An extraordinary examination of the theological implications for Orthodox Judaism of women’s changed status in the modern world.

An extraordinary examination of the theological implications for Orthodox Judaism of women’s changed status in the modern world. Expanding the Palace of Torah offers a broad philosophical overview of the challenges the women’s revolution poses to Orthodox Judaism and Orthodox Judaism’s response to those challenges. Writing as an insider (herself an Orthodox Jew), Ross seeks to develop a theological response that fully acknowledges the male bias of Judaism’s sanctified texts while confronting the radical feminist critique of Judaism as a religion deeply entrenched in patriarchy. She succeeds in providing a rationale for transforming the relative significance of that bias without undermining Torah authority. Moreover, Expanding the Palace of Torah shows that the feminist revolution in Orthodox Judaism reaches beyond its practical effect upon individual lives to teach us something more profound about the nature of religious practice in general.

Tamar Ross is associate professor of Jewish thought in the Department of Philosophy at Bar Ilan University. She has also been the central instructor of Jewish thought at Midreshet Lindenbaum (the first women’s yeshiva) since its inception.

“Easily one of the most significant and stimulating works of Jewish thought in recent years.”
–Jerusalem Post