Five Books Of Miriam: A Woman's Commentary on the Torah
Product Description: Weaving together Jewish lore, the voices of Jewish foremothers, Yiddish fable, midrash and stories of her own imagining, Ellen Frankel has created in this book a breathtakingly vivid exploration into what the Torah means to women. Here are Miriam, Esther, Dinah, Lilith and many other women of the Torah in dialogue with Jewish daughters, mothers and grandmothers, past and present. Together these voices examine and debate every aspect of a Jewish woman's life -- work, sex, marriage, her connection to God and her place in the Jewish community and in the world. The Five Books of Miriam makes an invaluable contribution to Torah study and adds rich dimension to the ongoing conversation between Jewish women and Jewish tradition.
Subjects: Biblical concordances & commentaries, Books of the Old Testament, Jewish studies, Judaism, Women's studies, Religion, Religion - Judaism, Biblical Studies - Old Testament, Judaism - Sacred Writings, Spirituality - Women's, Religion / Judaism / General, Biblical Commentary - Old Testament,
A New Approach
Frankel, Ellen. "The Five Books of Miriam: A Woman's Commentary on the Torah", Harper San Francisco, 1996.
A New Approach
Amos Lassen
I don't know why I have never reviewed this book as I have read it to pieces and used it at my temple book group. Even with its flaws, Ellen Frankel gives us a creative way to analyze "The Five Books of Moses" with a special look at the ways the various texts speak to women. What "The Five Books of Miriam" does is depart from the traditional commentaries ad Frankel invites the reader to take part in the interpretation of the spiritual texts.
As for being a feminist take on the Torah, the book does not exactly succeed but it does empower the reader to participate in formulating commentary. The book looks at the most obvious issues that may cause women to protest and discusses them.
I am not sure where Frankel located the sources she uses here but the book serves as a good starting point for discussion. The book is conveniently broken into weekly Torah portions which make it easy to navigate but this is not a manifesto for women. We do not have a traditional Torah commentary but the voices of various women that Frankel has created. The book appears to me, at least, to be a personal commentary rather than anything else as no external sources are cited. This is not a book for scholars, therefore, and it should only be judged as an aid for the lay person. It entertains but it also disappoints. Questions are asked but not answered but those same questions can provide for hours of discussion.
A joyful read!
This is an intriguing, enjoyable and sometimes moving read. Not for the biblical scholar or the historian, but great for the lay person. It was not what I expected: I'm a lay preacher and bought it hoping for useful sermon material. I have always approached the Torah seriously, with awe and puzzlement (and sometimes frustration); this book showed me joy and fun and poetry.
Creative but flawed
This is a creative approach to analyzing the Torah with a unique concern for the ways the texts speak to the experiences of women. Frankel, Ph.D., has concocted a playlist of biblical characters (and a few extra-biblical characters) who then essentially read the Torah together and discuss it.
The conversation rolls along dialogically, with various characters proposing various interpretations and discussing the text. It is a wide departure from most exegetical books which attempt to "tell" the reader what the text says. Frankel invites the reader to be a participant in the interpretation, siding with or disagreeing with the various participants. The strongest advantage of the book is not the empowerment of women but the empowerment of students of the Bible.
As a woman's commentary, it is interesting though perhaps a bit obvious. They protest the things you expect the caricatured feminist reader to protest. Their internal disagreements are not so widely divergent as modern feminist writers'. There is, to my mind, no particularly new or creative contributions to the women's movement or egalitarianism. On the other hand, there is nothing here to find particularly offensive, either.
Cryptic is the hermeneutic that Frankel, Ph.D. uses. Somehow "Lillith the Rebel," an apparent alternative to Eve, is given a voice equivalent to Miriam's. From where she chooses her authorities (or dialogue partners) is vague. There are both more and less extreme voices she could have chosen. Similarly, God is called, among other things, "Ha-Rahaman, the Womb-of-the-World" (p. 59), an uncited neologism. I presume this is just Frankel's attempt to be creative, although it feels awkward when she's through. Again, there are stories of Old Testament characters which are not in fact in the Old Testament, such as the story of a serpent swallowing Moses (p. 100). The overall effect is to give the book the sense that some of the conversation about the Torah is not to be taken seriously.
Finally, the text itself is clunky. We have a very creative vehicle of conversation, but all of the characters seem to have essentially the same voice. While there may be preferred themes and complains of each, they all sound like they were penned by the same author. It makes the reader wonder if an even more creative vehicle might have been a recorded conversation between several female scholars, thus further emphasizing the sense that the Torah is to be discussed rather than "told." This, of course, would require Frankel to step down from her position as Ph.D./authority-on-the-matter.
Overall, I like the direction, but I might have sent it back for another editing.
Spiteful and Vengeful Libel
I read this book and it made me so upset to think that the author would dare to run our foremothers into the muck that she writes. There is no such reason to make the foremothers seem like they were unhappy performing "traditionally feminine roles" or enbittered because of them. Priorities were much different back then and it took A LOT more physical and time consuming work to run a household and make a living than it does in the 21st century.
I am afraid this book will push many females away from Judaism. This book starts with a belief that Judaism is a male chauvinistic religion, and does its best to "prove" this the case. The author misses out on many of the beautiful commentaries about our foremothers. When she does include these stories, she dissmisses them as being from another religion or as proof of bible written by humans - which both contribute to deligitamizing the stories. So much more could have been learned and glorify our foremothers and all of the wonderous things that they performed.
I recommend you steer clear of this book! If you are looking to learn about our foremothers and what Judaism feels about women choose another book. Please realize that there are many other lessons to be learned from the stories that she tells and there are others that are not included!
Five Books of Miriam
While this is an entertaining book, I found it to be disappointing as a commentory on the Torah. Questions asked seemed to be rhetorical, because they were certainly not answered, especially the questions (asked several times) "why does God treat us this way, why is He an unforgiving God?" Some grave instances in the book seemed to be schlepped over, for instance, why does God kill two of Aaron's sons for offering fire? The fire was given in offering for the love of God? So why would God kill His children for offering love? Yes, I understand that this book offers insight to the amazing women in our Torah, but I felt we could have been far more rewarded with a more critical view of the Torah.
