There’s an old joke about a rabbi who meets a maskil that ends with the rabbi saying, “You're not an apikores, you’re an am ha’aretz!” [You can find my take on that joke here.] We (by which I mean people who are no longer frum) hear this sort of thing a lot. If only we knew more, we’d recognize that frumkeit is the truth.
When I first read his siddur, I thought he was stam a rebbe who had a nice little project producing a siddur based on his experience. When I looked him up, I was surprised to find that he had a leading role at several different kiruv organizations, including serving as mashgiach ruchini at one. He really is someone the frum world looks to for expertise on answering "questions."
- Chazal did not originate either of the brachos.
- The
wording of the brachos was not fixed
until relatively late (in contrast to the assumptions that Chazal carefully worded the brachos
and it is their words that we have in our siddurim.
- The bracha “shelo asani isha” is part of davening
due to historical happenstance.
- “She’sheasani kirtzono” was a much later
response to the men’s bracha, and
became standard because of more historical happenstance.
- The
apologetics typically offered to explain how the brachos aren’t misogynistic despite obviously being so (apologetics
which are repeated in the appendix we're discussing) are historically and/or
logically incoherent.
“The story … is told by some of
Socrates, namely, that he used to say there were three blessings for which he
was grateful to Fortune: "First, that I was born a human being and not one
of the brutes; next, that I was born a man and not a woman; thirdly, a Greek
and not a barbarian."[5]
Diogenes Laertius lived about three hundred years before the gemara that gives us the version that is now in our siddurim. His work is contemporary with the tosefta that is our first Jewish source for the trio, and his attribution puts it much earlier. While the attribution doesn't prove that it originated with Socrates, it does show that it was a part of the larger Greco-Roman culture Diogenes Laertius and the Taanaim shared in the first centuries CE, and not something specifically Jewish.
“It is taught in a baraita that Rabbi Meir would say: A man is obligated to recite
three blessings every day praising God for His kindnesses, and these blessings
are: Who did not make me a gentile; Who did not make me a woman; and Who did
not make me an ignoramus.”[6]
Two of the blessings are identical: not
a woman and not an outsider (“barbarian” meant anyone who wasn’t Greek, and is
functionally a synonym for how Jews use the word “gentile'' to mean anyone who
isn’t Jewish). Perhaps it isn’t too much of a stretch to say that “brute” and
“ignoramus” are also conveying the same message: thank you for making me
someone who has understanding, and not an [animal/ignoramus].
“Rav Aḥa bar Ya’akov heard his son reciting
the blessing: Who did not make me an ignoramus. Rav Aḥa bar Ya’akov said to him: Is it in
fact proper to go this far in reciting blessings? Rav Aḥa bar Ya’akov’s son said to him:
Rather, what blessing should one recite? If you will say that one should
recite: Who did not make me a slave, that is the same as a woman; why should
one recite two blessings about the same matter? Rav Aḥa bar Ya’akov answered: Nevertheless, a
slave is more lowly than a woman, and therefore it is appropriate to recite an
additional blessing on not having been born a slave.”[7]
The “ignoramus” blessing was changed,
likely after the original source of the brachos
had been forgotten and new reasons developed for saying them. It’s interesting
that the content of the brachos were
in flux, but they had to be a trio. Rather than drop the “did not make me an
ignoramus” bracha and leave the other
two as a duo, the gemara substitutes
“did not make me a slave” to complete the trio.
2. The brachos are about mitzvos,
not the relative worth of men and women.
3. Women are how Hashem ideally wanted
people to be.
“And the custom of the women is to
recite “That You have made me according to Your will.” And it could be that
this custom arouse because it is like someone who accepts upon themselves the
righteousness of the evil judgment"[11]
In other words, it's not about having
fewer mitzvos or about being the
ideal form of humanity. Just the opposite! It is resigned acceptance of the
unfortunate fact that they were created women and not men.
1.
Women are more in touch with kedusha (and therefore don’t need as many mitzvos).
Premise 1: The purpose of mitzvos are to help those who need the
guidance to connect with kedusha.
Premise 1a: If group A are obligated in fewer mitzvos than group B, it's because group A is more in touch with kedusha than group B.
Premise 2: Women are obligated in fewer mitzvos than men.
Conclusion: Women are more in touch
with kedusha than men.
The conclusion follows from the
premises, but those who use this logic to placate women may not like what it
implies. Let's plug different groups into premise two, and see what happens. We
can try it with non-Jews.
Premise 2: Non-Jews have fewer mitzvos then Jews - 7 to our 613.
Conclusion: Non-Jews are more in touch
with kedusha than Jews.
Or with an animal.
Premise 2: Cats are obligated in fewer mitzvos than humans. In fact, they are
obligated in no mitzvos at all!
Conclusion: Cats are more in touch with
kedusha than humans.
Bolstering the contention that “women
are more in touch with kedusha” is
just a platitude that no one takes seriously and is meant only to placate
modern-minded women is that it first appears in the 19th century. Earlier
commentators say the exact opposite.
“Women should not wear white on Yom
Kippur because they can't be like angels. As it states in Misheli (21:22), ‘A wise man scales the city of the mighty men.’
[This refers to Moshe going to heaven to be with the angels] It refers to the
Heaven as the ‘city of the mighty men.’ Thus, only men are capable of being
like angels.”[13]
So much for women being more in touch
with kedusha than men.
“Woman is exempt from Positive Precepts
dependent upon a set time because she is bound to her husband, to attend to his
needs. Were a woman obliged to perform such mitzvos,
her husband might bid her to do something at the precise moment that she is
fulfilling one of these mitzvoth.
Should she fulfill the bidding of her Creator and neglect her husband’s
demands, she faces her husband’s wrath. On the other hand, should she fulfill
her husband’s demands and neglect the bidding of her Creator, she faces the
wrath of her Creator. Consequently, the Creator exempted her from these
obligations in order to promote harmony between husband and wife.”[14]
According to this explanation, not only
is women’s exemption from mitzvos aseh
she’hazman grama not because of their superior spiritual status, it’s
because of their inferior social status. They are servants to their husbands,
and God has magnanimously ceded some of His claims on them to their masters.
“Clearly, women's exemption from
positive, time-bound [mitzvot] is not
a consequence of their diminished worth; nor is because the Torah found them
unfit, as it were, to fulfill these mitzvot.
Rather, it seems to me, it is because the Torah understood that women are not
in need of these mitzvot. The Torah
affirms that our women are imbued with a great love and a holy enthusiasm for
their role in divine worship, exceeding that of man. The trials men undergo in
their professional activities jeopardize their fidelity to Torah, and therefore
they require from time to time reminders and warnings in the form of time-bound
mitzvot. Women, whose lifestyle does
not subject them to comparable trials and hazards, have no need for such
periodic reminders.”[16]
Notice that R’ Hirsch’s description of
women parallels that of the Romantic archetype from European and Maskilic literature. “Women are imbued
with a great love and a holy enthusiasm,” a trait of the Romantic heroine who is
a font of emotional strength. And it is “trials men undergo in their
professional activities [that] jeopardize their fidelity to Torah.” Just as in
the Romantic novel, the men take on the difficult role to protect women, they
leave the house to earn a living, and come home to women who are pure, “whose
lifestyle does not subject them to comparable trials and hazards.”
2.
Women are how Hashem ideally wanted people to be
“Even though Man was created as male
and female, they were not both equally perfected. And even though they were the
same species they were not equally in the image of God. That is why the verse
states, “In the image of God He created him (singular), male and female He
created them.” In other words, only Man was created in the image of God, because
he was the reason and purpose for Creation. It was only for the necessity of
procreation that Man was created as male and female.
… The Torah doesn't say “man according
to his species,” but it does say that Adam was created male and female ... That
is because man is different than other animals in which the female is on the
same level as the male and is fully equal to him in nature. … That is why it
says about them “according to his species” without giving the male any
superiority to the female. However, it is different concerning man because the
male is the reason for creation of humans and he alone was created in the image
of God. Thus, the Torah states in the singular grammatical form, in the image
of God He created him.
…The male is the one who comprehends
mysteries of wisdom and not the female, about whom our Sages (Yoma 66b) said,
“There is no wisdom in a woman except for the spindle.” That is because the
creation of the female was only an afterthought to provide the man with a
helper and for the purpose of procreation, as the Torah states later. So, in
summary we see that man was originally created alone in perfection while she
was made afterwards in order to serve him…
However, that understanding seems to be
inconsistent with the view (Eiruvin 17a) that male and female were in fact
created at the same time as two entities joined together back to back. [See my
discussion of that gemara here.] However,
in fact, our assertion that woman lacks the image of God and is inferior to the
male is also consistent with the view that Adam was created as a hermaphrodite.
In other words, man was created with an additional form from which woman was
made…Adam was in fact a male in reality while the female aspect was only
subordinate and an appendage to the male entity in order to make a woman from
it later.
Thus we can explain that when it says Adam
was created male and female, it means that since the dominant concern was to
create an intelligent being whose purpose was intellectual, for that purpose
there was no need for the female and thus it was not proper to create the
female with him . … this verse of “male and female He created them” teaches
that … God wanted that man would be created not only with the intellect but
also with a non-intellectual material aspect … So even … according to this
second view … the two aspects were not equal in perfection but rather it was
the male aspect – the primary one - which was created with the image of God.
Man was created as male and intellectual and only secondarily as female to
enable the making of a second subordinate entity to serve the male.”[17]
According to Abarbanel, the truth is
the exact opposite of the apologetic claim that “women are how Hashem ideally
wanted people to be.” He says “man was originally created alone in perfection,
while she was made afterwards in order to serve him.” Women were not how Hashem
ideally wanted people to be! They were an afterthought. They were created only
because they were necessary for procreation. They aren’t even created b’tzelem Elohim, let alone as the ideal
form of humanity. “The male is the reason for creation of humans, and he alone
was created in the image of God.” Abarbanel also refutes the first of our three
apologetics, the idea that women are more in touch with kedusha. He says, “The male is the one who comprehends mysteries of
wisdom and not the female.” Women exist only as a “subordinate entity to serve
the male.”
3.
The brachos are about mitzvos, not the
relative worth of men and women.
”[The reason for saying a bracha for not making him] a gentile is
because it says ‘All nations are like nothing to Him. He considers them to be
empty and void.’ (Isaiah 40:17) [The reason for saying a bracha for not making him] a woman is because women are not
obligated in mitzvot [aseh shehazman grama].” [The reason for
saying a bracha for not making him] a
boor is because a boor is not afraid of sin.”[18]
In contrast, the gemara implies that it is
about the relative worth of men and women. As we saw above, the gemara relates that Rav Acha Bar Yaakov
told his son to say a bracha for not
being created a slave instead of not being created an ignoramus. The son points
out that “a slave … is the same as a woman,” so saying a bracha about
not being made a slave seems redundant. When read through the lens of the
apologetic, it seems that the son is saying that slaves and women have the same
number of mitzvos. But Rashi explains
that the son's question is about status, because “a woman is to her husband as
a slave is to his master.” Rav Acha Bar Yaakov’s answer is also about status,
not mitzvos. He tells his son that slaves are “lesser” than women.
=======================
I’m starting a new venture. It’s been
three years since I finished my book on the Kuzari Argument, “Reasonable
Doubts: Breaking the Kuzari.” Since then I’ve been working on other planned
books in the series, and for the last year and a half I’ve been focused on a
book I’ve tentatively titled “Reasonable Doubts: Orthodox Myths.” It goes
through the central claims that frumkeit
makes about itself and deconstructs them one by one. It’s slow going, and I
think it will be a long time before it’s finished. In the interest of making it
available sooner (and motivating myself to devote more time to working on it),
I’m starting a weekly newsletter where I will regularly post excerpts. The first
post is the first few pages of the book, the next will be the next few pages,
and so on. If you’d like to read the book as I write it, check it out here: the2ndson.substack.com
[1] Tosefta, Berachot 6:23
[3] BT Brachos 60b
[4] Rainbow Tallit Baby. (June 17, 2015). It’s not about the extra mitzvot: Mansplaining the Morning Blessings [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://rainbowtallitbaby.wordpress.com/2015/06/17/its-not-about-the-extra-mitzvot/
[5] Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 1:33
[6] BT Menachos 43b. Translation from Sefaria.org
[7] BT Menachos 43b Translation from Sefaria.org
[8] Jacobowitz, T. Book review of: Kahn, Y. (2011). The Three Blessings: Boundaries, Censorship, and Identity in Jewish Liturgy. Oxford University Press.
[9] Jacobowitz, T. Book review of: Kahn, Y. (2011). The Three Blessings: Boundaries, Censorship, and Identity in Jewish Liturgy. Oxford University Press.
[10] Rainbow Tallit Baby. (June 17, 2015). It’s not about the extra mitzvot: Mansplaining the Morning Blessings [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://rainbowtallitbaby.wordpress.com/2015/06/17/its-not-about-the-extra-mitzvot/
[11] Tur, Orach Chayyim 46. Translation from Sefaria.org
[12] Berman, S.J. (1973). The Status Of Women In Halakhic Judaism. Tradition 14(2). Retrieved from https://www.lookstein.org/professional-dev/status-women-halakhic-judaism
[13] Mogen Avraham, Orech Chaim (610:5)
[14] Sefer Abudarham, Third Gate; Blessings on Commandments 28. Translation from Sefaria.org
[15] Seidman, N. (2016). The Marriage Plot Or, How Jews Fell in Love with Love, and with Literature, Stanford University Press. P 178
[16] Samson Rafael Hirsch, Hirsch Commentary on the Torah (Brooklyn: Judaica Press, 1989), Lev. 23:43
[17] Abarbanel (Bereishis 1:27)
[18] Tosefta, Berachos 6:23, Translation from sefaria.org