Communications - Letter to the Editor

I have no quarrel with any of the comments made by Professor Lawrence Kaplan in his instructive review of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik's Family Redeemed, edited by Schatz and Wolowelsky (Judaism, Fall 2001). He did, I think, miss one significant moment in the Rabbi's thinking on family and gender. The point I have in mind is brief, but it exceeds in originality and daring much of the other more lengthy discussion.

The passage I have in mind (pp. 119-121) is headed "The Tragedy in Motherhood" (I do not know whether the chapter headings are the work of the editors or are original in manuscript) The Biblical chapter related to is Genesis 18, which describes Abraham as sitting in front of his tent, while Sarah is inside. In a striking homiletical flight, Rabbi Soloveitchik takes this positioning as symbolic of the public role of the Patriarch and the private role of the Matriarch. This is then parsed in two ways.

We are first told that though retiring, Sarah was in fact the force behind Abraham, "responsible for all the accomplishments credited to Abraham." The angels who visit Abraham are made to say: "Why don't people know the truth? Why has she just been trailing behind you?" Poignant as this sounds, it may not be very different from the common claim that a woman stands behind every great man. The one tell-tale sign that more is intended is the tone of mild outrage: "Why don't people know"?

Rabbi Soloveitchik then describes the "tragedy" of Sarah's reality, a tragedy manifested not only in her station in the tent, but in the normative realm as well: "... here the tragedy manifests itself with all its impact, [for] we say 'God of Abraham God of Isaac, God of Jacob,' but not 'God of Sarah, God of Rebecca, God of Leah and Rachel,' even though they had an equal share in ... the Creator of the World." This is a passage of striking honesty and courage.

Rabbi Soloveitchik attempts no apologetics; he simply tells it "like it is." The normative liturgy is unchallenged; and it doubtless has its reasons and justification. Therefore the Rabbi does not describe Sarah's fate as only sad or unfair, but as "tragic." It is tragic because it is inherent in the halakhic world to which he was committed. In a sense, it embodies another familiar motif of Rabbi Soloveitchik's thought: the significance of sacrifice. In this case, woman is called upon to sacrifice. This passage illuminates Rabbi Soloveitchik's uncompromising perception of feminine reality as well as his perception of the complexity of halakhic reality.

GERALD J. BLIDSTEIN

Ben-Gurion U., Beersheba, Israel

LAWRENCE KAPLAN REPLIES:

As Professor Gerald Blidstein indicates, his comments do not take issue with my review, but rather supplement it. In the same spirit, my reply will attempt to supplement Blidstein's thoughtful and sensitive remarks.

The passage Blidstein cites is from the essay, "Parenthood: Natural and Redeemed." In this essay, as I indicated in my review, Rabbi Soloveitchik distinguishes between the mother's and father's missions in the covenantal community, the father's teaching being intellectual in nature, the mother's experiential. As I further pointed out, an almost identical distinction is drawn in Rabbi Soloveitchik's essay, "A Tribute to the Rebbetzin of Talne," where he distinguishes between the massorah of the fathers and that of the mothers, the fathers transmitting Judaism as an "intellectual moral discipline," the mothers transmitting it "as a living experience."

Let me now also add the following. In the essay "Parenthood: Natural and Redeemed," Rabbi Soloveitchik takes the theme of the two missions or the two massorahs one step further than he does in "A Tribute to the Rebbetzin of Talne." In the former essay he makes the additional point that "in normal times, when routine decisions are reached," the father takes the lead. However, in times of crisis, "when the situation requires instantaneous action that flows from the very depths of a sensitive personality," it is the mother "who steps to the fore and takes command." It follows, then, as Rabbi Soloveitchik states, that it was the biblical Matriarchs who, in times of crisis, had the primary responsibility for transmitting the covenant.

In light of the above, we may say that the phrase in the liturgy: "God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob," refers to the fact that in normal times it was the Patriarchs who had the primary responsibility for transmitting the covenant; but, in truth, in times of crisis it was the Matriarchs--Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, Rachel--who bore that primary responsibility. Of course, this observation does not in any way diminish the "tragedy" of Sarah's reality, a tragedy manifested, as Rabbi Soloveitchik notes, in our saying "'God of Abraham God of Isaac, God of Jacob,' but not 'God of Sarah, God of Rebecca, God of Leah and Rachel,' even though they had an equal share in ... the Creator of the World." All it does is to clarify Rabbi Soloveitchik's view as to the differing but equal shares that the Patriarchs and Matriarchs had in the Creator of the World.