Joodse traditie als permanent leren

145.

EXCURSIE 2: Stereotyperingen van vrouwelijke kwaliteiten 'Four qualities in particular are ascribed to women: they are greedy, eavesdroppers, lazy, and jealous; they are also querulous and garrulous (Gen. R. 45:5). "Ten measures of speech descended to the world; women took nine" (Kid. 49b). Women are said to be 'light-minded" (Shab. 33b), i.e. unreliable.

Women were feared as a source of temptation. In Babylon, possibly because of the greater laxity in sexual matters among the general population, it was said that a woman's voice is a sexual enticement as is her hair and her leg (Ber.24a) and that one should under no circumstances be served at a table by a woman (Kid. 70a), In all probability this is the reason for the extremely harsh description of a woman, paralleled by the Church Fathers, as "a pitcher full of filth with its mouth full of blood, yet all run after her" (Shab. 152a). On the other hand it is said that a man without a wife lives without joy, blessing, and good, and that a man should love his wife as himself and respect her more than himself (Yev. 62b). When R.Joseph

heard his mother's footsteps he would say: "let me arise before the

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approach of the Shekhinah " (Kid. 31b"¹. Israel was redeemed from Egypt by virtue of its righteous women (Sot. lib). A man-must be careful never to speak slightingly to his wife because women are prone to tears and sensitive to wrong (BM 59a). Women have greater faith than men (Sif. Num. 133) and greater powers of discernment (Nid. 45b) and they are especially tenderhearted (Meg. 14b). The Torah, the greatest joy of the rabbi's, is frequently hypostatized as a woman (e.g. in Ye v, 63b) and is represented as God's daughter and Israel's bride (Ex.R.41:5). ^,26

Conclusie: De rabbijnse literatuur kent zowel uitgesproken positieve als uitgesproken negatieve stereotyperingen van vrouwelijke kwaliteiten.

Wanneer ik in deze studie over de mens als leerling spreek, maak ik geen onderscheid tussen mannen en vrouwen en in het mensbeeld (PL-model, trefwoord II. 2) onderscheid ik het manbeeld ook niet van het vrouwbeeld. De lezer doet er goed aan te beseffen dat in de klassieke joodse geschriften, die een periode van ongeveer 2000 jaar bestrijken en die bijna uitsluitend door mannen geschreven zijn, de