Noblewomen

By Getzy Markowitz

Had Barack Obama not clinched his party’s nomination, and had the democratic ticket still won the election, the outcome would still be overwhelmingly historic. This country would have elected its first female president. Hillary Clinton’s inauguration would have drawn larger than usual crowds and brought women’s liberation to its crescendo.

Our Western superpower has much to learn from a younger Middle Eastern democracy. If exit polls are accurate, Israel has elected its second female Prime Minister in 60 years. To be sure, Golda Meir was her country’s fourth head of state, but she was hardly the first Jewish woman in a leadership position. Israel’s being ahead of its time, is as old as time itself. Throughout our people’s history, Jewish women have not only been looked up to and respected, but followed and revered.

Sarah is a heroine not only because she mothered the first biological Jew, but because G-d instructed Abraham to heed her wise council. Isaac’s wife Rebekkah proved to have better judgement than the patriarch. In her wisdom and with her action she saved Jacob, and ensured the Jewish future. Rachel sacrificed her happiness to protect her sister from shame. And their noble daughters have replicated their self-sacrifice for thousands of years.

Women in Judaism are more than the finer gender. They are our nation’s finest. Collectively, Jewish women sustain the House of Israel. Individually, the Jewish woman is the foundation of her home.

Among Lubavitcher Chassidim, men and women share equal rights, while they are hardly equals. Many Chabad couples marry and pursue the giving life of the emissary. While together they raise communities, the wife carries greater responsibility in raising their children. While they both feed souls, it is her cuisine that nourishes the throngs of people she graciously hosts. In a world corrupted by misogyny, she is a beacon of integrity and modesty.

The slain Rivkah Holtzberg did not become a luminary when she became a martyr. She was a heroine because she was a Shlucha. Rivka is an example not only for being brutally murdered along with her husband and others in their Mumbai Chabad House. As a newlywed, Rivkah left her family, friends, and community to establish a Chabad House at the ends of the earth.

This weekend, thousands of Chabad’s women emissaries are gathering in the nerve center of their global activities. Legions of women and girls are convening in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, in memory of their model Jewish woman, Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka Schneerson, the late wife of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. They are role models tasked with a most demanding role.

In the present Torah reading, when G-d relayed the Law to Moses atop Mount Sinai, he told Moses to instruct the women before the men. G-d knew that the women would introduce their children to the study of Torah, and that they themselves would be more diligent in its observance.

The women gathering in my community this week are not only responsible for their children’s education, but they introduce Jews to Torah in their respective communities. It is a sacrifice for a man to leave his home and neighborhood to become a Jewish leader in a foreign place. However, for a young lady to make that move, leaving her social and familial network, is ever more difficult. Yet she does this with pride and unfaltering commitment.

British historian Paul Johnson captured an ingredient to Jewish success through the ages. In his book “Heroes” Johnson maintains that the Hebrews were different from other nations in that, “They tapped a physical resource which most ancient people denied themselves: They made full use of the brains and courage of their women.” I have always been fascinated by video footage of the Rebbe addressing exclusive gatherings for women. The great leader who raised a force of leaders placed women at its front.

+ For previous essays by Getzy Markowitz