The Image of Women in Ancient Israelite Thought

By Rabbi Alan Yuter
Posted Monday, January 8, 2007

When we speak of the "Image of God," we do not actually imagine God. To imagine, or make even a mental image of God, is a terrible wrong because it implies that the infinite God is in fact finite, heaven forfend. But we can compare the imagination of the past and compare them. Similarly, we compare the image of women in the Torah to the world in which the Torah was given, and we learn about the men in that world that God addressed, given their station in history and situation determined image of the world.

Ishtar was the sex and war godess of Mesopotamia. Formerly, in Sumerian, Inanna, Ishtar was a femme fatale who would not say "good-by." She condemned her consort—who gave his name to the month, Tammuz, to the nether world. Ishtar also incited the gods to bring the flood, for no apparent reason, on humankind, and then regretted the genocide that she inflicted upon "her children." Wanting yet another conquest, she approached Gilgamesh, or in Sumerian, Bilgamesh, who spurned her advances. Gilgamesh had no problem with infidelity; he demanded the first night right of the king to every virgin about to marry; Gilgamesh's rejection of Ishtar was due to prudence, not piety. In an affair between unequals, Gilgamesh was sure to lose. So Gilgamesh ultimately lost his best friend, Enkidu, because the gods did not want Gilgamesh to die at that moment, and were not prepared to grant him his life's dream, immortality. Ishtar is created in the image of the man's imagination, and teaches a great deal about the paganism that the Torah rejects.

In ancient Egypt, two striking women reveal what lurks in the imagination of men. Isis is the wife of Osirus and the mother of Horus. Ever devoted to her husband, who is killed by Seth, the god of chaos, but conquered by her son, Horus, whose was conceived by Osirus, who was momentarily revived in order to create an anti-chaos offspring. Horus is god incarnate in the Pharaoh. Isis also wins favors from the sun god, Re, after afflicting him by means of magic. Isis' virtues are social, but not essentially moral. Ironically, the notion that the king is the incarnation of divinity came late to Mesopotamia, probably as state propaganda, is unknown in ancient Israel, and is present in the orthodox understanding of Christianity's hero. Orthodox Jewish children named "Isador" carry a name that learned, pious Jews would likely avoid. We have grounds to conclude that, like Ishtar, Isis was a figment of a male imaginative fantasy.

The Egyptian female King, Hatschepsut [18th Dynasty, her name meaning "first of the great ladies] was a woman who was born to Tutmose I, was the unhappy wife of Tutmose II, and was expunged from the memory of Egypt by her half-brother and nephew, Tutmose III. When her husband died, she would not relinquish power. But Egypt could not live with a female ruler. And as wife of royalty, she was not permitted to remarry. But she lived happily, and to her religious imagination, into the ever after, with her a commoner lover with whom she consorted.

The Queen of England and the widows of the Israelite King and Great Priest are also forbidden to remarry according to Tradition. Like English monarchy, but unlike Israelite ideals, the monarchical widow may not marry, but may be merry. Sexual relations with a "friend" is tolerated, but remarriage is not. Men put women on a possessive pedestal and even "great ladies" in antiquity found their identities forged by men and were bound to those identities. And since Tutmost III waited 20 years to expunge Hatschepsut's name from inscriptions, it was likely not do to anger but male anxiety regarding human—as opposed to divine–women having authority. Hatschepsut's name does not appear in King lists, either.

We remember that the Written Torah tells us to "appoint for yourself a king." The oral Tradition glosses "and not a queen." The late Rabbi Louis Finkelstein, of blessed and sainted memory, noted that the Sifre's gloss, "and women may not assume leadership position," a reading adopted by Maimonides, was not original to the oral Torah canon, and is therefore not a canonical norm in Judaism. In his footnote, R. Finkelstein artfully showed, by example but without polemic, precisely how critical scholarship should be applied in Halakhic discourse. Thus, the human aspect of our sacred literature was never censored by the Divine hand, revealing Itself in the canon on one hand, but preserving the orientation and the bias of the age in which it was written.

In Egypt, women could inherit property. In Greece, women could not inherit property. Ancient Israelite Torah law allows women to inherit by marrying in the clan. Today, women are permitted to inherit. Jewish practice does, on occasion, change with the times, but only within the parameters appropriate to Torah ethics, legislated statute, and juridical principles.

The Greeks viewed women in two ways. Calypso and Aphrodite are bundles of sexual energy. The latter was created when the severed phallus of her father was cast upon the water, and Calypso, we recall, unsuccessfully tried to seduce Odysseus to spend eternity with her. Much more generous than Ishtar of the Gilgamesh myth, Calypso offers Odysseus constant pleasure and the immortality that Gilgamesh sought but was denied. The Greek hero is loyal to Penelope, his wife, and Zeus intercedes to require Calypso to release Odysseus. These women are great and powerful, because, one a goddess and one a nymph, are not human. These women were created not in the image of the female, but the male fantasy.

Grey eyed Athena is the exception that proves the rule. She interacts with and is respected by men. She happens to be a female, but functions asexually. While Aphrodite never is seen other than in sexual contexts, Athena is a non-sexual being—and hence male-like. The Greek woman was not accorded the respect that one would think would be appropriate in a rational society of philosophers. But Jews would do well not to gloat here. Professor Avraham Grossman and shown, in his Hassidot u-Moredot, that the Jewish medieval rationalists were less respectful of women than the mystics.

The memory of Israel is recorded in the Hebrew Bible. Eve, who was pre-Israelite, was not an evil person but came to be known as the "Troublesome Helpmate." Sarah, whose name in Hebrew means "princess and is cognate to the Akkadian word for "queen," is noble in her character. God "visits" her, allowing her womb to be opened and she becomes pregnant in old age. We recall that Hatschepsut had inscription written that describes herself as "visited" but the god of that which is hidden, Amun, who came upon her disguised at Tutmose I, her earthly father. Not only is the anticipation of the Christian narrative clear, the God of Israel intercedes in nature, with there being no God and no good but by Him.

Rebecca comes from the right family and is asked to live in Canaan, the right place. While human with human feelings—especially regarding being childless—she is defined by the power of her character and not by the quality of her power. Rachel and Leah both choose to leave Laban and emigrate to what is for them an unseen land. We remember that Leah was unloved and a "second fiddle," loved Jacob because of his strength, goodness, and integrity.

In the ancient world, men imagined gods and women. How women and gods are imagined tell us more about the imaginers than about the products of imagination. Israel saw its women not as chattels to be worn as trophies. One's wife is consort, maker of family, and partner in love. Bonds are borne in ethical value, not in power, prowess, or possessions.

But ancient Israel is the product of antiquity, but ancient Israelites were not antiques. When the great Orthodox Jewish philosopher, Dr. Tamar Ross, remarked that that our ancestors reflected patriarchy, the pious R. Aaron Lichtenstein was scandalized, but improperly so. Our ancient founders should have behaved patriarchally, because that was their world. God did not remake their minds or diminish their free will. But the moral and humane way that they responded to their women show us moderns how we ought to evolve, how truth is not fixed but a trajectory that expands with our ever growing consciousness, may it be raised and with insight, become sanctified. As modern Orthodox Jews, we look as the age of antiquity with the mind of Torah, with our ancestors as models and ourselves as Jews who learn from the past so that we sanctify our future.

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