דבורה פסטג Devorah Fastag

Free Monograph: ‘The Moon’s Lost Light’ (Devorah Fastag)

INTRODUCTION

There have been many good books written about the woman’s role in Judaism. If the reader is uninitiated I highly recommend reading them, for they give important insights into this issue. This work, however, has a different purpose. It is meant to answer the following questions:

Why do women sometimes appear to have a secondary position in Judaism?

Why are there some rabbinical descriptions of women that don’t seem to correspond to the reality we know?

Why is it that until the modern era Jewish women had more rights and respect than women in other societies, yet now the situation seems to have been reversed; Western society endorses total gender equality, while Torah society has been placed on the defensive?

The reader might find the conclusions presented here surprising and unusual, but, I hope, also truthful and inspiring. They are based on information drawn from the deeper dimension of Torah; Targum Yonasan, Kli Yakar, the Vilna Gaon, Sfas Emes, Michtav MeEliyahu, and many others. Here are found many secrets behind the changes of the modern era, the turbulent pre-messianic period known in Chazal as ikvesa deMeshicha.

Some people reading this book have described it as speaking of women’s changing roles, but I wouldn’t put it that way. Women were meant to be the bayis, the life and spirit of the Jewish home, and that is just as true today as it ever was. What this book speaks of is women’s enriched role. As explained within, woman was created on a very high spiritual level, but she subsequently lost part of her light. That great light will return in messianic times. To get an idea of what this means, imagine Sarah Imeinu. Chazal tell us that she was a sage and a prophetess on a very high level, but that in no way diminished her role as wife and mother.

If this sounds complicated, well, it is somewhat. This book was not written for people who think that Hashem must give them instant gratification. It is meant to help sincere Jews who want true answers to these questions.

There is a lot of information condensed into this small work, and much of it might be new to the reader. I therefore hope you will have the patience to go through it carefully so that important points won’t be missed, or worse yet, misunderstood.

What is written here is not meant to serve as a practical guide, nor does it in any way propose to influence halachah. Its purpose is to provide understanding to enable us to accept Hashem’s Torah with love, as it says in the blessing before the Shma: “And give our hearts understanding to understand and to have intelligence, to hear, to learn, and to teach, to guard and to do and to uphold all the words of Your Torah with love.”

It is my fervent hope that the following essay will help towards that goal.

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Reprinted with permission.