Article published on March, 8th in La Nación Newspaper
“God created man, male and female he created them, in the image and likeness of God he created them” (Genesis, chapter 1).
Unfortunately, most civilizations throughout history have been characterized by sexism: as men are, on average, biologically stronger, they dominate women, treating them as an object or, at best, a servant condemned to watch over the welfare of her employer.
Even notable philosophers such as Aristotle or Plato, pillars of Western thought, do not stop reproducing prejudices regarding women that continue to have negative repercussions in our society: by considering them naturally inferior to men, they degrade their human dignity and place them in a secondary role within society.
Special care must be taken to avoid using God to justify one’s own prejudices, oppress others or assert oneself in a situation of power. For this reason, we must reject misogynistic and macho interpretations from the Holy Scriptures. We firmly believe that any interpretation that leads to oppression and brutality must be dismissed as a partial and superficial reading.
The reader surely knows the story told in chapters 2 and 3 of Genesis: God created Adam in His image and likeness, from Adam’s rib He extracted Eve, the serpent seduced Adam and Eve and they sinned by eating from the forbidden tree, being, consequently, expelled from the Garden of Eden.
If we stop at the aforementioned chapters of Genesis, we can find some interesting points to elucidate the role of women in Judaism. Although many readers probably assume that the sin of Adam and Eve is related to sexual desire, traditional Jewish exegesis considers that the sin of the first human beings had nothing to do with sex.
According to Judaism, the intimacy of the couple is an activity that can and should be sanctified, like all aspects of life. Adam and Eve’s mistake was to let themselves be carried away by their passions instead of being guided by reason.
When they began to use their intellect to excuse their behavior instead of using it to know the world and unravel the Will of God, they deviated in their actions. In fact, Adam’s second mistake – and the one that ended up condemning him – was to blame Eve for his sin, instead of taking responsibility for his actions, acknowledging his fault, and trying to correct it.
Since the beginning of humanity we find how man, instead of accepting his own mistakes and working to eradicate them, externalizes his guilt in women, placing a burden that does not correspond to her.
According to Jewish tradition, the human being was created a hermaphrodite: male and female simultaneously, without any distinction. Then, God separated them, and thus the two genders emerged, equal, with the same dignity, both with rights and obligations.
The Holy Scriptures transmit a radical teaching to us: sexual differences do not imply any difference of hierarchy. Men and women are human beings on an equal footing, because we belong to the same species.
This idea was revolutionary for that time and continues to have vitality in our society, still tied to prejudices that must be uprooted. Whoever cites the Bible as a justification for excluding women and relegating them to a secondary place in society, should reread the Holy Scriptures with attentive eyes: its spirit, in direct contrast to the pagan myths of antiquity, proclaims the equality of men and women in terms of rights.
However, it is true that there are biological differences between men and women, and that these differences express specific spiritual and psychological tendencies. But these differences have nothing to do with the hierarchy of both of them.
To achieve a fairer, freer and more equitable society, it is necessary to end all forms of oppression and discrimination based on gender differences. The Holy Scriptures, read through the prism of the Jewish tradition, can help us in this task.
Source: www.lanacion.com.ar
