For He created people whole in body so that they can assist those who are miss-
ing limbs. Just as the infant is born and does not walk and his mother cares for all
his needs, so the Holy One, blessed be He finds them [the cripples] people who
will fulfill their needs. For all of Israel are fathers and mothers to each other as it
is said: “You stand this day all of you before the Lord your God—your tribal heads,
your elders and your officials, all the men of Israel, your children” (Deut. 29:9).
It does not say “and your children”; rather, it says “your children” without an
“and”—to teach us that you should consider all the people of Israel your own chil-
dren and tend to all their needs.^24This source points once again to women’s role in caring for infants. The same
idea is expressed in another source written by H·asidei Ashkenaz:
That is why a person is called a miniature world: because he resembles the whole
world, and in his wisdom he can rule and know all things created by his wisdom,
“because she was the mother of all the living” (Gen. 3:20) to provide for them and
lead them in wisdom, as a mother for her child.^25This devotion and subsequent responsibility is expressed in legal rulings as
well. Jewish laws convey this idea, for example, when discussing custody in
cases of divorce. According to the law, all children remain with their mothers
until age six, and girls always remain their mothers’ wards.^26 Other examples
have to do with smaller, more mundane details. For instance, certain laws of
the Sabbath assume that mothers were the main caretakers. For instance, a
mother is permitted to feed her child food that was prepared by hired help on
the Sabbath, although from a strictly legal standpoint, it would be preferable
to have the servants themselves feed the child. However, if the child insisted
that s/he would eat only if fed by the mother, the mother was permitted to do
so. In his Sefer Miz·vot Gadol (Semag), R. Moses of Couçy explains:
And if the infant does not have what to eat, he can tell the Canaanite to cook pap
[for the child] on the Sabbath. And if the child wants to be fed only by his mother,
the master from Couçy explained that the mother may feed it, even a milk dish
that was milked and cooked by the Canaanite on the Sabbath.^27Similar legal exceptions are made on Yom Kippur, in discussing the special
permission given to women to prepare food for their children and wash their
hands.^28 Another example of special permission given to women is that of
washing clothes soiled by children on the Sabbath.^29 Although in legal litera-
ture, general examples are usually addressed to men, all these instructions were
addressed specifically to women and, as such, can be seen to exclude men. In
addition, in a discussion of one of these halakhic topics, one of the legal au-
thorities comments that R. Isaac of Dampierre, who objected to allowing
women to wash the clothes of children soiled on the Sabbath, heard from the
women that R. Tam had allowed the practice.^30 This reference to women re-