Sitting in a Ladies’ Pirkei Avot group last week, a participant queried, “If it’s called Ethics of the Fathers, does that mean that these teachings are less relevant to women? Is there an equivalent sefer (Torah book) for us?” The verse that immediately sprang to mind in response was from Proverbs: “Shema B’ni — Hear, my child, the instructions of your father and the Torah of your mother.”
My reply was that all of Torah is our book.The opening verses of the Shavuot Torah portion paint a picture of our people standing at Sinai, ready to receive the Torah. The very first words that God speaks from the mountain are: “So shall you say to the House of Jacob and tell it to the Sons of Israel” (Exodus 19:3).
Our tradition understands the “House of Jacob” to refer to the women of the nation, while “Children of Israel” refers to the males. This encompassing language places females foremost on this occasion and gives us reason to believe that women are considered a primary vehicle for Torah transmission.
Traditionally some have understood this to mean that the softer, values-based education that mothers give to their malleable young, home-centred and intrinsic to Jewish way of life, is the domain of women.
Only weeks ago we read about the Four Sons (Children) in the Haggadah. When it comes to the young child who hasn’t the words to ask, the Haggadah switches into a feminine grammatical form, “You (mother/female carer) open their mouth for them”, ie, you teach them how to question.
Those of a certain generation may yet recall watching their mother kosher chickens, set the Jewish tone of the home, and encourage Jewish practice. However, the days of limiting women’s educational influence to extend only so far as the walls of the house are long gone.
There was a time when Torah learning was practically a closed book to most women. Certainly, we hold up occasional females from our history as established scholars and teachers — Deborah, Bruria; however, limited access to education, patchy (if any) Hebrew reading and writing skills, and assumptions about women’s roles and capabilities often barred females from study of any nature, let alone Torah.
But the landscape has changed, particularly since the latter 20th century and Sara Shenirer’s revolution in girls’ Jewish education. This schooling movement, called Beit Yaakov, was named such because it harks back to the Sinai experience where women are identified as essential to Jewish education.
Recent decades have witnessed a sea change in our educational institutions. Most communities place equal value on women’s learning, and we now encounter plenty of female teachers and scholars. Across the Jewish spectrum women are stepping into educational roles; study halls are filling with females striving to grasp learning that once was not considered an option.
Institutions for school leavers now cater to both males (yeshivot) and females (seminaries, or women’s yeshivot). In London, Joanne Greenaway at the LSJS has pioneered a talmudic study group for women of all ages, led by the impressive Rabbanit Surale Rosen. Chief Rabbi Mirvis has launched various high-level learning programmes for women, encouraging females to move into a traditionally male space of publicly teaching Torah to the whole community.
At the same time, important female spaces have also been maintained within communities. Opportunity for Torah study is there for those who seek it.
It seems poignant that front and centre of our Shavuot story appear Ruth and Naomi. Ruth’s journey to Jewish conversion represents a learning immersion. On Shavuot we celebrate our introduction to Torah; an entire nation stood at the foot of Sinai ready to take on the practices of this new religious experience.
Aptly, Shavuot is laden with feminine imagery — the forty days that Moses remains on the mountain is understood to parallel the forty weeks of gestation as our nation is, quite literally, born. As a nursing mother provides an introduction to the infant’s palate, so too as we commemorate our religious and national infancy we bring the motif of dairy foods to our tables (think cheesecake).
And of course, the calling card text of the day is the Megillah of Ruth, a story of female protagonists and role models where even the harvest backdrop is one of female agricultural workers gleaning the fields.
Shavuot is approached not just as the harvest festival defined in the bible, but as a celebration of Torah learning for the masses. The established custom of the tikkun leil — learning into the early hours of the morning — witnesses our shuls become study halls. Community programmes feature female educators on their speaker line-ups. If our grandmothers walked into shul on Shavuot evening, they would certainly be amazed by what they see.
As we return the Torah to the Ark on Shavuot we will sing, as we do every Shabbat, Etz Chayim Hee. The beautiful refrain translates, “Torah is a Tree of Life to all that grasp it [her]”, and fittingly the female pronoun in this phrase refers to the Torah, not to the masculine etz (tree). This is totally appropriate within the context — teaching and regenerating Torah is definitely within the realm of female involvement.
We are presented with the opportunity to grasp Torah and claim our birthright. Where we struggle to find avenues of connection to our heritage and culture, we can start by opening the most fundamental Jewish life manual that there is. May we all — both Beit Yaakov and Bnei Yisrael — find ways to access Torah this Shavuot, to begin or to continue our Torah journey.
Ma’ayan Landau is rebbetzin of Barnet United Synagogue
Many women educators will be taking part in the more than 20 Shavuot learning events in United Synagogue communities next week. Among them, Rebbetzin Shira Chalk is running a women’s programme at Watford Synagogue, Rebbetzin Dr Hadassah Fromson is speaking at a tikkun leil for young professionals at Golders Green Synagogue, while Woodside Park Synagogue’s Rebbetzin Gila Hackenbroch is hosting a Megillat Ruth reading and tikkun leil for women
