On Wednesday, a group of Muslim students, a learned Muslim colleague and I discussed marriage. A question from one of the students was “how has Jewish marriage adapted to modern understandings of gender equality and LGBTQ+ rights while maintaining traditional marital practices? are there any contemporary interpretations or adaptations within Jewish communities?” The timing was great because I am currently reading “This Is How Your Marriage Ends” by Matthew Fray about how men fail to honour women’s perspectives and pull their weight in thinking about and doing housework.
The most interesting of these are two ways of interpreting a traditional phrase about marriage:
“Who is a Kosher woman? The one who does [whatever is] her husband’s will”. [i]
In 1962, a whole new way of reading this same verse was put forward by the Lubavitcher Rebbe. The new reading involves some word play made possible by the fact that the Hebrew word for “does” also means “makes”. “Who is a Kosher woman? The one who makes [moulds and influences] her husband’s will” [ii].
In the Rebbe’s new interpretation, a wife is encouraged to influence her highly hassled husband who lacks the will to do what is appropriate. She is “obligated, in ways of pleasantness and peace” to “make and reveal” the husband’s will to do what God wants of him.
It can be argued that this is not a completely modern innovation. Abraham was instructed by God that everything Sara tells you, obey her voice [iii] . But there is a reasonable counter argument, in quoting God’s words to Eve. Your longing will be to your husband, and he shall rule over you [iv]. I would argue that the phrase that a man will rule over his wife is a curse and a prediction, rather than a prescription. As much as I don’t like it, it is hard to escape the sense that Judaism sees a man as having authority in the home. Consider this disturbing law written by Maimonides: “Whenever a woman refrains from performing any of the tasks that she is obligated to perform, she may be compelled to do so, even with a rod [v] ”.
I explained to the students that Jewish law responds to the context of when it is applied. I can’t imagine any Rabbi today would be ok with a man hitting his wife with a rod for failure to do the dishes.
Mathew Fray has much to say about dishes. Before his transformation into a reflective remorseful ex-husband, he was a bitter man who blamed his ex-wife for his problems in a blog post entitled, “my wife divorced me because l left dishes by the sink [vi] ”. He now realises that the dishes by the sink represented something more - a lack of consideration of her needs and perspective. He wrote, “I remember my wife saying how exhausting it was for her to have to tell me what to do all the time… She wanted me to figure out what needed to be done… without making her responsible for orchestrating everything”.
In 2024, for many women to feel respected and loved, a man needs to do more housework and more of the thinking and orchestrating than their parents or grandparents did. This is not a reform of Judaism, but the application of timeless principles to our time. The commandment to love others like ourselves [vii] requires all of us taking other peoples’ wants, needs and points of view into account as much as we want ours taken into account. This applies to spouses as well.
Similarly, when couples disapprove of each other’s behaviour, rather than find a rod, it is appropriate to draw the spouse’s attention to whatever we are concerned about [viii] , but in a way that does not humiliate them [ix].
Also on Wednesday, it was Rosh Chodesh, the beginning of a new month when Jewish custom dictates that women not do house work if possible. I won’t disclose too much personal, but I did pay extra attention to this custom this time. Hopefully, I will make a habit of it.
Another modern Rabbi pointed out that when the Torah described the role of women as helping men, it states that she would be “opposite him”. A marriage partner is not a geisha girl or guy who serves drinks and sets the table. A life partner must be able to say no if necessary—the ‘kenegdo- opposite’ part—because if you marry a yes-sayer, you aren’t really being challenged by another. Moreover, the lips may be moving one way, but the heart may be saying ‘no’ silently until the heart breaks from the weight of ’nos.’ In the end, a "help-opposite" creates its own synthesis, and a new oneness is born. The couple must drink together but not always from the same cup, so that one can correct the other, complement the other, cheer and comfort the other, help and be helped by the other. Only then is the one not alone [x].
My scholarly Muslim colleague shared her perspective on all these matters as it relates to nuances and misunderstandings of Islamic traditions, but that is her story to tell.
The students were delightful.
[i] Tana Dbei Eliyahu Rabba 9
[ii] The Lubavitcher Rebbe, (1962), a talk on parshat Balak and Likutei Sichos vol 4. איזוהי אשה כשרה? כל שעושה רצון בעלה" (תדא"ר פ"ט). שני פירושים למאמר זה. א. הבעל ברובו של היום אינו בבית, צריכה איפוא האשה "לעשות" את רצון בעלה - להוריד את הרצון לידי עשיה בפועל. לבעל יש רצונות טובים בעניני חינוך הילדים, הכנסת אורחים, נתינת צדקה וכדומה; אך ההוצאה לפועל של רצונות אלו תלויה באשה. ב. לפעמים, צריכה האשה "לעשות" - ליצור - את רצון בעלה. כשהבעל טרוד מאד וחסר לו הרצון לעשות את הראוי, חייבת האשה, בדרכי נועם ובדרכי שלום, לעשות ולגלות את רצונו הפנימי של הבעל, שהרי כל יהודי רוצה לעשות רצון קונו...(משיחת ש"פ בלק תשכ"ב - לקו"ש ד עמ' 1069
[iii] Genesis 21:12
[iv] Gensis 3:16
[v] Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, laws of Marriage 21:10
[vi] Fray, M. (2022), This Is How Your Marriage Ends, Souvenir press, p. 50
[vii] Leviticus 19:18
[viii] Leviticus 19:17 see
[ix] Arakhin 16b
[x] Rabbi Shlomo Riskin – I believe. I have been unable to find the source.
