68
| THE CHRONICLE
poem in the form of footnotes, immediately alert us that this poem is
in dialogue with diverse biblical sources. What is not immediately
evident is that the entire poem is a poetic rejoinder to a rabbinic
midrash
on the creation of Eve, found in
Genesis Rabbah
28:2
and
quoted in the name of R. Joshua of Sikhnin. The
midrash
ostensibly
aims to answer why is it that in describing the creation of woman, the
bible uses the verb “
va-yiven
“
and he
built
the rib into woman. Why
not “
vaya’as
,”
he made, or “
vayitser
,
he formed, as in the case of Adam?
Rabbi Joshua answers with a wordplay, that
vayiven
is used since it ap-
proximates another verb “
vayitbonen
,”
suggesting that as he built
woman, he
considered well
which part from Adam to use so as to avoid
negative results.
“
I will not create her from Adam’s head, lest she be swell-headed;
nor from the eye lest she be a coquette, nor from the ear, lest she be
an eavesdropper, nor from the mouth, lest she be a gossip, nor from
the hand, lest she be light-fingered, nor from the foot, lest she be a
gadabout, but from a modest part of man, for even when he stands
naked that part is covered. And as he created each limb, he ordered her,
‘
be a modest woman.’”
But then what happens? Things do not come out as God expects.
Referring to various biblical verses in Isaiah, and Genesis that describes
feminine vice, R. Joshua notes that despite God’s plans and directives,
woman turned out to be all that God had attempted to avoid: she is
swell-headed, as seen in the description of the Israelite women in
Isaiah 3, given to eavesdropping as in the example of Sarah in the tent
who eavesdrops of Abraham and the angels, jealous and prone to thiev-
ery, as in the case of Rachel, who envies her sister’s fecundity and steals
her father’s teraphim; gadabouts as seen in the story of Dinah who
goes out to see the Canaanite women, etc. This
midrash
on the cre-
ation of Eve thus becomes a lament on what might call the “six deadly
sins” of womankind.
What Gottlieb does is take Rabbi Joshua’s question, his answer,
as well as the narrative template of this
midrash
,
and turn it all on its
head. Instead of searching the Bible for verses that prove feminine vice,
Gottlieb mines the text for stories that bring honor to women. Instead
of worrying about which of Adam’s body parts not to use,
the poem enumerates an excess of good choices, all of which will
yield a wonderful human result. And instead of imagining God as a
kind of hapless,
schlemiel
Creator, who cannot get woman to turn out
according to his ‘Modest Woman Plan,’ Gottlieb imagines an effectual
Shekhinah
,
with an affirmative creative agenda, who blesses each part
of woman’s body as created in Her own image.
This is an example of modern
midrashic
poetry that borrows the
method and format of a prior rabbinic
midrash
in order to convey a
counter-traditional, feminist message. Gottlieb’s poem pays tribute to
the literature of
Hazal
,
as “an indispensable part of our Jewish reli-
gious, cultural, and spiritual DNA,” as Alyssa Gray put it in her
remarks, but also argues that more and in some cases, completely
different things need to be said, not just about man, woman but also
about God. And that this too is
Torah
.
The other kind of feminist strategy that I would like briefly to
point out to you this evening is exemplified on page 471 of the
Com-
mentary
in the poem “Before” by Yokheved Bat-Miriam (1901-1980),
one of the first modern Hebrew woman poets.
Before, in this way, in bygone days,
Women, like me, in silence
Would bear supplications, hidden flames,
With a throbbing spirit.
They would – and in splintering wails
would prostrate themselves over ancestors’ graves.
And raise candles for the souls of the dead
with trembling hearts.
They would – for the holy arks
they would volunteer precious curtains.
On silk and velvet, in silver thread
were interwoven secret hopes.
Many and varied were the women
unfortunate, beaten, desolate.
Only one, only one nowadays is
close to my yearning heart:
Hannah who went up for the festival
year after year to the tabernacle,
to pray, to speak her heart,
her prayer without sound and without tear.
Different from her am I
and different also is my expression
But like her longing among the shadows
I will stand and speak my heart.
This poem exemplifies the ways in which feminist
midrash
can
function as feminist history – or
herstory
,
as it is often called. If so
much of the Bible offers male-centered stories and genealogies and
only clipped, fragmented bits about women, Bat-Miriam attempts to
conjure up a lost history of Jewish women’s spirituality and synagogue
ritual art, which finds no representation in prior sources, and thus, to
create a creative lineage to which she can attach herself as a modern
Hebrew poet, even if her artistic idiom differs greatly from that of her
predecessors. The idea of contribution, collaboration, shared spiritual
efforts spanning generation and place is so powerful in this poem, and
indeed in this
Commentary.
They, like we, have made offerings not
just for art’s sake, but for the sake of our synagogues, to sustain Jew-
ish life. Like the women who made candles, embroidered curtains,
prostrated themselves at gravesites, this commentary, in a sense, is a set
of women’s ritual contributions, albeit in a new scholarly, literary, and
exegetical form.
The one named predecessor in this poem, the biblical Hannah,
is remembered, for her invention of the
silent prayer
.
If women’s prior,
non-verbal artistic, spiritual, and literary contributions were formerly
shrouded in historical silence – Hannah was misunderstood by the
priest Eli; similarly, Bat-Miriam stands alone at the end of this poem,
it seems, in her effort to “to speak her heart” – the publication of this
Commentary,
which includes so many diverse scholarly, literary, and in-
terpretive women’s “Voices,” marks, once and for all, in a canonical
sense, the end of this silence. How privileged we all are to stand to-
gether to mark this occasion, “speaking our hearts” together in
dedication to the
Torah
and its ever-evolving traditions.
