Classically Abby - Think The BIBLE Is Patriarchal？ THINK AGAIN. These Five Women Will Change Your Mind.

00:00:00.000 Hello, Classic Crew, and welcome to today's video where we're going to be talking about

00:00:04.820 five women from the Bible who we can learn true strength from. 0.91

00:00:11.480 Something that I've always loved about the Bible, which in Hebrew we call the Tanakh,

00:00:15.920 which stands for Torah, Nevim, and Ketuvim, which in English translates to Torah, Prophets,

00:00:21.700 and Writings, is how amazing the women in it are. They are so layered, they have incredible stories, 1.00

00:00:27.560 and they are so strong. Reading the women in the Bible is so inspiring to me. They take initiative,

00:00:34.620 they also do such incredible things for the Jewish people, and I absolutely find inspiration

00:00:40.940 for my own life in reading the Tanakh and reading the Bible. I also want to quickly mention one of

00:00:47.500 my absolute favorite things to read is called Eishet Chayel, which is also known as Proverbs 31,

00:00:53.740 and that is incredibly inspiring to me. And one of the reasons I absolutely love reading

00:00:58.620 Eishet Chayel, which translates to A Woman of Valor, is that whenever I start to feel insecure

00:01:03.820 about my looks, reading that reminds me of what my role is as a woman and what my role is as a wife,

00:01:09.800 and it really is more about being a strong person and a good person, and that is so much more

00:01:16.040 important than what I'm actually looking like. So I absolutely love reading that. But getting back to

00:01:21.460 the point of what this video is about. If you're new to my channel, I'm a religious Jew. I talk about

00:01:27.800 commentary, fashion, beauty, lifestyle, and opera, all from a conservative and classic perspective.

00:01:35.040 And if you think that's something that you would like to hear more about, feel free to subscribe and

00:01:40.380 join the Classic crew. But one of the things that really drives me crazy is when people act like

00:01:46.320 religion is patriarchal and oppressive. And if you are more traditional, and if you are religious, 0.99

00:01:52.160 you have internalized misogyny from the Bible. And I hate that. I hate it because it's so not true.

00:01:59.640 Today, I will be sharing with you five women that shows how the Bible truly views women and what we

00:02:05.540 as women can learn from them. So let's get into it. The first woman I want to talk about today is

00:02:11.000 Ruth. I love the story of Ruth. I grew up hearing it every year on Shavuos, which is the holiday that

00:02:18.000 celebrates the receiving of the Torah. And so every year, we would read Ruth at synagogue. Ruth and her

00:02:24.300 sister Orpah were Moabite princesses. And a Jewish man and his wife and his two children moved from

00:02:31.340 Israel where there was a famine to Moab because they wanted to escape what was going on there and that

00:02:38.780 there was not enough food. And while they were there, their sons, the two sons, married Ruth and

00:02:44.660 Orpah. After that marriage, the father and the two sons passed away. And Naomi turned to her

00:02:50.000 daughter's-in-law and she said, you should return to your family. You are still young and you could

00:02:55.240 still be Moabite princesses. This would be better for you to do than what I'm going to do, which is 1.00

00:03:00.880 return to Israel. And Orpah said, okay, I love you and I appreciate that, but I'm going to return to my

00:03:07.500 family. And Ruth said, I will be going with you. Ruth accepted Judaism as her own. She said, where 0.76

00:03:14.600 you go, I will go. And where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God, my God.

00:03:20.720 And so she went with Naomi, even though she knew that she was actually going to be taking on a much 0.61

00:03:26.280 harder life given that the two of them didn't have any money and she wasn't going to be a princess

00:03:30.580 and there was a famine in the land. She still returned with her mother-in-law to Israel. And when they

00:03:36.540 went there, she needed to gather food for her and her mother-in-law. So she sat down at a field

00:03:40.800 and encountered a man named Boaz, who was actually the owner of the field. And he took an immediate

00:03:46.480 liking to her. And he also taught her many of the rules of Judaism, which are all about charity and

00:03:54.540 all about how he wasn't allowed to collect certain things on his property so that if he dropped them,

00:03:59.920 for example, while he was collecting grains, he had to leave them there so that the poor and the

00:04:05.020 hungry could collect them for themselves. And Ruth collected so many things because Boaz educated 0.99

00:04:10.360 her and told her to take those things for herself. And so when she did, she returned home and Naomi 0.76

00:04:15.700 told her, you should go to Boaz. He clearly likes you. And he also happens to be a familial relation.

00:04:22.020 So at the time, if a woman's husband died, she could marry a familial relation and that could 0.53

00:04:28.180 continue the line of her husband. So she went to Boaz and she offered herself to him as a wife.

00:04:33.580 And he said, I would love to marry you. And you are a very good woman because he was a bit older

00:04:38.060 than she was. And he loved that she was attracted to him, despite the fact that he was a bit older

00:04:43.180 than she was. And he said to her, I would love to marry you, but you do have a closer familial

00:04:49.060 relationship. So I will go and talk to that man and see if he would like to marry you first. 0.88

00:04:53.920 So Boaz went and he spoke to this other relation. He did not want to marry Ruth. And Boaz and Ruth got

00:05:00.180 married and they were very happy. And from their line came King David. And King David, of course,

00:05:06.120 is an incredibly important figure in Judaism and in Christianity. They were the great grandparents

00:05:11.740 of David, in fact. And one of the really cool things about the story is, number one, that there

00:05:15.880 is an entire book just about a woman. Now, you can talk about the fact that you might think that the 0.86

00:05:21.540 Bible and that religious texts are patriarchal, but there are entire books in the Tanakh, another one

00:05:26.740 which I will mention also, that are entitled after women, that are about women being heroines.

00:05:32.880 And Ruth is the heroine of the story. And the reason her story is so important is because she's

00:05:37.580 a convert. And through her line, King David came. And the reason I think that's so important to

00:05:42.400 remember is that Ruth accepted the Jewish people as her nation, and she accepted the Jewish God as

00:05:47.860 her God. And it didn't matter that she wasn't born Jewish. Converting is about accepting the 0.56

00:05:54.080 community and accepting your religion and accepting your faith. And that is what's important

00:05:59.000 about being a Jew. And it doesn't matter if you were born Jewish. If you accept your role as a Jew 0.98

00:06:04.440 as part of the community and accept God as your God and the laws as your laws, that's what matters.

00:06:10.940 And I love that, especially even the fact that the Moabites were a distinct enemy of the Jews. And again, 0.77

00:06:17.140 it has nothing to do with the ethnicity of the Moabites because King David's ancestor was technically

00:06:22.880 a Moabite. But it didn't matter because she was a Jew, because she accepted Judaism. But she left

00:06:28.640 everything she knew behind to pursue a faith that mattered to her, to pursue her beliefs, and to stay

00:06:36.000 with her mother-in-law and respect her. And that is so inspiring that she left everything she knew

00:06:42.020 for her faith. Number two is the story of Esther. So I've read Esther every year during Purim, which is a

00:06:48.840 holiday where we celebrate that the Jews were not destroyed by Ahasuerus and Haman, who were of the

00:06:53.760 Persian Empire. And Esther is an incredible figure in Jewish history. In the story of Esther, Haman is

00:07:02.320 the henchman of the king Ahasuerus, and he hates the Jews. He hates them because a man named Mordechai 0.96

00:07:08.600 wouldn't bow to him. Everyone else will bow to him, but Mordechai will not. And Mordechai is Esther's

00:07:14.200 uncle. And Haman comes to the king and tells him he wants an edict to kill all of the Jews on a 0.99

00:07:20.020 certain day. And Ahasuerus agrees. Ahasuerus is also, at the same time, looking for a queen to replace 0.98

00:07:27.040 the queen he murdered, he did not like. And he wants a new queen. And Esther does not want to marry

00:07:32.520 him, but she's beautiful, and he loves her, and he falls in love with her immediately, and she becomes

00:07:37.920 his queen. And Mordechai tells her, don't tell him that you're Jewish. You have an opportunity here.

00:07:43.140 It's possible that you will need to be in this position in the future. So Esther hides her

00:07:48.500 identity, and when she finds out that the Jews are to be destroyed, she comes to the king without

00:07:53.360 permission, which was not allowed in that time, and he allows her to come in, and she invites him

00:07:58.340 to dinner. During that dinner, he offers her half of his kingdom. She says no, but she invites him to

00:08:03.300 another dinner, and this time she asks him to bring Haman. When Haman comes into their second dinner,

00:08:08.660 he again, Ahasuerus again offers Esther half of his kingdom, and she says no, but she says what she

00:08:14.560 does want is for him to save her people and her. And Ahasuerus is very confused because he doesn't

00:08:21.060 know that Esther is Jewish. So she explains that Haman is trying to kill her people, and in turn,

00:08:27.600 killing the queen. And Ahasuerus comes to her, and he says, well, I can't reverse my edict, but I can

00:08:33.260 allow the Jews to fight back because the edict was that all of the neighboring peoples would be allowed

00:08:39.020 to kill the Jews, and they fight back, and the Jews are saved. And because of Esther's bravery,

00:08:45.640 the Jewish people survived. Esther is so incredible. She lives as a secret agent, essentially, in the

00:08:54.680 king's castle, as the queen, hiding her identity till the moment is right so that she can save the Jews.

00:09:01.720 And she knows what she has to do, and that is to save her people. And I can't read that story without

00:09:07.600 thinking about how inspiring that is, that she was in the most adverse of situations, and she still

00:09:13.620 was able to save the people, and she still put her people and her faith before herself. And that is

00:09:19.820 something I think we can look at every day for inspiration. And you can look at this and think to

00:09:24.060 yourself, the women in biblical literature are not weak. They're not controlled by others.

00:09:31.000 They're not oppressed. They are strong, independent women. And it's so important for us to look to

00:09:37.140 them for guidance. Number three is Devorah or Deborah. Deborah is written of in prophets, and she

00:09:43.240 was a leader of the Jewish people. She was a female judge and a prophetess, and she was the one who beat 1.00

00:09:50.180 Yavin, who was the king of Canaan, and who had oppressed the Jewish people for many, many years.

00:09:56.860 She sent a message to a man named Barak to gather 10,000 troops and have them go to Mount Tabor.

00:10:03.200 The leader of Yavin's army is named Sisera, and he brought his troops to the river below,

00:10:10.820 and Deborah and Barak defeated him. And after that, there were 40 years of peace in the land.

00:10:16.000 She was also a mother and a wife. Deborah is an incredible figure. She was a female judge,

00:10:20.940 and you would think at that period of time that there would not be female judges or female prophets. 0.99

00:10:26.020 And she was. She was a prophetess. She was a judge, and she was a mother and a wife. She was so strong,

00:10:33.920 and she knew what the Jewish people needed, and she accomplished it. And it's an incredible thing to

00:10:38.500 see that the Bible, the Tanakh, writes about a woman in a position of power who accomplishes so much,

00:10:46.240 and she also does it while being a wife and a mother. I honestly can't think of anything more

00:10:52.020 inspiring than that. Deborah is an incredibly inspiring woman in the Bible, and if you want

00:10:57.100 to think that God is oppressive or patriarchal, why would he give the gift of prophecy to a woman?

00:11:03.200 And why would she be in a position of power as a judge? Number four is Yael. So Yael is in the same

00:11:09.320 story, actually, as Devorah and Barak, and she is the one who kills Sisera. So Sisera arrives at her

00:11:17.900 husband's home. Her husband doesn't really have any fight with Yavin or with Sisera. He doesn't care,

00:11:22.980 despite the fact that Yavin and Sisera have been oppressing Jews all over the country, and she feels

00:11:29.980 sympathy for the Jews. So when Sisera arrived at her husband's tent, Yael invited him into her own tent,

00:11:37.480 and when he asked for water, she gave him milk. And as he fell asleep, she took a stake from the tent

00:11:43.520 and drove it through his temple and instantly killed him. And that gave her the credit of defeating 0.68

00:11:49.000 Yavin's army. Yael took action against a man who had oppressed the Jews for many years, and she knew

00:11:56.640 that she needed to defeat him in this way. And she did it. Not a man, not anyone else. She did it. She

00:12:03.120 took matters into her own hands, and she took action. And she was such a strong woman in that

00:12:09.660 moment, and she saved many Israelites in the process. I also want to mention that on Rosh Hashanah,

00:12:14.640 when we blow the shofar, we actually do a hundred different sounds to represent the hundred cries of 0.86

00:12:20.360 Sisera's mother, because we recognize that even though Sisera was an evil man, he was still someone's

00:12:26.760 child. So we don't take that stuff lightly, but it is something that Yael is still considered a hero

00:12:32.340 and a heroine for her act. The last person I want to talk about today is Yehudit. Now, Yehudit is not

00:12:37.720 technically in the Bible, but her story takes place during the Maccabean revolt. She took inspiration

00:12:44.380 from Yael. When the Jews were under siege by Holofernes, she took action so that the Jews would survive.

00:12:51.620 He decided to starve the inhabitants of the city, and they were very close to giving in, to giving

00:12:58.640 themselves up to his army. And Yehudit said to the commanders, let me take inspiration from Yael.

00:13:06.080 I will go to Holofernes, and I will do something similar to what Yael did, and I will save the people

00:13:12.080 of this city. Yehudit went to Holofernes. She told him that she could give him information about what was

00:13:17.460 going on in the city. Eventually, he began to trust her, and one evening when he believed that they

00:13:23.300 were about to take the city, she came into him and gave him wine and cheese, and he fell asleep. After

00:13:29.560 he fell asleep, she took his sword and she chopped off his head. And in doing so, she saved the people

00:13:35.420 and the Jews of the city. Now, the cool thing about Yehudit is that she's in our position. She took 0.98

00:13:40.640 inspiration from the women of the Bible herself, and that is kind of cool to see, that we're taking

00:13:47.000 inspiration from her, and she's taking inspiration from the women before her. And she was able to save

00:13:53.100 the Jewish people as a strong Jewish woman who took action and who knew what she needed to do. She

00:14:00.180 could use her feminine graces and charms in order to ingratiate herself to this man and then to take 0.98

00:14:07.400 the action that needed to be taken so that she could save the Jewish people. And just like some 0.52

00:14:11.280 other women on this list, she was able to use her feminine wiles, essentially, to accomplish what she 1.00

00:14:17.500 needed to accomplish. But the fact of the matter is that these women are so strong, and it's so obvious 0.91

00:14:23.000 that the Bible views them as strong people. Not just as women who they can brush aside, but as strong

00:14:30.680 people who deserve honor. And that is inspiring. Not just because these women themselves were

00:14:37.040 inspiring, but because Judaism and Christianity view women through this perspective. That we are

00:14:43.820 strong. And that is really important to know. So I hope you guys enjoyed today's video. Please let me

00:14:51.320 know in the comments what you think. Which of these women is most inspiring to you? I absolutely love

00:14:57.440 taking a look at the women in the Torah, in the Bible, in Tanakh, and I would love to hear your thoughts

00:15:02.740 as well. So thank you guys so much for watching. Please subscribe to my channel if you haven't

00:15:07.500 already. I would love to have you join the Classic crew here. Make sure to ring that notification bell

00:15:12.140 to get notified of all my new videos. I'd love if you would join my newsletter. I send that out about

00:15:16.500 two times a month, and it's just going to be a little dose of Classic in your inbox. If you'd like

00:15:21.100 to follow me on social media, it's at Classically Abby absolutely everywhere. Thank you so much for

00:15:25.900 watching today's video, and I'll see you in the next one. Bye!

Classically Abby - February 09, 2021

Think The BIBLE Is Patriarchal？ THINK AGAIN. These Five Women Will Change Your Mind.

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