Conceptualization of Gender and Gender Roles in Jewish Life

(26) And God said, “Let us make human in our image, after our likeness. They shall rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, the whole earth, and all the creeping things that creep on earth.” (27) And God created the human in God's image, in the image of God God created it; male and female God created them. (28) God blessed them and God said to them, “Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it; and rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and all the living things that creep on earth.”

(18) The Eternal God said, “It is not good for the human to be alone; I will make a fitting helper for it.”

(19) And the Eternal God formed out of the earth all the wild beasts and all the birds of the sky, and brought them to the human to see what it would call them; and whatever the human called each living creature, that would be its name. (20) And the human gave names to all the cattle and to the birds of the sky and to all the wild beasts; but for the human/Adam no fitting helper was found.

(21) So the Eternal God cast a deep sleep upon the human; and, while it slept, God took one of its ribs/sides and closed up the flesh at that spot. (22) And the Eternal God fashioned the rib/side that God had taken from the human into a woman; and God brought her to the human.

(23) Then the human said, “This one at last / Is bone of my bones / And flesh of my flesh. / This one shall be called Woman, / For from man was she taken.” (24) Hence a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his woman, so that they become one flesh. (25) The two of them were naked, the man and his wife, yet they felt no shame.

(16) And to the woman God said, “I will make most severe Your pangs in childbearing; In pain shall you bear children. Yet your urge shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”

(1) ... Said R’ Yirmiyah ben Elazar: In the hour when the Holy One created the first human, God created it [as] an androgyne/androginos, as it is said, “male and female God created them.”

Said R’ Shmuel bar Nachmani: In the hour when the Holy One created the first human, God created [for] him a double-face/di-prosopon/ du-par’tsufin, and sawed it and made it backs, a back here and a back [t]here, as it is said, “Back/achor and before/qedem You formed me” [Ps 139:5]. They objected to him: But it says, “God took one of his ribs/ts’la`ot . . . ” [Gn 2:21]! He said to them: [It means] “[one] of his sides/sit’rohi”, just as you would say, “And for the side/tsela` of the Tabernacle/ mishkan” [Ex 26:20], which they translate [in Aramaic] “for the side/seter."

R’ Tanchuma in the name of R’ Banayah and R’ B’rakhyah in the name of R’ Elazar said: In the time that the Holy One created Adam HaRishon, [as] a golem God created him and it was set up from [one] end of the world and unto its [other] end – that’s what is written: “Your eyes saw my golem” [Ps 139:16]. R’ Yehoshua bar Nechemyah and R’ Yehudah bar Simon in R’ Elazar’s name said: He created him filling the whole world. From where [do we know he extended] from the East to West? That it’s said: “Back/achor (i.e., after, the place of sunset) and before/East/qedem You formed/enclosed me /tsartani” [Ps 139:5]. From where [that he went] from North to South? That it’s said: “and from the edge of the heavens and until the edge of the heavens” [Dt 4:32]. And from where [that he filled] even the world’s hollow-space? That it’s said: “. . . and You laid Your palm upon me” [Ps 139:5]...

(5) A woman must not put on man’s apparel, nor shall a man wear woman’s clothing; for whoever does these things is abhorrent to the YHVH your God.

§ The Sages taught in a Tosefta (Megilla 3:11): All people count toward the quorum of seven readers, even a minor and even a woman. However, the Sages said that a woman should not read the Torah, out of respect for the congregation.

§ And Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi also said: Women are obligated in the reading of the Megilla, as they too were significant partners in that miracle.

(1) The hermaphrodite is in some ways like men, and in other ways like women. In other ways he is like men and women, and in others he is like neither men nor women.

(2) In what ways is he like men?He causes impurity with white discharge, like men; He dresses like men; He can take a wife but not be taken as a wife, like men. [When he is born] his mother counts the blood of purification, like men; He may not be secluded with women, like men. He is not maintained with the daughters, like men; He transgresses the law of: “You shall not round” (Leviticus 19:2 and “You shall not defile for the dead,” (Leviticus 21:1) like men; And he must perform all the commandments of the Torah, like men.

(3) And in what ways is he like women?He causes impurity with red discharge, like women; And he must not be secluded with men, like women; And he doesn’t make his brother’s wife liable for yibbum (levirate marriage); And he does not share [in the inheritance] with the sons, like women; And he cannot eat most holy sacrifices, like women. At his birth his mother counts the blood of her impurity like [they do when they give birth to a] girl; And he is disqualified from being a witness, like women. If he had illicit intercourse, he is disqualified from eating terumah, like women.

(4) In what ways is he like both men and women?One who strikes him or curses him is liable, as in the case of men and women; One who unwittingly kills him must go into exile, and if on purpose, then [the slayer] receives the death penalty, as in the case of men and women. His mother must [at his birth] bring an offering, as in the case of men and women. He may eat holy things that are eaten outside of the Temple; And he may inherit any inheritance, as in the case of men and women.

(5) And in what is he different from both men and women? One does not burn terumah if it came into contact with his discharge, Neither is he liable for entering the temple while impure, unlike men or women. He must not be sold as a Hebrew slave, unlike men or women. He cannot be evaluated, unlike men or women. If one says: “I will be a nazirite, if he is neither a man nor a woman,” then he becomes a nazirite. Rabbi Yose says: the hermaphrodite is a unique creature, and the sages could not decide about him. But this is not so with a tumtum (one of doubtful), for sometimes he is a man and sometimes he is a woman.

(6) If a priest who is a eunuch by natural causes married an Israelite woman, he enables her to eat teruma. Rabbi Yosei and Rabbi Shimon say: If a priest who is a hermaphrodite, possessing both male and female genitals, married an Israelite woman, he enables her to eat teruma. Rabbi Yehuda says: If a tumtum, whose external sexual organs are indeterminate, was torn open so that his genitals were exposed, and he was found to be a male, he must not perform ḥalitza, because he is treated like a eunuch. A hermaphrodite may marry a woman but he may not be married by a man, as he is considered a man. Rabbi Eliezer says: If one had intercourse with a hermaphrodite, he is liable to receive the punishment of stoning on his account as if he had had relations with a male.