Tag Archives: Women

Vayakhel, Exodus 35:1-38:20

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Link to Parsha: http://www.hebcal.com/sedrot/vayakhel

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Who’s the Fairest of Them All?

By Rabbi Laura Geller

This week’s Torah portion, Vayakhel , is very familiar because much in it repeats what we read several weeks ago. In the earlier portions, God commands Moses to erect a Mishkan,a portable sanctuary, with all the ritual objects furnishing it, the Ark, the menorah, the sinks for the priests to wash before they begin their daily tasks, and then gives detailed instructions about the priestly vestments.

In this week’s portion, the Torah tells us that the people did exactly as God commanded Moses. But instead of reporting: “And Moses did as God commanded,” the text provides another very detailed description of each of the objects and clothes, repeating with great specificity everything we’ve already heard. Dr. Carol Meyers labels the earlier instructions “prescriptive Tabernacle texts” because they prescribe what is to be done, while our portions, which describe the implementation of the instructions, are called “descriptive Tabernacle texts” (see The Torah: A Women’s Commentary,ed. Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Andrea L. Weiss [New York: URJ Press, 2008], p. 521). What separates the two accounts is the sin of the Golden Calf.

Why does there need to be such detail? Maybe it is to reassure us that even after such an egregious sin as the idol worship of the Golden Calf, not only has God forgiven us, but also, we’ve finally gotten it right. We shouldn’t worship a golden idol, but we can use gold and other valuable resources to symbolize God’s presence among us through the Mishkan. And apparently we did, as we read: “. . . all the artisans who were engaged in the tasks of the sanctuary came . . . and said to Moses, ‘The people are bringing more than is needed for the task entailed in the work that YHVH has commanded to be done.’ Moses thereupon had this proclamation made throughout the camp: ‘Let no man or woman make further effort toward gifts for the sanctuary’ ” (Exodus 36:4–6).

But perhaps we are simply meant to learn that attention to detail is important. Anyone who has ever remodeled a home or redecorated a room knows how many details are involved: color, texture, shape, size, material, and so on.

There is one detail that I have always found fascinating. “He made the laver [sink] of copper and its stand of copper, from the mirrors [mar’ot] of the women who performed tasks at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting” (38:8). B’mar’ot hatzov’ot literally means “the mirrors of legions,” but as The Women’s Torah Commentary explains, because hatzov’ot is grammatically feminine, the text must be talking about women (see The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, p. 536).

Rashi, the famous eleventh century commentator, notices that only here in the whole story of the making of the Mishkan do we have an account of a specific gift and what it was used for. He imagines a dialogue between Moses and God:

“Mirrors?” Moses demands of God, “The women are bringing mirrors? How dare they bring these trinkets of vanity into a holy place? I forbid it! Mirrors just lead to lustful thoughts!”

But God intervenes: “Accept them, for these are more precious to me than anything because through them the women set up many legions [i.e., through the children they gave birth to] in Egypt.” When their husbands were weary from backbreaking labor, the women would go and bring them food and drink. Then the women would take the mirrors and each one would see herself with her husband in the mirror, and she would seduce him with words, saying, “I am more beautiful than you.” And in this way they aroused their husbands’ desire and would copulate with them, conceiving and giving birth there, as it is said: “Under the apple tree I aroused you” (Song 8:5). This is [what is meant by] that which is said, “with the mirrors of those who set up legions, that is, the mirrors of those who had lots of children” (see Rashi on Exodus 38:8).

Imagine what it must have been like for the Israelite men forced to do backbreaking, demeaning work. Their spirits were destroyed; they had lost all hope for the future. It was the women who kept the men’s will to live alive. Even in those horrible circumstances, the women would beautify themselves with the help of these mirrors, using makeup from with whatever dyes and rouges they could find, making themselves attractive to their partner. When the men came home, exhausted and dehumanized, their wives would arouse them by flirting, by playing erotic games, by looking with their husbands into the mirrors, by teasing “which one of us is more attractive?”

These women didn’t give up hope for a different future. They were responsible for our spiritual survival. It was their initiative, courage, and faith that led to the next generation. Perhaps because of that the Talmud tells us: “It was because of the righteousness of the women that we were redeemed from Egypt” (Babylonian Talmud, Sotah 11b).

That detail about the mirrors reminds us of the special role that women played in the liberation of our people.

Geller, Laura. "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Who's the Fairest of Them All?" ReformJudaism.org. (Viewed on February 22, 2014). http://www.reformjudaism.org/mirror-mirror-wall-who%E2%80%99s-fairest-them-all

Team-Building

By Rabbi Jonathon Sacks

How do you remotivate a demoralized people? How do you put the pieces of a broken nation back together again? That was the challenge faced by Moses in this week’s parsha.

The key word here is vayakhel, “Moses gathered.” Kehillah means community. A kehillah or kahal is a group of people assembled for a given purpose. That purpose can be positive or negative, constructive or destructive. The same word that appears at the beginning of this week’s parsha as the beginning of the solution, appeared in last week’s parsha as the start of the problem: “When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered [vayikahel] around Aaron and said, ‘Make us a god to lead us. As for this man Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.’”

The difference between the two kinds of kehillah is that one results in order, the other in chaos. Coming down the mountain to see the golden calf, we read that “Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstock to their enemies.” The verb פרע, like the similar פרא, means “loose, unbridled, unrestrained.”

There is an assembly that is disciplined, task-oriented and purposeful. And there is an assembly that is a mob. It has a will of its own. People in crowds lose their sense of self-restraint. They get carried along in a wave of emotion. Normal deliberative thought-processes become bypassed by the more primitive feelings or the group. There is, as neuroscientists put it, an “amygdala hijack.” Passions run wild.

There have been famous studies of this: Charles Mackay’s Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841), Gustave Le Bon’s The Crowd: a study of the popular mind (1895), and Wilfred Trotter’s Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War (1914). One of the most haunting works on the subject is Jewish Nobel prize-winner Elias Canetti’s Crowds and Power (1960, English translation 1962).

Vayakhel is Moses’ response to the wild abandon of the crowd that gathered around Aaron and made the golden calf (the building of the Tabernacle was, of course, God’s command, not Moses. The fact that it is set out as Divine command before the story of the Golden Calf is intended to illustrate the principle that “God creates the cure before the disease” (Megillah 13b)). He does something fascinating. He does not oppose the people, as he did initially when he saw the golden calf. Instead, he uses the same motivation that drove them in the first place. They wanted to create something that would be a sign that God was among them: not on the heights of a mountain but in the midst of the camp. He appeals to the same sense of generosity that made them offer up their gold ornaments. The difference is that they are now acting in accordance with God’s command, not their own spontaneous feelings.

He asks the Israelites to make voluntary contributions to the construction of the Tabernacle, the Sanctuary, the Mikdash. They do so with such generosity that Moses has to order them to stop. If you want to bond human beings so that they act for the common good, get them to build something together. Get them to undertake a task that they can only achieve together, that none can do alone.

The power of this principle was demonstrated in a famous social-scientific research exercise carried out in 1954 by Muzafer Sherif and others from the University of Oklahoma, known as the Robbers’ Cave experiment. Sherif wanted to understand the dynamics of group conflict and prejudice. To do so, he and his fellow researchers selected a group of 22 white, eleven-year-old boys, none of whom had met one another before. They were taken to a remote summer camp in Robbers Cave State Park, Oklahoma. They were randomly allocated into two groups.

Initially neither group knew of the existence of the other. They were staying in cabins far apart. The first week was dedicated to team-building. The boys hiked and swam together. Each group chose a name for itself – they became The Eagles and the Rattlers. They stencilled the names on their shirts and flags.

Then, for four days they were introduced to one another through a series of competitions. There were trophies, medals and prizes for the winners, and nothing for the losers. Almost immediately there was tension between them: name-calling, teasing, and derogatory songs. It got worse. Each burned the other’s flag and raided their cabins. They objected to eating together with the others in the same dining hall.

Stage 3 was called the ‘integration phase’. Meetings were arranged. The two groups watched films together. They lit Fourth-of-July firecrackers together. The hope was that these face-to-face encounters would lessen tensions and lead to reconciliation. They didn’t. Several broke up with the children throwing food at one another.

In stage 4, the researchers arranged situations in which a problem arose that threatened both groups simultaneously. The first was a blockage in the supply of drinking water to the camp. The two groups identified the problem separately and gathered at the point where the blockage had occurred. They worked together to remove it, and celebrated together when they succeeded.

In another, both groups voted to watch some films. The researchers explained that the films would cost money to hire, and there was not enough in camp funds to do so. Both groups agreed to contribute an equal share to the cost. In a third, the coach on which they were travelling stalled, and the boys had to work together to push it. By the time the trials were over, the boys had stopped having negative images of the other side. On the final bus ride home, the members of one team used their prize money to buy drinks for everyone.

Similar outcomes have emerged from other studies. The conclusion is revolutionary. You can turn even hostile factions into a single cohesive group so long as they are faced with a shared challenge that all can achieve together but none can do alone.

Rabbi Norman Lamm, former President of Yeshiva University, once remarked that he knew of only one joke in the Mishnah, the statement that “Scholars increase peace in the world” (Berakhot 64a). Rabbis are known for their disagreements. How then can they be said to increase peace in the world?

I suggest that the passage is not a joke but a precisely calibrated truth. To understand it we must read the continuation: “Scholars increase peace in the world as it is said, ‘All your children shall be learned of the Lord and great will be the peace of your children’ (Isaiah 54: 13). Read not ‘your children’ but ‘your builders.’” When scholars become builders they create peace. If you seek to create a community out of strongly individualistic people, you have to turn them into builders. That is what Moses did in Vayakhel.

Team-building, even after a disaster like the golden calf, is neither a mystery nor a miracle. It is done by setting the group a task, one that speaks to their passions and one no subsection of the group can achieve alone. It must be constructive. Every member of the group must be able to make a unique contribution and then feel that it has been valued. Each must be able to say, with pride: I helped make this.

That is what Moses understood and did. He knew that if you want to build a team, create a team that builds.

Sacks, Jonathon. "Team-Building." OrthodoxUnion.org. (Viewed on February 22, 2014). http://www.ou.org/torah/parsha/rabbi-sacks-on-parsha/team-building/

Yitro, Exodus 18:1-20:23

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Link to Parsha: http://www.hebcal.com/sedrot/yitro

Women and Revelation

By Judith Plaskow

Read from a feminist perspective, Yitro contains one of the most painful verses in the Torah. At the formative moment in Jewish history, when presumably the whole people of Israel stands in awe and trembling at the base of Mount Sinai waiting for God to descend upon the mountain and establish the covenant, Moses turns to the assembled community and says, “Be ready for the third day: do not go near a woman” (19:15). Moses wants to ensure that the people are ritually prepared to receive God’s presence, and an emission of semen renders both a man and his female partner temporarily unfit to approach the sacred (see Leviticus 15:16-18). But Moses does not say, “Men and women do not go near each other.” Instead, at this central juncture in the Jewish saga, he renders women invisible as part of the congregation about to enter into the covenant.

These words are deeply troubling for at least two reasons. First, they are a paradigm of the treatment of women as “other,” both elsewhere in this portion and throughout the Torah. Again and again, the Torah seems to assume that the Israelite nation consists only of male heads of household. It records the experiences of men, but not the experiences of women. For example, the tenth commandment, “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife” (20:14), presupposes a community of male hearers.

Second, entry into the covenant at Sinai is not just a one-time event, but an experience to be reappropriated by every generation (Deuteronomy 29:13-14). Every time the portion is chanted, whether as part of the annual cycle of Torah readings or as a special reading for Shavuot, women are thrust aside once again, eavesdropping on a conversation among men, and between men and God. The text thus potentially evokes a continuing sense of exclusion and disorientation in women. The whole Jewish people supposedly stood at Sinai. Were we there? Were we not there? If we were there, what did we hear when the men heard “do not go near a woman”? If we were not there originally, can we be there now? Since we are certainly part of the community now, how could we not have been there at that founding moment?

Given the seriousness of these questions, it is important to note the larger narrative context of Moses’ injunction to the men not to go near a woman. When the Israelites arrive at Sinai on the third new moon after leaving Egypt, Moses twice ascends the mountain to talk with God. After he brings God the report that the people have agreed to accept the covenant, God gives Moses careful instructions for readying everyone for the moment of revelation: “Go to the people and warn them to stay pure today and tomorrow,” God says. “Let them wash their clothes. Let them be ready for the third day; for on the third day Adonai will come down, in the sight of all the people, on Mount Sinai” (19:10-11). It is striking that God’s instructions to Moses are addressed to the whole community. It is Moses who changes them, who glosses God’s message, who assumes that the instructions are meant for only half the people. Thus, at this early stage in Jewish history, Moses filters and interprets God’s commands through a patriarchal lens. His words are a paradigm of the treatment of women, but a complex one. They show how Jewish tradition has repeatedly excluded women, but also the way in which that exclusion must be understood as a distortion of revelation.

Interestingly, the Rabbis seem to have been disturbed by the implication of women’s absence from Sinai, because they read women into the text in a variety of ways. B’reishit Rabbah 28:2 understands Exodus 19:3 (“Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob and declare to the children of Israel”) to mean that “the house of Jacob” refers to the women and “the children of Israel” refers to the men. According to the midrash, the order of the verse suggests that God sent Moses to the women with the Torah first. Perhaps, the sages speculate, God regretted the mistake of not directly giving Eve the commandment concerning the forbidden fruit and so resolved not to repeat it. Besides, the Rabbis note, women are more careful in observing religious precepts, and they are the ones who will instruct their children. Rashi, commenting on the Mishnah (Shabbat 9:3; BT Shabbat 86a), interprets Exodus 19:15 (“Do not go near a woman”) as a stricture specifically designed to enable Israel’s women to be present at Sinai. Since semen loses its power to create impurity after three days, Moses’ instruction to the men guarantees that women will remain ritually pure, even if they discharge residual semen during the Revelation. In other words, without ever naming Moses’ distortion of God’s words directly, the Rabbis sought to reverse its effects.

Several lessons can be drawn from this. One is the inseparability of revelation and interpretation. There is no revelation without interpretation; the foundational experience of revelation also involves a crucial act of interpretation. Second, we learn that the process of interpretation is ongoing. What Moses does, the Rabbis in this case seek to undo. While they reiterate and reinforce the exclusion of women in many contexts, they mitigate it in others. Third, insofar as the task of interpretation is continuing, it now lies with us. If women’s absence from Sinai is unthinkable to the Rabbis–despite the fact that they repeatedly reenact that absence in their own works–how much more must it be unthinkable to women and men today who function in communities in which women are full Jews? We have the privilege and the burden of recovering the divine words reverberating behind the silences in the text, recreating women’s understandings of revelation throughout Jewish history.

Plaskow, Judith. "Women and Revelation." My Jewish Learning. (Viewed January 18, 2014). http://www.myjewishlearning.com/texts/Bible/Weekly_Torah_Portion/URJ--Yitro.shtml?p=0

Not Norms for Everyone

By Jon D. Levenson

The Decalogue [the Greek word for the Ten Commandments] is part of a specific covenantal relationship, born out of the Exodus, between God and Israel. It does not purport to be a set of universal norms. To act as if everybody in the world came out of Egypt, everyone in the world is required to observe Shabbat and everyone in the world was brought into the land of Israel would make a travesty of the actual biblical narrative. The truth is that neither biblical nor rabbinic traditions speak of the Decalogue as applicable to universal humanity. In rabbinic tradition, there is a universal set of norms, but it is the “Seven Noahide Commandments.” Among different Christian communities, the understanding of the Ten Commandments varies widely. Sometimes they are seen to include ceremonial norms that applied to the ancient Hebrew commonwealth but were superseded by the Gospel, but other times they are thought to apply in full force to Christians today. Given the prominence of Protestantism, and especially the Calvinist emphasis on the Old Testament in American culture, it is not surprising that the Decalogue has widespread significance and high prestige here. It is often mistakenly detached from its covenantal framework and treated instead as a code that binds society as a whole. Within the covenantal relationship between God and the Jewish people, of course, scrupulous observance of the Decalogue remains essential.

Levenson, Jon D. "Not Norms for Everyone." Excerpt from 10 Commandments 2.0 by Joan Alpert. Moment Magazine. (Viewed on January 18, 2014). http://www.momentmag.com/10-commandments-2-0/3/

B’reishit, Genesis 1:1-6:8

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Link to Parsha: http://www.hebcal.com/sedrot/bereshit

Relationships, Responsibility, Renewal

By Tamara Cohn Eskenazi

Who are we? Parashat B’reshit pictures our origin as frail, naked earth creatures who are nevertheless bearers of the divine. The two different stories of creation (Genesis 1:1-2:3 and 2:4-3:21) share the view that we were created for relationships – with God in whose image we are or whose breath animates us; with the earth from which we were formed; with the animal world for which we have a responsibility; and finally, with each other as males and females who are co-created in Genesis 1, and who are separated in Genesis 2 only to feel a longing for reunion. Parashat B’reshit envisions the rewards and responsibilities of these relations as delightful and dynamically creative, necessary parts of a defined and defining harmony.

Genesis, however, depicts human desire to go beyond boundaries. The quest for more knowledge endangers all four relationships (God, earth, the animal world and one another) and drives the first couple out of innocent, sheltered existence. The garden=”s” gates shut behind them. But the world at large opens wide and the world is still God’s good creation, even if no longer as cozy as a protected bubble: the still joyous creative acts of childbearing and work are now also mixed with sorrow and hardship. More importantly, relationship with each other and with God now require effort – effort which they undertake. Moving closer to each other and to God, they therefore name their first born in celebration of renewal and regeneration.

Journeying beyond the garden, the first humans transmit to us the memory of how we are meant to be: joyous, equal partners in work and play, in wholesome relationship with God, earth, nature and our human counterparts. Since these gifts of life no longer come on a silver platter, Parashat B’reshit invites us to renew them. As the cycle of Torah reading begins again, so too our lives resume a journey of regeneration, restoring our delicate yet resilient connection with God, nature and one another.

Cohn Eskenazi, Tamara. "Relationships, Responsibility, and Renewal." D'Var Torah. ReformJudaism.org. (Viewed on October 7, 2013). http://www.reformjudaism.org/relationships-responsibility-and-renewal.

Creation According to Eve: Beyond Genesis 3

By Ilana Pardes

No feminist critic of the Bible has neglected to discuss the story or stories of the creation of woman; and yet, despite significant differences in theoretical approach and focus, their readings generally have been confined to Genesis 1–3. One may well ask why, since the matter of creation and femininity is also addressed beyond Genesis 3. Genesis 1–3 may in fact be construed as part of a larger unit of primeval history which ends only at Genesis 11, where the history of the patriarchs and matriarchs commences. This textual unit consists of a series of narratives and genealogies dealing with creation and crime and punishment—or both.

The tendency to focus on Genesis 1–3 (common not only among feminists) derives in part from the continuing impact of the Christian perception of the Fall as the unequivocal conclusion of Creation. There is, however, no concept of an Original Fall in Genesis. Primeval characters fall time and again in a variety of ways. The first fall is not singled out. Fratricide, sleeping with the Sons of God, incest, and the building of the Tower of Babel are transgressions as exemplary as the eating of the forbidden fruit. Similarly, creation is an ongoing process. The world is wholly destroyed and recreated in the story of the Flood; and on a less cosmic level, this is true of most stories in this unit.

Many feminist critics have sharply critiqued Christian interpretations of the creation stories, but they have done so without calling into question the status of the Fall as a conclusive boundary. Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1895), Kate Millett (1969), Mary Daly (1973), Phyllis Trible (1978) and Mieke Bal (1987) provocatively turn the story of man’s Fall through woman (as in Paul’s reading) into the story of woman’s Fall through man, ignoring the fact that Eve does not vanish after Genesis 3, nor does she hesitate to rise and fall again in Genesis 4.

One of the distinguishing marks of Jewish feminist criticism, here and elsewhere, is the challenge it poses—wittingly and unwittingly—to Christian exegetical presuppositions. Thus, for example, Carol Meyers (1983) sets out to correct the tendency to read the story of the Garden of Eden as one whose central topic is sin and disobedience and calls for a reconsideration of Genesis 2–3 as a “wisdom tale” whose purpose is to address the complexities of human life for both women and men.

In my own reading of Genesis (1992), I go beyond the normative Christian demarcation in an attempt to show that the analysis of Genesis 4 is essential to an understanding of the treatment of femininity in Genesis 1–3. I begin with the opening verses of Genesis 4, where we learn that Adam and Eve, after the banishment, make use of the “knowledge” they acquired back west in the Garden. As a result two sons are born and Genesis 2–3 is linked to the story of Cain and Abel. What is of special interest in this genealogical note is the point in Genesis 4:1 where Eve, who previously was an object of naming, becomes a subject of naming. At the birth of her first son, the primordial mother delivers a fascinating naming speech: kaniti ish et YHWH—rendered by Cassuto as “I have created a man [equally/together] with the Lord”—setting the ground for maternal naming-speeches in the Bible. Naming is not only Adam’s prerogative, as Mary Daly (1973:8) claims, nor is it necessarily a paternal medium. In fact, Eve is no exception; more often than not it is the mother or surrogate mother who names the child.

Eve’s naming speech, however, is rather obscure. Although most commentators would agree that this speech expresses the primordial mother’s joy at the birth of Cain, their translations and interpretations differ significantly. This is far from surprising: every word in this speech poses a problem. The verb kana is polysemic, a feature which has allowed the by-now-discredited translation “to acquire” instead of the less theologically palatable “to create.” The use of the term ish (man) for a newborn boy is odd. But the final part et YHWH (literally, with the Lord) has been by far the most perplexing element. God is always present in procreation—opening wombs, giving seed. What is more, He is often the implied addressee in naming speeches, as is evident in the naming-speeches of Rachel and Leah in Genesis 29–30. But in Genesis 4:1, He is treated scandalously, as a partner rather than as the pivot around whom everything turns.

Umberto Cassuto, one of the few to acknowledge the radicality of the verse, suggests that “the first woman in her joy at giving birth to her first son, boasts of her generative power, which approximates in her estimation to the divine creative power. The Lord formed the first man (2:7), and I have formed the second man … I stand together (i.e. equally) with him in the rank of creators” (1961: 201). Eve’s position in the rank of creators allows her to become God’s partner in the work of creation; it allows her to “feel the personal nearness of the Divine presence to herself” (202). Cassuto supports his argument by showing that the verb knh in the sense of “create” is used both in reference to God’s creation of the world—as in the well-known expression koneh shamayim va-arez, the maker of heaven and earth (Genesis 14:22)—and, even more relevantly, in the context of divine parental procreation (Psalms 139:13, Proverbs 8:22). It is precisely by using a verb which in all other cases defines divine (pro)creation that Eve sets the birth of her son on the same footing with the birth of the race. Calling attention to polytheistic elements in the Hebrew Bible, Cassuto goes on to suggest that the same root kny or knw appears in the title of Ashera, the Ugaritic mother goddess: knyt ilm, “the creator/bearer of the gods.”

Eve’s naming-speech may be perceived as a trace from an earlier mythological phase in which mother goddesses were very much involved in the process of creation, even if in a secondary position, under the auspices of the supreme male deity. A speech of this sort is undoubtedly a bold provocation in a monotheistic context. If a mother goddess—be it Ashera, Aruru, or Mami—had delivered a similar speech, it could have been construed as “factual” or even as a token of modesty, but when the primordial biblical mother, who is a mere human being, claims to have generative powers which are not unlike God’s she is as far as possible from modesty.

Eve’s hubristic tendencies do not begin here. Already in Genesis 3, the first woman violates the divine decree, opting to become like God. Her naming-speech on the occasion of Cain’s birth is in a sense a continuation of her first rebellion. If in Genesis 3 she ventures to taste the fruit which opens one’s eyes, in Genesis 4 the primordial mother explores the ways in which the “knowledge” she usurped in the Garden of Eden may be realized. Her hubris is transferred to the realm of creativity. By defining herself as a creatress, she now calls into question the preliminary biblical tenet with respect to (pro)creation—God’s position as the one and only creator.

While the Bible is not a feminist manifesto but has a clearly patriarchal thrust, patriarchy is continuously challenged by antithetical trends. That such a challenge in turn does not escape critique may be seen not only in the punishment of Eve in Genesis 3 but also in the change in tone evident in Eve’s second naming-speech: “Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and named him Seth, meaning, “God has provided me with another offspring in place of Abel” (4:25). If Eve was the subject of the earlier speech, now God is the subject, the one who provides an offspring. He is restored to his conventional role as the protagonist of procreation. Is Eve more modest and careful at this point as a result of her first encounter with death? Does she take God’s punitive abilities more seriously now that death is no longer an abstract concept?

Eve’s acknowledgement of God’s power, however, does not entail an acceptance of Adam’s rule. The primordial mother still treats procreation as if it were an outcome of a transaction between God and herself alone. Such transactions are a common topic in maternal naming-speeches and serve, in a sense, as a female counterpart to the long conversations men have with God concerning seed and stars.

The ongoing interplay between a dominant patriarchal discourse and various opposing undercurrents is analogous to the tension between the divine plan and the disorderly character of actual historical events. God may be the ultimate authority, yet He is continuously disobeyed. Similarly, man has been officially allotted the position of master over woman, but this does not necessarily imply that she accepts his authority. The official hierarchy God-man-woman is never a stable one in biblical narrative. The capacity to transgress boundaries is one of the essential traits of the biblical character, whether male or female.

In the realm of creation, the “official” hierarchy goes as follows: God is the Creator, Adam is the Son of God, and Eve is a Daughter of Adam (to evoke another primeval story). But the story of creation does not end with the desires of God and Adam. The problem for both male authorities is that Eve rebels against her role as a subordinate of a subordinate in a field in which the female body has a prominent role. Through the naming of her sons, the primordial mother insists upon her own generative powers and attempts to dissociate motherhood from subordination.

Pardes, Ilana. "Creation According to Eve: Beyond Genesis 3." Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. 1 March 2009. Jewish Women's Archive. (Viewed on October 8, 2013) <http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/creation-according-to-eve-beyond-genesis-3>.