this is the latest papercut. direct from the cutting board. it is from the mishna in sotah - teaching a woman torah is like teaching her tiflut. which depending on your version, translates as lechery, folly, whoreishness, foolishness, lasciviousness. I like the disapproving finger-waving tone of 'lechery'. the context being that the test for suspected adulteress women would not work if she is learned. So if you teach her anything, it will only encourage to have lots of illicit sex as she knows that she will be able to get away with it... (to be fair to the mishna, there is another view that encourages teaching woman, but that is not the one that has been taken up and influential to the development of education for females...)
2 comments:
I love this.
I like your use of the term lechery with it's big flourishy letters echoing the flourish on the taf of Torah. On a doily. Brilliant Jaq. A thought - in this series of misogynist Jewish sayings do you feel sad that you're portraying an ugly side of Judaism? Do you worry about how these would be understood by people less in love with Judaism then you who would view them as evidence that Judaism is women-hating and primitive.....?
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