As I may have indicated once or twice before, I am currently studying Massekhet Sotah with Gabe Seed. The primary subject of this piece of the Talmud is, as presented in Chapter 5 in the Book of Numbers, the water ordeal for a sotah (סוטה), a woman suspected of sleeping with a man other than her husband.
In dealing with this subject, the Rabbis often attempted to protect the dignity of women in an ordeal that was certainly humiliating and painful. While not all Rabbis had progressive goals in mind, I am constantly fascinated by those Rabbis who realized the plight of women and tried to make things easier for them. On page 21a, the the Talmud offers a spiritual solution to the gender divide.
אומר בן עזאי חייב אדם ללמד את וכו':
Ben Azzai says: A person must teach one's daughter Torah so that she knows the benefits gained from meritorious living--rather than sin.1
ר' אליעזר אומר כל המלמד את בתו תורה מלמדה תיפלות
תיפלות
"Lechery?"
ס"ד אלא אימא כאילו למדה תיפלות
You really thank so? Maybe you can say instead "A person who teaches one's daughter Torah is almost like someone who teaches her lechery?"
א"ר אבהו מ"ט דר"א דכתיב (משלי ח) אני חכמה שכנתי ערמה כיון שנכנסה חכמה באדם נכנסה עמו ערמומית
Rabbi Abbahu says: What's the reasoning of Rabbi Eli'ezer? Proverbs 8:12 says, "I, Wisdom, dwell alongside ערמה Ormah (literally: Shrewdness)"2 because once Wisdom enters a person, ערמומית(Armumit: Subtlety) enters the person too.
Nice wordplay, but the Rabbis say that there must be another way, literally, to read this text.
ורבנן האי אני חכמה מאי עבדי ליה מיבעי ליה לכדרבי יוסי בר' חנינא
Our Rabbis taught otherwise: This phrase of "I, Wisdom..."--what can one make of it? It must be interpreted the way it's interpreted by Rabbi Yosei, in the name of Rabbi Hanina!
דא"ר יוסי בר' חנינא אין דברי תורה מתקיימין אלא במי שמעמיד עצמו ערום עליהן שנאמר אני חכמה שכנתי ערמה
Rabbi Yosei, in the name of Rabbi Hanina says: The words of Torah can only be fulfilled by a person who stands one's self up naked, upon the words of Torah--for it says, "I, Wisdom, dwell ערמה (arummah: naked)."2
It's an interesting thought, so Rabbi Yohanan picks up (and ends) the conversation.
א"ר יוחנן אין דברי תורה מתקיימין אלא במי שמשים עצמו כמי שאינו שנאמר (איוב כח) והחכמה מאין תמצא:
Rabbi Yohanan says: The words of Torah can only be fulfilled by a person who places one's self as if one is not--as Job 28:12 says, "But Wisdom, from naught, shall be found."3
End Sug'ya.
This is a curious turn of events. In review:
- Ben Azzai says that daughters must be taught Torah (so that they know the good that comes from not sinning).
- Rabbi Eli'ezer says that teaching Torah to one's daughters is immoral or, at best, frivolous.
- A few centuries later, the editor of the Talmud finds discomfort with Rabbi Eli'ezer's words.
- Rabbi Abbahu finds a verse in Proverbs that supports Rabbi Eli'ezer's argument against women studying Torah.
- The Rabbis look for another interpretation.
- A teaching attributed to Rabbi Yosei and Rabbi Hanina says that the verse Rabbi Abbahu read has nothing to do with women studying Torah; if read correctly, they say, this verse teaches that one must "stand one's self up naked" in order to fulfill the words of Torah.
- Supporting this, Rabbi Yohanan says that a verse in Job supports this by teaching that the Torah's wisdom can only be fulfilled by a person who negates their existence: that the Torah can be fulfilled only by someone who removes the layers of one's self and identity.
The text begins with an argument over whether or not women should be taught Torah, and the passage ends with a teaching that one must shake off one's persona in order to make Torah come alive. Although Rabbi Yohanan is too humble to come right out and say it, he disagrees with not only Rabbi Eli'ezer's interpretation of the verse, but he also disagrees with Rabbi Eli'ezer's teaching.
When we approach the study of Torah--formally or informally--we always come along with some baggage. We are Reform Jews; we are Conservative Jews; we are Orthodox Jews; or what have you. We love Torah, so we observe it; we love the Torah but don't observe it; we don't love the Torah, but we observe it anyway; or what have you. We are doctors; we are students; we are lawyers; or what have you. We are male; we are female; or what have you. But really: what have you? What baggage do we have, and why do we have it? Rabbi Yosei and Rabbi Hanina say, "Whatever you're holding, drop it!"
Very often, we want to read a text "knowing" the outcome, or maybe we want to claim that the moral of the passage is ours and only ours. But the truth is that we must approach the Torah naked--we must take off those layers about us that stubbornly make false arguments in our own favor. We must approach Judaism realizing that, compared to what we are looking at, we are nothing; a century or so of the human life is nothing compared to an eternal Truth.
We are each born with different sets of eyes, and we each live different lives; we see things differently from each other, and we cannot forget that we will always view Torah with a lens that our family and friends will never use. While our individuality can assist us as we refine the contours of our personal Judaism--our studies and our observances--there is a universal Judaism out there that is far greater than anything any one person can imagine. When we approach a Judaism that is universal to all--Shabbat, Kashrut, prayer, ethics, Jewish garb, and the like--we cannot say that our eyes and nobody else's can see the Truth. We must become nothing.
If men study Torah only to declare that all public ritual is theirs and theirs only, and if women in a society ruled by men are taught Torah only to learn how to maintain a sacred sexual lifestyle, then we have arrived at the Torah wearing too many assumptions. The Torah, given to the entire Jewish people, must be recognized as offering all Jews--regardless of gender--one mythic history, one covenant, one set of laws, one set of blessings, one set of curses, and a passionate God whose name is One.
Rabbi Eli'ezer, notorious in Rabbinic literature for many legislations and sayings that are sexist, looked at the Torah through a lens of stereotypes that conquered his ability to see Torah. But this is not to say that he was not an otherwise brilliant scholar of Torah. In fact, he was a great scholar. In fact, his words here can be reread with a less misogynistic bend. Perhaps the Mishnah cared to quote him here because, even though Rabbi Eli'ezer probably never had the conversation with Ben Azzai,4 the Mishnah needed someone to talk back to Ben Azzai, whose teaching was also at fault. Perhaps the editor of the Mishnah was concerned why Ben Azzai says that women should not look at the totality of Jewish living offered by a Torah lifestyle, but they should be taught Torah for the sake of understanding only the scenario of the sotah. To this, the Mishnah's editor perhaps hoped, Rabbi Eli'ezer would say4 that teaching Torah to women for only this purpose reduces a the teaching of Torah to a lesson about debauchery. No matter how we read them though, Rabbi Eli'ezer and Ben Azzai4 are concerned more about their own tastes and biases--not the universal Torah that is beyond their scope of vision.
Rabbi Yosei and Rabbi Hanina say to Jewish men and women, "Denude yourselves of your assumptions if you want to see the real Torah." Meanwhile, Rabbi Yohanan goes further and says, "If you want to see the real Torah, don't be a man or a woman; just be naught." Rabbi Yohanan teaches that there is no point of studying Torah if the purpose of it is just to become a better man, and there is no point of studying Torah if the purpose is just to become a better woman. We have to start from zero if we want to get to the Truth of the One God.
Ultimately, the values of Judaism might turn us into better men and women, but these values may also turn us into artists, better bankers, better customers, better drivers, better electricians, and what have you. We must universalize the Torah by exploring, instead of those few ways we want to apply the Torah, all the ways in life we can apply Torah. And in order to do that, we have to take a moment and imagine ourselves without prejudices and ulterior motives; we must be nobody before God: as zero before the One.
NOTES:
1. This is not a literal translation of Ben Azzai's teaching. A more literal translation would read "A person must teach one's daughter so that, if she drinks the bitter waters, she knows שהזכות תולה (she-ha-z'khut tolah: that the merit suspends) the effects of the drink on her." One reading of this text would suggest that the waters do not have an immediately harmful effect on a woman whose זכות (z'khut: merit) is that she is innocent--she has not slept with a man other than her husband. Another interpretation says that the waters have no immediately harmful effect on her z'khut is her study of Torah, and still another interpretation says that there is no immediately harmful effect if her z'khut is her sons' study ofTorah. Furthermore, there's a question about what the word "תולה (tolah: suspends)" means; is a suspension a complete removal of the effects or a delay of the effects? What does no immediately harmful effect imply--never, or not yet? The text of the Talmud makes these translations difficult.
Because the translations of these terms are not completely pertinent to the discussion above, I have chosen not to translate this section literally.
2. The word "alongside" in the Rabbi Eli'ezer's interpretation is implied even though the Hebrew contains no such word. The Hebrew literally means "I, Wisdom, dwell Shrewdness." This reading though, by animating wisdom and shrewdness into the living characters of Wisdom and Shrewdness, makes no sense because a person cannot "dwell" a person; therefore, it must be implied that Wisdom dwells "alongside" Shrewdness.
The second interpretation the Talmud gives here though does not call for the personification of Shrewdness; the word ערמה Ormah is vocalized as arummah, meaning "naked," and it is possible for a character named Wisdom to "dwell naked." Hence, there is no "alongside" in the second interpretation.
3. The term מאין (me'ayin) can be translated in two common ways: (1) from where, or (2) from nothingness.
4. Ben Azzai lived later than Rabbi Eli'ezer. The Mishnah, as most rabbinic literature often does, records a dialogue that probably never happened in person but certainly took place in the grand scheme of things.
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1 comment:
Hey - I am certainly delighted to discove this. Good job!
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