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Summer11b_Layout 1 5/27/11 12:33 PM Page 75 Legal-Ease By Ari Z. Zivotofsky What’s the Truth about . Rashi’s Daughters? MISCONCEPTION: Rashi’s daughters While there is no evidence that any problem with women performing wore tefillin. of Rashi’s daughters wore tefillin, this these mitzvot, and they are actually myth persists and is found in various encouraged to do so. The mitzvah of FACT: There is no evidence that printed sources. In her book, Life on donning tefillin appears to be a notable Rashi’s daughters wore tefillin. the Fringes: A Feminist Journey Toward exception. A variety of reasons has Traditional Rabbinic Ordination, Dr. been suggested.5 BACKGROUND: Rabbi Shlomo Haviva Ner-David2 cites Rashi’s daugh- The earliest source on the topic of Yitzchaki, known colloquially as ters’ “tradition” of wearing tefillin as women donning tefillin is found in Tar- “Rashi,” is the commentator par excel- setting a precedent. Similarly, an article gum Yonatan to Devarim 22:5. When lence on both the Torah and Talmud. that appeared in the Journal of Jewish discussing the prohibition of a woman Born in Troyes in northern France in Music and Liturgy3 mentions that wearing male garments, the commen- CE), he descended on both 4801 (1040 Rashi’s daughters wore tefillin. tary mentions that women are not per- sides from influential families. He The halachah makes it clear that mitted to don tzitzit and tefillin. studied in Worms, Germany, under women are exempt from wearing Dr. Aliza Berger, who carried out an some of the leading rabbinic authori- tefillin (Mishnah Berachot 3:3; Kid- exhaustive study of the topic, notes ties of his time and established a dushin 33b-34a; SA, OC 38:3). Whether that “Until the current generation, yeshivah in Troyes that was destined to women are allowed to don tefillin is the there have been only isolated instances become one of the principal dissemina- subject of great debate. The Rema (OC attested of women wearing tefillin.” 6 In tors of Ashkenazic tradition. In the 38:3) rules that it should be discour- a footnote (2), she concludes: “There is wake of the destruction of the German aged, and the Gra (comments to OC no proof for the popular legend that Jewish centers by the Crusaders, Rashi 38:3) contends that women are prohib- Rashi’s daughters wore tefillin. How- established France as the Torah capital ited from wearing them. ever, it is interesting to speculate on of Ashkenazic Jewry. He died in Troyes Ironically, some scholars argue that why this association arose; it probably in 4865 (1105 CE). during the early medieval period there has to do with the fact that Rashi’s Rashi had four daughters and no was actually a general laxity among daughters were known to be excep- sons. The two daughters about whom men or even outright neglect of the tional in that they were educated.”7 some information is known are Miriam mitzvah of donning tefillin. Rabbi A similar baseless claim developed and Yocheved. Both of them married Moshe Couchi, in the introduction to around the first wife of the Ohr great Torah scholars and bore and Halachot Gedolot, states that he HaChaim. She was the daughter of a raised the undisputed leaders of preached in France about the impor- famous rabbi, and some claim that she Ashkenazic Jewry. Yocheved married tance of putting on tefillin daily and wore tallit and tefillin. There is no his- Rabbi Meir ben Shmuel, one of Rashi’s that, as a result, people were more con- torical evidence of that. star pupils, and they had four famous scientious about putting on tefillin.4 The Talmud8 reports that Michal sons: Yitzchak (“Rivam”), Shmuel The question of women wearing bat King Shaul, wife of King David, (“Rashbam”), Shlomo the grammarian, tefillin is particularly interesting be- wore tefillin, though there are conflict- and the youngest and most famous, cause in general, Ashkenazim, based ing reports in the Talmud Bavli and Yaakov (“Rabbeinu Tam”). Miriam on the opinion of Rashi’s grandson Yerushalmi about how her contempo- married Yehudah ben Nathan Rabbeinu Tam, maintain that women raries viewed this. There is documen- (“Rivan”) who finished Rashi’s com- may take upon themselves time-bound tation indicating that Hannah Rachel 1 Rashi appears to mentary to Makkot. mitzvot from which they are exempt Webermacher, the famed “Maiden of have had another daughter, Rachel, and recite a berachah. Ashkenazic Ludmir,” who was a nineteenth-cen- and a fourth daughter who died young. women make a berachah, for example, tury Polish Chassidic leader, Rabbi Dr. Ari Zivotofsky is on the faculty of upon hearing the shofar on Rosh wore tefillin. the Brain Science Program at Bar-Ilan Uni- Hashanah, and shaking a lulav and sit- If women are indeed forbidden to versity in Israel. ting in a sukkah on Sukkot. There is no wear tefillin, how could Michal bat Summer 5771/2011 JEWISH ACTION I 75 Summer11b_Layout 1 5/27/11 12:33 PM Page 76 Shaul wear tefillin? The Kaf HaChaim (OC 38:9) quotes a creative suggestion by the Yafe l’lev. He suggests that Michal knew that she possessed a reincarnated “male soul.” He proposes that this also explains her barrenness. Regarding Rashi’s daughters, one can argue that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. However be- cause the notion of Rashi’s daughters wearing tefillin appears only in late twentieth-century writings, and does not seem to appear anywhere before that, this would indi- cate that it is, in fact, a myth. Notes 1. See Shoshana Pantel Zolty, And All Your Children Shall Be Learned: Women and the Study of Torah in Jewish Law and His- tory (Northvale, NJ, 1993), 179. 2. (Boston, 2000), 2. 3. Leon Katz, “Halakhic Aspects of Bar-Mitzvah and Bat- Mitzvah,” vol. 9 (1986-7): 27. 4. See Rabbi Dr. Ephraim Kanarfogel, “Not Just Another Contemporary Jewish Problem: A Historical Discussion of Phylacteries,” Gesher 5:1 (1976): 106-121. See also, Kanarfogel, “Rabbinic Attitudes Toward Non- observance in the Medieval Period,” edited by Jacob J. Schacter, Jewish Tradi- tion and the Nontraditional Jew (Northvale, NJ, 1992), 7-14. 5. A remarkable source is Rabbi Avigdor Tzarfati, one of the ba’alei Tosafot, in his Sefer Perushim Upesakim al haTorah leRa- bbeinu Avigdor Tzarfati, where he states that some of the right- eous women in his time had the practice of putting on tefillin and reciting a berachah. I thank noted Israeli historian and Rashi expert Professor Avraham Grossman of Hebrew Univer- sity for this source. Professor Grossman also stated in a per- sonal e-mail that the legend about Rashi’s daughters wearing tefillin has no historical basis. 6. “Wrapped Attention: May Women Wear Tefillin?” in Jew- ish Legal Writings by Women, edited by Micah D. Halpern and Chana Safrai (Jerusalem, 1998), 75-118. A recent book by Rabbi Aharon Feldman (The Eye of the Storm: A Calm View of Raging Issues [Jerusalem, 2009]), using Berger’s article as a spring- board, criticizes the suggestion that women may wear tefillin. Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, in reviewing the book (Jewish Ac- tion, [spring 2010], 18-21), while not advocating women wear tefillin, took exception with Rabbi Feldman’s tone and method- ology and presented a variety of positions on the topic. Ner- David in her book also reviews much of the literature regarding women wearing tefillin but gives scant weight to those who prohibit it. For an interesting modern source that discusses women and tefillin, see Ohr Sameach, Hilchot Talmud Torah, near the end of the long commentary to 1:2. 7. Rabbi Aryeh Frimer, a recognized expert on women’s ha- lachic issues, reports having thoroughly studied the subject and finding no source for this myth. Professor David Golinkin (“May Women wear Tefillin?,” Conservative Judaism [Fall 1997]: 3-18) wrote,“There is a widespread story that Rashi’s daughters wore tefillin, but I have been unable to find any writ- ten proof of this assertion.” Cf Idem, “Ha’im Mutar Lenashim Lehani’ach Tefillin? Asufot 11 (5758): 183-196. 8. Eruvin 96a-b; Yerushalmi, Berachot 2:3 and Eruvin 10:1; see Tosafot, Rosh Hashanah 33a, s.v. haRebbi. 76 I JEWISH ACTION Summer 5771/2011.

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