(14) Then Deborah said to Barak, “Up! This is the day on which Adonai will deliver Sisera into your hands: Adonai is marching before you.” Barak charged down Mount Tabor, followed by the ten thousand men, (15) and Adonai threw Sisera and all his chariots and army into a panic before the onslaught of Barak. Sisera leaped from his chariot and fled on foot (16) as Barak pursued the chariots and the soldiers as far as Harosheth-goiim. All of Sisera’s soldiers fell by the sword; not a man was left. (17) Sisera, meanwhile, had fled on foot to the tent of Yael, wife of Heber the Kenite; for there was friendship between King Jabin of Hazor and the family of Heber the Kenite. (18) Yael came out to greet Sisera and said to him, “Come in, my lord, come in here, do not be afraid.” So he entered her tent, and she covered him with a blanket. (19) He said to her, “Please let me have some water; I am thirsty.” She opened a skin of milk and gave him some to drink; and she covered him again. (20) He said to her, “Stand at the entrance of the tent. If anybody comes and asks you if there is anybody here, say ‘No.’” (21) Then Yael wife of Heber took a tent pin and grasped the mallet. When he was fast asleep from exhaustion, she approached him stealthily and drove the pin through his temple till it went down to the ground. Thus he died. (22) Now Barak appeared in pursuit of Sisera. Yael went out to greet him and said, “Come, I will show you the man you are looking for.” He went inside with her, and there Sisera was lying dead, with the pin in his temple.
(1) The daughters of Zelophehad, of Manassite family—son of Hepher son of Gilead son of Machir son of Manasseh son of Joseph—came forward. The names of the daughters were Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. (2) They stood before Moses, Eleazar the priest, the chieftains, and the whole assembly, at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, and they said, (3) “Our father died in the wilderness. He was not one of the faction, Korah’s faction, which banded together against Adonai, but died for his own sin; and he has left no sons. (4) Let not our father’s name be lost to his clan just because he had no son! Give us a holding among our father’s kinsmen!” (5) Moses brought their case before Adonai. (6) And Adonai said to Moses, (7) “The plea of Zelophehad’s daughters is just: you should give them a hereditary holding among their father’s kinsmen; transfer their father’s share to them. (8) “Further, speak to the Israelite people as follows: ‘If a man dies without leaving a son, you shall transfer his property to his daughter. (9) If he has no daughter, you shall assign his property to his brothers. (10) If he has no brothers, you shall assign his property to his father’s brothers. (11) If his father had no brothers, you shall assign his property to his nearest relative in his own clan, and he shall inherit it.’ This shall be the law of procedure for the Israelites, in accordance with Adonai's command to Moses.”
Judith 8 32 Then Judith said to them: “Listen to me! I will perform a deed that will go down from generation to generation among our descendants. 33 Stand at the city gate tonight to let me pass through with my maid; and within the days you have specified before you will surrender the city to our enemies, the Lord will deliver Israel by my hand. 34 You must not inquire into the affair, for I will not tell you what I am doing until it has been accomplished.” 35 Uzziah and the rulers said to her, “Go in peace, and may the Lord God go before you to take vengeance upon our enemies!” 36 Then they withdrew from the tent and returned to their posts.
Judith 9 6 Then they went out to the gate of the city of Bethulia and found Uzziah and the elders of the city, Chabris and Charmis, standing there. 7 When they saw Judith transformed in looks and differently dressed, they were very much astounded at her beauty and said to her, 8 “May the God of our ancestors grant you favor and make your design successful, for the glory of the Israelites and the exaltation of Jerusalem.”
9 Judith bowed down to God. Then she said to them, “Order the gate of the city opened for me, that I may go to accomplish the matters we discussed.” So they ordered the young men to open the gate for her, as she had requested,
10 and they did so. Then Judith and her maidservant went out. The men of the city kept her in view as she went down the mountain and crossed the valley; then they lost sight of her.
Judith 13 1 When it grew late, his servants quickly withdrew. Bagoas closed the tent from the outside and dismissed the attendants from their master’s presence. They went off to their beds, for they were all tired because the banquet had lasted so long. 2 Judith was left alone in the tent with Holofernes, who lay sprawled on his bed, for he was drunk with wine. 3 Judith had ordered her maidservant to stand outside the bedchamber and to wait, as on the other days, for her to come out; she had said she would be going out for her prayer. She had also said this same thing to Bagoas. 4 When all had departed, and no one, small or great, was left in the bedchamber, Judith stood by Holofernes’ bed and prayed silently, “O Lord, God of all might, in this hour look graciously on the work of my hands for the exaltation of Jerusalem. 5 Now is the time for aiding your heritage and for carrying out my design to shatter the enemies who have risen against us.” 6 She went to the bedpost near the head of Holofernes, and taking his sword from it, 7 she drew close to the bed, grasped the hair of his head, and said, “Strengthen me this day, Lord, God of Israel!” 8 Then with all her might she struck his neck twice and cut off his head. 9 She rolled his body off the bed and took the canopy from its posts. Soon afterward, she came out and handed over the head of Holofernes to her maid, 10 who put it into her food bag. Then the two went out together for prayer as they were accustomed to do.
(כ) נְצֹ֣ר בְּ֭נִי מִצְוַ֣ת אָבִ֑יךָ וְאַל־תִּ֝טֹּ֗שׁ תּוֹרַ֥ת אִמֶּֽךָ׃
(20) My son, keep your father’s commandment; Do not forsake your mother’s teaching.
The rabbinic sages did not understand one’s relationship to God as connected primarily to gender, but rather, as Barry Holtz notes, to “talent, inclination and strength” ( Finding Our Way, 1990, p. 102). For example, one midrash enjoins its readers, “Come and see how the voice [of God] went forth [at Sinai]—coming to each Israelite according to his individual strength—to the old, according to their strength; to the young according to their strength; to the children according to their strength; to the infants according to their strength; and to the women according to their strength” (Sh’mot Rabbah 5.9, emphasis added).
Eskenazi, Dr. Tamara Cohn. The Torah: A Women's Commentary (Kindle Locations 1613-1617). CCAR Press. Kindle Edition.
Writing Women into the Torah
First are the powerful and highly delineated female characters in the Bible, most notably Sarah, Rebecca, Tamar, Miriam, Rahab, Deborah, and Ruth, all of whom are leaders who transform the private or public realms in which they act. Second are the Bible’s commandments that express a clear concern for the care of the marginal and/or impoverished in society: the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. Third are the deep covenantal principles articulated in the Torah that can be used for feminist purposes. Parashat Nitzavim exemplifies this, with its rich, powerful–even revolutionary–concepts that can be used to further the creation of a feminist Judaism. The portion begins: “You stand this day, all of you, before your God — you tribal heads, you elders, and you officials, all the men of Israel, you children, you women, even the stranger within your camp, from woodchopper to water drawer — to enter into the covenant of your God” (Deut. 29:9-10). Let’s take a close look at the language surrounding women.
First of all, from the nature of the list, one can pretty safely assume that the women were not tribal leaders, elders, woodchoppers or water drawers. The crucial fact, however, is that they are included. They are standing before God as full members of the covenantal community. In many other instances in the Torah, only the men are addressed or female inclusion is ambiguous — eclipsed by the nature of the Hebrew language itself, which retains a grammatically masculine form whether addressing or referring to an all-male group or a mixed male and female group.
Rabbi Dianne Cohler-Esses, https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/writing-women-into-the-torah/
The Five Books of Miriam - Ellen Frankel, Five Books Of Miriam: A Woman's Commentary on the Torah
The parashah begins: “You stand this day, all of you before יהוה your God - you tribal heads, you elders, and you officials, all the men of Israel, you children, you women, even the stranger within your camp, from woodchopper to water drawer—to enter into the covenant of your God יהוה ” 29:9–1.
Let’s take a close look at the language surrounding women. First of all, from the nature of the list, one can pretty safely assume that the women were not tribal leaders, elders, woodchoppers, or water drawers. The crucial fact, however, is that they are included. They are standing before God as full members of the covenantal community. In many other instances in the Torah, only the men are addressed or female inclusion is ambiguous—eclipsed by the nature of the Hebrew language itself, which retains a grammatically masculine form whether addressing or referring to an all-male group or a mixed male and female group.
Eskenazi, Dr. Tamara Cohn. The Torah: A Women's Commentary (Kindle Locations 77666-77673). CCAR Press. Kindle Edition.
יוצר אור
(זָכָר)
הַמְּאִיר לְאֶרֶץ
וְלַדָּרִים עָלֶיהָ בָּרַחֲמִים
וּבְטּוּבוֹ מְחַדֶּש בְּכָל יוֹם תָּמִיד מַעֲשֶׂה בְּרֵאשִׁית
Excerpt from Yotzer Or - Morning Liturgy
(Masculine)
Hamei-ir la-aretz
v’ladarim aleha b’rachamim,
uvtuvo m’chadeish b’chol yom tamid ma-asei v’reishit.
(נְקֵבָה)
הַמְּאִירָה לְאֶרֶץ וְלַדָּרִים עָלֶיהָ בָּרַחֲמִים וּבְטּוּבָה מְחַדֶּשֶׁת בְּכָל יוֹם תָּמִיד מַעֲשֶׂה בְּרֵאשִׁית
(Feminine)
Hame’irah la’aretz
v’ladarim alehah b’rachamim
U’vtuvah mechadeshet b’chol yom tamid ma’aseh b’reishit
The Universe with a Hum
A hum… and then a bang. And each day it grew larger and larger and contained more and more. We cannot live each new day in the same way we lived the last, for we have all of the experiences and memories of the previous day filed away in our internal memory bank. And so each day is created anew, filled with new opportunities. And each day, we have the potential to become partners with God in the act of creation, adding to the world in a way that only you can.
These words have sat nestled beneath the “Barchu” in our siddurim for hundreds of years, waiting for their power to be unleashed and their message to be understood. This section of our Tefillah is all about creation, leading us into the other main themes of our central Tefillot: revelation and redemption. We begin with the creation of the whole world. How can we pray without first acknowledging the miraculousness of our own existence? Without mentioning the fact that we are even present at this moment to offer words of gratitude? And so the first thing we do is speak of mercy. “The Holy One, who lights up the world and all of her inhabitants with mercy.” The key here is light. The first act of creation, mentioned first, and inherently interwoven with the divine attribute of mercy. And then this: “And in the Divine’s goodness, every single day, She renews the act of creation.”
And in thinking about creation and rebirth, we were immediately drawn to the feminine. Hebrew is a gendered language, and most of the time in liturgy the masculine suffix is used for God. But here, praying for rebirth and renewal, we wanted to sing to The Divine in the feminine, and so we changed the suffixes to reflect that: Hame’irah, Uv’tuvah, Mechadeshet.
Now is the time for us to be partners with God again in creating a better world. May we continue to merit to be partners with the Holy One. Grant us the capacity to value our friends and family, and to enrich the lives of those whom we love.
Change happens every day. Sometimes it’s hard to see and hear, like a hum,
But if we all hum together, we can move mountains.
Josh Warshawsky, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tnJJOYYTp8