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Dirshuni: Contemporary Women’s Midrash
A unique compilation of contemporary women’s midrashim.
Contemporary Women’s Midrash , is the first-ever English edition of a historic collection of midrashim composed by Israeli women, which has been long-anticipated by multiple American audiences, including synagogues, rabbinical seminaries, adult learning programs, Jewish educators, and scholars of gender and religion. Using the classical forms developed by the ancient rabbis, the contributors express their religious and moral thought and experience through innovative interpretations of scripture. The women writers, from all denominations and beyond, of all political stripes and ethnic backgrounds, contribute their Torah to fill the missing half of the sacred Jewish bookshelf. This book reflects dramatic changes in the agency of women in the world of religious writings. The volume features a comprehensive introduction to Midrash for the uninitiated reader by the distinguished scholar Tamar Kadari and extensive annotation and commentary by Tamar Biala.
Contemporary Women’s Midrash , is the first-ever English edition of a historic collection of midrashim composed by Israeli women, which has been long-anticipated by multiple American audiences, including synagogues, rabbinical seminaries, adult learning programs, Jewish educators, and scholars of gender and religion. Using the classical forms developed by the ancient rabbis, the contributors express their religious and moral thought and experience through innovative interpretations of scripture. The women writers, from all denominations and beyond, of all political stripes and ethnic backgrounds, contribute their Torah to fill the missing half of the sacred Jewish bookshelf. This book reflects dramatic changes in the agency of women in the world of religious writings. The volume features a comprehensive introduction to Midrash for the uninitiated reader by the distinguished scholar Tamar Kadari and extensive annotation and commentary by Tamar Biala.
304 pages, Hardcover
Published June 28, 2022
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September 23, 2022
When the ancient rabbis had a question about the Torah—an important detail that seemed to be missing, an inconsistency between two passages, even a redundant word or verse—they would solve the problem by writing a midrash, or story, filling in the missing piece or reconciling the seeming contradiction. One well-known example of such a midrash is the story of the young Abraham smashing the idols in his father’s workshop, then claiming that the largest idol had done it, so as to trick his father into admitting the idols were merely powerless statues. People often assume this is part of the Bible story, but in fact it is the rabbis’ creative answer to a question not answered in the text: Why did God choose Abraham to convert the heathens to monotheism?
Many of these invented stories reflect sensibilities that bother contemporary women, and women have responded by composing a rich variety of feminist midrash in response. (I take pride in thinking I have been part of this effort, particularly in two novels that seek to flesh out the life of the otherwise unnamed “Rav Hisda’s daughter,” exploring why the Talmud would describe her as having married two, not just one, of her father’s best students after being asked to choose “Which do you want?” and responding boldly, “Both of them.”) For an example of the conversation between ancient and modern values in midrash, consider the story of Lilith. Traditional rabbis wanted to reconcile the two different accounts of the creation of man and woman that appear in Genesis: Chapter one describes God's creation of man and woman at the same time, but chapter two recounts how God makes man in the Garden of Eden and then creates woman as man’s mate later.
The rabbis wondered what happened to that first woman—why was Adam alone again and in need of a mate? They contrived the legend of Lilith, created as Adam’s equal, who left him when he insisted on dominating her. In this tradition, Lilith became a baby-killing demon, while Eve, created from Adam’s body in the second story, was more willing to submit to him, and thus more acceptable to the ancient rabbis. In 1972, though, feminist theologian Judith Plaskow wrote “The Coming of Lilith,” which transforms the fearsome, demonic Lilith into a wise and brave woman. Instead of a rival to be feared, she becomes Eve's friend and empowerer.
Dirshuni: Contemporary Women’s Midrash is the long-anticipated English edition of a collection of midrash composed by Israeli women. Three of the Dirshuni authors are rabbis; all are educators, many with advanced degrees. Using the classical forms developed by the ancient rabbis, they contribute their Torah to fill what the book calls “the missing half of the sacred Jewish bookshelf.” Like other feminist approaches to the Torah, Dirshuni asks: How might women have told their stories if they were central, rather than peripheral, characters in the tradition?
As with traditional midrash collections, this volume begins with Genesis and Exodus and continues through Prophets and Writings. Here the similarity ends, as the following seven chapters are arranged by subject, including Fertility and Parenthood, Holidays, Inequality in Jewish Law and The Rabbinic Court. Each is fashioned in the traditional form of individual midrashim based on a specific text of Torah: first the text, then the midrash explaining or expanding on it, then commentary on its implications, legal or otherwise.
Some of the authors retell stories in a way that highlights women’s pain with greater detail, creating sympathy and revising traditional judgments. Retired high school teacher Ruti Timor offers a heart-rending explanation of why Lot’s wife was punished by turning into a pillar of salt after she looked back at Sodom: "She was unaware of God’s command not to look behind (Gen 19:17). Lot said to his wife, quick…we’ll run for our lives or be killed. She said, we’ll save ourselves, and our (married) daughters will stay here? …He walked sure-footed and she lagged behind. Her heart was heavy upon her, she looked back and saw her city, her family, and her property going up in flames. Tear after tear dripped from her eyes, and the tears grew fuller and fuller, stronger and stronger; until they became a pillar of salt. She stumbled and fell, and stirred no more. And Lot did not look back. Our Sages said, She sinned and with salt was punished. And I say, she sinned not, but was punished all the same."
Other retellings add new voices and new takes on long-standing debates, such as whether Sarah was complicit in Abraham’s decision to obey the command to sacrifice their son Isaac. Biala, a feminist scholar and longtime Torah teacher, imagines the voices of various female biblical figures reacting to the verse describing Abraham’s early morning departure (Genesis 22:3): "And where was Sarah at the time?... Jezebel said: Sarah was of one mind with Abraham and she too sought not to withhold her only son, whom she loved. For Abraham and Sarah both worshipped the same God, and would convert people to Him; he the men, and she the women. Dinah said: Sarah was in the tent and didn’t know of their departure, for ever since she had returned from the palace of Avimelekh, her husband had told her All the princesses’ treasure is inward (Ps. 45:14). She would hide within the tent and no longer took notice of other people. The Great Woman of Shuman said: Sarah hurried after Abraham to stop him from slaughtering her son, but judges and officers at the gates prevented her."
Biala, in her own commentary, concludes by blaming God: "…for the Holy Blessed One had told Abraham Whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her voice (Gen 21:12). But He had not said those words to her. … Against a patriarchal reality in which women truly do have the power to intervene and avert catastrophe … yet they fail to act because are unaware of their own strength."
Some midrashim in this collection go further and depict women studying together in the Beit Midrashah shel Beruriah—Beruriah’s Study House, an imaginary yeshiva headed by Beruriah, the learned wife of Talmudic sage Rabbi Meir. This allows for narratives in which women are shown studying text and contributing legal rulings as in classical Talmudic passages. One of my favorites, by Rivkah Lubitch, a scholar and an advocate for women in religious courts, is about mamzerut, or the issues surrounding bastards—children born to parents in a forbidden union. In Lubitch’s midrash, Moses ascends to heaven to write down the Torah as God dictates it: "He came to the verse Do not uncover the nakedness of your father’s sister, she is your father’s near kinswoman (Leviticus 18:12), and he said, isn’t my mother my father’s aunt? After all, Amram, my father, is the son of Kehat and grandson of Levi … And Yocheved, my mother, is the daughter of Levi…Moses felt faint. He came to the verse, No mamzer will enter the assembly of God, even to the tenth generation (Deut 23:3). … He said: Could I and my siblings, Aaron and Miriam, be mamzerim? He grew weak. He wept and wept… He [traveled forward in time] and sat in the beit midrash of Beruriah. He heard a woman ask: Why is the law of mamzer not practiced today? And they answered her: Because we do not receive testimony on a mamzer; because it has already been decided that the entire community are presumed to be mamzerim, and are permitted to one another. Moses’s mind was eased.
In commentary following this story, Lubitch shows how one might use this midrash as a basis for contending with the mamzerut problem today, starting with the notion that Jacob violated the prohibition against marrying two sisters, Leah and Rachel, during their lifetimes: "Halakha maintains that the entire Jewish community is presumed to be bastards and thus all are permitted to marry one another. … Throughout the generations, rabbis have made such general statements and legal presumptions … Similarly the entire Jewish community is presumed to have been rendered impure by contact with the dead, such that most of the purity and impurity laws no longer apply."
Not every midrash in Dirshuni is so encouraging. Attorney Oshrat Shoham’s trilogy of tales in the Rape and Incest chapter (“The Father’s Scream: Concealing and Revealing,” “The Mother’s Scream: Uncovering and Expulsion,” “The Woman’s Scream: Cover-Up and Tikkun”), where each victim is ignored, shamed or both, upset me so much I could barely skim them. Upon reflection, however, I think they were written to make readers outraged and empathetic, to force changes in attitude and to demand justice. By contrast, two contributions to the chapter on post-Holocaust theology are more comforting, drawing on texts about Noah’s dove and raven and on passages from the Song of Songs to emphasize how important it is for humanity to feel God’s presence, especially in a difficult, frightening, and painful period. The human tendency is to forget God and ignore His presence when all is well; the closeness between God and humanity depends on both working to ensure that the bond endures.
These are merely a taste of the formidable resources in Dirshuni. While scholars will relish the book’s nuances, it is the less experienced Torah students who will learn most from this wealth of new insights into the tradition.
Many of these invented stories reflect sensibilities that bother contemporary women, and women have responded by composing a rich variety of feminist midrash in response. (I take pride in thinking I have been part of this effort, particularly in two novels that seek to flesh out the life of the otherwise unnamed “Rav Hisda’s daughter,” exploring why the Talmud would describe her as having married two, not just one, of her father’s best students after being asked to choose “Which do you want?” and responding boldly, “Both of them.”) For an example of the conversation between ancient and modern values in midrash, consider the story of Lilith. Traditional rabbis wanted to reconcile the two different accounts of the creation of man and woman that appear in Genesis: Chapter one describes God's creation of man and woman at the same time, but chapter two recounts how God makes man in the Garden of Eden and then creates woman as man’s mate later.
The rabbis wondered what happened to that first woman—why was Adam alone again and in need of a mate? They contrived the legend of Lilith, created as Adam’s equal, who left him when he insisted on dominating her. In this tradition, Lilith became a baby-killing demon, while Eve, created from Adam’s body in the second story, was more willing to submit to him, and thus more acceptable to the ancient rabbis. In 1972, though, feminist theologian Judith Plaskow wrote “The Coming of Lilith,” which transforms the fearsome, demonic Lilith into a wise and brave woman. Instead of a rival to be feared, she becomes Eve's friend and empowerer.
Dirshuni: Contemporary Women’s Midrash is the long-anticipated English edition of a collection of midrash composed by Israeli women. Three of the Dirshuni authors are rabbis; all are educators, many with advanced degrees. Using the classical forms developed by the ancient rabbis, they contribute their Torah to fill what the book calls “the missing half of the sacred Jewish bookshelf.” Like other feminist approaches to the Torah, Dirshuni asks: How might women have told their stories if they were central, rather than peripheral, characters in the tradition?
As with traditional midrash collections, this volume begins with Genesis and Exodus and continues through Prophets and Writings. Here the similarity ends, as the following seven chapters are arranged by subject, including Fertility and Parenthood, Holidays, Inequality in Jewish Law and The Rabbinic Court. Each is fashioned in the traditional form of individual midrashim based on a specific text of Torah: first the text, then the midrash explaining or expanding on it, then commentary on its implications, legal or otherwise.
Some of the authors retell stories in a way that highlights women’s pain with greater detail, creating sympathy and revising traditional judgments. Retired high school teacher Ruti Timor offers a heart-rending explanation of why Lot’s wife was punished by turning into a pillar of salt after she looked back at Sodom: "She was unaware of God’s command not to look behind (Gen 19:17). Lot said to his wife, quick…we’ll run for our lives or be killed. She said, we’ll save ourselves, and our (married) daughters will stay here? …He walked sure-footed and she lagged behind. Her heart was heavy upon her, she looked back and saw her city, her family, and her property going up in flames. Tear after tear dripped from her eyes, and the tears grew fuller and fuller, stronger and stronger; until they became a pillar of salt. She stumbled and fell, and stirred no more. And Lot did not look back. Our Sages said, She sinned and with salt was punished. And I say, she sinned not, but was punished all the same."
Other retellings add new voices and new takes on long-standing debates, such as whether Sarah was complicit in Abraham’s decision to obey the command to sacrifice their son Isaac. Biala, a feminist scholar and longtime Torah teacher, imagines the voices of various female biblical figures reacting to the verse describing Abraham’s early morning departure (Genesis 22:3): "And where was Sarah at the time?... Jezebel said: Sarah was of one mind with Abraham and she too sought not to withhold her only son, whom she loved. For Abraham and Sarah both worshipped the same God, and would convert people to Him; he the men, and she the women. Dinah said: Sarah was in the tent and didn’t know of their departure, for ever since she had returned from the palace of Avimelekh, her husband had told her All the princesses’ treasure is inward (Ps. 45:14). She would hide within the tent and no longer took notice of other people. The Great Woman of Shuman said: Sarah hurried after Abraham to stop him from slaughtering her son, but judges and officers at the gates prevented her."
Biala, in her own commentary, concludes by blaming God: "…for the Holy Blessed One had told Abraham Whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her voice (Gen 21:12). But He had not said those words to her. … Against a patriarchal reality in which women truly do have the power to intervene and avert catastrophe … yet they fail to act because are unaware of their own strength."
Some midrashim in this collection go further and depict women studying together in the Beit Midrashah shel Beruriah—Beruriah’s Study House, an imaginary yeshiva headed by Beruriah, the learned wife of Talmudic sage Rabbi Meir. This allows for narratives in which women are shown studying text and contributing legal rulings as in classical Talmudic passages. One of my favorites, by Rivkah Lubitch, a scholar and an advocate for women in religious courts, is about mamzerut, or the issues surrounding bastards—children born to parents in a forbidden union. In Lubitch’s midrash, Moses ascends to heaven to write down the Torah as God dictates it: "He came to the verse Do not uncover the nakedness of your father’s sister, she is your father’s near kinswoman (Leviticus 18:12), and he said, isn’t my mother my father’s aunt? After all, Amram, my father, is the son of Kehat and grandson of Levi … And Yocheved, my mother, is the daughter of Levi…Moses felt faint. He came to the verse, No mamzer will enter the assembly of God, even to the tenth generation (Deut 23:3). … He said: Could I and my siblings, Aaron and Miriam, be mamzerim? He grew weak. He wept and wept… He [traveled forward in time] and sat in the beit midrash of Beruriah. He heard a woman ask: Why is the law of mamzer not practiced today? And they answered her: Because we do not receive testimony on a mamzer; because it has already been decided that the entire community are presumed to be mamzerim, and are permitted to one another. Moses’s mind was eased.
In commentary following this story, Lubitch shows how one might use this midrash as a basis for contending with the mamzerut problem today, starting with the notion that Jacob violated the prohibition against marrying two sisters, Leah and Rachel, during their lifetimes: "Halakha maintains that the entire Jewish community is presumed to be bastards and thus all are permitted to marry one another. … Throughout the generations, rabbis have made such general statements and legal presumptions … Similarly the entire Jewish community is presumed to have been rendered impure by contact with the dead, such that most of the purity and impurity laws no longer apply."
Not every midrash in Dirshuni is so encouraging. Attorney Oshrat Shoham’s trilogy of tales in the Rape and Incest chapter (“The Father’s Scream: Concealing and Revealing,” “The Mother’s Scream: Uncovering and Expulsion,” “The Woman’s Scream: Cover-Up and Tikkun”), where each victim is ignored, shamed or both, upset me so much I could barely skim them. Upon reflection, however, I think they were written to make readers outraged and empathetic, to force changes in attitude and to demand justice. By contrast, two contributions to the chapter on post-Holocaust theology are more comforting, drawing on texts about Noah’s dove and raven and on passages from the Song of Songs to emphasize how important it is for humanity to feel God’s presence, especially in a difficult, frightening, and painful period. The human tendency is to forget God and ignore His presence when all is well; the closeness between God and humanity depends on both working to ensure that the bond endures.
These are merely a taste of the formidable resources in Dirshuni. While scholars will relish the book’s nuances, it is the less experienced Torah students who will learn most from this wealth of new insights into the tradition.
May 22, 2023
I read this book for the “Maybe Midrash” readathon on BookTube, which deals in serious fiction and nonfiction pertaining to religion. The idea being that modern literature can be an exegesis to ancient thought, I suppose. (More accurately, perhaps, and also encompassing older literature, this readathon is about probing history, culture and rituals.)
But of course I felt compelled to pick this book up once I heard about it—this book, which indeed takes inspiration from the ancient art of “midrash”—which Tamar Kadari defines in her introduction as a “paradox” about “the holiness of the Bible.”
Midrash, as it was practiced by the sages in the first century CE, “brought forth rich and diverse innovation of a multiplicity of meanings by way of imagination and creativity,” she writes. “Rather than lock up the Scriptures and guard them like frail crystals easily shattered, the sages took pains to use verses over and over every which way to give them a real place in their lives. They didn’t want the Torah to become something empty and irrelevant, and they thought that the responsibility to make sure that didn’t happen rested on their shoulders.”
So there we have it. Midrash is an exercise against stagnant and/or puritanical thinking. But technically it’s very rooted in the Bible, hence the “use verses over and over again” phrase. They’re still drawing directly from the source of the Torah, written and oral.
…but something sticks out when regarding these first century sages; not a lot of women there. :P And their interpretations were for their time, also privy to some of the biases of said time. Canonical midrashim are important religious texts, but they no longer “yield…educational messages, concepts and ideas, and approaches to contemporary problems” (emphasis mine.)
Enter this book, and many more like it. In fact, the women featured here have already written other volumes in Hebrew. (This one was translated by Yehudah Mirsky and Ilana Kurshan.) And here come my own limitations. I’m not familiar enough with the texts to grasp their full meaning, and the wordplay and such these authors ascribe to in order to make their arguments. Luckily, there’s some “hand holding,” so I make do. I suppose it’s fair to say no one should approach Jewish text study feeling they know all the answers anyway. :P
These women writers picked up the mantle largely by talking about women’s issues from a women’s perspective—some rich ground to toil. They start with the Creation of the World (first arguments about the nature of “woman” in comparison to “man,”) Matriarchs and Patriarchs, and other women and their roles inferred in the Bible. They also move onto more philosophical arguments around sexuality, love and marriage, fertility and parenthood, rape and incest, and inequality in Jewish Law and the Rabbinic Court, though this almost always centers on biblical characters and stories. Certainly makes things easier to follow. Maybe the most esoteric examples revolve around the Holocaust, since that’s obviously not covered explicitly by the Bible. This Midrash, written by Biala, is a Noah’s Arc allegory about survival.
Also following tradition: one woman, like Biala, Kadari and others, would write a Midrash in the style of ancient Midrash (suggestive arguments with looooots of textual cross-referencing) followed by a “commentary” which sheds further light on her midrashic techniques and the argument in play. This puts the women squarely in a tradition of written conversation, if perhaps more condensed than in ancient times. They also, like the sages of old, create some fictional scenarios, like a mythical Beit Midrash (house of study) of various important female characters, akin to how the ancient sages imagined Moses wandering around Rabbi Akiva’s beit midrash some thousand years into the future. :P
It’s not really meant to be read as quicky as I read through it, and probably not alone. Judaism very much encourages debate. So maybe I should be taking points off myself rather than the book; maybe that’s the reason it was a little tedious by the end.
Still, all in all this was fascinating and hopeful. It gave women a seat at the table, drawing upon texts and writing styles coined in the past. These writers usually looked to flesh out a sense of empathy for situations of grief, isolation and etc as we generally understand them today. It was a dynamic experience, and I look forward to talking about it again in my Maybe Midrash wrap up!
But of course I felt compelled to pick this book up once I heard about it—this book, which indeed takes inspiration from the ancient art of “midrash”—which Tamar Kadari defines in her introduction as a “paradox” about “the holiness of the Bible.”
Midrash, as it was practiced by the sages in the first century CE, “brought forth rich and diverse innovation of a multiplicity of meanings by way of imagination and creativity,” she writes. “Rather than lock up the Scriptures and guard them like frail crystals easily shattered, the sages took pains to use verses over and over every which way to give them a real place in their lives. They didn’t want the Torah to become something empty and irrelevant, and they thought that the responsibility to make sure that didn’t happen rested on their shoulders.”
So there we have it. Midrash is an exercise against stagnant and/or puritanical thinking. But technically it’s very rooted in the Bible, hence the “use verses over and over again” phrase. They’re still drawing directly from the source of the Torah, written and oral.
…but something sticks out when regarding these first century sages; not a lot of women there. :P And their interpretations were for their time, also privy to some of the biases of said time. Canonical midrashim are important religious texts, but they no longer “yield…educational messages, concepts and ideas, and approaches to contemporary problems” (emphasis mine.)
Enter this book, and many more like it. In fact, the women featured here have already written other volumes in Hebrew. (This one was translated by Yehudah Mirsky and Ilana Kurshan.) And here come my own limitations. I’m not familiar enough with the texts to grasp their full meaning, and the wordplay and such these authors ascribe to in order to make their arguments. Luckily, there’s some “hand holding,” so I make do. I suppose it’s fair to say no one should approach Jewish text study feeling they know all the answers anyway. :P
These women writers picked up the mantle largely by talking about women’s issues from a women’s perspective—some rich ground to toil. They start with the Creation of the World (first arguments about the nature of “woman” in comparison to “man,”) Matriarchs and Patriarchs, and other women and their roles inferred in the Bible. They also move onto more philosophical arguments around sexuality, love and marriage, fertility and parenthood, rape and incest, and inequality in Jewish Law and the Rabbinic Court, though this almost always centers on biblical characters and stories. Certainly makes things easier to follow. Maybe the most esoteric examples revolve around the Holocaust, since that’s obviously not covered explicitly by the Bible. This Midrash, written by Biala, is a Noah’s Arc allegory about survival.
Also following tradition: one woman, like Biala, Kadari and others, would write a Midrash in the style of ancient Midrash (suggestive arguments with looooots of textual cross-referencing) followed by a “commentary” which sheds further light on her midrashic techniques and the argument in play. This puts the women squarely in a tradition of written conversation, if perhaps more condensed than in ancient times. They also, like the sages of old, create some fictional scenarios, like a mythical Beit Midrash (house of study) of various important female characters, akin to how the ancient sages imagined Moses wandering around Rabbi Akiva’s beit midrash some thousand years into the future. :P
It’s not really meant to be read as quicky as I read through it, and probably not alone. Judaism very much encourages debate. So maybe I should be taking points off myself rather than the book; maybe that’s the reason it was a little tedious by the end.
Still, all in all this was fascinating and hopeful. It gave women a seat at the table, drawing upon texts and writing styles coined in the past. These writers usually looked to flesh out a sense of empathy for situations of grief, isolation and etc as we generally understand them today. It was a dynamic experience, and I look forward to talking about it again in my Maybe Midrash wrap up!
October 24, 2024
How beautiful and refreshing it is to hear Torah from the perspective of women!
October 11, 2022
It took me the better part of a year scouring used bookstores in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv to acquire copies of the original two out-of-print volumes of Dirshuni, so I’m delighted that this English translation is finally available.
English language readers are more likely to be familiar with Midrash (biblical and rabbinic fan fiction) that uses modern Western literary forms: novels like The Red Tent, and The Secret Chord, poems like “We All Stood Together.” But what’s extraordinary about this collection is that it uses the same techniques as the tightly crafted Midrashim written by ancient and medieval rabbis, but through a feminist lens. Each is followed by commentaries which unpack references and ideas that may be unfamiliar to those who don’t spend a lot of time decoding Jewish texts.
The one downside is that this collection is just a selection of the original two volumes, and a lot of great stuff was left on the cutting room floor. I’m hoping there will be a second translated volume, but for now, go to Sefaria to see the originals in Hebrew if you’re able.
English language readers are more likely to be familiar with Midrash (biblical and rabbinic fan fiction) that uses modern Western literary forms: novels like The Red Tent, and The Secret Chord, poems like “We All Stood Together.” But what’s extraordinary about this collection is that it uses the same techniques as the tightly crafted Midrashim written by ancient and medieval rabbis, but through a feminist lens. Each is followed by commentaries which unpack references and ideas that may be unfamiliar to those who don’t spend a lot of time decoding Jewish texts.
The one downside is that this collection is just a selection of the original two volumes, and a lot of great stuff was left on the cutting room floor. I’m hoping there will be a second translated volume, but for now, go to Sefaria to see the originals in Hebrew if you’re able.
November 3, 2022
There are many ways to explore the Torah text, all of which offer insights into its meaning. Some of these approach the work from a historical point of view, rather than a religious one. Others offer a historical, close look at specific words in the text. While different types of study appeal to different audiences, when viewed together, they can enrich one’s understanding and appreciation of the text. While “The Book of Revolutions: The Battle of Priests, Prophets, and Kings That Birthed the Torah” by Edward Feld (The Jewish Publication Society) looks at the historic reasons behind the development of three codes found in the Torah, “Dirshuni: Contemporary Women’s Midrash” edited by Tamar Biala (Brandeis University Press) offers an interpretation of the biblical text that is both feminist and very traditional at the same time.
See the rest of my review at https://www.thereportergroup.org/past...
See the rest of my review at https://www.thereportergroup.org/past...
July 5, 2023
This whole work is magnificent. The rigor, the beauty, the radicalness of its very existence. I'm so grateful for these women to have opened my eyes to these stories and people. If you want to think and imagine and believe holistically, in a Jewish liturgy and history comprised of more than men, you need to read this book.
July 1, 2025
This book was absolutely phenomenal and is a must-read for anyone interested in modern or liberal Judaism. Biala’s helpful commentary provides useful context for readers reacquainting themselves with the stories of the Tanakh or readers new to Midrashic style, all while remaining interesting and significant to the learned reader. I cannot recommend this book enough, it is rare that I simply cannot put down a book of Judaica.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews