The same circumstances may have been the cause of public opinion being led to accept the view of R. Eliezer, who thought it inadvisable—it would seem on moral grounds—to permit woman to study the Law. This opinion was opposed to that of Ben Azzai, who considered it incumbent upon every father to teach his daughter Torah. But justified as the advice of R. Eliezer may have been in his own time, it was rather unfortunate that later generations continued to take it as the guiding principle for the education of their children. Many great women in the course of history indeed became law-breakers and studied Torah; but the majority were entirely dependent on men, and became in religious matters a sort of appendix to their husbands, who by their good actions insured salvation also for them, and sometimes the reverse. Thus there is a story about a woman which, put into modern language, would be to the effect that she married a minister and copied his sermons for him; he [pg 320] died, and she then married a cruel usurer, and kept his accounts for him.
The fact that women were exempted from certain affirmative laws, which become operative only at special seasons—e.g., the taking of the palm branch on the Feast of Tabernacles—must also have contributed to weaken their position as a religious factor in Judaism. The idea that women should vie with men in the fulfilment of every law, became even for the Rabbis a notion connected only with the remotest past. This is the impression one gains when reading the legend about Michal, the daughter of Saul, putting on phylacteries, or the wife of the prophet Jonah making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem at the three Festivals. It would indeed seem as if women were led to strive for the satisfaction of their religious wants in another direction. Yet it was said of Jewish women, “The daughters of Israel were stringent and laid certain restrictions on themselves.” They were also allowed to form a quorum by themselves for the purpose of saying the Grace, but they could not be counted along with males for this end. It was also against the early notion of the dignity of the congregation that women should perform any public service for men.
One privilege was left to women—that of weeping. In Judges xi. 40, we read of the daughters of Israel that went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah; while in 2 Chronicles xxxv. 25, we are told how “all the singing men and the singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations.” Of this privilege they were not deprived, and if they were not allowed to sing any longer, they at least retained the right to weep as much as they pleased. Even in later times they held a public office as mourning [pg 321] women at funerals. In the Talmud fragments of compositions by women for such occasions are to be found. Indeed, woman became in these times the type of grief and sorrow. She cannot reason, but she feels much more deeply than man. Here is one instance from an old legend: Jeremiah said, “When I went up to Jerusalem (after the destruction of the Temple) I lifted my eyes and saw there a lonely woman sitting on the top of the mountain, her dress black, her hair dishevelled, crying, ‘Who will comfort me?’ I approached her and spake to her, ‘If thou art a woman, speak to me. If thou art a ghost, begone.’ She answered, ‘Dost thou not know me?... I am the Mother, Zion.’ ”
In general, however, the principle applied to women was: The king's daughter within the palace is all glorious (Psalm xlv. 14), but not outside of it. In the face of the “Femina in ecclesia taceat,” which was the ruling maxim with other religions, Jewish women could only feel flattered by this polite treatment by the Rabbis, though it meant the same thing. We must not think, however, that this prevented them from attending the service of the synagogue. According to the Tractate Sopherim, even “the little daughters of Israel were accustomed to go to the synagogue.” In the same tractate we find it laid down as “a duty to translate for them the portion (of the Law) of the week, and the lesson from the prophets” into the language they understand. The “King's daughter” occasionally asserted her rights without undue reliance on the opinion of the authorities. And thus being ignorant of the Hebrew language women prayed in the vernacular, though this was at least against the letter of the law. And many famous Rabbis of the twelfth and thirteenth [pg 322] centuries express their wonder that the “custom of women praying in other (non-Hebrew) languages extended over the whole world.” It is noteworthy that they did not suppress the practice, but on the contrary, they endeavoured to give to the Law such an interpretation as would bring it into accord with the general custom. Some even recommended it, as, for example, the author of The Book of the Pious, who gives advice to women to learn the prayers in the language familiar to them.
At about the same period a lengthy controversy was being waged by the commentators of the Talmud and the codifiers, about woman's partaking in the fulfilment of the laws for special seasons, from which, as already remarked, they were exempted. To the action itself there could not be much objection, but the difficulty arose when women also insisted on uttering the blessing. Now the point at issue was whether they could be permitted to say, for instance, “Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, etc., who hast sanctified us by Thy Commandments, and hast commanded us, concerning the taking of the Palm branch,” since in reality the women had not been commanded to do it. To such logical and systematic minds as Maimonides and R. Joseph Caro, the difficulty was insurmountable, and they forbade women to use the formula; but with the less consistent majority women carried their point. Rather interesting is the answer received by R. Jacob, of Corbeil, with regard to this question. This Rabbi is said to have enjoyed the mysterious power which enabled him to appeal in cases of doubt to the celestial authorities. Before them he put also this women's case for decision. Judgment was communicated to him in the verse from the Scriptures, “In all that Sarah saith unto Thee, hearken [pg 323] unto her voice” (Gen. xxi. 12). Nor was it unknown for a pious Jew to compose a special hymn for his wife's use in honour of the Sabbath.
How long this custom of women praying in the vernacular lasted, we have no means of ascertaining. Probably was already extinct about the end of the fifteenth century. For R. Solomon Portaleone, who lived in the sixteenth century, already regrets the abolition of “this beautiful and worthy custom.” “When they prayed in the vernacular,” he says, “they understood what they were saying, whilst now they only gabble off their prayers.” As a sort of compromise we may regard the various “Supplications”;[265] they form a kind of additional prayers supplementary to the ordinary liturgy, and are written in German. Chiefly composed by women, they specially answer the needs of the sex on various occasions. These prayers deserve a full description by themselves, into which I cannot enter here; I should like only to mention that in one of these collections in the British Museum, a special supplication is added for servant-maids, and if I am not quite mistaken, also one for their mistresses.
It is also worth noticing that the manuals on the “Three Women's Commandments” (mostly composed in German, sometimes also in rhymes), contained much more than their titles would suggest. They rather served as headings to groups of laws, arranged under each commandment. Thus the first (about certain laws in Lev. xii. and xv.) becomes the motto for purity in body and soul; the second (the consecration of the first cake of the dough) includes all matters relating to charity, in which women were even reminded to encourage their newly married husbands not to withhold from the poor the [pg 324] tithes of the bridal dowry, as well as of their future yearly income; whilst the third (the lighting of the Sabbath lamp) becomes the symbol for spiritual light and sweetness in every relation of human life.
As another compromise may also be considered the institution of “Vorsugern” (woman-reader) or the “Woilkennivdicke” (the well-knowing one) who reads the prayers and translates them into the vernacular for the benefit of her less learned sisters. In Poland and in Russia, even at the present time, such a woman-reader is to be found in every synagogue, and from what I have heard the institution is by no means unknown in London. The various prayer-books containing the Hebrew text as well as the Jewish-German translation, which appear in such frequent editions in Russia, are mostly intended for the use of these praying women. Not uninteresting is the title-page of R. Aaron Ben Samuel's Jewish-German translations and collections of prayers which appeared in the beginning of the eighteenth century. He addressed the Jewish public in the following terms: “My dear brethren, buy this lovely prayer-book or wholesome tonic for body and soul, which has never appeared in such German print since the world began; and make your wives and children read it often, thus they will refresh their bodies and souls, for this light will shine forth into your very hearts. As soon as the children read it they will understand their prayers, by which they will enjoy both this world and the world to come.”
An earlier translator of the prayer-book addresses himself directly to the “pious women” whom he invites to buy his book, “in which they will see very beautiful things.” Recent centuries seem, on the whole, to have been distinguished [pg 325] for the number of praying-women they produced. The virtues which constituted the claim of women to religious distinction were modesty, charity, and daily attendance at the synagogue morning and evening. In the memorial books of the time hundreds of such women are noticed. Some used also to spin the “Fringes,” which they presented to their friends; others fasted frequently, whilst “Old Mrs. Hechele” not only attended the synagogue every day, and did charity to poor and rich, but also understood the art of midwifery, which she practised in the community without accepting payment for her services. According to R. Ch. J. Bachrach women used also to say the “Magnified” prayer in the synagogue when their parents left no male posterity.
In bringing to a close this very incomplete sketch, perhaps I ought to notice the confirmation of girls introduced during this century in some communities in Germany, which the “Reformed” Rabbis recommended, but of which the “Orthodox” Rabbis disapproved. It would be well if in the heat of such controversies both sides would remember the words of R. Zedekiah b. Abraham, of Rome, who with regard to a certain difference of opinion on some ritual question, says: “Every man receives reward from God for what he is convinced is the right thing, if this conviction has no other motive but the love of God.”