ואין גורפין תנור וכירים. תני רב חייא בר יוסף קמיה דרב נחמן: ואם אי אפשר לאפות אלא כן אם גורפו, מותר. דביתהו דרבי חייא נפל לה אריחא בתנורא ביומא טבא. אמר לה רבי חייא: חזי דאנא רפתא מעלייתא בעינא.
And one may not shovel out an oven or a double oven. Rav Hiyya bar Yosef taught in the presence of Rav Nahman: But if s/he is unable to bake unless s/he shovels it out, it is permitted. Rabbi Hiyya’s wife dropped half a brick into the oven on a festival day. Rabbi Hiyya said to her: See, I prefer good bread.
ברתי' דר' חייה רבה אתת מיפה גו תנור'. אשכח' כיפה בגויה. אתת שאלת לאבוה'. א"ל: איזלין גרפין. אמרה: ליכה יכלה. א"ל: איזלין כבשין. ידעה הוות, אלא דהוות בעיא מישמע מן אבוה.
The daughter of Rabbi Hiyya the Great, went to bake in an oven [on a festival day]. She found a stone in it. She went to her father to ask him. He said: Go and shovel out [the oven]. She said: I cannot. He said to her: Go and fetch it. [In fact] she knew [what had to be done] but she wanted to hear it from her father.
@Manuscript evidence
דביתהו
his wife: MS Cambridge – T-S NS 329.162 reads: אמתיה (his female slave).
@General observations
In the Mishnah the raking out of an oven on a festival day is forbidden. Yet, the gemara permits this practice, stating that bread bakes better once the oven is raked out.
@Feminist observations
The Mishnah prohibited the act of shovelling out an oven or a double oven. It did not say who performed this labor, but rather spoke in the masculine plural form to make a general statement. The gemara then records that this labor was performed by women. A further example of a woman raking out an oven is given in bHag 4b-5a, where the angel of death comes to take a woman while she is cleaning and sweeping out an oven.
The gemara in bBets 32b records an incident where a brick fell into the oven of Rabbi Hiyya’s wife. In contrast, the Yerushalmi version reports the same story about Rabbi Hiyya’s daughter, and in the Cambridge MS of the Bavli the raking out of an oven was performed by a female slave. In any case, the woman, closely associated with a male rabbi, knew exactly the mishnaic ruling; otherwise she would not have asked the rabbi whether she could rake it out. The Yerushalmi explicitly states that the woman knew what she had to do, while the Bavli only records the permission that Rabbi Hiyya gave to shovel out the oven. Throughout rabbinic literature, Rabbi Hiyya is often mentioned in connection with learned women.[1] However, his words are very similar to the words of Rav Yosef mentioned above (see Bavli 3/6, bBetsah 29a-b). Therefore, we have to assume that a literary format was applied in both cases, since both refer to the act of a woman who knows the halakhic requirements, but, nevertheless, needs the permission of a rabbi or male relative to perform it. The gemara’s discussion is once again based on women’s actions and on daily routine problems that could have occurred while carrying them out. Although, according to the gemara, in every instance the woman knew how to deal with the problem on her own, her action was only considered reliable and trustworthy when the solution to the problem was endorsed by a famous rabbi or by a male relative.
Furthermore, one may observe that the rabbi’s daughter/wife/female slave is nameless, whereas the male authority is always named. In the words of Wendy Zierler, the space occupied by rabbis’ daughters or relatives is “border space.”[2] Yet, despite their nameless status, these women were still evoked in order to demonstrate the correct female behavior as proof of the integrity and righteousness of their fathers or husbands.[3]