Both of these readings point to how women have been historically left out of the Jewish experience, from as far back as at least Sinai. Plaskow focuses on this story of Sinai, and how it is only part of the Jewish story. Therefore, women have the liberty to expand and retell this story and others, including themselves in this history. Cohen’s essay acknowledges a similar issue of Jewish literature speaking only to men, and not to women, using Talmudic analogies as her example. There are centuries between the two stories of Moses at Sinai and the widow confronting the Sages, and yet little changed at that point in terms of the principle audience of Jewish law and literature; it was all directed at men. I was surprised at how Cohen did not explicitly bring up the lack of acknowledgment of a female audience in the way that Plaskow did.
Writing and other content
