This handsome and (very) lengthy tome is one in a series entitled A Feminist Commentary on the Babylonian Talmud. The series editor is the author of the volume under review. An ambitious project, A Feminist Commentary plans a commentary to the entire Babylonian Talmud through the lens of a particular focus: feminist studies. As per the publisher's website, for each talmudic tractate, the author will take the texts s/he perceives as relevant to issues of women and gender, write an introduction outlining the tractate's conception of gender and provide a commentary to selected sugyot.
Writing a commentary on any work of rabbinic literature, and particularly the Babylonian Talmud, is a formidable task. The Talmud is textually difficult (concise and ambiguous) and conceptually complex, as it contains circuitous, forced logic and highly involved case studies. Therefore, I preface my remarks below by recognizing the rigor, creativity, and time (the author worked on the volume for a decade!) that writing such a commentary requires.
Questions of method and focus stand front and center. Indeed, the usual difficulties involved in writing a commentary are compounded when a focus of choice is imposed on the text. The author's admission at the beginning of the volume is, therefore, praiseworthy: discussions of individual mishnayot and talmudic sugyot make localized contributions to gender questions; these same examples, however, “when approached from a gender perspective” are “incoherent as a whole structure” (7). This critical point cannot be overlooked; it calls into question the ability to write a commentary that presumes the priority of certain questions. Certainly, some tractates, chapters, and sugyot may be better suited for a feminist commentary—just like some tractates, chapters, and sugyot are more appropriate for other academic foci, such as ritual, disability, or animal studies. The task taken on by the editors of A Feminist Commentary to include the entire Talmud, therefore, is not free of some possibly unsurmountable challenges. Only philology and source criticism are methods that can be applied to page after page of talmudic text: every page of Talmud is subject to linguistic analysis and comparison with parallels. However, applying questions of gender to every page of Talmud—even those directly dealing with women—poses interpretive difficulties. In light of the above, the ways in which this volume frames and furthers our understandings are that much more significant.
First, I address the form. The placement of parallel texts, Mishnah, Tosefta, and Yerushalmi, in parallel columns in both English and Hebrew makes the study of the material flow for the reader in, perhaps, unprecedented ways. The turning of pages becomes unnecessary and the search for parallels is taken care of before one starts reading. A cursory review of the translations suggests their accuracy. The translation and commentary of mishnaic units as a separate section in each chapter will benefit even students who do not have a particular interest in a feminist commentary. At the end of every sugya, variant manuscript readings are listed, even though their significance is not always explored. Exceptions occur when the variant is relevant for a feminist reading, as noted regarding the case of milk production by a male beast (322; Bavli manuscripts) and the question of whom a priest's daughter may marry (567; Sifra variant).
Regarding content, Ilan's observation that the use of “all” in tannaitic literature, at times inclusive and at other times exclusive of women, tends to be interpreted in the Talmud as inclusive is significant (103–4). More insights into interpretive tendencies in the Bavli, such as distinctions between amoraic and stammaitic approaches to issues relating to women and gender, would have been welcomed. Some of the most important interpretations offered are the product of the author's general expertise in ancient studies and experience with tannaitic and Palestinian amoraic literature. Take, for example, the framing of the question in the Mishnah concerning whether a fetus found in a slaughtered beast is an independent living being or not as a polemic against a view voiced in the writings at Qumran that considers the fetus as living offspring (57–58). The excursus on caesarean births in antiquity was equally informative (210). I also point to the suggestion that a dictum against writing a ketubah for two males—labeled as a “Noahide law”—be put into dialogue with a tradition in Genesis Rabbah that implies the generation of the flood engaged in male homosexual marriage (see 434–35). However, the author attributes the formulation of the ketubat benin dikhrin clause to the mishnaic authors and does not cite the important formulaic antecedent found in an Edomite ketubah dated 176 BCE. The discussion on the use of kohenet and leviyah as daughter of a priest or levite (565–76) would have benefited from further exploration of Tosefta Yevamot 8:2. There leviyah refers to a Levite's wife (see Saul Lieberman, Tosefta kifeshutah: Nashim, 2nd ed. [New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary, 1995] 6:65), accounting for the term's multiple meanings. This may also shed light on R. Pappa's seemingly unconventional use of kohenet as “wife of a priest” in B. Bekhorot 47a (see p. 566). Unfortunately, the volume is marred by dozens of typographical errors and grammatically problematic sentences, seemingly based on Hebrew idiomatic phrases in the original draft. A second pass by the copy editors could have remedied many of these issues.
The humanities have evolved in tandem with our social concerns, making it necessary for the Talmud to be analyzed through the important lens of feminist studies. A question remains, however: Can the Talmud, as a whole, be subjected to a systematic feminist commentary? The present volume makes it clear that while challenges to the writing of a sustained feminist commentary remain, meaningful analyses of individual talmudic discussions can be produced. As volumes of A Feminist Commentary continue to be authored, let us hope that a global view of all of the volumes will bring to the foreground ways in which the questions asked in the field of feminist studies sharpen our understanding of the Babylonian Talmud's conceptions of women and gender.
