“Those Self-Assured Women”: A Close Reading of Rabbi Moses Feinstein’s Responsum

In this noteworthy and popular responsum, R. Feinstein expresses key doctrines concerning the proper place of women in the holy community of Israel. His discussion highlights some of his assumptions concerning the nature of women, their proper position in Jewish society, their motives and the effects of modernity upon them. He emphatically believes that women are “equal”—in no way inferior to or less important than men. Yet he also treats them separately from men; they are insiders capable of becoming treacherous outsiders. Women are encouraged to accept more rituals but warned not to expect change in God’s laws. The vacillation between respect and disdain in the title is symptomatic of the entire responsum.