The Origins of the "Arbaat Yamim"-The Four Days

Beginning of article

Abstract

[1] This modern feminist midrash has its roots in the biblical narrative of Jephthah's daughter. It projects into the future an ideal of Jewish women ritualizing in a four day celebration commemorating this biblical account. It envisions a wholly new Jewish women's ritual. Though the narrative element of this new exegesis and practice can stand alone the accompanying commentaries are essential to an appreciation of the text.

Introduction

[2] On Reading Torah and midrash:

 
   "There are seventy faces [interpretations] of the Torah," the Sages 
   say. We do not pretend to know even a small part of them (Kolitz 
   viii). Turn it over and over again, for everything is in it [the 
   Torah].... Contemplate it and grow old and grey over it ... (Mishnah 
   Avot 5:22 as cited in Goldstein, D. 5). 

The expanding upon and continuous augmenting of Torah through commentary, exegesis, and different forms and varieties of interpretive techniques is integral to apprehending the holistic nature of Jewish hermeneutics. (1) As de Lange points out, the study of the Torah and all biblical texts is "inseparable from their interpretation, and the Jewish tradition of interpretation is embodied in a large mass of writings going back to antiquity" (50). Many of these interpretations and writings form narratives which Judaism calls aggadah, literally 'telling.' These narratives (aggadot) can

 
   ... fill in the details of a Biblical story, reconcile apparent 
   contradictions, answer questions (and pose them too!), incorporate 
   tales from other sources, make moral deductions, add 
   contemporary historical allusions, discuss relevant theological 
   topics, indulge in biographical anecdotes, and it can even make 
   remarks of a legal character which properly belong to the realm of 
   halakhah [rabbinic law]. The aggadah can be pithy and opaque. It 
   can also ramble, moving from one story to another, and from one 
   theme to another.... The aggadah can be serious and 
   philosophically profound, and at the next moment lend itself to 
   irrational fantasies or appear irreverently comic (Goldstein 7, 8). 

[3] The oldest collections of legends "evolved from the expositions of the Bible given by rabbis in the synagogues of Palestine from the earliest centuries C.E." (Goldstein 9). They comprise what Judaism describes as midrash (pl. midrashim) meaning 'to seek or enquire.' Based on an interpretation of the Torah text, these stories (midrashim) generated and continue to generate new narratives and interpretations of the scriptures. The words and ideas of the authors are a "a two-way exercise ... both inspiration and justification" (Goldstein 9) of Torah text. Indeed, as Gerald L. Bruns notes; "the Bible always addresses itself to the time of interpretation" (627). He explains the use of allegory and narrative as the taking of "the text in relation to ourselves, understanding ourselves in its light, even as our situation throws its light upon the text, allowing it to disclose itself differently, perhaps in unheard ways" (633).

[4] It is in the voices of women in the past three decades that we are discovering new disclosures of Torah in newly heard ways. Feminists are adding women's points of view to the cornucopia of male-centered interpretations. Not only are they doing so in the area of exegesis, but also in the area of allegory and story-telling. E. M. Broner's A Weave of Women, Kim Chernin's The Flame Bearers, and Anita Diamont's The Red Tent are examples of novels whose themes reflect revisioned fictional tales of Jewish women in the past, present, and future. These feminist stories empower contemporary Jewish women through their fictional rendering of Jewish heroines and their creative visions of meaningful Jewish women's ceremonies and ritual all within the context of Jewish tradition and Torah narrative.

[5] "Origins of the Arbaat Yamim--The Four Days," the legend I have created below is within this genre of Jewish feminist legend and story-telling (feminist midrash). (2) It is an original utopian and imaginative tale of a revisioned women's Judaism. It contains references to tradition and Torah text as well as new women's rites, liturgies, and …