Eschet chayil

As I continue with my recovering conservative reading list, I have been working my way through Rachel Held Evans' books. I find her ability to give voice to what has been going round in my head to be both comforting and informative. I recommend her writings if you are not familiar with them. 

Today's post isn't so much on that topic, though it comes from one of her books. Instead it is about a different way to read Proverbs 31. Now, if you have read here for any length of time, you know I wrestle with this section of the Bible a lot. This is why I find this passage from A Year of Biblical Womanhood by Rachel Held Evans to be... freeing. This is a little long, but I think it is well worth your time.

"After a few emails back and forth, I asked Ahava [a Jewish woman in Israel with whom Ms. Evans is corresponding] if Jewish women struggle as much as Christian women to live up to the Proverbs 31 ideal. For the first time in our correspondence, Ahava seemed a bit perplexed:

Here's the thing. Christians seem to think that because the Bible is inspired, all should be taken literally. Jews don't do this. Even though we take the Torah literally (all 613 commandments!), the rest is seen differently, as a way of understanding our Creator, rather than direct commands. Take Proverbs 31, for example. I get called eshet chayil (a valorous woman) [what the woman is titled in the first verse, some translations use virtuous woman] all the time. Make your own challah instead of buying? Eshet chayil! Work to earn some extra money for the family? Eshet chayil! Make balloon animals for the kids at Shul? Eshet chayil! Every week at the Shabbat table, my husband sings the Proverbs 31 poem to me. It's special because I know that no matter what I do or don't do, he praises me for blessing the family with my energy and creativity. All women can do that in their own way. I bet you do as well.

I looked into this, and sure enough, in Jewish culture it is not the women who memorize Proverbs 31, but the men. Husbands commit each line of the poem to memory, so they can recite it to their wives at the Sabbath meal, usually in a song.

"Eshet chayil mi yimtza v'rachok mip'ninim michrah," they sing in the presence of their children and guests. "A valorous woman, who can find? Her value is far beyond pearls."

Eschet chayil is at its core a blessing -- one that was never meant to be earned, but to be given, unconditionally.

"It's like their version of, 'You go, girl!' I explained to Dan [her husband] at the dinner table that night, glowing from the nerdy high of learning a foreign sounding phrase.

"How do you say it again?" he asked?

"E-shet-hi-yil," I responded with my stubborn Southern accent and all the confidence of someone who has no idea what she is talking about. "You say the h from the back of your throat."

"Yeah, I'm not going to remember that," he said. "What does it mean exactly?"

"It means 'woman of valor.'"

"Well, that's what you are to me," Dan said. "You're a woman of valor!"

My heart swelled in my chest, as it would again and again in the months to come as Dan found ways to invoke the new blessing in the midst of our daily routines. When my blog sold enough ads to become profitable, he looked up from the computer, smiled, and declared, "Woman of valor!" When I stumbled through the front door after a long day with nothing but takeout pizza to show for dinner, he stretched out his arms in absolute delight and cried, "Pizza? Woman of valor!"

It's amazing what a little poetry can do for a marriage.

Ahava said that women use the blessing to encourage one another as well, so I started trying it out with friends, family, and readers. Sure enough, it caught on. When Tiffany's pharmacy aced its accreditation, I congratulated her with a hearty Eshet chayil! When Amanda beat out a million applicants for the job she wanted in North Carolina, I called her up and shouted, "Woman of valor!" When a fellow blogger went on national television to speak boldly again child abuse in fundamentalist churches, I sent her an email with the subject line Eshet chayil! When I learned three women had won the Nobel Peace Prize, I shared the news with my readers in a blog post entitled "Meet Three Women of Valor."

...

As I saw how powerful and affirming the ancient blessing could be, I decided it was time for Christian women to take back Proverbs 31.  ... We abandoned the meaning of the poem by focusing on the specifics, and it became just another impossible standard by which to measure our failures. We turned an anthem into an assignment, a poem into a job description. 

But according to Ahava, the woman described in Proverbs 31 is not some ideal that exists out there; she is present in each one of us when we do even the smallest things with valor." (pp 88-90)

I hope you find this to be as refreshing as I do. Both because of the blessing aspect but also because of how it can be used for women to support one another. When did we become so cut throat? From mean girls in school to competitive parenting or homemaking or whatever, we are constantly measuring ourselves against each other, sometimes going to the extreme to beat each other down in order that we can look better ourselves. How much better it would be if we could focus on each other's small (and large truimphs) exclaiming Eshet chayil! in response. Not only would we be blessing others but we would each become more secure and confident because we would know that instead of competitiveness we would be met with support. 

So Eshet chayil! to all my readers for your valor in loving your families, navigating tough times, keeping things running, and the bravery of getting out of bed every morning.