Post by David FilmerThere is a quote floating around the Internet which is said to come
from the Talmud. The quote represents a nice sentiment, but I've come
to be skeptical of all such Internet claims. Is this quote REALLY from
Be very careful if you make a woman
cry, because God counts her tears. The woman
came out of a man's rib. Not from his feet to be
walked on. Not from his head to be superior,
but from the side to be equal. Under the arm to
be protected, and next to the heart to be loved.
I tried looking these statements up in "The Book of Legends: Sefer
Ha-Aggadah", which contains many statements from the Mishna, Talmud and
midrash literature. I couldn't find it. Do you have a source for this
quote? I can look it up in the Talmud itself if I have some idea where to
look.
There are indeed many kind statements about women in the Talmud. However,
the Talmud also has many harsh things to say about women. For intance, "The
sages say that four traits apply to women: They are greedy, eavesdroppers,
lazy an djealous...Rabbi Yehoshua bar Nahmani adds: they are querulous and
garrulous. Rabbi Levy adds: they are thieves and gadabouts." Bereshit Rabbah
45:5 The Talmud says that "Ten measures of speech descended to the world;
women took nine" (Kid. 49b). Women are "light-minded" (Shab. 33b).
There are many more unkind and untrue things said about women: "Women were
feared as a source of temptation. In Babylon, possibly because of the
greater laxity in sexual matters among the general population, it was said
that a woman's voice is a sexual enticement as is her hair and her leg (Ber.
24a) and that one should under no circumstances be served at a table by a
woman (Kid. 70a). In all probability this is the reason for the extremely
harsh description of a woman, paralleled by the Church Fathers, as 'a
pitcher full of filth with its mouth full of blood, yet all run after her'
(Shab. 152a)." [Encyclopaedia Judaica, women]
That is not to say that the classical Jewish view is one-sided. We also know
that it s taught that "On the other hand it is said that a man without a
wife lives without joy, blessing, and good, and that a man should love his
wife as himself and respect her more than himself (Yev. 62b). When R. Joseph
heard his mother's footsteps he would say: 'let me arise before the approach
of the Shekhinah' (Kid. 31b). Israel was redeemed from Egypt by virtue of
its righteous women (Sot. 11b) man must be careful never to speak
slightingly to his wife because women are prone to tears and sensitive to
wrong (BM 59a). Women have greater faith than men (Sif. Num. 133) and
greater powers of discernment (Nid. 45b) and they are especially
tenderhearted (Meg. 14b)" [Women, Encyclopaedia Judacia]
We must take care that there is no such thing as "the Jewish view" of women
or "The Talmudic view" of women. No such single view exists. Rather,
classical Jewish works (midrash compilations, Mishna, Tosefta, and the two
Talmuds) contain a wide variety of viewpoints from different people, in
different lands, written in different eras. [Some Mishnaic material
obviously goes back to before the time of Hillel, while the final text of
Talmud Bavli has additions and changes by the Savoraim going well into 800
CE].
The complexity of the situation is well-discussed by JTS Talmud professor
Judith Hauptman, in her book "Rereading the Rabbis"
Fully acknowledging that Judaism, as described in both the bible and the
Talmud, was patriarchal, Judith Hauptman demonstrates that the rabbis of the
Talmud made significant changes in key areas of Jewish law in order to
benefit women. Reading the texts with feminist sensibilities--recognizing
that they were written by men and for men and that they endorse a set of
social relations in which men control women--the author shows that
patriarchy was not always and everywhere the same. Although the rabbis whose
rulings are recorded in the Talmud did not achieve equality for women--or
even seek it--they should be credited with giving women higher status and
more rights. For example, during the course of several hundred years, they
converted marriage from the purchase by a man of a woman from her father
into a negotiated relationship between prospective husband and wife. They
designated a bride's dowry to be one-tenth of her father's net worth,
thereby ending her Torah-mandated disenfranchisement with respect to
inheritance. They left the ability to grant a divorce in male hands but gave
women the possibility of petitioning the courts to force a divorce. Although
some of the developments may have originated in the surrounding Greco-Roman
culture, the rabbis freely chose to incorporate them into Jewish law.
http://learn.jtsa.edu/topics/reading/bookexc/hauptman_reread/
Shalom,
Robert Kaiser