Torah This Week
Welcome to Torah This Week, where you will find thoughts and reflections by CLAL
faculty and associates on the Torah portion of the week.
PARASHAT CHAYEI SARAH
(Genesis 23:1 - 25:18)
In Chayei Sarah, we are introduced to perhaps the most powerful woman in Torah (or the
Bible as a whole, for that matter), Rebekah. The model that Rebekah offers is a
challenging one, well worth considering in an age when powerful women often imagine (and
not without some reason) that Jewish tradition preserves few models for the kind of women
they aspire to be.
The Torah makes it clear that Rebekah is exemplary of traditional values. First, we are
told that in addition to being beautiful, she is (at the time we first meet her) "a
virgin, neither had any man known her" (Gen. 24:16). She is modest as well; upon
being introduced to Isaac, "she took her veil and covered herself" (24:65). She
is even pious; when afflicted with two children struggling within her womb, "she went
to inquire of the Lord" (25:22).
At the same time, Rebekah is a confident woman, willing to assert herself and use the
power available to her. When asked whether she would accompany Eliezer to Canaan, she
responds without hesitation: "I will go" (24:58). After God reveals to her which
of her sons would rule the other (25:23), she does not hesitate to orchestrate affairs so
that God's will would be done. Rebekah is the insightful partner, the protector of the
covenant; Isaac is blind to it all (until the very end).
Thus, we may understand that there is no necessary conflict between the Torah's vision
and a woman of power and insight. Whatever one wants to make of' "traditional womanly
values," taking command of her own affairs and the affairs of her nation need not be
thought to be in tension with such values.
(David Kraemer)
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