In this personal critique, Lauren Kramer challenges the traditional custom of singing Eishet Chayil to the woman of the house on Friday night. She claims that the words are outdated and that they present an unrealistic and absurd portrayal of the ideal woman, to whom she does not relate. Kramer, a professional writer, writes a monthly column titled "Married with Kids" for the Canadian Jewish News.
Happy to Skip Eshet Chayil
At my friend’s Shabbat dinner table a few weeks ago, her husband broke into a solo version of Eshet Chayil (Woman of Valour, Proverbs, Chapter 31). Not sure where to look, I kept my eyes downcast, sharing a conspiratorial smile with my spouse.
I don’t recall ever having been serenaded, but were I able to choose, Eshet Chayil wouldn’t be my first choice of song. This is a proverb that gets my back up each time I hear it. It’s the nuances of the song that bother me, or rather, its direct translation. Eshet Chayil just makes no sense to me. It paints the portrait of a woman who does not exist, who possibly never has. The woman described in Eshet Chayil is a selfless slave. One hand on the distaff, the other on the spindle, the tasks she performs are utterly outdated and have no meaning in the context of our present day reality.
What’s more, they border on the ridiculous. Our Eshet Chayil plants a vineyard and rations her maids. Since when is maid rationing an action to be lauded? She buys a field, makes and sells her own clothes and “girds her loins,” roughly translated as preparing herself for a task requiring endurance. That task can only be the lifestyle described in the song.
Our Eshet Chayil is never allowed to rest. Instead she must make her own bedspreads, deliver a belt to the pedlar and clothe her family. While her husband can sit with the elders (the emphatic word here being “sit”), the woman this proverb describes may never “eat the bread of idleness” or spend time and effort on making herself feel beautiful. Nope, that would be vain, and anyway, she has too much to do between anticipating household needs, decking herself out in purple wool and linen, helping the poor and destitute and burning the midnight oil. Even sleep she denies herself!
So here are my questions – Why do we sing about this phantom woman? How does this song celebrate modern couples today and their distribution of labour, and if it doesn’t, why are folks still singing it?
Rabbinical scholars argue that it’s not to be taken literally, that the Eshet Chayil represents the feminine presence of God. Others argue that its meaning must be taken in context of the Masoretic text, the traditional Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible, preceded by instructions the mother of King Lemuel gives to her son. Maybe the proverb was Lemuel’s eulogy to his mother. Still, that doesn’t help me understand why it’s sung at contemporary Shabbat tables and what meaning it holds for today’s Jewish women.
Praise I’m okay with. I think women get way less of that than they deserve. And particularly on a Friday night, before the family feasts on a three-course dinner, a little praise is a good thing. But the words of praise are just as important as the praise itself and Eshet Chayil feels prehistoric and by today’s standards, simply absurd.
So there’ll be no renditions of Eshet Chayil at my table. You’ll say I’m too literal, but I believe the woman of valour described in this proverb doesn’t describe me or anyone else I know, nor does it present a realistic set of goals for anyone to aspire to. Until a more meaningful Shabbat song is composed to describe a contemporary woman of valour, I’m quite comfortable to go un-serenaded.
Even if that means forfeiting praise completely.