Queens and Hakhel ceremonies
Shalom and thank you for your question. You wish to know if a Jewish queen could have performed the Hakhel ceremony. It is a timely question since we are fast approaching the Hakhel year! The Hakhel year will begin G-d willing in less than a month. I have not been able to find a definite answer to your question, however, the likelihood is that in a Hakhel year, the Queen’s brother, Rabbi Shimeon ben Shetach, who the queen managed to bring back to Israel after he had had to flee from Alexander Yannai’s wrath against the sages, would have led the ceremony. Maimonides teaches that when there is no king, the leader of the Sanhedrin or the high priest could lead the Hakhel ceremony. For reasons of modesty a woman does not read from the Torah. This in no way negates a woman’s level or knowledge or understanding, or her intrinsic value and contribution to society. Indeed Shlomtzion was a wise and beloved Queen, and widely acknowledged as such. Nevertheless, leaders must be an example of the values they espouse. Shlomtzion stood up for Jewish values as you probably know, doing whatever she could to restore Rabbinic influence to the nation after the damage her second husband Alexander Yannai caused by wiping out many of the sages.
Today it is sometimes hard for people to understand and relate to the idea that there is something immodest about a woman singing in front of a mixed audience for example. Efforts have been made in Western society to break down all societal norms relating to gender roles, to the point where gender itself is questioned. Male, female, undecided…
I recall an incident in my youth where a petite and talented young woman was singing to a mixed audience. Being short, she was standing on a platform so that she could be seen and heard. A ‘gentleman’ who was present simply swiped her off the platform and hugged her. She had been exploring her Jewish roots and learning about Torah and mitzvot. After that incident during her performance, the young woman was quite traumatized and she confided in me that she would no longer perform for mixed audiences.
Both men and women are enjoined to be modest, as the prophet Michah 6:8 says: “It has been told to you O man what is good and what the L-rd your G-d requires of you, for it is to do justice and love kindness and walk modestly with your G-d”. Modesty has different aspects to it, and manifests differently in different situations. There is spiritual humility and there is intellectual modesty, as well as modesty in external covering and behavior. The Torah requires both men and women to be modestly covered, and both men and women should cultivate humility and intellectual modesty, knowing that we alone do not achieve our accomplishments, but rather G-d gives us our genetic make-up, our strengths, talents and circumstances, and what is totally ours is the choice we make in each situation of how to use all those resources that G-d gives us. Additionally the Torah gives us certain boundaries to our behaviour, and there are different roles for different people.
Rabbi Y.Y. Jabcobson, famous scholar and lecturer, was asked why the stories in the Bible are all about men? What about the women? His answer was along the following lines: “I don’t know which Bible YOU read, but in the Bible I read, all the big decisions were made by women, some of them good and some not (seemingly not good.)” He then proceeded to give some examples. Firstly Eve was responsible for Adam’s eating the forbidden fruit, which resulted in their being evacuated from the Garden of Eden, bringing about a world of struggle between good and evil. Rebecca decided that Jacob deserved Isaacs blessings as opposed to Esau (because he would use them for the good,) and encouraged him to dress in Esau’s clothes and receive the blessings. Joseph was thrown into prison because of Potiphar’s wife and as a result ended up interpreting Pharoah’s dreams and being appointed viceroy of Egypt. Pharoah’s evil decree of throwing the Jewish baby boys into the NIle was eventually overturned by three women, the two Jewish midwives Shifra and Puah (Yocheved and Miriam – mother and sister of Moses,) who refused to kill the babies despite Pharoah’s instructions to do so; and Pharoah’s own daughter Batya (or Bitya) (who had gone down to the Nile to purify herself of the Egyption idol worship and seek to connect to the real G-d,) who reached out and drew Moses out of the water. (Upon witnessing the miracles of the splitting of the sea Miriam led the women in song and dance with tambourines.) In Miriam’s merit the Jewish people had a well wherever they traveled in the desert. I will add to this list that when Moses asked for contributions of gold and silver for the construction of the sanctuary, the women rushed to contribute and the men followed them until Moses had to ask them to stop. Those were the very same women who did not participate in the sin of the Golden Calf. Later (in the book of Joshua) when Joshua sent spies to scout out the land of Israel according to G-d’s instructions, it was the woman Rahab who provided the spies with the information they needed and hid them so that they would not be discovered, thus enabling them to succeed in their mission. Later on in the books of the prophets there are many women who were heroines and also prophets, such as the Judge Deborah, (Judge at that time meant spiritual leader and involved teaching Torah to the people,) Abigail whose wisdom saved King David, Jael, Judith, the prophetess Hulda, and so many more. Let’s not forget Queen Esther either. The common denominators in most of the above events is that the women had a pivotal role in the development of the Jewish people, and they did so in a way that differs from the way men do things, usually.
We are living in an era where the trend is increasingly to expect men and women to behave in the same way and dress in the same way, even though scientifically it is now known that male and female brains are wired differently, and in other ways men and women are different. We see that Queen Shlomtzion managed to have a profound effect on her subjects and achieve peace and prosperity for her people while adhering to Torah principles. She did not lose out because of them.
We hope this has been helpful!
