Commentary on Parashat Chayei Sara, Genesis 23:1-25:18
In Chayei Sara, we are introduced to perhaps the most powerful woman in Torah (or the Bible as a whole, for that matter): Rebecca. The model that Rebecca offers is a challenging one, well worth considering in an age when powerful women often imagine (and not without some reason) that Jewish tradition preserves few models for the kind of women they aspire to be.
The Torah makes it clear that Rebecca is exemplary of traditional values. First, we are told that in addition to being beautiful, she is (at the time we first meet her) “a virgin, neither had any man known her” (Genesis 24:16). She is modest as well; upon being introduced to Isaac, “she took her veil and covered herself” (24:65). She is even pious; when afflicted with two children struggling within her womb, “she went to inquire of the Lord” (25:22).
At the same time, Rebecca is a confident woman, willing to assert herself and use the power available to her. When asked whether she would accompany Eliezer to Canaan, she responds without hesitation: “I will go” (24:58). After God reveals to her which of her sons would rule the other (25:23), she does not hesitate to orchestrate affairs so that God’s will would be done. Rebecca is the insightful partner, the protector of the covenant; Isaac is blind to it all (until the very end).
Thus, we may understand that there is no necessary conflict between the Torah’s vision and a woman of power and insight. Whatever one wants to make of’ “traditional womanly values,” taking command of her own affairs and the affairs of her nation need not be thought to be in tension with such values.
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Torah
Pronunced: TORE-uh, Origin: Hebrew, the Five Books of Moses.
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