The parshah for April 6, 2024 is Sh’mini (Shemini), Leviticus 9:1-11:47 and since it is also Shabbat Hachodesh, we read Exodus 12:1-20 in addition to Sh’mini. Sh’mini contains commandments regarding animal sacrifice, the death of two of Aaron’s sons, lists of which animals are kosher and which are not, and distinctions between clean/unclean and holy/profane. The excerpt from Exodus, read as the maftir, describes the last plague before the Jews were freed from slavery in Egypt, the establishment of Pesach, and the eating of unleavened bread or cakes. In today’s commentary, I’m focusing on the only mention of femaleness in Sh’mini and by doing so I hope to find more room for women and girls within contemporary Judaism.
The only mention of women and girls in Sh’mini, specifically in the role of daughters, is in Leviticus 10:14, which reads, “The breast of the waving and the thigh of the raising up you shall eat in a clean place, you and your sons and your daughters with you, for [as] your portion and your sons’ portion they have been given, from the peace offerings of the children of Israel.” Here we see the distinct mention of the daughters of Aaron in the first part of this verse even though they are not mentioned separately in the second part of the verse. What are we to do with this? There are many possible questions we could ask. Why are daughters included? Are we meant to assume that the mention of sons in the second part of this verse includes daughters as well? Was the mention of daughters supposed to be in the second part as well? Did there exist a tradition within the high priesthood that included daughters? What was it? Did later writers erase it?
All of these questions also had me thinking about the next verse as it seems quite similar. Leviticus 10:15 reads, “They shall bring the thigh of the raising up and the breast of the waving upon the fats for fire offerings, to wave as a waving before the Lord. And it shall belong to you and to your sons with you as an eternal due, as the Lord has commanded.” Here sons are called to partake in the fire offerings. There is no mention of daughters. Why? Are we to infer that by using sons here the text means to include daughters? How are we to understand the text?
One issue we encounter is certainly language-based. Hebrew, like many languages, contains grammatical gender and also defaults to the male forms when we are looking at groups of people. Let us look at an example of how this patriarchal aspect of the language works. If there are 50 women in a group and one man, reference to the entire group would take on the male forms of the verbs, adjectives, and so on (see note). Thus, it could be that one mention of daughters as distinct from sons in the first verse reminds the reader to include daughters as well in the rest of the verses that only mention sons. However, it could be that daughters are included in the peace offerings but not in the fire offerings. Yet, at the same time, why reference daughters at all if the default would be to use the masculine language to ‘include’ those gendered feminine, or female? However, it is also important to note that quite often the mention of sons in the Torah does not include daughters. Nonetheless, in this particular case, the question remains what are we to do with the daughters?
Rashi too was tripped up by the inclusion of daughters in this verse. Yet, rather than err on the side of inclusion, Rashi does the opposite. He argues that, because in the second half of verse 14 daughters are not mentioned, they do not even have a share of the peace offering. It may be given to them to eat; that is permitted, but they are not owed it. In other words, Rashi ‘clarifies’ that the use of daughters here is actually meant to exclude them.
If we take Rashi seriously then, females, specifically the female daughters of Aaron, have no portion in Aaron’s inheritance of the high priesthood. That would mean that female humans are not part of this Torah portion at all. It dismays me to see only one reference to females in a parshah. Then, to have ‘the authority’ on the interpretation of the Torah, Rashi dismiss these girls all together makes me angry.
I cannot imagine any society or any religion functioning without the contributions of women and girls. I cannot imagine that women or girls would put up with the constant denial of their humanity in the face of the holy, especially when this parshah calls us to be holy (Lev. 44-45). Conceivably, Israelite women had their own traditions in addition to the men’s, with goddesses, gatherings among women and girls, and their own holy days. In this regard, both the idea that Asherah finds a place in the temple in Jerusalem (2 Kings 21:7) and the women baking cakes for the Queen of Heaven (Jeremiah 7:18) offer a compelling argument.
Alternatively, the early cultic practices surrounding the deity may have included women and girls and their contributions and practices were later diminished and erased by generations of privileged, learned men embodying patriarchal ideals. The terse mentions of women and girls, like we have here in Leviticus 10:14, then would be all that is left of this more egalitarian Israelite society. It should be noted that this earlier version of Israelite religion may have been then more inclusive of women and girls then than some streams of the Jewish religion are today.
Whether or not women and girls had their own traditions, participated alongside the men in the traditions described in the Torah, or partook in a combination of the two, we will never know. Sh’mini’s one terse mention of Aaron’s daughters drew us into a discussion that reasserts the worth, dignity and equality of one half of humanity: women and girls. More so, it reminds us that women and girls should participate in religion as full and equal members. To do otherwise replicates the patriarchy of Rashi’s commentary, Sh’mini, and Hebrew itself, and this would be far from the call in Sh’mini; “Be holy for I am holy,” (Lev. 11:44 and 45).
Note: Grammatical gender does have some exceptions but I cannot get into all of this here and neither is it relevant as we are discussing gendered humans.
feminismandreligion.com 
“Whether or not women and girls had their own traditions, participated alongside the men in the traditions described in the Torah, or partook in a combination of the two, we will never know.” This is the core of the problem in every religion I know except that belonging to the goddess… or earth based nature mystics that know from direct experience.
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Good article !
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I recall that in Ethics of the Fathers it says something like “all women practise witchcraft.” Although this was written long after the parshah in question, I’m wondering if it suggests that women did indeed have their own rituals at the time of Sh’mini and still had them? After G-d’s relationship with Jacob, many things may have been downgraded or outlawed and women’s practices are likely to have been one of them. It’s a bit of a jump, I know, to look back from the time of Ethics of the Fathers (approx 200 BCE – 200 CE) to Sh’mini , but I just wondered.
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