Women’s Voices in Torah Learning: A Typology
Elana Stein Hain
July 2023
July 2023
מה אהבתי תורתך, כל היום היא שיחתי – “Oh, how I love Your Torah. All day it is my conversation” (Psalms 119:97). I have been blessed to learn Torah – written and oral – from a young age, and it has been my religious north star. It has shaped who I am in many ways. Throughout that shaping, however, I could not help but notice the male dominance in most of the texts that I studied – the main characters, the authors, the commentators, etc. As a girl and then as a woman, this implicitly positioned me as someone looking in on my tradition rather than creating it – especially when it comes to the creation of Torah commentary.
In this essay, I would like to offer a typology of bringing women’s voices into textual Torah learning, analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of each. I will offer five strategies which sit on a spectrum ranging from simply foregrounding the perspectives and lives of female characters to implicitly and explicitly positioning women as Torah scholars and commentators. These strategies engage the portrayal of “possible selves” for women – showing female (and other) learners the possibilities of what and who they can be. A life of Torah learning that limits the possible selves of women to being the more acted upon character rather than the actor, to being the one commented upon rather than the one creating commentary, is insufficient for 21st century Torah discourse. The way we center women in Torah study inevitably impacts how women can see themselves as possible Torah learners, teachers, and scholars.
The first strategy I would like to present is constructive reading. If female characters, voices, or perspectives are present in the primary texts being studied, whether they are prominent or not, one way of enhancing those roles is to ask the learners to take up the point of view of a woman in the story. This invites people into constructing a Rashomon of sorts: We already can see the point of view of a male character implicitly in the text, but what if we tried to center the female character too – e.g., imagine what Dina would have said in the story of her kidnapping and rape? Rather than only comparing Esther to Yosef in our interpretations, what would we learn if we compared Yosef to Esther? The challenge of this way of reading is that it is more midrashic than it is analysis of the text per se. It is not explicit within the text itself. And yet, that may be its strength, too: It engages the creativity of the learner to add layers to the current point of view to bring women’s voices, experiences and significance into learning. For instance, it can push learners to notice subtle cues in a text that they otherwise would not have, in order to build upon it in the manner of midrash. It can encourage learners to attempt to empathize with characters in a way they otherwise would not have. Of course, this need not always be done through construction – after all, there are times where a woman’s point of view is indeed central – e.g., Yalta or Beruriah’s voices, or Ruth and Naomi’s voices. Moreover, there is often existing rabbinic midrash regarding anonymous female characters – such as Naama (married to Noah) or Hazlelponit (mother of Samson) – that should be included in learning about those narratives as well.
A second way to bring women’s voices into Torah study is not about the women in the text, but about women commenting on the themes of the text, such as when an instructor or learner engages interdisciplinary materials written by women that relate to the themes of a Torah text. For example, the work of a female political scientist may be employed to enhance a reading of the political machination of the Books of Samuel, or a psychologist’s analysis of defection or heresy could yield insight into the rabbinic figure Aher. Bringing other disciplinary voices emphasizes the relevance of Torah to other fields of knowledge, and vice versa. And often it offers a contemporary lens to ancient texts. It makes Torah interdisciplinary while reminding us that women have expertise that can enrich our understanding of Torah. This is not simply a matter of offsetting male dominance; it reminds learners that women are, can be, and should be experts and scholars – something that is easy to forget if one’s learning experience contains few to no female voices. The challenge of this approach, however, is that this still does not manifest female scholarship of Torah itself.
In this essay, I would like to offer a typology of bringing women’s voices into textual Torah learning, analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of each. I will offer five strategies which sit on a spectrum ranging from simply foregrounding the perspectives and lives of female characters to implicitly and explicitly positioning women as Torah scholars and commentators. These strategies engage the portrayal of “possible selves” for women – showing female (and other) learners the possibilities of what and who they can be. A life of Torah learning that limits the possible selves of women to being the more acted upon character rather than the actor, to being the one commented upon rather than the one creating commentary, is insufficient for 21st century Torah discourse. The way we center women in Torah study inevitably impacts how women can see themselves as possible Torah learners, teachers, and scholars.
The first strategy I would like to present is constructive reading. If female characters, voices, or perspectives are present in the primary texts being studied, whether they are prominent or not, one way of enhancing those roles is to ask the learners to take up the point of view of a woman in the story. This invites people into constructing a Rashomon of sorts: We already can see the point of view of a male character implicitly in the text, but what if we tried to center the female character too – e.g., imagine what Dina would have said in the story of her kidnapping and rape? Rather than only comparing Esther to Yosef in our interpretations, what would we learn if we compared Yosef to Esther? The challenge of this way of reading is that it is more midrashic than it is analysis of the text per se. It is not explicit within the text itself. And yet, that may be its strength, too: It engages the creativity of the learner to add layers to the current point of view to bring women’s voices, experiences and significance into learning. For instance, it can push learners to notice subtle cues in a text that they otherwise would not have, in order to build upon it in the manner of midrash. It can encourage learners to attempt to empathize with characters in a way they otherwise would not have. Of course, this need not always be done through construction – after all, there are times where a woman’s point of view is indeed central – e.g., Yalta or Beruriah’s voices, or Ruth and Naomi’s voices. Moreover, there is often existing rabbinic midrash regarding anonymous female characters – such as Naama (married to Noah) or Hazlelponit (mother of Samson) – that should be included in learning about those narratives as well.
A second way to bring women’s voices into Torah study is not about the women in the text, but about women commenting on the themes of the text, such as when an instructor or learner engages interdisciplinary materials written by women that relate to the themes of a Torah text. For example, the work of a female political scientist may be employed to enhance a reading of the political machination of the Books of Samuel, or a psychologist’s analysis of defection or heresy could yield insight into the rabbinic figure Aher. Bringing other disciplinary voices emphasizes the relevance of Torah to other fields of knowledge, and vice versa. And often it offers a contemporary lens to ancient texts. It makes Torah interdisciplinary while reminding us that women have expertise that can enrich our understanding of Torah. This is not simply a matter of offsetting male dominance; it reminds learners that women are, can be, and should be experts and scholars – something that is easy to forget if one’s learning experience contains few to no female voices. The challenge of this approach, however, is that this still does not manifest female scholarship of Torah itself.
A third approach is to bring in the work of female Jewish studies academics regarding the Torah texts being studied. Thankfully, there is a rich field of female academic Jewish scholarship. Whether one studies the ancient texts of Tanakh or Talmud, or the more contemporary texts of Hasidut or modern halakhic literature, there are female academics who have written on so many subjects. The challenge, however, is that this type of interpretation – and I say that as someone who is trained in it – is not the classical idiom of Torah study, nor does it always share the presumptions of classical Torah study. So, for those who do study in this classical idiom, there will always be a space between the tradition and the academic understandings and genres. And, of course, there will always be learners and communities who simply will not engage in academic Torah study because it is beyond their ken or, in its penchant for historicization and democratization of understanding, may be considered conflictual with a traditional point of view. There are also those who have a hard time engaging in academic study because it is unfamiliar or too inaccessible to them. However, for those who can engage academic study in this way, bringing in the expertise of female academic Torah scholars adds rigor to Torah study, as their analyses focus directly on the texts being studied. It likewise offers fresh eyes to people who have only engaged in more traditional modes of Torah study. And it positions women as Torah scholars.
A fourth approach likewise positions women as Torah scholars, and it is perhaps even more powerful than bringing in academic voices, in that it speaks in the idiom of Torah itself: commissioning more women to write in the style of classical Jewish texts and bringing that new material into the study of the more established Jewish canon. The collection of modern midrash known as Dirshuni is a most storied example of this approach. The way it is written – mirroring classical rabbinic midrashic style - reflects an authenticity that fits easily with the classical Jewish bookshelf. That said, it is precisely that imitative voice meant to allow it to chameleon its way in that may be considered subversive to some who would prefer commentary to imitative genre. But it certainly brings women’s voices and often points of view, allows for constructive readings and creative interpretation, and speaks in the idiom of the tradition itself. Moreover, it positions women as authors of Jewish tradition rather than only as readers/observers of it. It creates a possible self for women as Torah learners.
A fifth and final approach sits comfortably next to the approach of female academic scholarship and classical genre writing in that it too simultaneously centers women’s voices and positions women as Torah scholars – something that is so important for today’s learners to see. The approach is to have women write Torah commentary in an accessible and traditional idiom that can popularize their work for the average learner. Like the third and fourth approaches, this too requires a high level of literacy. It can be made accessible in a popular way and can exhibit the possibility of women spending their lives learning and interpreting Torah. Like the fourth approach of women’s classical genre writing, this fifth approach is still being created. To be sure, Professor Nehama Leibowitz offered an important paradigm of this, but as the recent Sefaria fellowship for women’s writing, Word-by-Word, suggests, this is something the educational world needs to commission from women in order to continue to enlarge this bookshelf in the Jewish world.
In this essay, I attempted to lay out five approaches to bringing women’s voices into Torah study. Each is valuable in its own right. However, it is worthwhile for educators to think about when to deploy which approach, considering the learners, the topic, and the educator’s goals. Moreover, having this typology allows people who are thinking about the big picture of Jewish education to ask where the gaps currently are: Are we seeing, for instance, a lot of approach four, but not enough of approach one? It is my hope that this essay provides tools for an ongoing conversation להגדיל תורה ולהאדירה, for the purpose of enhancing and glorifying Torah.