Ki Tisa: Our Ancestors' Silence
“Mother, asks the clever daughter,
who are our mothers?
who are our ancestors?
what is our history? Give us our name. Name our genealogy.”
- From “The Women’s Haggaddah” by EM Broner, quoted by Judith Plaskow in Standing Again at Sinai
In her groundbreaking book Standing Again at Sinai, the feminist theologian Judith Plaskow points to a central difficulty in the Sinai experience as depicted in the Torah:
“Entry into the covenant at Sinai is the root experience of Judaism, the central event that established the Jewish people. Given the importance of this event, there can be no verse in the Torah more disturbing to the feminist than Moses’ warning to his people in Exodus 19:15, “Be ready for the third day; do not go near a woman.”...At the very moment when Israel stands trembling waiting for God’s presence to descend upon the mountain, Moses addresses the community only as men….At the central moment of Jewish history, women are invisible,” (25).
Plaskow argues, in the very first sentence of Standing Again at Sinai, that “[t]he need for a feminist Judaism begins with hearing silence,”(1). Feminist Judaism springs up from those who are not mentioned in the text realizing this and feeling the pain of it -- as Plaskow asks, “How can we ever hope to fill the silence that shrouds Jewish women’s past?” (26) — and looking around to see where we can find ourselves and what we can make.
Not seeing yourself in the Torah, not being directly addressed by Divine command or being included in some of the most central stories, isa source of distress that can sometimes well up even for the most well-adjusted of feminist Jews and Torah learners. “Does this silence mean that the Torah isn’t for me?” or, in a different idiom, “Does this silence mean that I must contort myself into the shape of those to whom the Torah does directly address for it to be for me?” are questions haunt my own relationship with Torah, even as I largely let those questions sit across from me at the table in the beit midrash as I busy myself with other subjects.
But what if this silence itself can be Torah? What if our women ancestors’ absence from a story is itself thick with meaning?
In Ki Tisa, the newly covenanted Jewish people, panicked by Moshe’s continuing absence up Mount Sinai, build the Golden Calf:
וַיַּרְא הָעָם כִּי־בֹשֵׁשׁ מֹשֶׁה לָרֶדֶת מִן־הָהָר וַיִּקָּהֵל הָעָם עַל־אַהֲרֹן וַיֹּאמְרוּ אֵלָיו קוּם עֲשֵׂה־לָנוּ אֱלֹהִים אֲשֶׁר יֵלְכוּ לְפָנֵינוּ כִּי־זֶה מֹשֶׁה הָאִישׁ אֲשֶׁר הֶעֱלָנוּ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם לֹא יָדַעְנוּ מֶה־הָיָה לוֹ׃
וַיֹּאמֶר אֲלֵהֶם אַהֲרֹן פָּרְקוּ נִזְמֵי הַזָּהָב אֲשֶׁר בְּאָזְנֵי נְשֵׁיכֶם בְּנֵיכֶם וּבְנֹתֵיכֶם וְהָבִיאוּ אֵלָי׃
וַיִּתְפָּרְקוּ כָּל־הָעָם אֶת־נִזְמֵי הַזָּהָב אֲשֶׁר בְּאָזְנֵיהֶם וַיָּבִיאוּ אֶל־אַהֲרֹן׃
וַיִּקַּח מִיָּדָם וַיָּצַר אֹתוֹ בַּחֶרֶט וַיַּעֲשֵׂהוּ עֵגֶל מַסֵּכָה וַיֹּאמְרוּ אֵלֶּה אֱלֹהֶיךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל אֲשֶׁר הֶעֱלוּךָ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם׃
When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, the people gathered against Aaron and said to him, “Come, make us a god who shall go before us, for that man Moses, who brought us from the land of Egypt—we do not know what has happened to him.” Aaron said to them, “Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” And all the people took off the gold rings that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. This he took from them and cast in a mold, and made it into a molten calf. And they exclaimed, “This is your god, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt!” (Shemot 32:1-4).
The Israelites then worship this calf with sacrifices, feasting, and celebration. God is furious and wants to wipe out God’s newly covenanted people, but Moshe convinces God to forgive instead.
The Golden Calf is arguably the most severe communal sin that exists in the Jewish religious imagination. God gave us the Torah, and almost immediately we built and worshipped an idol!
But did we, the Jewish people, really build and worship this false god?
Pirkei D’Rabbi Eliezer, a collection of midrash, notes a discrepancy in the text in the Torah. Aaron asks to be brought “the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters.” But instead, “all the people took off the gold rings that were in their ears” — the following verse makes no reference to taking jewelry from others, including wives or children.
The midrash takes this dissonance to be an indication of resistance on the part of the women.
דן אהרן דין בינו לבין עצמו, אמר אם אני אומר לישראל תנו לי כסף וזהב מיד הם מביאים אלא הריני אומ' להם תנו לי נזמי נשיכם ונזמי בניכם ובנותיכם, והיה הדבר בטל ממנו. שמעו הנשים ולא קבלו עליהם ליתן נזמיהן לבעליהן אלא אמרו להם אתם רוצים לעשות שקוץ ותועבה שאין בו כח להציל.
Aaron debated with himself, saying: If I tell Israel, ‘give me gold and silver,’ they will bring it immediately. Rather, but I will say to them, ‘give me your wives' earrings and your children's earrings,’ and then the matter will be annulled. The women heard this and were not willing to give their earrings to their husbands. Rather, they said to them: ‘You want to make a disgusting and abominable thing which does not have in it power to save.’
The midrash later on tells us that Aharon’s ruse did not work — the men were so eager that they simply removed their own jewelry to contribute to the building of the calf instead. However, the women were rewarded:
ונתן הב"ה שכרן של נשים בעה"ז ובעה"ב. ומה שכר נתן להם לעה"ב? לעה"ז שהן משמרות ראשי חדשים, שנ' המשביע בטוב עדיך תתחדש כנשר נעורייך.
And the Holy Blessed One gave the women a reward in this world and in the World to Come. What reward did God give them in The World to Come? In this world, that they will be the observers of the new moons, [and in the World to Come,] as it is said, ‘Who satisfies your years with good things; so that your youth is renewed like the eagle,’ (Ps. 103:5), (Pirke De-Rabbi Eliezer, chapter 45).
Here, women start out invisible. Much as Plaskow points out about the command Moses gives to the Jewish people before the theophany at Sinai, “The gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters” is a sentence addressed to an audience of only men. But this absence, teaches Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer, does not reflect an oversight or a failure to address women: it reflects women’s refusal to participate in the construction of the Golden Calf. This midrash reads women’s silence as deeply significant.
But what does that silence mean? What could it look like to inherit a legacy of women’s silence and learn power from it, learn how to move forward? Another midrash, this time from the collection Bamidbar Rabbah (21:10), offers us a hint:
"וַתִּקְרַבְנָה בְּנוֹת צְלָפְחָד:" אוֹתוֹ הַדּוֹר הָיוּ הַנָּשִׁים גּוֹדְרוֹת מַה שֶּׁהָאֲנָשִׁים פּוֹרְצִים, שֶׁכֵּן אַתְּ מוֹצֵא שֶׁאָמַר לָהֶן אַהֲרֹן "פָּרְקוּ נִזְמֵי הַזָּהָב אֲשֶׁר בְּאָזְנֵי נְשֵׁיכֶם," וְלֹא רָצוּ הַנָּשִׁים וּמִחוּ בְּבַעֲלֵיהֶן, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר"וַיִּתְפָּרְקוּ כָּל הָעָם אֶת נִזְמֵי הַזָּהָב וגו'." וְהַנָּשִׁים לֹא נִשְׁתַּתְּפוּ עִמָּהֶן בְּמַעֲשֵׂה הָעֵגֶל, וְכֵן בַּמְּרַגְּלִים שֶׁהוֹצִיאוּ דִּבָּה...אֲבָל הַנָּשִׁים לֹא הָיוּ עִמָּהֶם בָּעֵצָה, שֶׁכָּתוּב לְמַעְלָה מִן הַפָּרָשָׁה: "כִּי אָמַר ה' לָהֶם מוֹת יָמֻתוּ בַּמִּדְבָּר וְלֹא נוֹתַר מֵהֶם אִישׁ כִּי אִם כָּלֵב בֶּן יְפֻנֶּה," אִישׁ וְלֹא אִשָּׁה. עַל מַה שֶׁלֹא רָצוּ לִכָּנֵס לָאָרֶץ, אֲבָל הַנָּשִׁים קָרְבוּ לְבַקֵּשׁ נַחֲלָה בָּאָרֶץ, לְכָךְ נִכְתְּבָה פָּרָשָׁה זוֹ סָמוּךְ לְמִיתַת דּוֹר הַמִּדְבָּר, שֶׁמִּשָּׁם פָּרְצוּ הָאֲנָשִׁים וְגָדְרוּ הַנָּשִׁים.
“And the daughters of Tzlofchad approached:” In that generation [of the Jews in the desert], the women shored up what the men breached. You find that Aharon said to them"Remove the earrings of gold that are in the ears of your wives" - and the women did not want to and they protested against their husbands, as it is stated "And the entire people removed the earrings of gold, etc." And the women did not participate with them in the [building of the] Golden Calf.
And so [too] with the spies that put out calumny...But the women were not with them in that counsel, as it it written beyond this section, "As God said to them, 'You shall surely die in the desert,' and not a man remained from them except for Calev the son of Yefuneh" - [it is written] "a man," but not a woman; because of [the men] not wanting to enter the land. But the women approached to request an inheritance in the land. Therefore, this section is written adjacent to the death of the generation of the wilderness (that came out of Egypt) -- as from there did the men breach and the women shore up.
This midrash is a commentary on a verse about the daughters of Tzlofchad, who came forward to demand a familial portion in the Holy Land even though their father had died with no sons. This text offers us a second moment where women are absent from narrative of the Jews in the desert.
First, we have the story of the Golden Calf, using the same textual interpretation as Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer — the women refused to participate. But then we have the story of the Spies, who came back from scouting the Land to disparage it to the rest of the Jewish people. The punishment for believing this disparagement was death in the desert, to never see the Land at all — but, this midrash teaches, it was only men who committed this sin. Here, however, women do not only refuse to participate in sin, but make a powerful counter-demand. The men of the Jewish people rejected the opportunity to enter the Land by believing the tales of the spies. But Tzlofchad’s daughters come and declare their ardor for the Land by demanding their place in it.
This midrash frames Tzlofchad’s daughters not as independent actors, but as part of a lineage — “in that generation.” They are following in the footsteps of the women who refused to give up their jewelry for idolatry. These women’s silence, their absence, is not a lacuna: it is a source of power, and it is that same spirit that fuels the active demand of Bnot Tzlofchad.
The Tur, an early law code, asserts that “the festivals were established parallel to the Avot — Pesach parallel to Avraham..Shavuot parallel to Yitzchak...Sukkot parallel to Yaakov...And the twelve Rashei Chodashim of the year, which are also called ‘festivals,’ are parallel to the twelve tribes, and when they sinned with the Calf it was taken from them and given to their wives, to commemorate that they did not participate in that sin,” (OH 417).
Our most important holidays, teaches the Tur, evoke our most important ancestors. And among them, he includes each Rosh Chodesh. Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, and every woman who was present at the time of the building of the Calf, each and every one of whom refused. These are our ancestors. Their silence and absence reverberates into our very calendar.
Plaskow writes that “to start with the certainty of our membership in our own people is to be forced to re-member and recreate its history, to reshape Torah,” (28). We have remembered ourselves as the descendants of those who built the Calf. The women who refused have not been a central part of our remembered history. But what would it mean for us, the Jews, to not be only the descendants of those who built the Golden Calf, but equally the descendants of those who refused to? What if we, like Bnot Tzlofchad, could take the absence, silence, and refusal of our ancestors and hold that as part of who we are, as a well of strength that informs who we are and what we know we can demand?
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