The Women’s Torah Commentary: New Insights from Women Rabbis on the 54 Weekly Torah Portions

This book challenges the notion that there exists a singular “feminine voice” or “feminist” reading of text. Arranged according to the weekly parsha, The Women’s Torah Commentary offers a variety of women’s perspectives and interpretations, encompassing the entire Pentateuch. Some of the essays address feminist issues that are clearly embedded in the text, such as Rabbi Sarra Levine’s analysis of the inequities inherent in the biblical laws of the sotah (unfaithful woman) presented in parshat Naso. Other essays draw biblical women from the background to the foreground, such as Rabbi Julie Ringald Spitzer’s discussion of the wife of Noah presented in parshat Noah. But the most intriguing essays are those which deal with biblical texts which do not explicitly discuss women, and open up these texts to new questions and new interpretations. In her essay on parshat Terumah, Rabbi Sharon Sobel observes that the notion of God dwelling in the mishkan (sanctuary) among the people is a deviation from the patriarchal concept of a transcendent God. Observations like these, which challenge the reader to consider familiar texts in new ways, make this book worthwhile.