Torah of the Mothers: Contemporary Jewish Women Read Classical Jewish Texts. Edited by Ora Wiskind Elper and Susan Handelman. (Jerusalem: Urim Publications, 2000). 510 pp. ISBN 965-7108-23-3. Book Review Reviewed by Rabbi Elyse Goldstein Gilla Ratzersdorfer Rosen opens Torah of Our Mothers with a story of how, in her college freshman year, a fellow student tried to "convert her"- her words- to see that God is male. It is the Rav (Soloveitchik) in a lecture that convinces her otherwise. That the Rav would even speak of the duality of God imagery, posit God’s feminine side, and discuss the maternal presence of Divinity shows that, since the 60’s at least, our understanding of Judaism and Jewish concepts has been radically affected in all Jewish sectors by the now clear voice of women and the realization that the religious needs of women is a "Jewish" issue, not just a 'women's' issue. Torah of Our Mothers is a product of this realization. It comes out of a milieu in which high levels of Judaic female scholarship is no longer an oxymoron; in which fine, learned women teachers proliferate in Jerusalem and New York yeshivas; in which places like Nishmat in Jerusalem can confer the title of yo'etzet halacha on a woman trained to make halachic decisions for women in the areas of niddah and taharat hamishpacha. Not only is it unfair to characterize the Orthodox movement as holding back women from Torah learning anymore, it is also simply untrue. Thus there is no question that Torah of the Mothers could not have been written in any other generation but this, for its rich array of traditional women who are at once learned, scholarly, yet quite at home in the Orthodox and even Haredi world are also aware and touched by secular influences and respectful of the advances that feminism has brought to them, as well. But though the authors want us to believe the book is for everyone, non-Orthodox readers familiar with recent Jewish feminist scholarship and deeper feminist critique will find the book timid and apologetic.The title of this book would have been more honest as Contemporary Traditional Jewish Women Read Classical Jewish texts. It is almost as if the authors have suddenly discovered the voices we have been hearing for years. They use heavily male language for God with absolutely no mention of any theological issues this may raise. Their footnotes rely on names like Aviva Zornberg, Nehama Leibowitz, Aryeh Kaplan, and the Lubavitch Rebbe, but there is no mention of ground-breaking feminist scholarship such as Judith Plaskow’s Standing Again at Sinai or Rachel Adler’s Engendering Judaism. Indeed, the last essay, by Esther Sha’anan, rather triumphantly announces, "...we are tapping a precious resource long untapped; we are at long last developing the Torah studies and novellae of women." Only one person mentions Nahum Sarna in a footnote; otherwise there is no sign of any non-Orthodox commentator. The authors use copious, sometimes voluminous footnotes which distract from the reading; yet there is no bibliography at the end of the book. Torah of the Mothers is in four parts. Part One, "Students and Teachers" consists of five intimate essays on the relationship the particular author had with her mentor. This section is fairly tedious unless you are deeply interested in the authors' personal relationships with their teachers. It feels as if the essays are included to give a stamp of kashrut to the book, but these introductory pieces would have been better as an epilogue or even a separate book on the subject of the special teacher . The second part, "Readings of Biblical texts" is the heart of the book. From the creation of Adam to the daughters of Tzelophechad (spelled throughout, for some reason I could not fathom, as Tzlafchad), the essays deal with both male and female characters of the Bible as paradigmatic figures and role models. Sarah Idit Schneider's essay "The Daughters of Tzlafchad: Towards a Methodology of Attitude Around Women’s Issues" is the best in the book. Well written and well researched, Schneider argues persuasively that not only do the daughters of Tzelophechad present us with a model of change for women within Judaism, but they also present a ideal for the way the rabbis should respond to such calls for change. She offers "guidelines to petitioners" based on midrashim of the daughters who "presented their petition in a logical and halachically sophisticated manner." In her Guidelines for Rabbis, she asks for empathy and openmindeness. But she knows she can't have it all. She writes, "If the law is clear and closed, so be it." That seems to be the point of the whole book. She argues that the bottom line is "Although they hoped for a favorable attitude, they didn't want it if was not God's highest will for them and for all concerned." A noble sentiment, but one that does somehow close the argument at the same time it is being made. The third part, Readings of Rabbinic Texts, deals with Talmud and midrashim, and the fourth part entitled Exile and Redemption is essays on Israel and the Diaspora. Some of the essays deal with women's writings (for example, The King and His Daughter in Rabbinic Thought) but most in these two last sections do not. In an anthology the reader expects a wide range of styles, opinions, and outcomes. Though the writing is uniformly good, Torah of the Mothers presents a fairly uniform face in the assortment of essays, and one senses a predictability to them after a while. The authors seem almost apologetic when they stray too close to what might be considered feminist critique, and none of them pushes the envelope, though Ora Wiskind Elper’s essay "Exodus and the Feminine in the Teachings of Rabbi Yaakov of Izbica" offers a search for a non-stereotypical way of dealing with gender and the idea of "the feminine" altogether. The book jacket promises a "landmark collection of essays and teachings culled from years of Bible and Jewish study by highly accomplished women Torah scholars and educators." Torah of the Mothers is landmark in that it gives these traditional women the opportunity to publish scholarly pieces of interest to women, but it should acknowledge that it stands in a proud, long lineage of pioneering books and feminist scholars who long ago paved the way. EG

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