Tuesday, August 04, 2015

The Talmud on female beauty

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: The Talmud’s Guide to Jewish Feminine Beauty. The ancient text takes up the problem of ‘new circumstances’ in maintaining vows, and in so doing stumbles on what makes women attractive.
In a recent Daf Yomi column, we saw that the rabbis had a physical ideal for Torah scholars: They were supposed to be frail, emaciated by study. A Torah scholar with a ruddy glow was an anomaly that attracted attention and even insults, as when someone called Rabbi Yehuda a “pig-breeder” because he looked too well-fed. (Yehuda rebutted the charge by explaining that his health secret was not big meals, but regular bowel movements.) In this week’s Daf Yomi reading, in chapter 9 of Tractate Nedarim, we learned that there was a corresponding physical ideal for Jewish women. “Rabbi Yishmael wept and said: The daughters of Israel are beautiful, but poverty makes them ugly,” a flattering statement that earned him a reputation as a defender of women. But what did it mean for Rabbi Yishmael to call a woman beautiful?

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It sounds as though her cooking ability was noticed as well.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.