The Woman Who Changed Jewish Life Vitebsk

Years ago in the city of Minsk there lived a man named Shmuel Nachum. Although his main occupation was studying Torah, his mind was so acute in business matters that he became an arbiter and legal advisor in all sorts of business disputes. In fact, this is how he made a comfortable living.

Shmuel Nachum and his wife had one daughter, named Devorah, on whom they doted. Devorah was an unusually bright child and her father assumed total responsibility for her education. By the age of eight she was studying the Five Books of Moses and the Prophets. Her progress continued and by age ten she knew the whole Bible and began learning Mishna and the Code of Jewish Law. In addition she learned mathematics, Polish, and was able to read and write. By the age of fifteen she was studying Talmud with the commentaries of Rashi.

At eighteen she married a fine young man and was a happy new bride. Her husband succeeded in business and she shortly gave birth to two girls and one boy. Suddenly, tragedy struck her in a series of terrible blows. Her two little girls died in an epidemic and within the same year her husband also died. Broken-hearted, the young widow returned to her parents' home with her little son. But three years later, her son also, was taken from her.

What did she have left to live for? All day she tried to hide her grief from her parents, but from time to time she would closet herself in her room and weep for hours. After some time she realized that she must take charge of her shattered life, and she threw herself into her studies more than ever. She also began to involve herself in the social welfare of the local women.

Together with two of her childhood friends she established study-circles among the young women of Minsk who had not been as fortunate as she in learning Torah. Indeed, her learning groups became popular and spread throughout the city, making her a sought-after lecturer. Devorah found great solace in her work for, in helping others, she at the same time stilled the dull pain in her aching heart.

One day her father was approached by a certain man named Tzadok Moshe with a suggestion for a match between Devorah and his rebbe, a notable Torah scholar from Vitebsk named Nachum. Devorah expressed an interest in meeting the man, and it was arranged that he should travel to Minsk to meet this extraordinary woman. Within a short time they became engaged and thus began a new episode in the life of this unusual woman.

Having been used to the high level of Torah scholarship amongst the women of Minsk, Devorah was appalled at the ignorance of the women in Vitebsk, and she set about remedying it. Again she arranged study-circles as she had in Minsk. In addition, she established institutions for the sick and needy. She was very happy in her new life, filling her time with study, social service and managing her husband's business.

Nachum was not merely astonished to find that his wife was such a capable manager of his business affairs, but her extensive Torah knowledge astounded him! He began to realize more and more what a treasure he had in such a wife, and his respect and admiration for her increased enormously. He began to realize what a change her coming had made, not only in his own home which had become a veritable "Open House and Council of Wise Men," but in Vitebsk at large, where her influence was felt and appreciated in every sphere of social and educational activity! What he did not know was that Devorah found time every day to study Talmud and that she was studying it in its entirety for the second time!

Devorah was not satisfied to concentrate on the women alone; her ambition was to see Vitebsk as a whole become a center of Jewish learning. To that end she devised a plan in which a number of promising students from the small Vitebsk yeshiva would be supported to learn in one of the great yeshivas in another town where they would prepare themselves to serve their home town upon their return. In the interim, she convinced her husband to import and maintain at his own expense, a group of teachers and their families to come and educate the people of Vitebsk. This plan took time to implement, but within a year ten teachers were installed in Vitebsk and the sweet sound of Torah could be heard throughout the whole town.

Devorah had made her home in Vitebsk for ten years and her dream of making it a Torah center was slowly becoming a reality due to her efforts, foresight, and rare abilities.

Adapted from "Memoirs of the Lubavitcher Rebbe" Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn.

Famous Jewish Women

Throughout the ages, we find great women who have been respected Torah scholars.

The renowned Sefardic Torah giant, Rabbi Chayim Yosef David Azulai (known as the "Chida," 1724-1806) in his bibliographic work Shem Gedolim, has a special listing for "Rabbanit" ("Rebbetzin").

He quotes the Talmud (Megilla 14a) that the Jewish people had seven prophetesses: Sara, Miriam, Devora, Chana, Avigayil, Chulda and Esther. In a commentary in Genesis, Rashi says that all the Matriarchs were prophetesses.

The Chida mentions the renowned Bruria, daughter of Rabbi Chanina ben Tradyon and wife of Rabbi Meir (both Tanaim - Sages mentioned in the Mishna). The Talmud says she would review 300 teachings of 300 Torah masters in a single day. She knew so much that she could express her own opinion in questions of Jewish legal matters, disagreeing with respected Tanaim, while others endorsed her opinion. So authoritative was Bruria considered, that eminent Tanaim would reverently quote how she rebuked them for not adhering properly to the teachings of the Sages.

On occasion she would even rebuke students for poor learning habits, giving as her source her interpretation of a scriptural verse, an interpretation that the Talmud later quoted.

The foremost commentator Rashi, Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (c. 1040-1105) had three daughters and no sons. His daughters were known to be outstandingly knowledgeable in Torah. Once, Rashi lay sick, with no strength to write a profound and complicated reply to a query he had received. He therefore asked his daughter Rachel to write it. This may mean that he dictated it to her; even so, it reveals Rashi's confidence in her ability to accurately transcribe the complicated subject matter, for which she must have been a considerable scholar.

Maharshal, Rabbi Shlomo Luria (c. 1510-1573), one of the greatest Torah authorities in a generation of great luminaries, writes of an ancestress of his, some seven generations back:

"The Rabbanit Miriam, daughter of the Gaon Rabbi Shlomo Shapiro and sister of Rabbi Peretz of Kostenitz, of a continuous line of Torah scholars tracing its ancestry to Rashi...who had her own yeshiva, where she would sit with a curtain intervening, while she lectured in Jewish law before young men who were outstanding Torah scholars."

Nor was this phenomenon confined to the Ashkenazi lands where the prevailing non-Jewish mores were more tolerant of women in positions of prominence. Rabbi Pesachya of Regensburg, Germany (c. 1120-1190), one of the Baalei Tosafot contemporary with Maimonides, traveled extensively, and an account of his travels still exists. He wrote about Rabbi Shmuel Halevi ben Ali, dean of the yeshiva of Baghdad in those days, had an only daughter known to be expert in both the Bible and Talmud. Despite the emphasis on modesty, she would teach young men Tanach. She would sit indoors near a window through which she could be heard, while her male students would listen outside on a lower level where they could not see her.

Another woman of this period who is recorded as being a Torah scholar was Dulce, the saintly wife of Rabbi Elazar of Worms (1160-1238), renowned author of Sefer Rokeach and other works and one of the greatest "Chasidei Ashkenaz" (the pious German Kabalists of the 12th-13th centuries).

Together with her two daughters, she died a martyr's death in 1197 at the hands of Crusaders who murdered them in her husband's presence. He mourned her in a touching elegy in which he describes her as extremely pious and wise, hospitable to the Torah scholars, expert in the rules of Torah prohibitions, and as one who would preach every Shabbat - to women, we assume.

Historians mention other women of this period who were very knowledgeable in Torah. Usually they are known only by the Torah books they wrote in Yiddish for other women to study, or for their translations of classic Torah works into Yiddish.

The Previous Lubavitcher Rebbe writes, "Several women in the generations of the Tanaim and Amoraim, and also in generations closer to us, were knowledgeable in Torah." The Previous Rebbe might have had in mind his ancestress Perel, the scholarly wife of the renowned Maharal of Prague, Rabbi Yehuda Liva ben Betzalel (1512- 1609).

The Maharal was ten years old when he was engaged to Perel, who was then six (as was common at the time). Realizing his great genius, she decided to study Torah assiduously so that she would never be an embarrassment to her great husband. She said that from age eight, no day passed when she did not spend at least five hours studying Torah. Perel arranged and redacted all 24 of her husband's renowned works. It is said that in at least eight places she found errors in his works where he had misquoted Talmudic Sages, Rashi or Tosafot.

Adapted from an article in The Yiddishe Heim