Verführung zur Tora: das Konzept idealer Weiblichkeit in der rabbinischen Überlieferung zu Rabbi Akiba und seiner Frau

Abstract

This paper deals with the rabbinic material about the wife of Rabbi Akiba. It argues that especially in the Babylonian Talmud, Ketubot 62b-63a, a rabbinic concept of ideal femininity can be found. To develop this concept, the authors refer to Genesis 3, and the “seduction” of Akiba by his wife-to-be is depicted as a “seduction to Torah”. By means of this, Akiba’s wife also gets characteristics of the personified Torah respectively of the Biblical Lady Wisdom. But even though Akiba’s wife is described as an independent and autonomous woman in the end an expropriation discourse takes place and the (female) Wisdom surrenders to the (male) Torah. [1]