(Gali Atari is a feminist, Jewish, Yemenite icon in Israeli society. This is her song Stronger than the Wind. I found this video on a list of songs that an Israeli site that compiled for International Women’s Day. I never knew that Donna Summer and Barbara Streisand collaborated! Learn something new about the past every day.)
Long before the advent of modern feminism, Jewish women were warriors, judges, scholars, synagogue presidents, and business leaders. This Shabbat, we read about three of them: Miriam, Deborah, and Yael. The question for us at this juncture is whether or not we will really see them.
Most of us don’t recognize the radical power of women in the past for at least two reasons: 1) it has been obscured by those who want to hide these traditions in order to maintain a different social order and 2) we believe that we are inherently more advanced or enlightened than our ancestors, and as such, cannot countenance the possibility of a more capacious past. Whether by means of a particular political agenda or presentist arrogance, both of these phenomena flatten the past and keep us from recognizing its power, both in its context and for inspiration today.
At the beginning of this week’s haftarah, we encounter a line of text that challenged our medieval, male commentators:
וּדְבוֹרָה֙ אִשָּׁ֣ה נְבִיאָ֔ה אֵ֖שֶׁת לַפִּיד֑וֹת הִ֛יא שֹׁפְטָ֥ה אֶת־יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל בָּעֵ֥ת הַהִֽיא׃
Deborah, wife of Lappidoth, was a prophet; she led Israel at that time.
(Judges 4:4)
If one translates this line directly, it would be rendered as such, “And Deborah, a prophetess, was a woman/wife of lapidot [torches], she judged Israel at that time.”
Most of our commentators — and this comes through in the JPS translation — say that “lapidot” must be a man, and that this man was Deborah’s husband. Some even say it is another name for Barak, the Israelite general under Deborah’s direct command who (duh) must have been her husband. However, there is no other mention of a man named lapitdot in the Book of Judges, and no clear indication that Barak is Deborah’s husband.
In my opinion, our commentators read the text as “wife of (the man,) Lappidot” because they cannot see Deborah for who she was. How could a Jewish woman in the past be more powerful and liberated than the women in their time? And if they recognized Deborah’s independence, agency, and power, how would they need to change their relationships to the women in their lives? These were questions our commentators could not or would not face. As such, they didn’t read Deborah as a “women of torches,” but rather, as the property of a man with greater authority. They read against the literal meaning of the text in order to maintain the social order of their day. (As a historical aside, the certain rabbis who did not want to grant Israeli women the right to vote in 1948 pointed to Deborah’s supposed subservience to Barak/Lapidot as a justification for depriving women of an independent political voice. They lost that fight.)
The way that we read the past — and encounter our ancestors — matters to our present day. A better future isn’t always forged by looking forward to realities we have not yet imagined. Sometimes, it is our the past that contains realities that are far more radically liberatory than the visions we conjure today.
However, it order to fully appreciate the complexity of the past, we need not only the desire and curiosity to engage with it, but also the skills to unearth and analyze it. I only started learning Hebrew in college, and never took a Bible class before the age of 20. Without the time (and the real pain) of learning those skills, I would not have access to the complexity and riches of the past. Without that effort, my ancestors’ lives and our ancient texts would have remained flat caricatures — reductive images I could only see through the lens of presentist bias or the eyes of those invested in the status quo.
On this Shabbat, let us remember that the future we desire is not always in front of us. Sometimes, it is within and behind us. In fact, the the Song of the Sea in Exodus and the stories of Deborah and Yael are estimated by some to be the most ancient sections of the Hebrew Bible. However, in order to unearth and resurrect the untold and textured stories of our past, we need the curiosity and the acumen to identify, analyze, and repurpose the past for a new kind of future. Let us commit to the deep learning and exploration necessary to see the buried and mistranslated stories of our tradition. May we approach them with the humility and integrity necessary to integrate them into the future we dare to fashion.
Shabbat Shalom!
What I am reading:
I am in the process of writing something more in depth about this current moment in Israeli and American history, but for now, what I am reading:
The Rabbinical Assembly’s statement on President Trump’s plan for Gaza. The Reform and Conservative movements have come out strongly against any kind of population transfer.
This piece from the Times of Israel on balancing the safety of Jewish college students, faculty, and staff with the Constitution and the rule of law.
The Jewish Families Today study by Rosov Consulting. “Despite economic, ideological and geographical barriers, modern Jewish families with young children are increasingly seeking inclusive communities…”
From the Atlantic, “The Anti-Social Century.” An essential piece in understanding our current cultural, political, and religious moment.