“You’ve come a long way, baby!” TB Sotah 21

Daf TB Sotah 21 begins the discussion whether women should learn Torah and I mean in the widest sense of the word. The Mishnah 20a says that the sotah’s punishment may be delayed for up to three years based on her merits. “If she has merit, it delays punishment for her and she does not die immediately. There is a merit that delays punishment for one year, there is a larger merit that delays punishment for two years, and there is a merit that delays punishment for three years” (Sefaria.org translation) The Gemara wants to know what is this merit that delays for punishment. The second possible merit is Torah for “Ben Azzai states: A person is obligated to teach his daughter Torah, so that if she drinks and does not die immediately, she will know that some merit she has delayed punishment for her.” (TB Sotah 20a, Sefaria.org)

According to classical rabbinic understanding, only men and not women are obligated to study Torah based on the verse in Deuteronomy 11:19 “ וְלִמַּדְתֶּ֥ם אֹתָ֛ם אֶת־בְּנֵיכֶ֖ם-and you shall teach them to your sons.” Here the rabbis understand the verse literally i.e. “your sons” not “your daughters.” The Amoraim had a problem with Ben Azzai for how could he say one is obligated to teach his daughter Torah. Consequently, they reinterpreted what Ben Azzai meant. She didn’t learn Torah, but she facilitated her children and her husband to study Torah. “Ravina said: Actually, the merit that delays the punishment of the sota is the merit of Torah study, and with regard to that which you say, i.e., that she is not commanded to do so and performs a mitzva, the mishna is not referring to the merit of her own Torah study. Granted, she is not commanded to study Torah herself; however, in reward for causing their sons to read the Written Torah and to learn the Mishna, and for waiting for their husbands until they come home from the study hall, don’t they share the reward with their sons and husbands? Therefore, if the sota enabled her sons and husband to study Torah, the merit of their Torah study can protect her and delay her punishment.” (Sefaria.org translation) The rabbis could paraphrase Mel Brooks by saying “It’s good to be in a patriarchal society.”

For close to 2000 years, women were forbidden to study Torah. Only at the beginning of the 20^th century, the people realize forbidding women to study Torah was a grievous mistake.

 “The Bais Yaakov movement was started by seamstress Sarah Schenirer in 1917 in Kraków, Poland.^[1] The first school building survives as apartments, and is marked with a bronze plaque.

“While boys attended cheder and Talmud Torah schools (and in some cases yeshivas), at that time, there was no formalized system of Jewish education for girls and young Jewish women.

“Schenirer saw that there was a high rate of assimilation among girls due to the vast secular influences of the non-Jewish schools that the girls were then attending. Sarah Schenirer concluded that only providing young Jewish women with a thorough, school-based Jewish education would effectively combat this phenomenon. She started a school of her own, trained other women to teach, and set up similar schools in other cities throughout Europe.

“She obtained the approval of Yisrael Meir Kagan (author of Chofetz Chaim), who issued a responsum holding that contemporary conditions required departing from traditional prohibitions on teaching women Torah and accepting the view that it was permitted. Following the Chofetz Chaim's approbation, the Bais Yaakov Movement in Poland was taken under the wing of Agudath Israel. Additionally, Schenirer sought and received approbation from Hasidic rabbis as well, most notably the Belzer Rebbe and the Gerrer Rebbe.^[2] Judith Grunfeld was persuaded to assist Schenirer. The original Bais Yaakov was a seminary of sorts, intended to train girls to themselves become teachers and spread the Bais Yaakov movement. Grunfeld would lead the seminary from 1924 to 1929.^[3)

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bais_Yaakov)

 

Thank God, women have come a long way.  When I was an undergraduate student at JTS, my Talmud hevruta for four years was Suzanne Levin. Whenever we didn’t understand the Gemara, after ma’ariv we would head upstairs and ask our R.A., Judy Hauptman, to explicate what we didn’t understand. My son Hillel as an undergraduate at JTS study, with Prof. Judy Hauptman! Today there are many different institutions and opportunities for women to teach and study Talmud. There is a web site Hadran-Advancing Talmud study for women at https://hadran.org.il/. Rabbanit Michelle Farber teaches a dafyomi class online there.