How is it that the tzaddikim [righteous men] seem so individualized and the tzidkaniot [righteous women] so generalized? I would advance two reasons. First of all, the mitzvot of the tzadeket are mainly directed toward serving others. She is a tzadeket to the extent that she sacrifices herself in order that others may actualize themselves spiritually. One has no sense of an attempt to cultivate a religious self built out of the raw materials of a unique personality. The model for the tzadeket is Rachel, the wife of Rabbi Akiva, who sold her hair and sent her husband away to study for twenty-four years, leaving herself beggared and without means of support; or the wife of Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Rymanov who sold her share in the next world to buy her husband bread.
1. What are the traits of a tzadeket, a righteous woman?
2. What are the discrepancies between how we praise men and women today?
Time Period: Contemporary (The Yom Kippur War until the present-day)