The Reason a Woman Is Obligated: Women’s Ritual Efficacy in Medieval Kabbalah

Abstract The short fragment prompting this study is a kabbalistic inquiry into three of the positive commandments in which women are especially obligated—the so-called commandments of Hannah. When accounting for these commandments in kabbalistic terms, the fragment endorses the ritual efficacy of Jewish women. It does this in a manner analogous to descriptions of commandments performed by men, in which the practitioner is vested with the power of unifying the divinity and, as a result, drawing down its influence. The sizeable literature on the commandments produced by medieval kabbalists abounds with such descriptions, from which scholars have long sourced information concerning the practices of medieval men performing “Jewish mysticism.” The fragment on the commandments of Hannah urges a reassessment of how the literature of medieval kabbalah constructs women’s ritual efficacy. After gauging that text’s provenance and surveying a host of comparable traditions from authoritative texts, the study proceeds to ask: Do the rationales of the three commandments of Hannah presuppose the application—by women—of esoteric knowledge during ritual performances? The article also highlights the lack of correspondence between (a) the occasional affirmations of women’s sacramental efficacy in the texts and (b) the negative consensus concerning the social-historical representation of female practitioners of kabbalah. Without attempting to overturn this consensus, the study aims to recover a phenomenology of commandments performed specifically by women, which is shown to be a rare, albeit representative, feature of medieval kabbalah.