Carnal Isræl: Reading Sex in Talmudic Culture (39 page)

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Authors: Daniel Boyarin

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Ben-Azzai's view is contradicted here by showing that a counterview has been expressed. R. El'azar Ben-Azariah had stated that the only reason that women are obligated to come to the grand convocation for reading the Torah, which takes place once in seven years, is merely to hear the Torah being read and not to study it as do their husbands. It is clear, therefore, that his opinion is opposite to that of Ben-Azzai's, and no merit accrues to women for the study of Torah. From this, I infer that Ben-Azzai indeed was understood to mean that the merit that would protect the wife is precisely the merit of having studied Torah. This is consistent with rabbinic theological notions in general, whereby sinners are protected from punishment for their sins if they have studied much Torah.
This "normal" talmudic dialectical move of citing a counterview is precisely the basis for my conclusion that for the Palestinian Talmud, the possibility of women studying Torah, while perhaps unusual, was not out of the question; by countering it in that way, the Palestinian Talmud is accepting Ben-Azzai's statement into the universe of its discourse. As we will see below, the Babylonian Talmud resists this move.
5
The normalcy
5. Cf. the reading of Simha Friedman (1983), whose reading is exactly the opposite, namely, that the Palestinian Talmud is
more
extreme in its rejection of Ben-Azzai, because it cites another counter authority. To be sure, the Palestinian Talmud relates a story indicating how extreme a misogynist R. Eliezer was, but that hardly constitutes an argument for general approbation of his position, since in that story even his son is astonished at his behavior (much as Imma Shalom is at his sexual practice, for which see above), and R. Eliezer is typically regarded as a heterodox and extreme personality. For this reason, Brown's repeated citation of exactly this figure (1988, 118 and 145) by no means constitutes an adequate description of rabbinic culture as a whole. Friedman's article is important for its documentation of late medieval and modern rabbinic authorities who ruled in favor of teaching Torah to women.
 
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with which the Palestinian Talmud regards Ben-Azzai's position is also marked by the fact that in the parallel passage of the Mishna where R. El'azar Ben-Azariah is cited, that Talmud casually remarks that Ben-Azzai disagrees with
him,
in perfect parallelism to its observation here that Ben-Azariah disagrees with Ben-Azzai (palestinian Talmud ad Hagiga 1:1). We see, therefore, that while the Palestinian Talmud does not clearly accept Ben-Azzai's position as normative, neither does it find it so shocking that is has to be suppressed. Indeed, it would be conceivable that someone who had only the Palestinian Talmud as a normative source might actually decide in favor of the view of Ben-Azzai. It should be remembered that according to the Talmud, the very reason that the Mishna cites rejected and minority opinions is to preserve them, that they might be available for future authorities who would see reasons to revive them. The view of Ben-Azzai has apparently been rejected or thrown into question by the citation of an authoritative counterview, but it has also been given a straightforward interpretation, namely, that the father should teach Torah to his daughter because the merit she accrues by studying would be a defense for her.
The Babylonian Interpretation of Ben-Azzai
This dialectical move was equally available to the Babylonian Rabbis, and indeed they have adopted this style in myriad other cases. But the move that the Babylonian Talmud does make here is much more radical in its rejection of Ben-Azzai, for it does not allow even the
meaning
of his statement to stand, not even as a rejected minority opinion. It thus erases his voice entirely.
The Talmud begins by discussing the issue of what merit it is that mitigates the woman's punishment, without reference to Ben-Azzai though in response to the initial statement that merit mitigates. The possibility, however, that it is the merit of the study of Torah is simply discarded out of hand:
Mishna
: If she had merit, her merit will mitigate [the punishment] for her.
Talmud:
What sort of merit? Perhaps we will say, the merit of the study of Torah, but she is not commanded to do so!
6
So it must mean
6. This does not mean that she is forbidden to study Torah. As far as I know, even the Babylonian Talmud nowhere states that women may not study Torah. Rather, it seems that this proscription was a medieval development, occasioned by taking Rabbi Eliezer's statement as halakhically normative and consistent with the entire diachronic pattern of gender ideology, for which see above Chapter 3 and below in this chapter.
(footnote continued on the next page)
 
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the merit of [performing] commandments. The merit of commandments can hardly protect to such an extent, for we have learned, ''So did Rabbi Menahem the son of Yossi expound:
For a commandment is a candle and the Torah is a light
[Proverbs 6:23]." Scripture compared the commandment to a candle and the Torah to a light, to say to you, just as a candle only protects for an hour, so does the commandment only protect for an hour [i.e., while it is actually being performed], but as light protects forever, so does the Torah protect forever. . . .
Ravina said: Indeed it is the merit of Torah, and as for what you said that she is not commanded to do soindeed, she is not commanded, but by the merit of her taking her sons to study Torah and Mishna and waiting for her husband to come home from the study-house [she is protected].
7
The Talmud is quite clearly here setting out its hierarchy of values. In spite of the fact that within the culture of the Rabbis, it is the study of Torah that is the most highly valued of all practices, the Babylonian Talmud refuses to interpret the Mishna's point as being that the merit of having studied will protect a wife in her moment of trialrefusing, as we have seen, a conclusion that would have been perfectly consistent (as the text itself remarks) with generally held opinion on the efficacy of Torah in protecting sinners. Had the Rabbis not refused to take this simple path, the entire tortuous effort to find an interpretation for the merit that mitigates would have been obviated. The upshot is that this Talmud is forced ultimately into displacing the merit of the daughter from her own study of Torah to merit accrued from supporting her husband and male children in their study.
8
(footnote continued from the previous page)
Similarly, the midrash quoted in both the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds that "Thou shalt teach thy sonssons and not daughters" means only that one is not obligated to teach daughters, not that it is forbidden (see Babylonian Talmud Kiddushin 29b and Palestinian Talmud Berakhot 2:3 and 3:3 and Eruvin 10:1).
7. For another possible interpretation of this last phrase, see below. It is this kind of text that provides the evidence for Judith Plaskow's statement: "Women are objects of the law but neither its creators nor agents. Halakhot concerning the religious sphere assume a world in which women are 'enablers'. Women create the preconditions for men and male children to worship and study Torah, but women cannot do these things themselves without becoming less effective in their relational role" (Plaskow 1990, 63).
8. It should be emphasized that the Babylonian Talmud
never
directly addresses Ben-Azzai at all, and this is a major premise of my argument. One could argue, therefore, that what the Rabbis have done is, first, interpreted Ben-Azzai to mean that there is merit for women in study of Torah, and then rejected his view; therefore, the only element of the Mishna that is being interpreted to mean that women have no merit in the study of Torah is the authoritative position (of the first speaker) that
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