My Dear Daughter
Rabbi Benjamin Slonik and the Education of Jewish Women in Sixteenth-Century Poland
Jewish life in late sixteenth-century Poland was characterized by the observance of rabbinic law (halakhah) and numerous rituals and customs. While social pressures were potent forces in persuading people to maintain a pious lifestyle, one area of religious observance that was generally removed from social controls was the sexual life of couples within the context of marriage. Based on passages in Leviticus, rabbinic law dictates that that Jewish women who experience uterine bleeding are prohibited from having physical contact of any kind with their husbands. The intricate laws of niddah (enforced separation) spell out exactly when and under what circumstances physical relations, even simple touching, can be resumed.
How did sixteenth-century women learn all the rules and regulations of such an intimate subject? As in other areas of ritual life that concerned the household, it would seem that their primary source of information was other women. Often, however, particularly difficult issues could only be addressed by rabbis or other learned men, for women rarely, if ever, attained the level of rabbinic scholarly necessary to parse the details of these complicated laws.
To educate both men and women, but particularly women, in a more systematic and impersonal manner, Rabbi Benjamin Slonik (ca. 1550-after 1620), who later became one of the leading rabbinic authorities in eastern Europe, harnessed the relatively new technology of printing and published a "how to" book for women in the Yiddish vernacular. Informing and correcting the religious lives of women, particularly in the most personal of realms, was of great importance, for dire consequences were said to await those who were lax in their observance. Slonik's book, Seder mitzvot ha-nashim (The Order of Women's Commandments) not only illuminates the history of Yiddish printing and public education, but is rare remnant of a direct interface between a member of the rabbinic elite and the laity, especially women. Slonik's text also sheds light on the history of Jewish law, particularly the reception offered to the Shulhan arukh, an important legal code that had just been published. Fram investigates these issues while locating Slonik's efforts in their bibliographic and historical contexts. The study is accompanied by a transcription of the 1585 edition of the Seder mizvot ha-nashim and facing-page English language translation of the Yiddish text.
Edward Fram is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Jewish History at Ben-Gurion University. He has written on the history of Jewish law in early modern eastern Europe and on Hebrew publishing in the region.
Edward Fram
ISBN: 0-87820-459-8, 360 pages, cloth, $39.95, Order from Wayne State University Press, 1-800-978-7323
Runner-up in the 2008 National Jewish Book Awards in the category of Eastern European Jewish Studies
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