CHOCHMAS NASHIM: KI TEITZEI:
WOMEN’S RIGHTS AND EDUCATION
By: Suri Davis
The torah portions opening words, “When you go out to war…” opens vast possibilities about the laws of war, yet this torah portion discusses what happens when a man goes to war and finds a woman who he wants to take for himself. He may take her against her will providing that he cuts her hair and nails and gives her 30 days to mourn the loss of her family. This to ensure that it was not an impulsive act and to discourage men from taken foreign women.
Later in the parshah, there is a discussion of a husband who cast aspersions on his new wife’s virginity, and it is proven that he was wrong, and he has to pay her father for the loss of reputation, and he has to remain married to her his whole life and can never divorce her.
This past weekend, I read that Jehan Sadat, the widow of Anwar Sadat, passed away. In recognition of all the work she had done for the country in pushing women’s rights and equality, she was the first woman to have been provided a military funeral and honor.
I happened to meet a young woman recently whose parents are college educated and they sent her through the Bais Yaakov education system, she was getting her masters in education. We were discussing her desire to travel and she asked me what some of my favorite travel places were. I told her about my trip to Rome, the Arch of Titus, the Sistine chapel etc. She asked me what the Sistine Chapel was, and I told her it was part of the Vatican, she asked me what the Vatican was, and I explained that it is the seat of the Pope and Catholicism.
Recently, I went to the Woodstock museum, whose motto is Make Love Not War. It was a generation which rejected the confines of the rigid 50s, a generation who went through the privations of war, valued education with a solid trajectory of high school, college, profession, family. What was their war. Was it Korean/Vietnam wars or was it the principles espoused by the prior generations. We want to do life our way. A revolution of sorts. In three days in 1969, August 15, 16, 17, 4,700 attendees needed medical treatment for foot lacerations. The most replayed message by organizers was Please Get Off the Stage.
We now have a new growing “profession,” named influencing. Podcasters whose greatest asset are their mouths. They have no degree in the field in which they speak. They have a life experience which they retell over and over to thousands of followers and “friends” and there is a whole industry of people being influenced by those who are hyped up and done up with no substance. Shocking really. But what can they do if their education is fluff. When society values the everyday star on social media, where every person is their own reality t.v.star.
Mrs. Sadat, and those in the 1950s who fought for equality and the right of all people to an education, including Ruth Bader Ginsberg who had to argue to be permitted to take a man’s place in her law school class, would be shocked how we as Jews have permitted a whole industry of fake graduation certificates, to give educational certificates and degrees for our children to work, they bring to their work an inability to really manage, because they lack fundamentals of true education, reading and writing and being guided. What is the value of education beyond what a mother could teach her daughter at home? Why school at all? Why do our children need to know long division, what the Statue of Liberty is or that Michaelangelo painted the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel.
Ki Tetzei lets us know that we have to be prepared for war against our enemy. Our enemy can be a negative influence within our community as well or our own inner conflicts. Education is the key to fight all wars, to have the knowledge to know how historically we Jews survived. It was by cutting corners on education. Women the Akeret Habayit/the anchor of the home, and often the source of income for the home should have solid educational studies to build the broad shoulders they need to sustain their family and future generations and be confident in her place in the home, community and world.
Shabbat shalom.
Suri