In preparation for her bat mitzvah, acclaimed Talmudic scholar, author Gila Fine read The Book of Legends, “a collection of stories from the Talmud.” The theme on women made her cry, saddened that the founding fathers of her beloved religion “could have such a low opinion of me and my kind.” The women described in the stories were vexatious, irrational, greedy, belligerent, spiteful, promiscuous, vain or with unattainable ideals of perfection. Clearly, the rabbis words embodied an anti-feminist” archetype. Fine’s book The Mad Woman in the Rabbi’s Attic “revises” the Talmudic paradigm.
Employing a feminist lens, Fine dissects the misogynistic characterization of six women in the Talmud and upends the rabbinic perception of Marta The Prima Donna, Heruta the Madonna/Whore, Beruria the ‘Overreacherix’, Ima Shalom,The Angel in the House---though not demeaned, she is nevertheless characterized with an “overstated ideal“ of a perfect mother, sister, wife who never leaves home. Yalta the Shrew and Homa the Feme Fatale complete the list of six badly mischaracterized women.
Fine guides us into the Talmud where Yalta The Shrew overhears a discussion between her husband Rabbi Nachman and a Shabbat dinner guest. In defiance of Yalta’s husband’s customary wish for her to share the Kiddush wine, the guest states wives are not permitted to share in the blessing since wives have enough blessings in bearing children-- albeit through the husband’s seed. In other words, wives are mere vessels, or “jars” for procreation. In the wine cellar, Yalta promptly breaks 400 jars of wine, in a seemly violent protest against her womanhood. Fine’s analyses however reveals that Yalta did not “storm off in a tantrum” rather expressed “an intelligent argument in favor a woman’s reproductive worth.” Women are not merely reproductive “jars.”
Homa the Femme Fatale has numerous precedents in the Torah and Western literature from Delilah to Oscar Wilde’s Salome. All are described as beautiful yet dangerous seductresses. Homa thrice widowed now rendered an “isha katlanit” (halachically unmarriageable) appeals to the Rabbinical Court for the traditional money settlement “to live off for the rest of her life.” She also requests an allowance for wine, which is contested by the judge who claims Homa’s husband didn’t drink. In dispute, Homa raises her arm illustrating the size of drinking horn she and her husband used. In so doing Home exposes her “radiant arm” and act that sends a wave of desire through the judge and perceived as an attempted seduction. Homa creates enough dissidence in the community that she is expelled, her legitimate settlement refused, a victim of a narrow patriarchal mindset. Was the Rabbinic interpretation correct? Was Homa’s intent to seduce the judge? Many other such examples follow to exonerate the reputation of women who emerge as honorable and worthy heroines.
The book’s title, has a connection to Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre in which Mr. Rochester kept his “mad” wife locked up in their attic. Bronte a proto-feminist would applaud author Gal Fine’s elucidation, scholarship and justice in defense of women.
