Given the well-known penchant in the Jewish tradition to reply to a question with another question, I would respond to this question with the question, “What do we mean by Jewish kabbalah?” If the answer to that query is to be guided by historical precedent, then the answer is resoundingly negative. With virtually no exceptions, the circles of production and consumption of kabbalistic ideas and practices, whether through oral or written transmission, have been restricted to men with varying degrees of rabbinic learning. Attention is certainly paid to Jewish women in the teachings promulgated by kabbalists, and scholars can creatively extrapolate what the Jewish mystics thought about their mothers, daughters, and wives, but from a socio-cultural perspective there was no place for them in the exclusively male fraternities. If, however, the answer to the question about the role of women in Jewish kabbalah is about possibilities in the present and in the future engendered thereby, then the answer is surely positive. In a measure, this shift is part of the more active participation of women in the various denominations of Judaism with the notable exception of the ultraorthodox communities. To be sure, the catalyst for this increased egalitarianism can be explained without reference to the kabbalah; however, this major change in the sociological fabric of Jewish faith is congruent with the messianic potential of the kabbalistic assumption that in the ultimate unity to be achieved at the endtime, the indifference of infinity – the source whence all beings emerge and whither they return – there is neither male nor female. In this state, gender polarity is neutralised: there is neither male nor female because male and female are accorded equal status and not because the one is contained in the other.

Turning to the question of historical precedent, it must be said, as many scholars have noted, that one of the distinguishing features of the medieval kabbalah was the emphasis placed on the use of gender to characterise both the nature of the divine and the relationship of the human to the divine. The engendering myth undergirding the kabbalistic ruminations on gender construction is derived from the accounts of the creation of man and woman in the first two chapters of Genesis – stemming respectively from the Priestly and the Yahwist strata. The two narratives offer seemingly disparate perspectives.