As the founding text of Rabbinic Judaism, the Talmud is a work written by rabbis for rabbis. On the rare occasion when we encounter a woman in its pages, she is often marginal and almost always anonymous, the wife, mother, or daughter of an eminent sage. The Madwoman in the Rabbi’s Attic explores the stories of the exceptions, the six named heroines of the Talmud: Yalta the shrew, Homa the femme fatale, Marta the prima donna, Heruta the madonna/whore, Beruria the overreacherix, and Ima Shalom the angel in the house. 

As their epithets suggest, every one of these women appears to embody an anti-feminist archetype, a derisive caricature of a bad woman. Yet in each case, a careful, sensitive rereading reveals that there is a lot more to the story than initially meets the eye; that the heroine is far more complex than she first seems; and that the rabbis had rather surprising – so as not to say proto-feminist – views of marriage, sex, childbirth, and what it means to be a woman in the world. In presenting us with archetypes that systematically break down, the Talmud imparts profound moral teachings about how to read the characters of a text and, ultimately, how to regard the people in our lives.