Rereading the Rabbis

by Hauptman, Judith

• ISBN13: 9780813334004
• ISBN10: 0813334004
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1997-11-01
• Publisher: Westview Pr

Summary

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 sensibilitiesrecognizing that they were written by men and for men and that they endorse a set of social relations in which men control womenthe 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 womenor even seek itthey 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 these developments may have originated in the surrounding Greco-Roman culture, the rabbis freely chose to incorporate them into Jewish law.Rereading the Rabbis: A Woman's Voicealso breaks new ground methodologically. Rather than plucking passages from a variety of different rabbinical works and then sewing them together to produce a single, unified rabbinical point of view, Hauptman reads sources in their own literary and legal context and then considers them in relationship to a rich array of associated synchronic and diachronic materials.

Author Biography

Judith Hauptman, a well-known Talmudic scholar, is professor of Talmud at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (in New York).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xi
A Note to the Reader	xiii
List of Abbreviations and Acronyms	xv
Introduction	1	(6)
The Rabbinic Texts	7	(2)
The Plan of the Book	9	(2)
Notes	11	(4)
Sotah	15	(15)
Biblical Basis for Sotah and Problems	15	(2)
The Warning and the Seclusion	17	(3)
The Ordeal in Detail	20	(2)
Merit and Its Protection	22	(3)
The Paramour	25	(1)
Abolishing the Ordeal	26	(1)
Conclusions	27	(2)
Notes	29	(1)
Relations Between the Sexes	30	(30)
Men and Women Alone Together	31	(18)
Attitudes to Sexual Sin	49	(2)
Men's Perception of Women's Sexuality	51	(3)
Conclusions	54	(1)
Notes	55	(5)
Marriage	60	(17)
The Framework of Jewish Marriage	61	(1)
The Marriage Contract: From Bride-Price to Ketubah	62	(6)
The Betrothal: From Purchase to ``Social Contract,''	68	(1)
Consent to the Betrothal	69	(3)
Women's Initiation of Betrothal	72	(2)
Conclusions	74	(1)
Notes	74	(3)
Rape and Seduction	77	(25)
Rape and Seduction in the Torah	78	(2)
The Rabbinic Paradigm Shift: From Crime Against Father to Crime Against Daughter	80	(2)
From Fixed to Variable Fine	82	(3)
Men's Understanding of Women's Pain	85	(3)
Creation of a New Legal Category: The Bogeret	88	(1)
Sex with a Minor	89	(7)
Conclusions	96	(1)
Notes	97	(5)
Divorce	102	(28)
The Biblical Basis of Divorce Law and Grounds for Divorce	102	(4)
Standardization of the Get and Comparison with the Writ of Manumission	106	(2)
Recurrent Themes: The Vacillating Husband and Compatible Divorce	108	(2)
Annulment of Marriage	110	(4)
Forced Divorce	114	(6)
A Husband Who Claims That He Issued the Get Under Duress	120	(2)
The World of Divorce According to R. Meir	122	(3)
Conclusions	125	(1)
Notes	126	(4)
Procreation	130	(17)
Three Questions Arising from the Mishnah	130	(2)
The Tosefta's Approach: Women's Obligation to Procreate	132	(4)
The Bavli's Decision to Force Divorce at the Request of a Barren Wife	136	(3)
The Yerushalmi's Decision in Support of Childless Women	139	(1)
Conclusions	140	(1)
Addendum: The Desirability of Marriage and Children	141	(3)
Notes	144	(3)
Niddah	147	(30)
Niddah in the Torah	148	(2)
Self-Examination and Sexual Relations	150	(3)
R. Akiva's International Leniencies	153	(3)
From Tannaitic Leniency to Amoraic Stringency: The Seven ``White Days,''	156	(4)
Behavior During the Week of Niddah	160	(2)
Niddah's Benefits to Men: Sexual Strategies for Giving Birth to Sons	162	(3)
Niddah as Didactic Construct	165	(1)
Immersion	166	(2)
Conclusions	168	(2)
Notes	170	(7)
Inheritance	177	(19)
Inheritance Law in the Bible	178	(1)
Dowry as a Share of a Woman's Father's Wealth	179	(5)
Gifts in Contemplation of Death	184	(3)
Disposition of a Mother's Estate	187	(4)
Conclusions	191	(1)
Notes	192	(4)
Testimony	196	(25)
Women's General Reliability	197	(3)
Allowing a Woman to Testify About a Man's Death	200	(3)
Women Testifying on Behalf of Women	203	(3)
The Social Status Argument for Women's Exclusion	206	(4)
A Second Rationale for Women's Exclusion	210	(1)
Other Cases in Which Women May Testify	211	(2)
The Scriptural Derivation of Women's Exclusion	213	(3)
Conclusions	216	(2)
Notes	218	(3)
Ritual	221	(23)
Women's Ritual Obligations: A Chronological View	222	(6)
From Exemption to Obligation	228	(4)
Women Discharging the Responsibilities of Men	232	(1)
Women's Voluntary Performance of Mitzvot from Which They Are Exempt	233	(2)
``Blessed Be God for Not Making Me a Woman,''	235	(2)
Conclusions	237	(1)
Notes	238	(6)
Conclusion	244	(7)
Notes	249	(2)
Glossary	251	(6)
Bibliography	257	(6)
Index of Texts Discussed	263	(9)
General Index	272