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JEWISH WOMEN IN BIBLICAL ~ TIMES. 2 5 7
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
It Has Been Observed That Of The Three G...
occasion , as lie assuredly was at xnany other times _, by tlie pious young monarch .
The popular songs and sayings of a people afford the best delineation of national character . Let us see how a virtuous
woman is represented in the 31 st chapter of Proverbs . Here it is described , not only how she attends to her household affairs , but
in also wisdo how m she , and acts having the part the of a b domestic enevolent priestess law on , her " opening lips / 7 her and mouth even
transacting business on her own responsibility , " she considereth a field and buyeth it ; with the fruit of her hand she planteth
a vineyard . " Again , in the 2 nd chapter of the Book of Malachi , where
marriage is spoken of as a covenant between a man and a woman > the latter is styled chabairwhich means equal .
, In homiletic discourses by non-Jewish writers , we not uncommonly find it asserted that women owe their emancipation from
social and mental thraldom to the influence of Christianity , having been regarded under Judaism as mere household serfs . The
proposition is not true . But if it were true , it would apply only to the position in which woman is placed by the Rabbinical writers
, and which is in striking contrast with that which she held under the Mosaic law . Not that the Rabbinical fathers were incapable
of estimating the noble qualities of woman . But their views were influenced by the opinions prevailing in other Eastern countries .
Thus it came to pass that the Rabbins construed the great majority of the Mosaic laws as incumbent on man only , whilst
woman had merely to attend to her household duties , and to the observance of such precepts as the doctors of the oral law held to
be essential to the Jewish ritual . In the Mishna , women , children and slaves are placed in the same category , as being exempt from
the observance of particular laws . Sometimes they are even placed side by side with the Nyadyotor imbecile . A woman ' s evidence
, is invalid , and her oath is not accepted in the court of the Bethdin . *
To indulge in conversation with women was solemnly prohibited , and a man was not even allowed to hold frequent communication
with his own wife ; and to sum up in one great fact the estimation in which woman was held , the ordinary prayer-book used in
modern synagogues ( those of Margaret Street and others denominated Reform Synagogues alone excepted ) contains a form of
blessings , in which , after thanking God for not having been made a serf or a heathen , the worshipper adds" Blessed art Thou , O
, Lord our God , who hast not made me a woman ! " Fatal consequences in a religious and social point of view followed upon this
_> depreciation of woman . Pier virtual exclusion from the duties of public worshiduced indiffto divine thingswhih _in
p proan erence , cn _^
* Jewish Court of Justice .
Jewish Women In Biblical ~ Times. 2 5 7
JEWISH WOMEN IN BIBLICAL _~ TIMES . 2 5 7
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Dec. 1, 1862, page 257, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01121862/page/41/
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