One common accusation I often hear against Judaism is that it espouses hatred of woman. I have had enough exposure to Paul, Augustine, and Milton to recognize a woman-hater when I read one. Christianity, which blames Eve for the introduction of sin and death into this world, is a misogynous religion. I can readily accept the possibility that its nasty attitude came from classical Greek culture or somewhere else. It doesn’t come from the Torah. Traditional Judaism may be sexist, as all ancient cultures were and most modern cultures are. It may patronize and treat women unfairly. The Torah obviously reflects the thinking of a primitive patriarchal society and doesn’t attempt to describe a world three thousand years in the future. But it is definitely not misogynist.
The proof that Judaism does indeed respect women is always subtle and nuanced and easy to overlook. Conversely, those stories, commandments, and prayers abound that people will point to as evidence to support the widely held misconception that Judaism has no respect for women. But the so-called evidence doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Thus, only
• If Exodus 20:12 commanded that one honor one’s father but not one’s mother,
• If Exodus 21:23 commanded that killing a man was a capital offense but not killing a woman,
• If Exodus 21:26 commanded that an injured male slave should be set free but not a female slave,
• If Deuteronomy 22:26 made no distinction between consensual sex and rape,
• If when Sarah told Abraham what to do, God had shut her up and not told Abraham to do as she said,
• If Rebecca had been offered no choice in marrying Isaac,
• If when the daughters of Zelophehad asked for their inheritance, God had refused and not told Moses their plea was just,
• If Deuteronomy 25:12 commanded that a woman who touched a man’s genitals should be put to death,
• If Proverbs 31 contained no paean to the independent businesswoman,
• And if there were no female prophets or judges or military heroines anywhere in the Bible,
would I agree that the Torah has something against women.
Recently, an atheist of my acquaintance asked me what I have to say about a מצוה in כי תצא, which he saw as alleged “proof” that the Torah hates women. I had just been thinking, after seeing an infamous picture of a Taliban victim, that Jewish law doesn’t ever call for dismemberment. Then this person directed my attention to Deuteronomy 25: If two men get into a fight with each other, and the wife of one comes up to save her husband from his antagonist and puts out her hand and seizes him by his genitals, you shall cut off her hand; show no pity. Don’t I find that misogynistic, he wanted to know?
Obviously, the Torah does not call for the dismemberment of women. No Jewish woman I know has ever lived in fear of being hacked to pieces by religious authorities. So what is the point of chopping off a woman’s hand if she touches a man’s testes?
All negative commandments prescribe punishments to discourage offending behavior. I think the intent with this one must be to impress upon women the seriousness of men’s attachment to those organs, which is not intuitively obvious to a woman. After all, we manage to live without them. Of course a woman may appreciate her own husband’s genitals, but why should she care about those of some strange man, especially if he is her husband's enemy? I think this commandment serves a purpose similar to Exodus Chapter 23
:4 When you encounter your enemy's ox or ass wandering, you must take it back to him.5 When you see the ass of your enemy lying under its burden and would refrain from raising it, you must nevertheless raise it with him.
Out of curiosity, I asked my rabbi about this strange woman-chopping idea. Specifically, I wondered whether it only applied to hands, or whether a woman who kicked a man where it hurts would have her foot chopped off. His response was that it has always been understood, as is Leviticus 24:20, to mean that the offender must pay monetary damages equivalent to the loss.
So there it is. The reason I never felt any particular outrage before about Judaism’s predilection for chopping women into pieces is that, as I had always suspected, Judaism doesn’t actually believe in chopping women into pieces after all.
Next question?
