Ochs, V.L., Sarah Laughed: Modern Lessons from the Wisdom and Stories of Biblical Women: [Review]

The midrashic impulse is the gift of modern Jewish women to biblical women, bringing them life and voice. It is thanks largely to feminism that midrash flourishes today. (1) There are many reasons why this has happened. Since the mid-1970s, feminists have been reclaiming the canon, engaging in the rereading of texts that often omitted women's presence even as they inscribed our "essence." (2) The canon--literary, philosophical, or religious--delineated women's proper role while defining us as irrational, passionate human beings. Religious feminists began to liberate the Jewish canon when they realized that the Bible is used to keep woman in her place by legitimating patriarchal power. Judith Plaskow writes of the power of midrash to remember, to invent, and to receive the "hidden half of Torah, reshaping Jewish memory to let women speak." (3) The mainstream of rabbinic tradition depicts biblical women positively only if they are willing to assume the enabling roles of wife and/or mother. (4) Since most mainstream midrashim present biblical women as being of marginal importance or place them in a negative light, there is a need for contemporary feminist midrash to change that image, to create role models for the next generation of women.