If the Torah is an eternal document, how do we reconcile issues or topics that were written about in the Torah that do not seem to be in step with our modern day thinking? Women’s roles in society, slavery, or polygamy are a few of those possible topics.

Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits, in “Jewish Women in Time and Torah” offers a thoughtful suggestion. He writes: “If one considers the status of women as it emerges from these laws, mores, and opinions, one cannot help wondering: Is this Judaism? Is this Torah? How is all of this to be reconciled with Torah values and ideals? What happened to ‘And thou shalt love your fellow as yourself’ and to “Righteousness, righteousness, thou shalt pursue’?… Undoubtedly, the basic views and values that originally determined the status of women in Jewish society were not derived from the Torah, even though many of them were later given midrashic justification. They were Torah-tolerated because they could not be abolished with an act of Torah legislation. They had to be tolerated, but certain changes and differences were present which indicated that an entirely different system of values and teachings also existed…we have discovered the developing status of women as it passed through two different levels: the Torah-tolerated one and the Torah-guided and Torah-instructed one. On the first and lowest level, in the early man-built and man-maintained society, woman is not recognized as possessing her own personality. At this stage she is merely an impersonal adjunct to the male. It is the Torah-teaching that recognizes her in her own personal existence and establishes her human dignity in a world in which she has her own vitally important place because of her own life-related nature.”

Rabbi Berkovits asks us to view the written Torah as a document that is at all times operating on two levels that he refers to as Torah-tolerated and Torah-taught. He claims that the Torah was created in such a way that while it can tolerate less-than-ideal legal and ritual concepts, it simultaneously points toward certain norms which we are encouraged to pursue.

An example of this is the transition from polygamy to monogamy. The Torah tolerates polygamy. However, the Torah also teaches the importance of a man treating all of his wives equally. If he cannot do so, than he should not take more than one wife. The concession to polygamy could be considered a necessity, for the people for whom the Torah was first written in the era it was revealed. The Torah-taught concept of equal treatment for all of his wives makes it difficult to maintain a polygamous lifestyle. The ultimate prohibition in the 11th century, for Ashkenazim, can be considered to be a realization of the Torah’s ultimate vision.