Praise Her Works: Conversations with Biblical Women

Introduction

xiii Introduction New rituals are found, not made. They are waiting to be uncovered , like the sculpture living inside the stone. Books are often the same. Praise Her Works is a book inspired by a ritual, which, in turn, emerged from a text. Jewish creativity encourages interaction between tradition, text, and human being.¹ How the Ritual Came from the Text I saw a need for a ritual that would be held close to the time of my daughter Laura’s bat mitzvah. It would be a ritual of preparation and affirmation, of gathering together and making blessings. It would have to bring together all the important women and girls in Laura’s life: grandmothers, aunts, friends, and mothers of friends, as well as favorite teachers. Ultimately, it would give her the extra push up to the bimah, where she would read her Torah portion and give her speech. If this public ritual made her a Jewish adult before the entire community, then this preparation ritual would make her a Jewish woman. Since this would be Laura’s first time in the spotlight, she and I thought of this preparation ritual as a dress rehearsal. Also, as the mother of the bat mitzvah, I wanted Laura to shine first on her home turf with the women and girls who were her intimates. I hoped she would then be ready to cross the threshold of the synagogue where she would make her debut on that public stage. The ritual had begun coming into focus as I prepared for another gathering of women and girls months earlier, during Sukkot. We were having our annual “Women’s Night in the Sukkah,” when xiv Praise Her Works the women of my community invite biblical ancestors and female relatives to join us. This custom is called ushpizin (Aramaic for “guests”). Its roots are in the Jewish mystical tradition. We renamed the custom ushpizot (female guests). On this particular night, we were planning to invite Elisheba, wife of Aaron, into our sukkah. Not knowing much about Elisheba, I looked her up in that wellstocked lake of a book called Legends of the Jews by Louis Ginzberg. While fishing for Elisheba, I retrieved a curious item I had never known before: Elisheba was one of 22 righteous women written about in a 13th-century Yemenite collection of midrashim called Midrash ha-Gadol (literally, The Great Midrash). The word “midrash” comes from the Hebrew root dalet-reshshin , meaning “to seek, inquire.” A midrash is part of rabbinic commentary on the text and occurs in a place where something “disturbs,” as my teacher Judah Goldin used to say. This disturbance could be a misspelling, an odd grammatical usage, a contradiction in the text, or anything the commentator felt worthy of notice. Midrashic tradition continues into the present day. My curiosity was piqued by Midrash ha-Gadol. Who were the other 21 women? Which qualities determined who was on the list? After Sukkot, I resolved to find the answers to these questions. I discovered that Midrash ha-Gadol has not been completely translated into English, so I made my way through the Hebrew and Aramaic to learn who the 22 righteous women were. Each one of the 22 was linked to a line from the familiar poem “Eishet Chayil” (Woman of Valor) found in Proverbs 31:10–31. In Jewish lore, this poem was written by Solomon for his mother, Bath-Sheba. Some say it was really written by Abraham as a eulogy for his wife, Sarah. In traditional Jewish homes, it is sung at the Shabbat table by husband to wife. It is sung at a wedding by groom to bride, and it is recited at a woman’s funeral. However, the poem has been anathema to some Jewish feminists for decades. Why? Because on its surface it described an “ideal” Jewish woman, who was trusted by her husband, considered only what was xv Introduction good for him and not herself, managed real estate and business, stayed up all night sewing and making clothes for her family, and spoke mostly words of Torah. She seemed to be utterly self-sacrificing to the point of being self-effacing. “Eishet Chayil” was experienced as a burden to Jewish feminists. I wondered, as a modern Orthodox Jewish feminist, was it possible this poem could have been redeemed by the Rabbis who wrote Midrash ha-Gadol? Finding the list made me marvel at the Rabbis’ ability to be creative and traditional at the same...