Women and Priests in Tractate Hallah: Gender Readings in Rabbinic Literature

Abstract

This paper examines new possibilities of gendered readings on the relationship between images of priesthood and women in rabbinic texts. It is argued that the ritual of hallah separation, transformed in rabbinic literature from the biblical genderless task into a female domain, emerges as an important element in the substitution of the priests’ work. In the absence of a Temple, the newly established rabbinic model of worship sees the act of hallah separation assume a strong imaginative significance, and the figure of the woman who performs it becomes a distinct ritual actor. A gender-sensitive analysis of the sources further exposes the rabbinically instituted rituals as competing with the priestly cult, as well as the ideologies embedded in the text. Moreover, working with such textual material requires the constant reconsideration of scales of values and ideas of hierarchy, in particular those concerning female work and women’s rituals, and it underlines the necessity to repeatedly rethinking our gendered