In a 2005 lecture on Deuteronomy 31, Dennis Prager says: “I don’t think there is a text dated anywhere near the text of the Torah that is so egalitarian in its depiction of women. It’s about as unsexist a text. Some things later in Jewish life became more sexist than the Torah.
“We have this belief that we progress. I was raised with this. That there is an inevitable progression in moral thought.
“That’s why people believe the prophets are more elevated than the Torah, which I do not believe. That is the common belief that you go from this tribal God of vengeance in the Torah to this universal God of justice and compassion in the prophets and as things move on, they get better.
“There was a time in Christian life where it continued. And God got even better in the New Testament. And then Islam said God got even better in the Koran. And then God got even better in the book of Mormon.
“If God gets better, it isn’t God. It’s just human creations of God.”
“I’ve always rejected this notion that God improves as you go along later in the Bible. Jews have believed this, not traditional Jews, but Jewish scholars, who tend to be liberal.”
“I realized in college that the attempt to depict the Torah as sexist was part of an overall campaign to undermine religious values in the West. There is no truth to it.
“If you want to tell me there is sexism in the Talmud. There’s a rabbi in the Talmud who says do not speak too much to a woman, even your wife.
“That’s sexist. You’re wasting your time talking to your wife. You should be studying with men.”
