Time in the Teachings of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi

C
HAPTER 
5 
1. Reading Gender in Rashaz’s Writings 
The issue of gender in Hasidism came to the attention of scholarship through S. A. 
Horodecky, who claimed in his book that Hasidism had brought about full equality 
of Jewish men and women in the field of spirituality.
1
His thesis remained 
undisputed until relatively recently, when it was reviewed and rejected by Ada 
Rapoport-Albert.
2
Contrary to Horodecky’s claims, Hasidism was not more inclusive 
of women than any non-hasidic orthodox stream of Judaism: it neither improved 
women’s position in the community, nor included them in the ethos of Torah 
scholarship, nor enabled them to ascend to leadership positions; the only stream of 
Judaism that actually sought to overturn the androcentric 
status quo
was the heretical 
movement of Sabbatai Tsevi.
3
However, the change in the role of women that 
Hasidism in its formative years never envisaged did begin to take shape in the 
twentieth century, when the challenges to the hasidic communities posed by the 
processes of modernity encouraged some of their leaders to consider the possibility 
of harnessing women to their cause. In particular, the activity of the last two leaders 
of the Habad-Lubavitch movement, Yosef Yitshak Schneerson and Menahem 
Mendel Schneerson, placed Habad in the vanguard of the process of creating space 
for women in the hasidic model of spirituality.
4
Whether the particular interest of contemporary Habad in the role of women 
is an expression of ideological continuity or change remains an open question.
5
The 
1
Horodecky, 
Ha-hasidut
, iv, 65-71. 
2
See Rapoport-Albert, “On Women in Hasidism,” and eadem, “The Emergence,” 7*-14*. For an 
attempt to attenuate Rapoport-Albert’s argument, see Polen, “Miriam’s Dance”. For Rapoport-
Albert’s rejoinder to Nechemia Polen’s article, see “The Emergence,” 11* n. 12. 
3
Rapoport-Albert, 
Women and the Messianic Heresy,
12. 
4
See Rapoport-Albert, “On Women in Hasidism,” 508-09 and 523 n. 82; eadem, “From Woman as 
Hasid,” 447-73 and “The Emergence,” 44*-51*; Loewenthal, “Daughter/Wife,” 21*-28*; idem, 
“Women and the Dialectic,” 42*-65*. 
5
Loewenthal (“Women and the Dialectic,” 8*) argues in favour of continuity, claiming that the 
development of the role of Habad women in the twentieth century was motivated by the spiritual 
concept of “Lower Unity,” which was present in Habad thought from its inception. See also 

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208 
Rashaz’s own written lore provides little indication of how he envisaged the role of 
women. His teachings, sermons and letters were intended for a male audience, and as 
such they dealt predominantly with matters relevant to their spiritual welfare. His 
halakhic work 
Hilekhot talmud Torah
did advocate that women should study Torah, 
albeit within a limited scope,
6
yet neither was this innovative, nor did it result in any 
organized framework for women’s Torah education.
7
Moreover, the manuscripts of 
his sermons, prepared by his Hasidim, were subjected to extensive editing, which 
makes it impossible to determine what he actually said and what was changed, 
deleted or added by various editors.
8
Besides, topical references were often removed 
as irrelevant in the process of writing down, translating from the vernacular into 
Hebrew, and editing the sermons.
9
One can therefore assume that any direct 
references to women that Rashaz may have made in his oral communications would 
have been edited out of their written renditions as being of little significance to their 
male transcribers and readers. In general, the early Habad materials are much more 
abstract and detached from the social reality of their time than the materials left by 
the last Lubavitcher Rebbe, which, in addition to his formal discourses