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It's Phase 2 for female rabbis, says Amy Eilberg, who in 1985 became the first one in Judaism's Conservative branch.

(Reform Judaism ordained its first woman in 1972 and Reconstructionism followed in 1974; Orthodox Judaism has only male rabbis.)

In Phase 1, Eilberg says, the women needed to "play by the rules defined by the majority" to achieve equality, so they suppressed their "dangerous" uniqueness to demonstrate legitimacy. But in Phase 2, women should no longer force themselves to "imitate stereotypically male styles and standards."

That includes re-reading the Bible through feminist eyes, Eilberg asserts in a foreword to "The Women's Torah Commentary" (Jewish Lights, 474 pages, $34.95). It's a compendium of female rabbis' interpretations of Judaism's standard weekly readings from the Torah, the Bible's first five books. The editor is Rabbi Elyse Goldstein, director of a Reform adult education center in Toronto.

Notably, the 58 contributors get a lot of ammunition from ancient male sages and their imaginative elaborations on biblical texts. For instance, one tradition says that only the men of Israel, and not the women, fell into idolatry by worshipping the golden calf in the wilderness (Exodus 32).

The book's leadoff topic, unsurprisingly, is Eve, who is treated by Rabbi Lori Forman, a pioneer Conservative female rabbi and an official with New York City's Jewish federation.

The man and woman are made simultaneously in Genesis 1, writes Forman, but in Genesis 2 the woman seems an "afterthought," formed from Adam's "rib." But some Talmudic rabbis said that word also means "side," implying that the original

PLEASE SEE Female, Page 8D

human being of Genesis 1 was bisexual and the genders originated when God separated two equal halves in Genesis 2.

Jewish mystics took that a step further, suggesting that when men and women fall in love they express a primeval desire to reunite these two divided aspects.

Eve is often portrayed as an empty-headed wife who all too willingly fell into sin, or as the cunning seductress who lured Adam. "These ugly views of Eve have paved the way for all Western religious traditions to denigrate women," Forman says, perhaps more in Christianity than Judaism.

Forman rejects Jewish traditions that implicated Eve in sin more than Adam. Her reasoning: Adam heard Eve's discussion with the snake, didn't intervene then or when Eve ate the forbidden fruit, and had no hesitation about eating it himself. No female seduction, no pleading, no temper tantrum. And the God of the Bible held Adam and Eve equally guilty, punishing and banishing both.

More radically, the rabbi holds up Eve as an exemplar of adventure and curiosity, against Jewish tradition that sees her as simply disobeying God. "Without Eve's boldness, human history as we know it would never have come to pass," she says. Women should recast Eve as the woman who reached for "what was good, pleasant and intellectually empowering."

Similar ideas of a "fortunate fall" are found among liberal Christians, and the Mormon religion teaches a patriarchal version, turning Adam from a flawed figure into a spiritual hero second only to Jesus Christ.

Other unconventional thoughts from the women:

Rabbi Rona Shapiro of Brooklyn, N.Y., says Abraham is traditionally praised for his willingness to obey God even to the point of sacrificing his son Isaac. But she considers Sarah "the greater hero," supposing that she believed "God could not, would not, command such an act and that any God who issued such a command must be rejected."

Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt for looking backward while fleeing Sodom. Rabbi Cynthia Culpeper of Birmingham, Ala., declares her innocent, arguing that God commanded only Lot not to look back. She also suggests that the wife looked back for a good reason, admonishing her daughters not to forget their hometown heritage.

Rabbi Rebecca Alpert, who teaches at Philadelphia's Temple University, says the name of Moses' wife Tziporah means "bird," and imagines that Tziporah worshipped a pagan goddess in the form of a bird. Though Moses followed the one God of Israel, Alpert thinks the multicultural spouses heard the same divine voice.