
Mourning with the daughters of Israel
“So there arose an Israelite custom that for four days every year the daughters of Israel would go out to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.” Judges 11:39b-40 In the Bible in the book of Judges there is a story of a man named Jephthah, who in his rashness makes a vow to God, a vow that God never asked him to make, which results in the death of his daughter. We do not know his daughter’s name. According to the Judges 11 and midrash, she was a wise woman. She was a