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The Moon's Lost Light
A Torah Perspective on Women from the Fall of Eve to the Full RedemptionDevorah Heshelis
The Moon's Lost Light
This fascinating exploration of the Torah perspective of women’s traditional position in Judaism gives thought-provoking answers to many questions on this topic, including reasons why some rabbinical descriptions of women differ from our roles today.
Book Excerpt from The Moon's Lost Light
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The Moon's Lost Light:
Traditional Jewish women's roles are examined in this fascinating exploration of the Torah perspective on the Jewish woman: her changing roles and spiritual destiny.
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Diminishing the Moon
Our search takes us back to the beginning of world history. There is a passage in the Gemara concerning the feminine role which is both poignant and startling:
Rabbi Shimon ben Pazi asked: It is written, “And God made the two big luminaries,” and [yet] it is written, “the big luminary and the small luminary.” [If they are both big, why is one later called small?] The moon said before the Holy One, blessed is He:
“Master of the world, two kings cannot share one crown.”
He [God] said to her, “Go and make yourself small.”
She said before Him, “Because I said something proper before you, I should make myself small?”
He said to her, “Go and rule by day and by night.”
She said to Him, “What is the advantage in this?
What is the value of a candle at noon time?”
He said to her, “Go, so that Israel may count the days and years through you.”
She said to Him, “The sun is also necessary for counting the times and the seasons, as it says, ‘And they [both the sun and the moon] will be for signs and appointed times...’ “
“Go, that righteous ones will be called by your name: Yaakov the Small One, Shmuel the Small One, David the Small One.”
He saw that she was still upset. The Holy One, blessed is He, said: “Bring an atonement for Me that I diminished the moon.”
This is what Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish said: What is different about the goat offering of the new moon that the term “for God” is used regarding it? The Holy One, blessed is He, said: This goat will be an atonement for My having diminished the moon.
This gemara obviously cannot be understood on a superficial level. God does not need an atonement from human beings! However, there is a rule that passages such as these are speaking of how things are perceived by people.
A parallel in our lives would be when a nurse inoculates a baby,who then cries out in anger and pain. The sympathetic nurse says to the baby, “You’re right, poor thing!” What she means, of course, is not that the baby is objectively right, but rather that from the baby’s limited understanding he is right - the nurse’s action seems totally unjust.
What can we learn from this gemara? Much has been written about it, but in this essay, we will deal with only one aspect of the aggadah: women’s secondary position.
The gemara tells us that the sun and moon were originally created equal, but the moon was later diminished. The moon, which in Hebrew is called levanah, contains the word lev, heart. The sun is called chamah, which contains the word mo’ach, brain. The Michtav Me’Eliyahu says about this:
The two great lights allude to two ways in which a person can grasp Hashem Yisbarach’s light: through the intellect and through the heart. In the unblemished world, as Hashem originally wanted it to be, the intellect and the heart are equal powers and work together, and everything which the intellect grasps enters the heart immediately and completely.3
In other words, both of these powers are equally important, for although it is essential to know the truth intellectually, the Torah’s goal is to have the truth in our hearts. The Michtav Me’Eliyahu goes on to say that the moon thought it should be the greater of the two because it wanted the world to respect the internal service of Hashem, the service of the heart, more than intellectual achievement.
The Zohar tells us that the levanah, the moon, represents woman,4 because most women’s main gift lies in emotional understanding.Men are represented by the chamah, the sun, because, generally speaking, man’s main gift is his intellectual power.
This does not mean that women have no intellect or that men have no heart, of course. Obviously, both sides must have both powers. (As mentioned in note 172, the chassidic commentary Tiferes Shlomo says that every person has both male and female personality traits.) Rather, it means that one’s strongest tool to connect properly to God and life is in that particular area. Although there are exceptions to this rule, these attributes describe men and women as a whole. The gemara therefore tells us that, like the sun and moon, man and woman were originally created equal, but that woman’s “light” was subsequently lessened.
According to the Sages, “light” refers to Torah.5 The Mishnah Berurah says that the diminution of the moon was caused by the sin of Chava (Eve).6 Therefore, before we can discuss the midrash, we must first understand Chava’s sin and its ramifications throughout world history.
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