1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910452542503321

Autore

Alexander Elizabeth Shanks <1967->

Titolo

Gender and timebound commandments in Judaism / / Elizabeth Shanks Alexander [[electronic resource]]

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cambridge : , : Cambridge University Press, , 2013

ISBN

1-139-88974-5

1-107-05501-6

1-107-47917-7

1-107-05967-4

1-107-05614-4

1-107-05844-9

1-139-56506-0

1-107-05720-5

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xviii, 281 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)

Disciplina

296.4082

Soggetti

Women in Judaism

Sex role - Religious aspects - Judaism

Feminism - Religious aspects - Judaism

Jewish women - Religious life

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Nota di contenuto

Part I. Gender and the Tannaitic Rule: 1. The rule and social reality: conceiving the category, formulating the rule; 2. Between man and woman: lists of male-female difference -- Part II. Talmudic Interpretation and the Potential for Gender: 3. How tefillin became a positive commandment not occasioned by time; 4. Shifting orthodoxies; 5. From description to prescription -- Part III. Gender in Women's Ritual Exemptions: 6. Women's exemption from Shema and tefillin; 7. Torah study as ritual; 8. The fringes debate: a conclusion of sorts -- Epilogue.

Sommario/riassunto

The rule that exempts women from rituals that need to be performed at specific times (so-called timebound, positive commandments) has served for centuries to stabilize Jewish gender. It has provided a



rationale for women's centrality at home and their absence from the synagogue. Departing from dominant popular and scholarly views, Elizabeth Shanks Alexander argues that the rule was not conceived to structure women's religious lives, but rather became a tool for social engineering only after it underwent shifts in meaning during its transmission. Alexander narrates the rule's complicated history, establishing the purposes for which it was initially formulated and the shifts in interpretation that led to its being perceived as a key marker of Jewish gender. At the end of her study, Alexander points to women's exemption from particular rituals (Shema, tefillin and Torah study), which, she argues, are better places to look for insight into rabbinic gender.