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Rashi's "feminist" commentary on Genesis 1
This Sunday, November 8, I will be the keynote speaker at Bible by the Bay in Marin County, CA. My topic will be: "Rashi's Daughters as Torah commentators: fact, fiction or legend?" Which means I have to find some of Rashi's commentaries that show a feminist bent and teach them to my audience. I confess that I have not read all of Chumash with Rashi [shocking], nor have I memorized those parts I have studied. But I had a good idea where to start looking – Bereshit [Genesis].
In the first three chapters, Rashi had plenty of opportunity to share his thoughts on the creation of humankind, the formation of man and woman, how they came to eat from the tree of knowledge, and the punishment they received for doing so. This is where other Bible commentaries, both Jewish and Christian, show their misogynist leanings. Typically they state that women should be subordinate to men because Eve was taken from Adam's rib and, even worse, that women are cursed to this day because they brought sin into the world when Eve made Adam eat a fruit from the forbidden tree of knowledge.
Rashi shows no such prejudice against women. In Gen 1:27-28, he explains that God first created one being, Adam, with both male and female faces, and then divided them into man and woman, the details of this to be found later. When God commands Adam to "be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it," Rashi points out that this could also be read as "subdue her," and thus the mitzvah of procreation is given only to man and not to woman. Rashi says nothing more about this, but he surely knew that Talmud uses the interpretation of this verse to allow women to practice contraception, which prevented countless women from dying in childbirth.
I'll continue with Rashi's commentary on Genesis 3 in my next post.
In the first three chapters, Rashi had plenty of opportunity to share his thoughts on the creation of humankind, the formation of man and woman, how they came to eat from the tree of knowledge, and the punishment they received for doing so. This is where other Bible commentaries, both Jewish and Christian, show their misogynist leanings. Typically they state that women should be subordinate to men because Eve was taken from Adam's rib and, even worse, that women are cursed to this day because they brought sin into the world when Eve made Adam eat a fruit from the forbidden tree of knowledge.
Rashi shows no such prejudice against women. In Gen 1:27-28, he explains that God first created one being, Adam, with both male and female faces, and then divided them into man and woman, the details of this to be found later. When God commands Adam to "be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it," Rashi points out that this could also be read as "subdue her," and thus the mitzvah of procreation is given only to man and not to woman. Rashi says nothing more about this, but he surely knew that Talmud uses the interpretation of this verse to allow women to practice contraception, which prevented countless women from dying in childbirth.
I'll continue with Rashi's commentary on Genesis 3 in my next post.
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