Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

I have often felt that misogyny has been one of the oldest sins since Adam and Eve.  The woman’s liberation movement has some remarkable antecedents in American history. It is remarkable how much the 20th century fight for gender rights have completely overturned thousands of years of  male hegemony.  It is no wonder why traditional religious societies across the globe fear it–change is necessary as it is inevitable.

Seducing By Scents

I came across an interesting article from House and Garden Magazine that illustrates just how much we have changed as a society over the last 300 years. It reads, “Legislation proposed in England in the 1700s: All women of whatever age, rank, profession, or degree, whether virgin, maid or widow, that shall impose upon, seduce and betray into matrimony any of His Majesty’s subjects, by scents, paints, cosmetic washes, artificial teeth, false hair, Spanish wool, iron stays, hoops, high‑heeled shoes or bolstered hips shall incur the penalty of the law now in force against witchcraft and the like misdemeanors and that marriage, upon conviction, shall stand null and void.” —- Act of Parliament, 1670

Incidentally, one of our readers (see comments) points out that this story was originally a joke that appeared in the magazine. That is an interesting thought, but who really knows for sure?

The Humble Beginnings of Women’s Liberation

Now move the clock ahead about 100 years later . . . Abagail Adams penned one of the most famous letters of her era, demanding that the new Declaration of Independence respect the rights of its female citizens, which she unabashedly says:

“I long to hear that you have declared an independency. And, by the way, in the new code of laws, which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power in the hands of the husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation. That your sex are naturally tyrannical is a truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute; but such of you as wish to be happy, willingly give tip the harsh title of master for the more tender and endearing one of friend. Why, then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity?” [1]

—-Abigail (Smith) Adams (1744-1818), Letter to John Adams, [March 31, 1776]

John Adam’s Fear of “Petticoat Despotism”

Her husband John Adams replied:

I cannot but laugh…We have been told that our struggle has loosened the bands of government everywhere; that children and apprentices were disobedient; that schools and colleges were grown turbulent; that Indians slighted their guardians and Negroes grew insolent to their masters. But your letter was the first intimation that another tribe more numerous and powerful than all the rest were grown discontented. This is rather too coarse a compliment, but you are so saucy, I won’t blot it out. Depend on it, we know better than to repeal our masculine systems. Although they are in full force, you know they are little more than theory. We dare not exert our power in its full latitude. We are obliged to go fair and softly, and in practice you know we are the subjects. We have only the name of masters, and rather than give up this, which would completely subject us to the despotism of the petticoat, I hope General Washington and all our brave heroes would fight. [2]

Back to the Future: The early 2oth Century  Debate Concerning Women’s Suffrage

It is remarkable that the world has changed so much over the last 250 years. Some of you might be surprised to know that back in the 1915 many Orthodox rabbis opposed the right for women to vote. Woman’s suffrage proved to be a very divisive issue among American Orthodox Jews. Some rabbis felt that a women’s place is in the home. The rabbis feared that society will become corrupt should women invade the institutions of political power.

Chief Sephardic Rabbi Ben Tzion Uziel pointed out that there was nothing in the Torah to forbid women voting.  However, other rabbis argued, it’s against tradition—a woman’s place is in her home. Let the men worry about the politics!

Rabbi Uziel replied that in the olden days, men used to live in tents, in the desert, should we all go back to living in the wilderness just like our ancestors did? Ah, but the rabbis replied. If we give women equal rights to vote, they will want more freedom tomorrow, and who knows where that will lead to?

And That was Only the Beginning . . .

In a way, those early 20^th century Orthodox rabbis were right.

An interesting debate has been developing in the Orthodox Jewish community. And that is the issue of Women’s “Prayer Groups.” Some have taken offense to women having “Minyanim” because only men can have Minyans.

Outraged by the growth of Ortho-feminism, a Queens-Long Island council of Modern Orthodox rabbis, the event symbolized a larger, possibly dangerous trend – the growing acceptance of women’s prayer groups.

Its action this month to ban groups such as the one in Hillcrest that hosted the bat mitzvah has shocked hundreds of observant women worldwide and a number of Orthodox leaders, elicited at least two letters urging reconsideration, and caused one leader of the rabbinical council to resign. Continue Reading

The “Jim Crow Laws”  remind us of one of the most shameful chapters of American history, a time when many Southern states enacted laws designed to keep Afro-Americans from enjoying the same civil liberties and rights that blacks enjoyed in the Northern states.

Intimidation tactics were routinely carried out for several decades until the last of the Jim Crow laws were banned once and for all by 1971, In 1971, the Supreme Court, in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, upheld desegregation busing  of students to achieve integration.

Of course these laws also affected poor and illiterate Americans. Jews, blacks, and Asians could not purchase homes in certain restrictive neighborhoods until 1948, when the Supreme Court outlawed some forms of private discrimination in Shelley v. Kraemer 334 US 1 (1948).

Who would ever suspect that Jim Crow Laws would find a comfortable new home among the Haredim?  But this time the Haredi Jim Crow Laws target women. Consider the following examples:

Over the past few months, Israeli society has witnessed a whole series of newly constructed practices for what are undoubtedly extreme views of the need for gender segregation:
•  Separate sides of the street designated for a Sukkot holiday public festival in Jerusalem.

•  The corpse of a woman removed from its burial place because it was next to a man in Tiberias

•  Separate cashiers at the supermarket for men and women in Ramot.

•  Separate public buses for men and women in Bnei Brak, Jerusalem, and more

•  Separate El Al airline flights for men and women

•  Separate offices for men and women in Modi’in Illit (some companies will not hire women in a company where men work)

•  Separate exit times from synagogue in Safed (women were locked inside until all the men left)

•  Banning of women from cemeteries in places including Elyachin, and silencing of women’s cries of mourning.

•  The removal of all pictures of women from public advertisements – even women politicians, like Kadima head and former prime ministerial candidate MK Tzipi Livni Continue Reading

In the beginning of Exodus 30:12-13, God commands Moses not conduct a head count of the Israelites before they go into battle against future adversaries:

“When you take a census of the Israelites who are to be registered, each one, as he is enrolled, shall give the LORD a forfeit for his life, so that no plague may come upon them for being registered. Everyone who enters the registered group must pay a half-shekel, according to the standard of the sanctuary shekel, twenty gerahs to the shekel. This payment of a half-shekel is a contribution to the LORD . . . ”

Interesting passage, isn’t it? Why not conduct an actual head count? The biblical writer may also  indirectly be alluding to a census that King David carried out toward the end of his reign, which produced disastrous consequences (2 Sam 24ff.).

The answer to this question has a lot to do with the ancient’s fascination with numbers and the process of counting. Here’s the background information: Numbers play a very important part in our everyday lives. Life constantly demands that we measure and count. Numbers have always played a role in all civilizations from mathematics to astrology. Numbers also play an important symbolic role in much of the Bible, e.g.,  one, two, three, four, five, seven, twelve, forty, fifty, seventy, hundred and thousand. This is not the place to examine the significance of each of these numbers, but they often have symbolic and rhetorical significance.

The famous anthropologist Sr. James Frazer notes that certain African tribes were afraid to count children for fear that the evil spirits might hear. They also believed that cattle should not be counted because it might impede the increase of the herd. [1]  In Denmark, there was a tradition not to count hatched chickens lest some be lost. In German cultures it is believed that the more you count your money, the more likely you will decrease it. [2] Continue Reading

Aaron’s construction of the Golden Calf has always perplexed me. It seems as though Aaron gets away with a free pass, while everyone else who actually worships the calf is punished. Surely tradition teaches וְלִפְנֵי עִוֵּר לֹא תִתֵּן מִכְשֹׁל “do not place a stumbling block in front of a blind person” (Lev. 19:14). What greater stumbling block could one put, than to cause another to worship idols? Yet, Aaron gets off with hardly a reprimand. Asked in another way: How could Aaron of all people cave him to popular demand? Where was his courage? Surely, as a leader and a prophet of his people, how could he build the Golden Calf?[1]

The question is hardly original. Many of our greatest commentators led by Nachmanides and Ibn Ezra, raised the same question.

These scholars claim that the calf was never intended to be an idol, but a mouthpiece, a pedestal for God to dwell–perhaps not unlike the cherubim of the Tabernacle itself. However, it was God who commanded the cherubim, not man. In the case of the Golden Calf, it is man and not God who commanded that its construction be carried out  (Judah HaLevi).

But what about Moses, the man who took them out of Egypt? Our ancestors felt convinced that Moses had died on Mt. Sinai. In psychological terms, the Israelites experienced what is called “separation anxiety.” According to psychologist John Bowlby, separation anxiety is a key and a common ingredient in psychological distress. In clinical terms, separation anxiety occurs when the  sense of care, foreboding, restlessness, or uneasiness observed in infants are removed from their primary caregiver–especially the mother. Any of us who have ever parented young children, see this quite often whenever a mother goes away even for a short time. Young children’s perception of time is radically different from adults or adolescents. From this perspective, the Israelites were like young infantile children (Maimonides makes a similar point in his Guide)

Having said that, one still feels the need to ponder: “What was Aaron thinking?” He knew it was only a matter of time before Moses would return to the camp with the tablets of the Ten Commandments.  Surely Aaron knew that Moses would return, but as Rashi notes, Aaron was really stalling for time. For this reason, Aaron asks people to give up their gold to make the calf. Never did Aaron think or believe that the people would be only too willing to give up their precious gold; he expected to haggle with the folks, and buy enough time for Moses to come and save the day. Continue Reading