Would Hashem condescend to talk to a woman?

This deliberately provocative title is designed to possibly capture the essence of the dispute between a few medieval French exegetes. Was Sarah a prophetess? If so, greater than Avraham? That is what Rashi says:

12. And God said to Abraham, "Be not displeased concerning the lad and concerning your handmaid; whatever Sarah tells you, hearken to her voice, for in Isaac will be called your seed.		יב. וַיֹּאמֶר אֱ־לֹהִים אֶל אַבְרָהָם אַל יֵרַע בְּעֵינֶיךָ עַל הַנַּעַר וְעַל אֲמָתֶךָ כֹּל אֲשֶׁר תֹּאמַר אֵלֶיךָ שָׂרָה שְׁמַע בְּקֹלָהּ כִּי בְיִצְחָק יִקָּרֵא לְךָ זָרַע:
hearken to her voice: (to the voice of the holy spirit within her.) We learn from here that Abraham was inferior to Sarah in prophecy. — [from Exod. Rabbah 1:1, Tan. Shemoth 1]		שמע בקולה: למדנו שהיה אברהם טפל לשרה בנביאות:

This is indeed in Midrash Tanchuma on Shemot:

מה עשה ישמעאל? ש

כשהיה בן ט"ו שנה התחיל להביא צלם מן השוק והיה מצחק בו ועובדו, כמו שראה לאחרים,

מיד, ותרא שרה את בן הגר המצרית אשר ילדה לאברהם מצחק (בראשית כא). ואין צחוק האמור כאן, אלא עבודה כו"ם. שנאמר: וישב העם לאכול ושתו ויקומו לצחק (שמות לב).

מיד, ותאמר לאברהם גרש האמה וגו' שמא ילמוד בני אורחותיו.

מיד וירע הדבר מאד בעיני אברהם על אודות בנו, ויאמר אלוהים אל אברהם אל ירע בעיניך וגו' כל אשר תאמר אליך שרה שמע בקולה.

מכאן אתה למד שהיה אברהם טפל לשרה בנביאות.

מיד וישכם אברהם בבקר ויקח לחם וחמת מים וגו'.

So age-old tradition has it that Sarah was an even greater prophetess than Avraham was a prophet.

However, Ralbag decidedly does not appear to maintain that Sarah was a prophetess. For he says that in regard to Avraham, the messengers of Hashem (who were prophets) were not called prophets, for they were not sent to him, for he, Avraham, was a prophet. Presumably, then, there would be no need for an additional prophet to him. But they were sent to Sarah, and that is why they first asked after Sarah's whereabouts before delivering the message. The more than slight implication here is that Sarah was not a prophetess, certainly not on the level of Avraham.

And indeed, a bit later, when discussing that aspect of the narrative in which Hashem tells Avraham to hearken to everything Sarah tells him, Ralbag first gives a practical motivating factor to Sarah, and then states vehinei haya siba meiHashem yitbarach legaresh yishmael mei'al yitzchak shelo yilmad yitzchak mimaasav haraim, veyimna mipnei zeh shleimuto. Thus, this is a pretext. Hashem had His own purposes, which differed from those of Sarah, but in this particular instance they were in alignment.

As a matter of peshat, I prefer Ralbag over Rashi. While the pasuk can be interpreted hyperliterally to indicate a general instruction to listen to all of Sarah's words -- after all, the pasuk states כֹּל אֲשֶׁר תֹּאמַר אֵלֶיךָ שָׂרָה שְׁמַע בְּקֹלָהּ -- almost certainly the peshat is that he should listen to everything Sarah says in this particular instance.

Though I don't believe Hashem is agreeing with the disenfranchisement. For while He says כִּי בְיִצְחָק יִקָּרֵא לְךָ זָרַע, the next pasuk is וְגַם אֶת בֶּן הָאָמָה לְגוֹי אֲשִׂימֶנּוּ כִּי זַרְעֲךָ הוּא.

Maybe one is the yerusha of Eretz Yisrael and the other is the yerusha of other lands. So perhaps Hashem agrees with this plan of Sarah's in terms of primary inheritance.

But if Hashem does not appear to agree with the idea of disenfranchisement, then there must be some other purpose in play. And that is keeping Yitzchak away from evil influences. And indeed, the pasuk itself, besides the fairly ambiguous metzachek, later states that Yishmael is to be a pere adam. So Ralbag does appear to make more peshat-sense.

There is also Rabbi Yosef Ibn Caspi, a contemporary of Ralbag, says. The pasuk in the beginning of Vayera states:

יג וַיֹּאמֶר ה', אֶל-אַבְרָהָם: לָמָּה זֶּה צָחֲקָה שָׂרָה לֵאמֹר, הַאַף אֻמְנָם אֵלֵד--וַאֲנִי זָקַנְתִּי.

13 And the LORD said unto Abraham: 'Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying: Shall I of a surety bear a child, who am old?

and upon this pasuk, Ibn Caspi writes:

לא אמר זה לשרה כי אין

לנכבד ולקדוש שידבר עם הנשים ולכן נשמרתי אני

מזה כל ימי

He {=Hashem} did not say this to Sarah because it is not fitting for the Honorable and Holy to speak with women. And therefore I was careful about this all my days.

Thus, it would not be fitting with Hashem's honor to condescend to talk to women.

I would say that this is a cultural attitude which Rabbi Yosef Ibn Caspi is reading into the text. And that one can argue with it.

However, I would note that only heretics may say this. It seems that is not acceptable, from a Torah-true approach to peshat (defined as the methodology of a particular Israeli seminary for post-high school students), to contradict a Rishon. To cite:

I can come up with a pshat that is plausible. But there are, nevertheless, limits to what would constitute a Torah true pshat. When we were encouraged in Michallah [sic] to interpret the texts for ourselves, we were still given certain limits. One was not to contradict a Rishon. Yes, people like Ibn Ezra did do it. But when approaching Torah, one have enough humility to recognize that the average Joe or Jill simply is not on the caliber of Ibn Ezra.

Thus, if I understand correctly, the "Torah-true", Michlala approach, is that we must accept whatever we see in Rishonim, Rabbi Yosef Ibn Caspi included. Therefore, we must accept that women are somehow inferior, and that Hashem would not condescend to speak to a mere woman. That would not befit His honor and His holiness.

Luckily, there is an "out" here, in that we can say it is a dispute, and that we side with Rashi, one Rishon, over Ibn Caspi, another. Of course, how is this humility, to think we are able to decide who is right amongst Rishonim, just because we like the conclusion better? (Unless this person meant that one was not to contradict Chazal, rather than any random Rishon? I am not certain.)

Or we could allegorize Ibn Caspi -- but it is fairly clear, via his application to his personal conduct, that he took this seriously and literally.

I would rather conclude that of course different Rishonim inject their own culture and their own personality into the text. Yet at the same time they are brilliant, and try and succeed to a great extent in explaining the meaning of the Biblical text, and fleshing out the various possibilities in interpreting the text. And their culture and their personalities are part of Jewish history and the development of Torah through the ages in different locales, and is thus valuable in its own right for that.

At the same time, I do think that certain feminist promotion of minor Biblical characters into people of extreme importance, on the basis of their being simultaneously female and Biblical, is misguided. It is a reading of our own values into the Biblical text. And we might take a lesson from this instance about the dangers of doing this.