Gender Differences in Torah Education

The tannaitic rabbis believed that it was the duty of Jewish fathers to speak with their sons in Hebrew and to teach them Torah from an early age. Because Aramaic was the spoken language of Roman Palestine, few Jews would have been able to understand Hebrew, as indicated by rabbinic references to the need for ad hoc translators (meturgemanim) from Hebrew to Aramaic in synagogues. The inability to understand Hebrew would have seriously undermined popular knowledge of the Bible. This Sifre Deuteronomy text refers to oral instruction rather than to study based on a written text. Many rabbis seem to have considered girls’ Torah education less important than that of boys, but there was not unanimity. While some rabbis were in favor of teaching girls Torah texts that would instruct them in sexual propriety, others categorically rejected Torah education for daughters. Girls’ actual knowledge of Torah would have varied, ultimately depending on parental learning and attitudes toward girls’ education. Girls were probably introduced by their mothers to customary practices associated with women, such as kashrut and menstrual purity, whereas fathers would introduce boys to religious laws geared toward men.