Rabbi Eliezer and the Wise Woman’s Question

The Gemara relates (Yoma 66b) that a wise woman asked Rebbe Eliezer: Since all the people that worshipped the Golden Calf committed a serious sin, why do we find that they received different punishments? Some were killed by the sword. Others died in a plague. Yet others died as a result of a sickness caused by ingesting water mixed with the ashes of the Golden Calf. Rebbe Eliezer answered, “There is no wisdom for women except in the spindle, as the verse says (Sh’mos 35:25), ‘And all the women that were wise-hearted spun with their hands.’”

This enigmatic exchange followed a series of other cryptic exchanges between Rebbe Eliezer and his students. The commentators offer wildly different interpretations of those exchanges. In this instance also, explanations vary greatly among the commentators. Rabbi Yitzchak Eliyahu Landau (1801–1876) offers the following explanation: Why is the woman referred to as wise in the beginning of the exchange? In Pirkei Avos (4:1) we learn: Who is wise? Ha’roeh es ha’nolad—one who sees consequences of actions. The woman was asking Rebbe Eliezer, it is true that people served the Golden Calf in different ways, but they all caused a public chillul Hashem. Does it make a difference if one slaughtered a sacrifice to it or merely hugged it? Both lend validity to the Golden Calf, which besmirches the honor of Hashem. The consequences of both actions are the same. The very question the woman asked demonstrated that she was wise because she was able to view a situation from the perspective of seeing actions for their consequences.