Introduction

In the beginning was inclusiveness, and the midrash says so:

Amidst all this axing and circumscription, women go unnoticed. But to infer from this silence that the Mekhilta meant to allow for Aaronide priestesses is probably wishful thinking. More likely, women were simply ‘off the radar’. On the other hand, we must not forget those rabbinic texts such as Sifra to Lev 17:6 that quite explicitly sanction women officiating at the bamot. Now according to the Mishnah (Zev. 14:4–8), bamot enjoyed intermittent legitimacy prior to the centralization of the cult in the Solomonic temple. Without using the word bamot, our Mekhilta citation says as much: “[B]efore Jerusalem was chosen the entire land of Israel was eligible for altars”.