{"id":2660,"date":"2017-08-14T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-08-14T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/2017\/08\/14\/a-scholarly-and-contextual-approach-to-the-identity-of-the-eshet-chayil"},"modified":"2018-06-12T10:17:58","modified_gmt":"2018-06-12T07:17:58","slug":"a-scholarly-and-contextual-approach-to-the-identity-of-the-eshet-chayil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/2017\/08\/14\/a-scholarly-and-contextual-approach-to-the-identity-of-the-eshet-chayil\/","title":{"rendered":"A Scholarly and Contextual Approach to the Identity of the Eshet Chayil"},"content":{"rendered":"

This scholarly article<\/a>\u00a0argues that there is no single answer to the question “Who is the Eishet Chayil?” because the interpretation relies upon the context in which it is read. Professor Jacqueline Vayntrub<\/a> explores the possible identities of the Eishet Chayil: is she the perfect housewife, portrayed from a male perspective? The ideal bride, as described by her future mother-in-law? The personification of the concept of wisdom? Vayntrub’s doctoral dissertation examines the nature of biblical poetry from the perspective of the Book of Proverbs. This article was posted on the website of Project TABS <\/a>(Torah And Biblical Scholarship), an educational organization that integrates the study of Jewish texts with academic scholarship.<\/em><\/p>\n

Introduction<\/h2>\n

Tehillim\u00a0<\/em>(Psalms) and\u00a0Shirat Ha-Yam\u00a0<\/em>(The Song of the Sea) are some of the first examples that come to mind as biblical poetry. But for some reason,\u00a0Eshet Chayil\u00a0<\/em>\u2013 the concluding alphabetic acrostic of\u00a0Mishlei<\/em>\u00a0(Proverbs 31:10-31) that is traditionally sung every Friday night before Kiddush \u2013 doesn\u2019t register as \u201cbiblical poetry.\u201d Many seem to forget that\u00a0Eshet Chayil\u00a0<\/em>is in\u00a0Mishlei<\/em>, Proverbs, or that it is even biblical. This is curious.\u00a0Eshet Chayil<\/em>\u00a0is performed as frequently as many of the other biblical \u201cpoems.\u201d Perhaps this is precisely the point: the lived experience of\u00a0Eshet Chayil<\/em>\u00a0as a paean to the\u00a0balaboosta \u2013\u00a0<\/em>a song of praise performed for the lady of the house on\u00a0erev Shabbat<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 overpowers its textual context as the ending of\u00a0Mishlei<\/em>\u00a0and determines its interpretation.<\/p>\n

Is Every Woman an\u00a0Eshet Chayil?<\/em>
\n<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n

Many people have real difficulty imagining how to read the poem outside of its context at the Shabbat dinner table, as a way for husbands to praise their wives, and children to thank their mothers before partaking of the Shabbat dinner (which, in most cases, the women prepared). Yet this reading is difficult to defend. The\u00a0Eshet Chayil<\/em>\u2013the \u201ccapable wife,\u201d as the phrase can be translated\u2013cannot really be about \u201ceverywoman.\u201d In the poem,\u00a0Eshet Chayil<\/em>\u00a0is a woman who has risen above the others. In other words, she is not the everyday housewife but the ultimate fantasy housewife \u2013 the one who always roasts the succulent chicken, gives the floors their sparkling sheen, dresses the children in their finest for the Sabbath, all while keeping the household accounts in order.<\/p>\n

In this light, I would like to offer a feminist critique of the poem. By painting a picture of a perpetually perfect housewife, it sets unreasonable androcentric expectations for real women, offending the sensibilities of a post-Betty Crocker, Draper, and Friedan world. One could even go further and point out that the poem outlines an asymmetrical division of labor. While the woman does everything for the home, including running the business aspects of it and acquiring real estate (traditional \u201cmale\u201d activities), her husband,\u00a0noda\u2018 bash\u2018arim<\/em>, a man \u201crenowned at the [city] gates,\u201d does little more than accumulate social capital from all her toil and ingenuity,\u00a0bshivto \u2018im ziqne \u2019aretz<\/em>, \u201cas he takes his seat among the elders of the land\u201d(v 23).<\/p>\n

Biblical Poetry<\/h2>\n

Many biblical poems are preserved within a narrative and performed by a character. Biblical scholars call these poems \u201cinset\u201d because they are inserted into the prose narrative frame. In cases where the poem is not performed by a character, as in collections of poetry like\u00a0Tehillim\u00a0<\/em>or\u00a0Mishlei<\/em>, the literary collection itself provides its context. This literary context is provided in titles or ascriptions that give the poem a setting, such as\u00a0divre chakhamim<\/em>, \u201cthe words of the wise men\u201d (Prov 22:17) or\u00a0mizmor ledavid<\/em>, \u201ca psalm of David.\u201d These kinds of titles, while not relied upon in biblical scholarship as historically accurate, were understood in traditional Jewish and Christian interpretation as \u00a0providing the real-life performed context that is missing from poems existing outside of narrative.<\/p>\n

The problem with\u00a0Eshet Chayil<\/em>\u00a0is that it is neither an inset poem, nor does it have a title or an explicit attribution. Who is its speaker? What is its context? These are questions that we must answer to identify the female subject of the work.<\/p>\n

A Mother\u2019s Instruction to her Son
\n<\/strong><\/h2>\n

It is possible to read\u00a0Eshet Chayil<\/em>\u00a0in light of its preceding text. \u00a0Viewed this way, the poem might appear to be speaking as the voice of a mother advising her son on the best choice of wife. In the Masoretic text\u00a0Eshet Chayil<\/em>\u00a0is preceded by Prov 31:1-9, an instruction of King Lemuel\u2019s mother to her son.\u00a0This instruction is unusual for a number of reasons. First, it is specifically a woman\u2019s instruction to her son. By contrast, the ten instructions in the first nine chapters of Proverbs seem to be delivered in the father\u2019s voice; the mother is mentioned only in the father-mother word pair, for symmetry in the poetic structure. The fact that a woman teaches in Prov 31:1-9 connects it to\u00a0Eshet Chayil<\/em>, where it is praised that\u00a0piyha patcha bchokhma vtorat-chesed \u2018al-lshonah<\/em>, \u201cHer mouth opens with wisdom, an instruction-in-responsibility is upon her tongue\u201d (v 26).<\/p>\n

Lemuel\u2019s mother\u2019s words of wisdom can likewise be seen as thematically (and lexically) connected to the subsequent poem. Her very first piece of advice concerns Lemuel\u2019s choices in his relationships with the opposite sex:\u00a0\u2019al-titten lanashim cheylekha<\/em>, \u201cDo not give your vigor (c<\/em>hayil<\/em>) to women\u201d (v 3). This advice, read in conjunction with\u00a0Eshet Chayil,<\/em>\u00a0begs an interpretation of the poem as a list of must-haves when shopping for the ideal wife. The second to last line of the poem is what really lends itself to such an interpretation, as a mother\u2019s advice to her son:\u00a0sheqer hachen vhevel hayofi<\/em>, \u201cGrace is a lie and beauty is ephemeral\u201d (v 30). Looks fade, choose a woman of substance!<\/p>\n

An Ode to Wisdom
\n<\/strong><\/h2>\n

But perhaps\u00a0Eshet Chayil<\/em>\u00a0is best understood as not being about a woman at all; a number of early interpreters who understood the poem this way. Hilary of Poitiers and Ambrose of Milan (ca. 4th century CE) both saw\u00a0Eshet Chayil\u00a0<\/em>as none other than personified \u201cWisdom.\u201dMidrash Proverbs\u00a0<\/em>(ca. 9th century CE), one of the earliest extant commentaries on the poem, identified a number of allusions to Torah in the description of the woman. This laid the groundwork for later medieval commentators, such as Rashi, to see the entire poem as allegorical for Torah.<\/p>\n

This reading is well supported by the sustained personification poetry of \u201cLady Wisdom,\u201dChokhmah-Chokhmot<\/em>, woven through the first nine chapters of the book of Proverbs. The Hebrew term\u00a0Chokhmah<\/em>, like\u00a0Torah<\/em>, is grammatically feminine. This feature of the language supports the sustained personification. Modern biblical scholarship, which reads the poem in the context of the entire book, also frequently associates the woman of the poem with \u201cLady Wisdom,\u201d viewing the final section of Proverbs as an attempt to rehabilitate the position of (human) women, who are typically depicted negatively in the earlier parts of the book<\/p>\n

Such an interpretation makes eminent sense in the context of the organization of the entire book.\u00a0<\/span>Mishlei<\/em>\u00a0begins with a feminine personification of Wisdom in chapters 1-9 and concludes with a poem that praises those achievements Wisdom can practically enable. Again, however, the interpretation relies upon a reading of the poem as a conclusion to the book in its present form: the idea of Wisdom as a woman bookending the supposed \u201cmeat\u201d of the matter in\u00a0Mishlei<\/em>,\u00a0meshalim<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0divrei chakhamim<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Context is Everything
\n<\/strong><\/h2>\n

This discussion illustrates how heavily the poem\u2019s interpretation relies upon the context in which it is read. Those who encounter the poem every Friday night, extolling the women in attendance, likely understand it as a song of praise. Those who read the poem as part of, indeed the conclusion to the book of Proverbs, likely see the woman as representative of the abstract qualities of wisdom praised throughout the collection. Finally, anyone reading the poem solely against what comes immediately before, would understand it as advice a mother gives to her son on choosing the right kind of woman. The poem\u2019s interpretation is intimately linked to its context.<\/p>\n

Thus, there is no single interpretation of this poem\u2014as there is no single interpretation to any literary creation\u2014everything depends on context. We cannot say what the poem\u00a0really\u00a0<\/em>means.\u00a0 Within Judaism, the Friday night Shabbat table context is just as important as its written context in the biblical canon. It is just as much a paean to the woman to whom it is sung this\u00a0erev shabbat<\/em>\u00a0as it is a text in a timeless written collection of\u00a0meshalim<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This scholarly article\u00a0argues that there is no single answer to the question “Who is the Eishet Chayil?” because the interpretation relies upon the context in which it is read. Professor Jacqueline Vayntrub explores the possible identities of the Eishet Chayil: is she the perfect housewife, portrayed from a male perspective? The ideal bride, as described […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":2661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[527],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2660\/"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post\/"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14\/"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments\/?post=2660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2660\/revisions\/"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2661\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/?parent=2660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories\/?post=2660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags\/?post=2660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}