectual-moral one. That is why it is identified with mussar, which is the Biblical term for discipline… What kind of Torah does the mother pass on?….That Judaism expresses itself not only in formal compliance with the law but also in a living experience. She [my mother] taught me that there is a flavor, a scent and warmth to mitzvot. I learned from her the most important thing in life—to feel the presence of the Almighty and the gentle pressure of His hand resting upon my frail shoulders.
He writes that a father traditionally brings his family the intellectual-moral discipline of Torah through mussar avicha, and that a mother brings the experience of God and Torah to life, through torat imecha. Exposure to both aspects of Torah begins with the parents, in the home.
Are styles of transmitting tradition necessarily gendered?
Interestingly, Rav Soloveitchik himself paves the way to a less gendered understanding of the transmission of lived Torah. For example, he describes Moshe’s laying of hands on Yehoshua similarly to how he describes the Jewish father and mother.
Rav Yosef Dov Solovetichik, 'Shenei Sugei Masoret,'in Shiurim Le-zecher Abba Mari z'l, vol. 1, pp.228
There were two mesoros that Moses transferred to Joshua. One is the tradition of Torah learning, of lomdus. The second mesorah, the hod, was experiential. One can know the entire Maseches Shabbos and yet still not know what Shabbos is. To truly know what Shabbos is, one has to spend time in a Yiddishe home.
The Torah Moshe, a man, gave to Yehoshua included both intellectual and experiential traditions.
Rav Soloveitchik also describes a male teacher of his from childhood as transmitting Judaism as his mother had.2
Rav Y. D. Soloveitchik, cited R. Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff, The Rav, vol. 1, pp. 149-150
He taught me something that no one else taught me. Perhaps there is one exception, my mother… He taught me how to live Judaism and not just practice it.
It seems that most of Rav Soloveitchik’s male teachers, his father included, emphasized intellectual pursuit of Torah – with a single exception, who instilled in him something very close to the torat imecha he received at home from his own mother.
Rav Solovetichik’s distinction between the roles of the mother and father idealizes different religious emphases for men and women, perhaps based on his own experiences. But he does not set rigid gender boundaries for who can transmit Torah in what way.
Both men and women can aspire to transmit a love for Judaism as richly lived, in and out of the home, whether or not they are parents. And all can aspire to transmit the intellectual aspects of Judaism.
Even so, women’s connections to mitzvot have historically run through the home and the living Torah within it.3 Women have wielded great religious influence, often through torat imecha.
Mimetic Tradition
What are the sources of traditional halachic authority?
In the traditional societies of the past, communities existed in place continuously for centuries, developing strongly rooted practices and ways of life.
In a landmark essay,4 Rav Soloveitchik’s son, Dr. Haym Soloveitchik, elaborates on the distinctions his father drew5 to identify two sources of halachic authority within these communities: a textual tradition transmitted through study, and a mimetic tradition, learned through imitation. He describes how in Ashkenaz, custom was part and parcel of Halacha, its dictates taken as seriously as those of texts.
Dr. Haym Soloveitchik, 'Rupture and Reconstruction The Transformation of Contemporary Orthodoxy', pp. 65, 67, 71
And a way of life is not learned but rather absorbed. Its transmission is mimetic, imbibed from parents and friends, and patterned on conduct regularly observed in home and street, synagogue and school….It is no exaggeration to say that the Ashkenazic community saw the law as manifesting itself in two forms: in the canonized written corpus (the Talmud and codes), and in the regnant practices of the people. Custom was a correlative datum of the halachic system. And, on frequent occasions, written word was reread in light of traditional behavior….Custom is potent, but its true power is informal. It derives from the ability of habit to neutralize the implications of book knowledge. Anything learned from study that conflicts with accustomed practice cannot really be right, as things simply cannot be different than they are. Once that inconceivability is lost, usage loses much of its force.
Halacha is a way of life and that way of life is not all about text. In a conflict between text and mimetic tradition, text does not always win. How we practice Halacha can be as powerful a force in determining Halachic rulings as what the texts say.
The complementary textual and mimetic traditions for determining Halacha parallel mussar avicha and torat imecha: the first is more formal and the second more experiential; both bear influence and authority.
Women and Mimetic Expertise
Where have women traditionally fit into these frameworks for transmitting Halacha and tradition?
In an era in which few women merited formal education, imitation and informal instruction were the most common ways for women to learn how to keep mitzvot and to transmit knowledge of mitzvot. Through mimesis, women built real halachic expertise.
Medieval halachic luminary Maharil attests to this in a responsum:
שו”ת מהרי”ל החדשות צג
הנח להו לבנות ישראל, אם אינן נביאות הן, בנות נביאות הן. ומנעוריהן בקיאין הן על פי אימותן והורתן.
New Responsa Maharil 93
Leave the daughters of Israel be, [for] if they are not prophets, they are daughters of prophets. And from their youth they are expert in accordance with their mothers and their teachings.
Using a classic halachic metaphor, Maharil likens women’s knowledge of halachic practice to prophecy.
Performing mitzvot and domestic tasks in conformity with Halacha demands halachic competence and confidence. As day-to-day decision makers in the home on any number of matters bearing practical halachic weight, women exercise a type of halachic authority. Historically, that decision-making was authoritative. It drew its authority from what had been received mimetically from previous generations.6
How did this work? The kitchen is a good example. For most of history, the woman at home was very much in charge of her kitchen. It was she who carried a proud legacy from the women who came before her of how to observe kashrut and other related laws. When questions arose, it was she who decided them or chose to consult scholars expert in texts.7
Men respected women’s mimetic halachic knowledge. In the Talmud, in addition to accounts of women seeking guidance from sages, we occasionally see the sages themselves learning from women about Halacha in practice. For example, Ravina cites his mother in a dispute between Rav and Rav Chiyya regarding the timing of cutting bread and birkat ha-motzi:
ברכות לט:
אמר רבינא: אמרה לי אם ‘אבוך עביד כרבי חייא’…
Berachot 39b
Ravina said: My mother said to me, “Your father acted in accordance with [the ruling of] Rabbi Chiyya.”
Ravina’s mother knew well what her husband did. She understood its halachic implications, too. She taught both to her son, who recognizes the authority of her teaching.
Did women’s halachic authority receive wider recognition? Yes. Rav Yitzchak of Dampierre, one of the most prominent tosafists, formalizes women’s role in transmitting Halacha.8
שו”ת ר”י הזקן סימן מו
אם אינם נביאות, בנות נביאים הם וגדולי הדור ויש לסמוך על המנהג:
Responsa Ri Ha-zaken, 46
If [women in this area of Halacha] are not prophets, they are daughters of prophets and the great ones of the generation and one should rely on the custom [they relate].
This statement goes beyond Maharil’s. Rav Yitchak recognizes custom maintained by women as absolutely reliable in evaluating halachic practice. For this reason, we should rely on women’s mimetic transmission of Halacha.
Women and men, practitioners of both types of tradition, engaged in dialogue with each other regarding halachic practice.
Rebbitzen Bayla Falk
The textual and mimetic traditions can be mutually reinforcing in a community or family. Can an individual integrate them?
In early seventeenth-century Poland, we find an example of a single individual integrating textual and experiential knowledge, mussar avicha and torat imecha: Rebbitzen Bayla Falk. Her son, Rav Yosef Falk, wrote a posthumous introduction to a work of scholarship by his father (her husband). In the middle of the introduction, Rav Yosef devotes several paragraphs to a vivid description of his mother and her piety.
דרישה ופרישה הקדמת בן המחבר
האשה החשובה הגבירה הצנועה והחסידה והישרה הלא היא אמי מורתי הרבנית מרת בילה…ראויה היא לחלוק לה כבוד ולהעלות על הספר קצת מעשיה הטובים להיות לנו לזכר לדורות ולמען ילמדון ממנה כל בנות ישראל…ולכבוד שבת עשתה כל מיני מטעמים ומעט נהנה מהם רק שלחה לעניים ולבני בית. וכל ימיה הן בימי החורף הן בימי הקיץ עמדה תמיד בזריזות קודם אור היום כמה שעות והרבית להתפלל בכוונה גדולה בתפילות ובתחנונים לפני המקום ברוך הוא. ובידה מפתח עזרת הנשים שהיתה ראשונה מבאי בית הכנסת ואחרונה שעה אחת או שתים אחר יציאת העם מבית הכנסת שהגמירה תפלותיה ותחנוניה. ואחר התפלה לא שם נפשה לשום דבר בטלה רק מחיל אל חיל עוסקת בתורה פרשה של ימי השבוע עם פירוש רש”י ושאר מפרשים כידוע לכל תלמיד אבי מורי ורבי ז”ל מאוכלי שלחנו שתמיד אשר היו פוטרין השלחן בדברי תורה היתה אוזרת כגבר חלציה במשא ומתן בדברי תורה ולפעמים אשר המציאה מדעתה איזה פשט מתוק מדבש נופת תטופנה שפתותיה ובפרט בדיני נשים ובהלכות נדה היתה בקיאה כמעט כאחד מבעלי הוראה.
Rav Yosef Falk, Introduction by the Author's Son to Derisha and Perisha
The dignified woman, the noble, modest, and pious and righteous lady, my mother and teacher Rebbitzen Mistress Bayla…She is worthy to apportion her honor and to put in writing a little of her good deeds, to be a record for us for generations and so that all daughters of Israel will learn from her…In honor of Shabbat she made all sorts of delicacies and enjoyed them little herself; rather, she sent them to the poor and to members of the household. All her days, whether in winter or in summer, she always arose early some hours before the light of day and uttered many prayers and entreaties with great intentionality before God blessed be He. In her hand was the key for the women’s section [of the synagogue], for she was the first to come to the synagogue and the last, by an hour or two after most had left synagogue, as she finished her prayers and entreaties. After the prayer she did not turn to any frivolous matter, but went from valor to valor, occupying herself with the Torah portion of the days of the week with the commentary of Rashi and other commentators, as is known to all students of my father and teacher of blessed memory, who sat at his table. For always, as they would end the meal with words of Torah, she would gird her loins like a man in the discussion of words of Torah. Sometimes she would conceive some original explanation sweeter than honey nectar flowing from her lips. Especially in laws pertaining to women and in the laws of nidda she was nearly as expert as one of those who issue halachic rulings.
Rebbitzen Bayla expresses her piety through Torah, avoda (prayer), and gemilut chassadim (loving-kindness). She opens up the synagogue to pray, and learns Torah for its own sake. Students gather at the Shabbat table of their distinguished rabbi, passionately debating Torah with him, and Rebbitzen Bayla participates in the discussion. She shares ideas of the highest quality. They are so fine that her son has to evoke male imagery to do them justice. As he writes, when it comes to Torah, this “dignified, noble, and modest” woman “girds her loins like a man.”
Rebbitzen Bayla’s Torah learning extends to real halachic mastery of laws pertaining directly to women’s lives. Later in the introduction, Rav Falk explains two original halachic positions of his mother’s regarding candle-lighting. He then publicly issues a halachic ruling following his mother’s halachic innovation!9
Rebbitzen Bayla both lives and thinks Torah. She prepares both Torah and food for her Shabbat table. She learns halachot related to the mitzvot she observes and puts her halachic insights into practice. Her intellectual knowledge of Torah enhances her transmission of Torah as a way of life.
Rebbitzen Bayla provides a model for developing textual knowledge while transmitting torat imecha.
A person’s knowledge of mitzvot can enhance their “flavor, scent, and warmth.” Jewish women and men can learn to transmit the life of Judaism along with Torah. A learned Jewish woman’s knowledge and practice can be mutually reinforcing. Textual knowledge can lead a woman closer to the Torah ideals of text and mimetic tradition.
Deracheha
Are these distinctions still relevant today?
Classically, women have been expert in the mimetic tradition, passing on to children the knowledge of how to perform essential mitzvot.
But the transience and fast-paced changes of modern life have weakened the authority of communal practice and the home. In our times, custom has lost much of its potency. Parents have ceded authority to schools.
Religious authority now rests chiefly with text and its masters. In Halacha and in other areas, we lend our highest trust to books and experts. We often attempt to resolve problems by researching them, not by seeking out our parents’ wisdom. The textual tradition is ascendant at the mimetic tradition’s expense. Recently, even the authority of the textual tradition has also been called into question.
The decline of mimetic authority has had an especially profound effect on women, who have historically wielded it so effectively. Women now are also less bound to the home, the center of mimetic learning, than in the past. As the power of the mimetic tradition wanes in many of our communities, so does the authority of a woman’s role in Halacha.10
Where do we go from here? What happens now?
Much of the current tug of war over a woman’s role in Judaism starts here. In many of our communities, a traditional role has lost its authority and much of its footing. Textual knowledge can play a part in reconstructing them.
Now more than ever, textual knowledge can better enable women to observe, preserve and transmit Halacha, in and out of the home. Mishna Berura explains the importance of understanding Halacha in general:
משנה ברורה הקדמה
כי אין הדין יכול להתישב היטב בדעת האדם כל זמן שאין יודעו בטעמו ונמוקו
Mishna Berura, Introduction
For the law cannot sit well in someone’s mind as long as he does not know it along with its logical grounds and reasoning.
Mishna Berura doubts a person can make sense of Halacha without learning its deeper rationale. It doesn’t ‘sit well.’ Now that we give less weight to the informal methods through which women typically learn Halacha, this argument takes on more urgency. Can we expect a well educated woman to find that Halacha ‘sits well’ without giving her the tools to understand it?
Deracheha contributing editor Shayna Goldberg explains how important textual learning of Halacha can be:11
Shayna Goldberg, 'Why I Believe in Women and Their Batei Midrash'
A woman who has seriously engaged in traditional analysis of our primary texts can converse in them as an ‘insider.’…She is privy to a more sophisticated understanding and appreciation of how halacha operates, and as such often develops a deeper respect for the halachic system. She can understand the key principles in play. She can differentiate between de-Oraita, de-rabbanan and minhag. And she can understand when and why exceptions can be made…A woman who has studied an issue in depth has a greater ability to value different approaches, to understand different opinions, and to appreciate decisions that different communities make.
In striving to live lives in service of God and to find a place within Halacha, women should directly encounter more texts, and work collaboratively to understand halachic issues through the standpoints of both text and mimetic tradition
That is the goal of Deracheha.
Read more about Deracheha’s approach to Halacha study here.
Further Reading
- בטחה הר שפי “נשים בקיום מצוות בשנים 1050-1350 בין הלכה למנהג,” עבודת דוקטור, האוניברסיטה העברית בירושלים, תשס”ב.
- 4. Stampfer, “How Jewish Society Adapted to Change in Male\Female Relationships in 19th\Early 20th Century Europe”, in Gender Relationships In Marriage and Out, ed. Rivka Blau, New York: Yeshiva University Press, 2004, pp. 65-84. Available with log-in from yutorah.org
Notes
גרי”ד סולובייציק שיעורים לזכר אבא מרי א עמ’ 228
שתי מסורות ישנן: א) מסורת אחת המתיחסת כולה למסורת של לימוד…ב) מסורת מעשית של הנהגת כלל ישראל בקיום מצוות וזו מיוסדת על הפסוק שאל אביך ויגדך זקניך ויאמרו לך, דברים לב:ז
Rav Yosef Dov Solovetichik, 'Shnei Sugei Masoret,'in Shiurim Le-zecher Abba Mari z'l, vol. 1, pp.228
There are two traditions: 1) a tradition that relates entirely to a tradition of learning…2) a practical tradition of the practice of Israel in fulfilling mitzvot. And this is founded on the verse, “Ask your father and he will tell you, your elders and they will say to you”(Devarim 32:7).
Dr. Shaul Stampfer, 'How Jewish Society Adapted to Change in Male Female Relationships in 19th Early 20th Century Europe' pp.73
Despite all of the images, most halakhic questions were decided by women and not by men. Women were the ones who noted problems with a chicken and they were the ones who decided if a question warranted a query to the rabbi or not…Similarly questions of taharat hamishpahah [niddah] were in the purview of women. Behavior on Shabbat was as much under the supervision of women as of men, and since halakhah was known by initiation and not from books (note that in heder children learned humash but never halakhah), most men, except for the relatively few in the scholarly elite, were no more competent to determine halakhah than their wives.
7.A vivid account of women’s halachic authority in the kitchen appears in note 18 of Dr. Soloveitchik’s essay: Scholars could say what they may, but the woman of the home was in charge. It was she who determined when to consult them and it was she who carried a proud legacy from the women who came before her.
Dr. Haym Soloveitchik, 'Rupture and Reconstruction: The Transformation of Contemporary Orthodoxy note 18
The traditional kitchen provides the best example of the neutralizing effect of tradition, especially since the mimetic tradition continued there long after it was lost in most other areas of Jewish life. Were the average housewife (bale-boste) informed that her manner of running the kitchen was contrary to the Shulhan Aruch, her reaction would have been a dismissive “Nonsense!” She would have been confronted with the alternative, either that she, her mother and grandmother had, for decades, been feeding their families non-kosher food [treifes] or that the Code was wrong or, put more delicately, someone’s understanding of that text was wrong. As the former was inconceivable, the latter was clearly the case. This, of course, might pose problems for scholars, however, that was their problem not hers. Neither could she be prevailed on to alter her ways, nor would an experienced rabbi even try. There is an old saying among scholars “A yidishe bale-boste takes instruction from her mother only”.
Sources
To see these sources in context on Sefaria, click here!
Religious Influence
משלי א:יח
שְׁמַע בְּנִי מוּסַר אָבִיךָ וְאַל-תִּטֹּשׁ תּוֹרַת אִמֶּךָ:
Mishlei 1:8
Hear, my son, the instruction of your father (mussar avicha) and do not abandon the teaching of your mother (torat imecha):
מדרש משלי פרשה א סימן ח
ד”א שמע בני מוסר אביך. זו תורה שבכתב. ואל תטוש תורת אמך. כל מה שנתפרש לך בסיני מפי הגבורה
Midrash Mishlei 1:8
‘Hear, my son, the instruction of your father (mussar avicha)’ – this is written Torah. ‘And do not abandon the teaching of your mother (torat imecha)’- all that was explained to you at Sinai from God’s word’.
Rav Y. D. Soloveitchik 'A Tribute to the Rebbitzen of Talne', pp. 76-77
Father teaches the son the discipline of thought as well as the discipline of action. Father’s tradition is an intellectual-moral one. That is why it is identified with mussar, which is the Biblical term for discipline… What kind of Torah does the mother pass on?….That Judaism expresses itself not only in formal compliance with the law but also in a living experience. She [my mother] taught me that there is a flavor, a scent and warmth to mitzvot. I learned from her the most important thing in life—to feel the presence of the Almighty and the gentle pressure of his hand resting upon my frail shoulders.
Rav Y. D. Soloveitchik, Chumash Mesoret haRav, Bamidbar, pp. 221
There were two mesoros that Moses transferred to Joshua. One is the tradition of Torah learning, of lomdus. The second mesorah, the hod, was experiential. One can know the entire Maseches Shabbos and yet still not know what Shabbos is. To truly know what Shabbos is, one has to spend time in a Yiddishe home.
Rav Y. D. Soloveitchik, cited R. Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff, The Rav, vol. 1, pp. 149-150
He taught me something that no one else taught me. Perhaps there is one exception, my mother… He taught me how to live Judaism and not just practice it.
Mimetic Tradition
Dr. Haym Soloveitchik, 'Rupture and Reconstruction The Transformation of Contemporary Orthodoxy', pp. 65, 67, 71
And a way of life is not learned but rather absorbed. Its transmission is mimetic, imbibed from parents and friends, and patterned on conduct regularly observed in home and street, synagogue and school….It is no exaggeration to say that the Ashkenazic community saw the law as manifesting itself in two forms: in the canonized written corpus (the Talmud and codes), and in the regnant practices of the people. Custom was a correlative datum of the halachic system. And, on frequent occasions, written word was reread in light of traditional behavior….Custom is potent, but its true power is informal. It derives from the ability of habit to neutralize the implications of book knowledge. Anything learned from study that conflicts with accustomed practice cannot really be right, as things simply cannot be different than they are. Once that inconceivability is lost, usage loses much of its force.
Women and Mimetic Expertise
שו”ת מהרי”ל החדשות צג
הנח להו לבנות ישראל, אם אינן נביאות הן, בנות נביאות הן. ומנעוריהן בקיאין הן על פי אימותן והורתן.
New Responsa Maharil 93
Leave the daughters of Israel be, [for] if they are not prophets, they are daughters of prophets. And from their youth they are expert in accordance with their mothers and their teachings.
ברכות לט:
אמר רבינא: אמרה לי אם ‘אבוך עביד כרבי חייא’…
Berachot 39b
Ravina said: My mother said to me, “Your father acted in accordance with [the ruling of] Rabbi Chiyya.”
שו”ת ר”י הזקן סימן מו
אם אינם נביאות, בנות נביאים הם וגדולי הדור ויש לסמוך על המנהג:
Responsa Ri Ha-zaken 46
If [women in this area of Halacha] are not prophets, they are daughters of prophets and the great ones of the generation, and one one should rely on the custom [they relate].
Rebbitzen Bayla Falk
דרישה ופרישה הקדמת בן המחבר
האשה החשובה הגבירה הצנועה והחסידה והישרה הלא היא אמי מורתי הרבנית מרת בילה…ראויה היא לחלוק לה כבוד ולהעלות על הספר קצת מעשיה הטובים להיות לנו לזכר לדורות ולמען ילמדון ממנה כל בנות ישראל…ולכבוד שבת עשתה כל מיני מטעמים ומעט נהנה מהם רק שלחה לעניים ולבני בית. וכל ימיה הן בימי החורף הן בימי הקיץ עמדה תמיד בזריזות קודם אור היום כמה שעות והרבית להתפלל בכוונה גדולה בתפילות ובתחנונים לפני המקום ברוך הוא. ובידה מפתח עזרת הנשים שהיתה ראשונה מבאי בית הכנסת ואחרונה שעה אחת או שתים אחר יציאת העם מבית הכנסת שהגמירה תפלותיה ותחנוניה. ואחר התפלה לא שם נפשה לשום דבר בטלה רק מחיל אל חיל עוסקת בתורה פרשה של ימי השבוע עם פירוש רש”י ושאר מפרשים כידוע לכל תלמיד אבי מורי ורבי ז”ל מאוכלי שלחנו שתמיד אשר היו פוטרין השלחן בדברי תורה היתה אוזרת כגבר חלציה במשא ומתן בדברי תורה ולפעמים אשר המציאה מדעתה איזה פשט מתוק מדבש נופת תטופנה שפתותיה ובפרט בדיני נשים ובהלכות נדה היתה בקיאה כמעט כאחד מבעלי הוראה.
Rav Yosef Falk, Introduction by the Author's Son to Derisha and Perisha
The dignified woman, the noble, modest, and pious and righteous lady, is she not my mother and teacher Rebbitzen Mistress Bayla…She is worthy to apportion her honor and to put in writing a little of her good deeds, to be a record for us for generations and so that all daughters of Israel will learn from her…And in honor of Shabbat she made all sorts of delicacies and enjoyed them little herself; rather, she sent them to the poor and to members of the household. And all her days, whether in winter or in summer, she always arose early some hours before the light of day and uttered many prayers and entreaties with great intentionality before God blessed be He. And in her hand was the key for the women’s section [of the synagogue], for she was the first to come to the synagogue and the last, by an hour or two after most had left synagogue, as she finished her prayers and entreaties. And after the prayer she did not turn to any frivolous matter, but went from valor to valor, occupying herself with the Torah portion of the days of the week with the commentary of Rashi and other commentators, as is known to all students of my father and teacher of blessed memory, who sat at his table. For always, as they would end the meal with words of Torah, she would gird her loins like a man in the discussion of words of Torah. And sometimes she would conceive some original explanation sweeter than honey nectar flowing from her lips. And especially in laws pertaining to women and in the laws of nidda she was nearly as expert as one of those who issue halachic rulings.
Deracheha
משנה ברורה הקדמה
כי אין הדין יכול להתישב היטב בדעת האדם כל זמן שאין יודעו בטעמו ונמוקו
Mishna Berura, Introduction
For the law cannot sit well in someone’s mind as long as he does not know it along with its logical grounds and reasoning.
Shayna Goldberg, 'Why I Believe in Women and Their Batei Midrash'
A woman who has seriously engaged in traditional analysis of our primary texts can converse in them as an ‘insider.’…She is privy to a more sophisticated understanding and appreciation of how halacha operates, and as such often develops a deeper respect for the halachic system. She can understand the key principles in play. She can differentiate between de-Oraita, de-rabbanan and minhag. And she can understand when and why exceptions can be made…A woman who has studied an issue in depth has a greater ability to value different approaches, to understand different opinions, and to appreciate decisions that different communities make.
Q&A
Sometimes a quick exchange communicates more effectively, and more personally, than an article. Sometimes, just seeing that others share our questions can make us feel more connected.
Our posted questions and answers are an opportunity to learn from each other. To ask a question of your own, click here!
Hashkafic Q&A
Are styles of transmitting tradition necessarily gendered?
Interestingly, Rav Soloveitchik himself paves the way to a less gendered understanding of the transmission of lived Torah. For example, he describes Moshe’s laying of hands on Yehoshua similarly to how he describes the Jewish father and mother.
Rav Yosef Dov Solovetichik, 'Shenei Sugei Masoret,'in Shiurim Le-zecher Abba Mari z'l, vol. 1, pp.228
There were two mesoros that Moses transferred to Joshua. One is the tradition of Torah learning, of lomdus. The second mesorah, the hod, was experiential. One can know the entire Maseches Shabbos and yet still not know what Shabbos is. To truly know what Shabbos is, one has to spend time in a Yiddishe home.
The Torah Moshe gave to Yehoshua, a man, included both intellectual and experiential traditions.
Rav Soloveitchik also describes a male teacher of his from childhood as transmitting Judaism as his mother had.2
Rav Y. D. Soloveitchik, cited R. Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff, The Rav, vol. 1, pp. 149-150
He taught me something that no one else taught me. Perhaps there is one exception, my mother… He taught me how to live Judaism and not just practice it.
It seems that most of Rav Soloveitchik’s male teachers, his father included, emphasized intellectual pursuit of Torah – with a single exception, who instilled in him something very close to the torat imecha he received at home from his own mother.
Rav Solovetichik’s distinction between the roles of the mother and father idealizes different religious emphases for men and women, perhaps based on his own experiences. But he does not set rigid gender boundaries for transmitting Torah.
Reader Q&A
Podcast
Hukdash le-zecher Yehudit Raizel bat Eliezer ve’Esther a”h
Dedicated in memory of Mrs Anita Hirsch Silverman ob”m
Tip: Hit the play button and then tab to “Sources” to scroll through the sources while listening.
Bonus Podcast!