Last week's Person of the Week was Gloria Steinem and while I didn't have the space to talk about the subject of Judaism and its view of women very much in that article, I'd like to address that topic in depth today. While there is no doubt that ancient Judaism was, like every culture of the time, quite misogynistic, it is incorrect to assume that the much more egalitarian views of the modern Progressive movement are merely reactions to similar trends in the secular world. Not only is a non-sexist application of Judaism more palatable to 21st century society, it is also philosophically sound within the faith regardless of era.

The first hurtle in front of Jewish gender equality is biblical literalism, the foundation of fundamentalist teachings in any Abrahamic faith. Literalism contends that everything written in the Bible is fact and that any deviation from the exact letter of the law is sin. This point of view was almost entirely rejected by Jewish scholars as early as the 1400's. Even the most strict adherents to direct interpretation, such as Rav Moshe ben Nachman, understood the importance of progress and development in the study of Torah.

In place of literalism we find the much more widely accepted method of layered interpretation. It is common practice now and has been for centuries to approach holy texts with a mind to unravel the myriad meanings therein, not to simply take the words at face value. As such, we cannot help but bring our modern minds into the process. Simply put, at the time of the writing of the Torah all was not known about the world. Given new, more accurate information it is essential that our understanding of the Torah changes and, hopefully, improves.

So, while many passages in the Torah are unambiguously misogynistic, we can chalk the inequity up to a lack of relevant information. The ancient people made an incorrect assumption about the roles and aptitudes of women, but that does not mean that the entirety of the Torah should be discarded with that false assumption. Rather, we merely need to correct the course of our study to pursue the intent of the passage.

My favorite example of Progressive, egalitarian revision to Jewish philosophy is a particular selection from the liturgy. The Avot prayer is a very old evocation of the names of the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The prayer is careful to list each name after the term Elohai, meaning "God of". By mentioning the name of God prior to each name, the implication is that God interacted uniquely with the three individuals and that we ought to study the stories of each with equal care.

In the second half of the 20th century, Progressive congregations began adding the names of the Matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah to the evocation. While this may seem like a capitulation to modern political ethics, in truth it is actually only proper from a religious standpoint. The individual Matriarchs, just like the Patriarchs, each had a unique relationship with God. They weren't merely the wives of important men, they were figures in their own stories and in some cases were even prophets. To leave them out of the prayer would be to encourage an incomplete reading of the Torah.

The most enlightened individuals in any society have discarded old, false assumptions about women. All the same, they have built expanded ethical philosophies on a foundation of ancient knowledge. Though it requires adjustments and deeper consideration, a Progressive approach to Jewish philosophy including no less than total equity across our species is a more enlightened and, yes, more correct version of the faith.