Indiana University Press
Brenda Bacon - Brenda Socachevsky Bacon Responds - Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies & Gender Issues 6 Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies & Gender Issues 6 (2003) 207-208

Brenda Socachevsky Bacon responds

[Reader Response: Beruriah's Final Lesson]

Joel B. Wolowelsky's understanding of the purpose of Rashi's anecdote about Beruria's end—"to reprimand Rabbi Meir for his outrageous behavior"—is a fine example of re-interpretation of problematic texts and indeed accords with Rashi's favorable treatment of women as reflected in his legal rulings. However, it is questionable whether that is the true intent of the anecdote, which in the past has been used to undermine the legitimacy of Torah study for women. For example, Rabbi Haim David Azulai (the Hida, Eretz Israel, eighteenth century) wrote in his responsa collection, Tuv Ayin:

In the beginning the opinion was that the halakhah is not in accordance with Rabbi Eliezer [who said: "whosoever teaches his daughter Torah, it is as if he teaches her tiflut"], and they would teach Oral Torah to the women, and they learned this from the case of Beruriah. But because of what happened to Beruriah, they agreed that the halakhah is in accordance with Rabbi Eliezer.

Citing the ending of Rabbenu Nissim, according to which Beruriah ran away with Rabbi Meir to Babylonia, may be a means of "getting around" Rashi's unhappy ending to the story, but I have argued that it may be based on an older and more reliable tradition than that of Rashi. [End Page 207]

Wolowelsky's response suggests to me that perhaps we should be telling all the stories of Beruriah's end: that of Rabbenu Nissim, which leaves Beruriah's reputation intact; that of Rashi, which undermines it and serves as one of the bases for the view that women's oral Torah study is illegitimate; and that of the feminist re-interpretation of Rashi, which undermines the legitimacy of those who display no empathy for the plight of Jewish women yearning to study Torah. These multiple narratives reflect the history of the changes in the status of Jewish women.



Brenda Socachevsky Bacon is a senior lecturer in Jewish education at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, and head of the Curriculum and Pedagogy specialization in the M.A. program in Jewish studies. She has published academic articles in the fields of curriculum and teacher education and divrei Torah in Kolech, a publication of the Forum of Religious Women in Israel.

Share