Some biblical episodes have generated reams of literary response, but Proverbs 31 is not one of them. Perhaps this is because, rather than being a psychologically compelling or suggestive portrait of a woman, Eshet Hayil offers a picture of someone who seems to have no flaws, no down moments, no doubts. Who can relate to that?
The one significant modern, feminist literary response to Eshet Hayil that I have found is “Tippusim” (Types), a prose sketch first published in 1928 by Hava Shapiro (1878-1943). 1
Shapiro, a descendant of Pinhas of Koretz, whose family had a Hebrew printing business based in Slavuta, Ukraine, was one of the first modern Hebrew women prose writers. In much of her work she credits her own mother, Malka, a Hebraist in her own right, with inspiring her to learn and write in Hebrew, and it is the image of her mother that predominates in the first part of Tippusim. The title of Shapiro’s sketch, “Types,”2 betrays her awareness that the biblical Eshet Hayil is a stereotype rather than a rounded character. What Shapiro does, then, is lend the type some psychological and emotional specificity. In fact, Shapiro offers two sketch variations on the type, one positive and one negative, each alluding specifically to Proverbs 31.
Hava Shapiro, “Types”
“The Mother”(h3)
On Friday nights, she sits next to the lit-up table, her chin supported by the palm of her hand. Her eyes are glued to the open book and she is entirely absorbed in her reading.
She permits herself this pleasure only on Friday nights. All other nights of the week she is busy running her husband’s business. She has the brain of a man, they tell her. She doesn’t dress up, doesn’t bedeck herself, doesn’t pile up words. She oversees the activities of her household [ציפיה הליכות ביתה]. She counsels her children. Aids the sick, the poor. In secret. With modesty. Encourages, strengthens faltering hands, weakened spirits. Away laziness! Away boredom and despair! There is so much to do in this world! To do for others. Others are the main thing. As for herself she knew no personal contentment. Her duty was her contentment.
A fountain of life and of vigor were within her. She does not carp, nor tire, nor complain. Why bother? One has so many responsibilities in this world. And there are so many lovely books!
On Friday evenings, when the men are at shul, she gives herself over to them, to the books. The rooms in the house have been cleaned. The white tablecloths are on the table. The Shabbat candles are burning, and a modest light, the light of rest, spills out over the dishes and the furniture, on the hallot covered with embroidered cloths, on the bottles of Kiddush wine, on the gleaming goblets – even on the secular book open on the table.
The children – they and she have a kind of compact. On Friday nights they do not disturb her. They play in the corner. They cast glances at Mother. They bathe in her modest glow, in the image of her noble profile. They sense something of her special, hidden world.
And the next day, Shabbat afternoon, she gathers them around her. They sit close, right next to her and listen. In silent, rapt attention, like adults. She reads them the Proverbs of Ben Sira. And explains. Their eyes hang on her happy, radiant face and their ears take in her caressing voice. The warm-hearted verses, expressions and sayings enter their hearts and are understood.
What is more magical? The voice? The parables? The tone? The atmosphere? Mother’s glances or her company?
Beloved Mother in Israel, modest-intelligent, who compares to you? [מי ימדה לך]
“Woman of Valor”
Thin of flesh, quick and swift in all of her movements. She is constantly filled with grievances. Grievances about fate, about fortune, and the main thing – about him, her husband.
Without her, she maintains, there is no way that he would survive in this world. Without her and her counsel. She – the symbol of woman. She, the intelligent one. The devoted one. She knows all before the fact and foretells it before the fact. And he – he doesn’t even know how to appreciate it as he should.
“She only considers her own health,” he says, and compares her, in her concern for her every limb to other women who are healthy like the cows of Bashan.
Nights go by for her without sleep, and days without food and drink. Everyone believes her. But he denies it. “Such things never were,” he says.
She carries all the worries on her head. Her health breaks down and her beauty fades. And still he denies. “No one remembers what she was like before the breakdown,” he says. “She only worries about what others have.”
She traveled to the healing baths to recuperate. He gets up and tells her about his business problems and an unexpected event that has brought them to ruin. What else could she do? Once again she is forced to travel to another place of healing, to recover. Heartless man, who has no mercy for his wife’s health.
Everyone knows and says: she is a Woman of Valor. She speaks learnedly. Incisively. She knows how to get what she wants. Anywhere. And he: “They do for her only to avoid her tongue (lashing) … her injurious tongue.”
When no one else is around she rains down on him her torrent of curses. “Others would exalt a wife like her,” she upbraids him. And he? He compares himself – in front of others – to Titus’s fly.
When no one else is around she rains down on him her torrent of curses. “Others would exalt a wife like her,” she upbraids him. And he? He compares himself – in front of others – to Titus’s fly.
When she finishes cursing, she falls down upon her bed and advises with the voice of a dying woman: “After I die, you can find yourself another wife.”
He approaches her submissively, stands, and grins. Does not believe. Belief has departed him.
In the first section, “The Mother,” Shapiro makes a few crucial additions or modifications to the image of the Eshet Hayil that render it a useful source for modern feminist readers.
First, whereas Proverbs 31:26 praises the woman for her oral wisdom (“She opens her mouth with wisdom; and the law of kindness is on her tongue”), Shapiro renders her first Eshet Hayil a scholar and a Hebraist, responding to the Friday night context of the singing of this song by having the mother’s reading take place mainly on the Sabbath, when she is free of her other duties. Shapiro portrays her modern-day Eshet Hayil as demonstrating the same selfless, hard-working devotion to others that one sees in the biblical portrait. At the same time, she insists on giving this woman an intellectual and spiritual life that in turn inspires her children. Note, as well, that the husband – his praise in the gates, his needs – is completely absent from this first section. The mother is the sole focus. On Friday nights, she reads undisturbed, but on Shabbat afternoon, she shares her scholarship with her children.
“…mutual respect in marriage must be demonstrated and maintained… ”
It is curious that, of all texts, the mother chooses to teach her children from the Wisdom of Ben Sira, an apocryphal work that is known for its extreme misogyny, including such lines as “All malice is short to the malice of women, let the lot of sinners call upon her,” and “From the woman came the beginning of sin and by her we all die” (Chapter 25:6, 33). Perhaps by placing Ben Sira’s proverbs in the mouth of this Eshet Hayil, Shapiro was attempting to counter the anti-female bias of the book. It is also possible that Shapiro was aware of Solomon Schechter’s 1896 Genizah discovery of a Hebrew version of Ben Sira. In having the mother quote from this text, she lends this Eshet Hayil a contemporary, maskilic set of intellectual interests.
In contrast to this favorable portrait, the second part of Shapiro’s sketch, which is ironically titled “Eshet Hayil,” describes a capable woman who feels completely unappreciated by her husband and who breaks down under the pressure of all she does for him and others. In contrast to Proverbs 31, which lauds endless industriousness, Shapiro’s sketch shows the underside of this biblical paradigm. The woman in this second part of the sketch is far from flawless. She is given to outbursts, rains curses upon her husband, and generally comes across as a restless, carping type. In closing the sketch with the image of this anti-Eshet Hayil, Shapiro reminds us that most of us cannot and do not even wish to undertake the unremitting domestic drudgery described in Proverbs 31. Responsibilities must be shared; mutual respect in marriage must be demonstrated and maintained, or things will deteriorate as they do for the husband and the wife in the sketch. In so doing, she provides us with wisdom befitting the book of Proverbs.