This past
Wednesday, International Women’s Day was commemorated. You may have missed it
if you live in a walled city from the days of Yehoshua like Jerusalem and were
celebrating Shushan Purim or if you were still busy with carnivals and other
fun festivities that spilled over from Purim.
The holiday of Purim
in itself can be looked at as a “Women’s Day” as Queen
Esther was instrumental in saving the Jews and women are obligated in all of
the mitzvot of the day including reading the Megilla which is named after
Esther herself.
Judaism goes beyond having just one day per year to
celebrate women. We actually have a women’s holiday every month when we
celebrate the new moon on Rosh Chodesh!
The origins of women celebrating
Rosh Chodesh as a women’s holiday actually go back to Parshat Ki Tisa in the
account of the Sin of the Golden Calf.
In Shmot
32:1-3 we read:
When the
people saw that Moshe was late in coming down from the mountain, they gathered
against Aaron and said to him: “Arise, make us gods that will lead us, for this
Moshe, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what
happened to him.” Aaron said to them: “Remove the golden rings that are on the
ears of your wives, your sons and your daughters and bring them to me.” All the
people removed the golden rings that were on their ears and brought them to
Aaron.
Rashi explains: Aaron thought to
himself: the women and children fancy their jewelry, perhaps, the building of
the calf will be delayed and in the meantime Moshe will arrive. But the men did
not wait (for the women and children) and took off (their own jewelry) from themselves.
Tosafot on the Talmud, Rosh HaShana
23a comment: According to Pirkei D’Rebbi Eliezer, God added a holiday for the
women on Rosh Chodesh since they did for not participate in the Sin of the
Golden Calf.
Pirkei D’Rebbi
Eliezer points out: The women were unwilling to give their earrings to their
husbands. They said to them: You desire to make a graven image and a molten
image without any power in it to deliver. God gave the women their reward in
this world and in the world to come. What reward did He give them in this
world? That they should observe the New Moons more stringently than the men.
And what reward will He give them in world to come? They are destined to be
renewed like the New Moons…
There
are other international days on the calendar that are dedicated to women’s
issues and it makes sense that they are spread out and not all lumped together
on the same day.
Just a
few days ago, on Taanit Esther we commemorated International Agunah Day to
focus on how we can help women whose husbands refuse to give them a Get (Jewish
Divorce).
November 25 is the day that we mark the
International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
It is unfortunate that we need these days but
until we solve the problems of recalcitrant husbands and those who are abusive
we need to keep these topics on the radar screen.
There is a wonderful initiative coming up called
Shabbat Dorshot Tov which is organized by Koelch, Israel’s religious women’s
forum, where learned women are invited to different communities throughout
Israel for Shabbat to teach Torah.
One day is not enough to focus on all of the
different women’s issues and therefore, there are women’s organizations working
on these issues every day. However, when it comes down to it, these aren’t
specifically women’s problems as they involve both women and men.
Although it is nice to take a day to single out
women, why is there no day to single out men? Maybe we all need to work
together every day to ensure that there is equal pay for equal work, no
discrimination, no abuse and no violence.
May the day come where it will be natural to
celebrate the accomplishments of all people irrespective of their gender.
