The reader may be forgiven for not getting the reference, but I’ll begin with it, because it’s important, even central, to thinking about this book. In 1979 two feminist scholars, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, published The Madwoman in the Attic, an academic study of Victorian literature. That title comes directly from Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, in which Mr. Rochester locks his first wife away in an attack, leaving him free to pursue Jane.

 

Gilbert and Gubar claim that female characters in Victorian, and perhaps all, literature can generally be categorized as either “angel” or “monster.” The Madwoman in the Rabbi’s Attic calls up both that dichotomy, and the idea that the generations of the rabbis and scholars who studied and added commentaries to the Talmud banished any notion of womanhood that did not confirm to their world view. I want to be clear: this is not a view expressed in the book. On the contrary, Gila Fine, a renown scholar and lecturer on Rabbinic Literature, takes up the stories of six female figures appearing in Talmudic literature in order to examine the ways in which they are characterized there, and to call easy stereotypes into question.

 

As a female scholar of Talmudic texts, Fine walks a thin and shaky line between her inalienable respect for these works, and their apparently limited, and limiting, worldview of women. She has spoken of the dismay she felt when on discovering the way women were perceived in the Talmud, and this book is, in some sense, her response. Her argument is that for the writers of the Talmud, women were “other,” a species apart from men in every way, and so it was only natural that they are portrayed there through a narrow and confining lens, and considered inferior beings, unfit for study and best kept out of the public sphere. Fine’s life’s work is already a subversion of these ideas, and in this sense, her book is an example of the new ground that Orthodox women are forging in the field. She confronts Talmudic texts with clear-eyed sensitivity, reasoning that:

 

“We should not...reject the Talmud for failing to conform to our sensibilities – but we should not subject it to them either. If we are to read the Talmud on its terms, rather than our own, we must be prepared to listen even when it doesn’t say exactly what we want to hear. The text will not always read the way we’d like it to read. Not every story can be revisioned, and not every character can be redeemed.”

 

Fine begins this difficult and perhaps groundbreaking project by construing each of her subjects as an archetype: There is Yalta, “The Shrew,” Homa, “The Femme Fatal,” Marta, “The Prima Donna,” Heruta, “The Madonna/Whore, Beruria, “The Overrecherix,” and Ima Shalom, “The Angel in the House.” As she explains,

 

“Every one of these heroines seems, at first reading, to embody an anti-feminine archetype, ad derisive caricature of a ‘bad woman’...And yet, with practically every one of them we will find, upon a second reading that...once the heroine’s story is reread, more closely and in context, her archetype systematically breaks down and in its place emerges the character of a complex, extraordinary woman, as misunderstood by her own world as by generations of readers.”

 

Fine brings to this work a strong background in world literature, and she begins each chapter with some examples of these archetypes in literary works through the ages, turning to the writings of Plato, Aquinas, Shakespeare, Jane Austin and Jean Rhys, among others. She then reads the story, first in a simple, surface reading, and then more closely. These readings are augmented by related passages from the Talmud, and later commentaries. As she leads the reader through a comprehensive intellectual journey, she shows how misleading it can be to approach these stories solely though our 21st century sensibilities. At the close of “Yalta” she reflects:

 

“We must not reject these traditions but, like Yalta, accept them as our own and try to create a space for ourselves within them. We might just find, like we did with Yalta, that these traditions, once revisioned, are not so far from what we believe in after all.”

 

The book makes for fascinating reading. It takes us into the world of the Talmud, with priorities, values, and social conventions that are far from our own. It shines a rare light on the lives of women in patriarchal societies, and conveys the difficulty the rabbis had in envisioning women as deserving of an active role in public life. And, in terms of the insults, the stereotypes, and the perceived inferiority of all women, the book offers a look at what must have been a dismal culture in which to be female.

 

As a modern Orthodox Jew, Fine’s readings lead to her to discover redemptive qualities in these stories, so that ultimately, anyone looking for a voice that criticizes the Talmud’s view of women may come away disappointed. But for those who, like Fine, chose to struggle with these texts on their own terms, this book is a vital and multi-layered guide, showing the reader that no text should be taken at face value. To let Fine have the last word:

 

“The six named Talmudic heroines, traditionally read as one-dimensional, anti-feminine archetypes, now appear in all their complicated glory; they are not perfect (as no human, and certainly no Talmudic character, is), but they are strong, resourceful women, contending with their difficult circumstances with fortitude and with grace.”