Are We All Free?

Patriarchy controlling who leans

Reclining in my seat while drinking wine was a custom I grew up on around the seder table. As I laze over the arm of my chair covered with a pillow of sorts like a bloated emperor I looked  around at my family and guests and always saw everyone, women and men alike doing the same “כולנו מסובים” “we all recline”.[1] I grew up knowing that on Passover eve there was a direct correlation between the freedom we celebrate, and the action of lounging about the dining table in an intoxicated state - Most probably a practise borrowed from the Greek or Roman emperors who behaved this way which we’ve done since then.

Something that was not always practiced is the act of allowing women to recline as men do, which may have been a result of the following laws:

(1)    “A woman near her husband does not need to lean, and if she is an important woman, she needs to lean”[2]

(2)    “A woman does not need to lean, and if she is an important woman she needs to lean”[3]

(3)    A woman does not need to lean, because of fear of her husband, and she is subservient to him”[4]

(4)    “A woman does not need to lean, as there is no freedom for a woman near her husband. And if she is an important woman, she needs to lean, as there is no servitude in her marriage relationship. Therefore all that are not in the presence of her husband, it appears she needs to lean.”[5]

(5)    “A woman does not need to lean, since she serves her husband”[6]

I think you get the picture.

I find it so interesting that on a day when we celebrate our freedom as a nation, our Rabbis dictate that women are in fact still enslaved.

This is not the first time women are grouped together with that of servants; “women, slaves and minors are exempt from the reading of the Shema”[7] the main reason for this being that when she reads “Hear O Israel the Lord my God, my Lord is One” she is lying because she has a second master over her – her husband.[8]

Now there are many words used in Jewish Law to describe a woman (Maidservant, youth-woman, girl, wife, virgin, slave-girl, widow, divorcee), and I think in this instance it is really important to define who is being exempt from leaning at the seder table and is therefore not entirely ‘free’.

Now I was told that Rashi, one of the most literal commentators, died in the middle of his commentary of these laws, but he was survived by his grandsons and sons-in-law, who actually change the status of all women regarding this situation by saying “nowadays all our women are considered ‘important’ and need to lean”[9]

This is huge!

Instead of changing or finding a loophole within the laws they simply come along and change the defining terms which limit women from this ritual.

I’m impressed, and to me it seems that if things like this can happen then there is hope for the oppressive patriarchal laws within our tradition.

Something similar happened a while ago as well; the hearing impaired used to be grouped with the intellectually handicapped because in the 3^rd Century C.E. someone who couldn’t hear usually didn’t receive the sufficient therapy to be able to communicate, so it was assumed that they didn’t comprehend and had an intellectual handicap as well and where thus expect from leading services: “A deaf-mute, an imbecile and a minor do not fulfil an obligation on behalf of the many”.[10] The correlation between impaired hearing and mental disability is known today to be false.  

Chag Sameach! May we all progress toward a more complete state of freedom

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[1] For the Mah Nishtanah

[2] Babylonian Talmud, Pesakhim, 108b

[3] Rif, Pesakhim, 23a (1013-1103)

[4] Rashbam, Pesakhim, 108b (1080-1160)

[5] Meiri Pesakhim, 108b (1249-1315)

[6]Ran of the Rif (1320-1380

[7] Mishnah Tractate Brakhot 3:3

[8] See Talmud Bavli Brakhot, 20b.

[9] Mordokhi (Tosafot), as quoted in Sefer HaMaharil, The Hagadah S.V. Haseibah (1360-1427)

[10] Mishnah Rosh HaShanah 3:8