By Rabbi Aaron Goldstein

There are only six chapters in the Bible named after people: “Noah”, “Chayyei Sarah ” (Life of Sarah), “Jethro”, “Korach”, “Balak”, “Pinchas”. One out of six is perhaps not too bad if one looks at the disproportionate attention on male figures in the Torah. If we look at the totality of the Tanakh – the Hebrew Bible – there are two books, Esther and Ruth named after women but then there are all the prophetical books and Ezra and Nehemiah named after men, the female prophets when they are named, such as Huldah, possibly demoted in favour of more popular male peers i.e. Jeremiah.

It is a fact of society that it has been far harder for a woman to make an impact on contemporary Britain due to a perpetuation of male domination.

There have been examples of women in politics and other forms of leadership in the UK and yet issues such as childcare are consistently placed on the plate of women and not men.

We are blessed in Liberal Judaism to have a tradition of women leading and society has sometimes been a brake on us. I celebrate the fact that the co-leaders creating Progressive Judaism in the UK are female and male, as are the Chairs of the clergy bodies of Liberal judaism and Reform Judaism. Both the LJS and The Ark have female and male Rabbis who are not distinguished from each other by titles.

At the Ark, I am delighted for many reasons that Rabbi Lea Muhlstein is my Colleague.. Together we seem to make a mean team and we are proud of her role in international Progressive Zionism and as a role model for many women of various generations.. As well as speaking with authority, I also appreciate her humility.

The ancient Rabbis – male – legislated harshly against the inheritance of women which we read about in this week’s Sidrah. “Despite the compelling reasons to allow daughters to inherit and despite legal ways in which they might have liberalized the law in Numbers to attain this goal, men chose to inflict their rulings on their womenfolk, subjugating their rights(Rabbi Pamela Wax, The Women’s Torah Commentary citing Mishnah Bava Batra 8:5 & 8:2 & Bava Batra 110b & 111a).”.” Where was the humility of these men to look to a higher authority as Moses had done?

Of course, this is not the only way in which women have been subjugated in halakhah. Thank goodness for the primacy of laws of the land, dina d’malchuta dina invoked for the Diaspora that allows for inheritance and most civil matters to be legislated by the cultural and legal norms of the land in which Jews were living.

Humility is not only a female preserve, nor can it be assumed in all women!. In our parasha, Moses appreciates that the test case bought by the daughters of Zelophehad has not been provided for in the initial legislation and brings the case to a higher authority, to God. If that were the end of the story, we might be satisfied with the equality of halakhah, Jewish law, regarding inheritance.

With what feels like chaotic men dominating news reels,, I welcome the increasing number of women making a difference in all walks of life, bringing just causes and communicating them in a manner befitting of the association with the daughters of Zelophehad.

Recent Commentaries