Think The BIBLE Is Patriarchal？ THINK AGAIN. These Five Women Will Change Your Mind.
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Summary
5 Women from the Bible who show how the Bible truly views women and what we can learn from them. Ruth, Orpah, Chazalah, Gamliel, Chassidus, and Channah
Transcript
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Hello, Classic Crew, and welcome to today's video where we're going to be talking about
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five women from the Bible who we can learn true strength from.
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Something that I've always loved about the Bible, which in Hebrew we call the Tanakh,
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which stands for Torah, Nevim, and Ketuvim, which in English translates to Torah, Prophets,
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and Writings, is how amazing the women in it are. They are so layered, they have incredible stories,
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and they are so strong. Reading the women in the Bible is so inspiring to me. They take initiative,
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they also do such incredible things for the Jewish people, and I absolutely find inspiration
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for my own life in reading the Tanakh and reading the Bible. I also want to quickly mention one of
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my absolute favorite things to read is called Eishet Chayel, which is also known as Proverbs 31,
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and that is incredibly inspiring to me. And one of the reasons I absolutely love reading
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Eishet Chayel, which translates to A Woman of Valor, is that whenever I start to feel insecure
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about my looks, reading that reminds me of what my role is as a woman and what my role is as a wife,
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and it really is more about being a strong person and a good person, and that is so much more
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important than what I'm actually looking like. So I absolutely love reading that. But getting back to
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the point of what this video is about. If you're new to my channel, I'm a religious Jew. I talk about
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commentary, fashion, beauty, lifestyle, and opera, all from a conservative and classic perspective.
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And if you think that's something that you would like to hear more about, feel free to subscribe and
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join the Classic crew. But one of the things that really drives me crazy is when people act like
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religion is patriarchal and oppressive. And if you are more traditional, and if you are religious,
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you have internalized misogyny from the Bible. And I hate that. I hate it because it's so not true.
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Today, I will be sharing with you five women that shows how the Bible truly views women and what we
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as women can learn from them. So let's get into it. The first woman I want to talk about today is
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Ruth. I love the story of Ruth. I grew up hearing it every year on Shavuos, which is the holiday that
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celebrates the receiving of the Torah. And so every year, we would read Ruth at synagogue. Ruth and her
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sister Orpah were Moabite princesses. And a Jewish man and his wife and his two children moved from
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Israel where there was a famine to Moab because they wanted to escape what was going on there and that
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there was not enough food. And while they were there, their sons, the two sons, married Ruth and
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Orpah. After that marriage, the father and the two sons passed away. And Naomi turned to her
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daughter's-in-law and she said, you should return to your family. You are still young and you could
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still be Moabite princesses. This would be better for you to do than what I'm going to do, which is
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return to Israel. And Orpah said, okay, I love you and I appreciate that, but I'm going to return to my
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family. And Ruth said, I will be going with you. Ruth accepted Judaism as her own. She said, where
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you go, I will go. And where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God, my God.
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And so she went with Naomi, even though she knew that she was actually going to be taking on a much
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harder life given that the two of them didn't have any money and she wasn't going to be a princess
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and there was a famine in the land. She still returned with her mother-in-law to Israel. And when they
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went there, she needed to gather food for her and her mother-in-law. So she sat down at a field
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and encountered a man named Boaz, who was actually the owner of the field. And he took an immediate
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liking to her. And he also taught her many of the rules of Judaism, which are all about charity and
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all about how he wasn't allowed to collect certain things on his property so that if he dropped them,
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for example, while he was collecting grains, he had to leave them there so that the poor and the
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hungry could collect them for themselves. And Ruth collected so many things because Boaz educated
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her and told her to take those things for herself. And so when she did, she returned home and Naomi
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told her, you should go to Boaz. He clearly likes you. And he also happens to be a familial relation.
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So at the time, if a woman's husband died, she could marry a familial relation and that could
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continue the line of her husband. So she went to Boaz and she offered herself to him as a wife.
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And he said, I would love to marry you. And you are a very good woman because he was a bit older
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than she was. And he loved that she was attracted to him, despite the fact that he was a bit older
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than she was. And he said to her, I would love to marry you, but you do have a closer familial
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relationship. So I will go and talk to that man and see if he would like to marry you first.
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So Boaz went and he spoke to this other relation. He did not want to marry Ruth. And Boaz and Ruth got
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married and they were very happy. And from their line came King David. And King David, of course,
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is an incredibly important figure in Judaism and in Christianity. They were the great grandparents
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of David, in fact. And one of the really cool things about the story is, number one, that there
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is an entire book just about a woman. Now, you can talk about the fact that you might think that the
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Bible and that religious texts are patriarchal, but there are entire books in the Tanakh, another one
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which I will mention also, that are entitled after women, that are about women being heroines.
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And Ruth is the heroine of the story. And the reason her story is so important is because she's
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a convert. And through her line, King David came. And the reason I think that's so important to
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remember is that Ruth accepted the Jewish people as her nation, and she accepted the Jewish God as
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her God. And it didn't matter that she wasn't born Jewish. Converting is about accepting the
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community and accepting your religion and accepting your faith. And that is what's important
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about being a Jew. And it doesn't matter if you were born Jewish. If you accept your role as a Jew
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as part of the community and accept God as your God and the laws as your laws, that's what matters.
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And I love that, especially even the fact that the Moabites were a distinct enemy of the Jews. And again,
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it has nothing to do with the ethnicity of the Moabites because King David's ancestor was technically
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a Moabite. But it didn't matter because she was a Jew, because she accepted Judaism. But she left
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everything she knew behind to pursue a faith that mattered to her, to pursue her beliefs, and to stay
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with her mother-in-law and respect her. And that is so inspiring that she left everything she knew
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for her faith. Number two is the story of Esther. So I've read Esther every year during Purim, which is a
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holiday where we celebrate that the Jews were not destroyed by Ahasuerus and Haman, who were of the
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Persian Empire. And Esther is an incredible figure in Jewish history. In the story of Esther, Haman is
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the henchman of the king Ahasuerus, and he hates the Jews. He hates them because a man named Mordechai
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wouldn't bow to him. Everyone else will bow to him, but Mordechai will not. And Mordechai is Esther's
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uncle. And Haman comes to the king and tells him he wants an edict to kill all of the Jews on a
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certain day. And Ahasuerus agrees. Ahasuerus is also, at the same time, looking for a queen to replace
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the queen he murdered, he did not like. And he wants a new queen. And Esther does not want to marry
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him, but she's beautiful, and he loves her, and he falls in love with her immediately, and she becomes
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his queen. And Mordechai tells her, don't tell him that you're Jewish. You have an opportunity here.
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It's possible that you will need to be in this position in the future. So Esther hides her
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identity, and when she finds out that the Jews are to be destroyed, she comes to the king without
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permission, which was not allowed in that time, and he allows her to come in, and she invites him
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to dinner. During that dinner, he offers her half of his kingdom. She says no, but she invites him to
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another dinner, and this time she asks him to bring Haman. When Haman comes into their second dinner,
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he again, Ahasuerus again offers Esther half of his kingdom, and she says no, but she says what she
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does want is for him to save her people and her. And Ahasuerus is very confused because he doesn't
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know that Esther is Jewish. So she explains that Haman is trying to kill her people, and in turn,
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killing the queen. And Ahasuerus comes to her, and he says, well, I can't reverse my edict, but I can
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allow the Jews to fight back because the edict was that all of the neighboring peoples would be allowed
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to kill the Jews, and they fight back, and the Jews are saved. And because of Esther's bravery,
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the Jewish people survived. Esther is so incredible. She lives as a secret agent, essentially, in the
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king's castle, as the queen, hiding her identity till the moment is right so that she can save the Jews.
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And she knows what she has to do, and that is to save her people. And I can't read that story without
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thinking about how inspiring that is, that she was in the most adverse of situations, and she still
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was able to save the people, and she still put her people and her faith before herself. And that is
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something I think we can look at every day for inspiration. And you can look at this and think to
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yourself, the women in biblical literature are not weak. They're not controlled by others.
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They're not oppressed. They are strong, independent women. And it's so important for us to look to
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them for guidance. Number three is Devorah or Deborah. Deborah is written of in prophets, and she
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was a leader of the Jewish people. She was a female judge and a prophetess, and she was the one who beat
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Yavin, who was the king of Canaan, and who had oppressed the Jewish people for many, many years.
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She sent a message to a man named Barak to gather 10,000 troops and have them go to Mount Tabor.
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The leader of Yavin's army is named Sisera, and he brought his troops to the river below,
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and Deborah and Barak defeated him. And after that, there were 40 years of peace in the land.
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She was also a mother and a wife. Deborah is an incredible figure. She was a female judge,
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and you would think at that period of time that there would not be female judges or female prophets.
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And she was. She was a prophetess. She was a judge, and she was a mother and a wife. She was so strong,
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and she knew what the Jewish people needed, and she accomplished it. And it's an incredible thing to
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see that the Bible, the Tanakh, writes about a woman in a position of power who accomplishes so much,
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and she also does it while being a wife and a mother. I honestly can't think of anything more
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inspiring than that. Deborah is an incredibly inspiring woman in the Bible, and if you want
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to think that God is oppressive or patriarchal, why would he give the gift of prophecy to a woman?
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And why would she be in a position of power as a judge? Number four is Yael. So Yael is in the same
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story, actually, as Devorah and Barak, and she is the one who kills Sisera. So Sisera arrives at her
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husband's home. Her husband doesn't really have any fight with Yavin or with Sisera. He doesn't care,
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despite the fact that Yavin and Sisera have been oppressing Jews all over the country, and she feels
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sympathy for the Jews. So when Sisera arrived at her husband's tent, Yael invited him into her own tent,
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and when he asked for water, she gave him milk. And as he fell asleep, she took a stake from the tent
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and drove it through his temple and instantly killed him. And that gave her the credit of defeating
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Yavin's army. Yael took action against a man who had oppressed the Jews for many years, and she knew
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that she needed to defeat him in this way. And she did it. Not a man, not anyone else. She did it. She
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took matters into her own hands, and she took action. And she was such a strong woman in that
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moment, and she saved many Israelites in the process. I also want to mention that on Rosh Hashanah,
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when we blow the shofar, we actually do a hundred different sounds to represent the hundred cries of
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Sisera's mother, because we recognize that even though Sisera was an evil man, he was still someone's
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child. So we don't take that stuff lightly, but it is something that Yael is still considered a hero
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and a heroine for her act. The last person I want to talk about today is Yehudit. Now, Yehudit is not
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technically in the Bible, but her story takes place during the Maccabean revolt. She took inspiration
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from Yael. When the Jews were under siege by Holofernes, she took action so that the Jews would survive.
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He decided to starve the inhabitants of the city, and they were very close to giving in, to giving
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themselves up to his army. And Yehudit said to the commanders, let me take inspiration from Yael.
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I will go to Holofernes, and I will do something similar to what Yael did, and I will save the people
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of this city. Yehudit went to Holofernes. She told him that she could give him information about what was
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going on in the city. Eventually, he began to trust her, and one evening when he believed that they
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were about to take the city, she came into him and gave him wine and cheese, and he fell asleep. After
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he fell asleep, she took his sword and she chopped off his head. And in doing so, she saved the people
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and the Jews of the city. Now, the cool thing about Yehudit is that she's in our position. She took
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inspiration from the women of the Bible herself, and that is kind of cool to see, that we're taking
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inspiration from her, and she's taking inspiration from the women before her. And she was able to save
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the Jewish people as a strong Jewish woman who took action and who knew what she needed to do. She
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could use her feminine graces and charms in order to ingratiate herself to this man and then to take
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the action that needed to be taken so that she could save the Jewish people. And just like some
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other women on this list, she was able to use her feminine wiles, essentially, to accomplish what she
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needed to accomplish. But the fact of the matter is that these women are so strong, and it's so obvious
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that the Bible views them as strong people. Not just as women who they can brush aside, but as strong
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people who deserve honor. And that is inspiring. Not just because these women themselves were
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inspiring, but because Judaism and Christianity view women through this perspective. That we are
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strong. And that is really important to know. So I hope you guys enjoyed today's video. Please let me
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know in the comments what you think. Which of these women is most inspiring to you? I absolutely love
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taking a look at the women in the Torah, in the Bible, in Tanakh, and I would love to hear your thoughts
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as well. So thank you guys so much for watching. Please subscribe to my channel if you haven't
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already. I would love to have you join the Classic crew here. Make sure to ring that notification bell
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to follow me on social media, it's at Classically Abby absolutely everywhere. Thank you so much for
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watching today's video, and I'll see you in the next one. Bye!