Title
Rereading The Rabbis: A Woman's Voice,Used
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Fully acknowledging that Judaism, as described in both the Bible and the Talmud, was patriarchal, Judith Hauptman demonstrates that the rabbis of the Talmud made significant changes in key areas of Jewish law in order to benefit women. Reading the texts with feminist sensibilitiesrecognizing that they were written by men and for men and that they endorse a set of social relations in which men control womenthe author shows that patriarchy was not always and everywhere the same. Although the rabbis whose rulings are recorded in the Talmud did not achieve equality for womenor even seek itthey should be credited with giving women higher status and more rights. For example, during the course of several hundred years, they converted marriage from the purchase by a man of a woman from her father into a negotiated relationship between prospective husband and wife. They designated a bride's dowry to be onetenth of her father's net worth, thereby ending her Torahmandated disenfranchisement with respect to inheritance. They left the ability to grant a divorce in male hands but gave women the possibility of petitioning the courts to force a divorce. Although some of these developments may have originated in the surrounding GrecoRoman culture, the rabbis freely chose to incorporate them into Jewish law.Rereading the Rabbis: A Woman's Voice also breaks new ground methodologically. Rather than plucking passages from a variety of different rabbinical works and then sewing them together to produce a single, unified rabbinical point of view, Hauptman reads sources in their own literary and legal context and then considers them in relationship to a rich array of associated synchronic and diachronic materials.
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- Q: What is the main focus of 'Rereading The Rabbis: A Woman's Voice'? A: The book focuses on how the Talmudic rabbis made significant changes in Jewish law to benefit women, addressing the patriarchal nature of Judaism while highlighting the evolving status of women in Jewish law.
- Q: Who is the author of this book? A: The author of 'Rereading The Rabbis: A Woman's Voice' is Judith Hauptman, a recognized scholar in the field of Women & Judaism.
- Q: What is the publication date of this book? A: The book was published on December 11, 1998.
- Q: What type of condition is the used book in? A: The used book is in Good condition, indicating that it has been previously owned but remains usable.
- Q: How many pages does 'Rereading The Rabbis: A Woman's Voice' have? A: The book contains 304 pages.
- Q: What is the binding type of the book? A: The book is available in paperback binding.
- Q: What are some key themes discussed in the book? A: Key themes include the transformation of marriage from a purchase to a negotiated relationship, women's rights in divorce, and the impact of Greco-Roman culture on Jewish law.
- Q: Is this book suitable for someone interested in feminist perspectives on religion? A: Yes, the book offers a feminist reading of rabbinic texts, making it suitable for readers interested in feminist perspectives on Judaism.
- Q: Does the author provide a balanced view of the rabbis' contributions to women's rights? A: Yes, Judith Hauptman acknowledges the limitations of the rabbis' achievements regarding equality while still recognizing their contributions to improving women's status in Jewish law.
- Q: What makes this work unique in its approach to rabbinical texts? A: The book's unique approach lies in its methodological focus on reading sources within their own literary and legal contexts, rather than combining disparate texts to create a unified viewpoint.