Wisdom of females, Wisdom is female (San 5)

Jill, your wonderful post got me thinking, obviously our orthodox friend on the train hasn't read today's daf.  In it we see Rav (important 2nd century Rabbi) introduced as the R. Chiya's sister's son (even though his is also his brother's son - more on this below).  To complicate matters, they introduced his brother Rabbah Bar Chanah as R. Chiya's brother' s son. So why the discrepancy? Why introduce one brother through the male lineage and one through a female?  To understand this, we have to look at R. Chiya's interesting pedigree.

Here's what Imrei Binah explains:

Abba bar Acha Karsala was a widower with a son, Aivo, and he married a widow with a daughter. [Aivo and that daughter were thus not related]. R. Chiya was born of this second marriage of Abba bar Acha and the widow. Eventually R. Chiya's half-brother, Aivo married the half sister of R. Chiya (since they were not actually related, but only stepbrother and stepsister), and Rav was their child. Thus, Rav was the son of R. Chiya's half brother as well as the song of his-half sister. Rabbah bar Chanah was a child of Chanah who was R. Chiya full brother. Rabbah's grandparents were Abba bar Acha Karsala and the widow.

If this is confusing that's ok. I had to read it 3 or 4 times before I got it. Move over Brady bunch, this is much more interesting!

The point here is not the lineage but that because Rav was both the son of R. Chiya's sister and brother he could have chosen either label (brother's son or sister's son). So why choose to link him with the sister? Because, the Talmud explains, women are a sign of wisdom. By linking Rav to Chiya's sister, Chiya is alluding to Rav's supperior wisdom.

This got me thinking, why is wisdom is always linked to females? Why is it that in Proverbs, Wisdom is always personified as female? Why is that when God communicates to the Rabbis, she does it through a Bat Kol (a feminine noun that we can define as a divine echo)? The easy answer is that my fiancee is always right, but there has to be something more to this!

Here's one thought. Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (the RaMChal) one wrote that the process that we know as chochmah (wisdom) takes place on the left side of the brain. In his view, this side of the brain deals with kindness, mercy and most of all judgement. This holds up to our modern understanding of the brain. Left-brain people are more rational by nature.

So what does this have to do with anything? Maybe our train gawker needs a little bit of that female chochmah to beef up his judgment and energize his kindness. Or else maybe he just needs to real Jill's post. COME ON DUDE, DIDN'T YOUR MOTHER TEACH YOU BETTER THAN THAT?

You go Jill!