Deborah dwelt in the city of Ataroth. She was independently wealthy; she owned palm trees in Jericho, orchards in Ramah, oil-producing olives in Beth-El, and white earth in Tur Malka (Targum Shoftim 4:5).

In the Song of Deborah, the women preceded the men, because here the redemption came through women: Deborah and Jael (Lekach Tov, Shemos 15:20).

If a prophet is haughty, his prophecy departs from him. We learn this from Deborah. After she boasted, "Until I arose, Deborah" (Judges 5:7), her prophecy departed, and she cried, "Awake, awake, Deborah!" (Judges 5:12) (Pesachim 66b).

Deborah, the wife of Lappidoth, was a prophetess, and a judge of Israel. And under a palm tree she sat hearing the cases of the Israelites. She had the trappings of a good life: capital, career, and a healthy partnership. It was a marriage that had all the earmarks of modernity, although scholars date the period of Judges to the twelfth century B.C.E.

As Ayn Rand might ask: Who was Deborah? Not only is she unique as a woman prophetess and judge, but she is also seen as "a mother in Israel" (Judges 5:7). Thus, she is an amalgam of Judaismís view of traditional motherhood (rendered in Chapter 31 of Proverbs - "The Woman of Valor") and the independent woman who seemed, without Biblical precedent, to invent herself along the way.

And what a way it was. When Israel is threatened by a Canaanite adversary, Deborah enlists the generalship of Barak, who "discomfits" Sisera and his legions. With the prescience of the difficulties to be faced by every generation of women seeking recognition for their accomplishments, Deborah admonishes Barak before the campaign, saying: "The journey thatney that thou takest shall not be for thy honor; for the Lord will give Sisera over into the hand of a woman" (Judges 4:9). This becomes a literal truth as Jael, prefiguring the slaying of Holofernes by Judith, slays Sisera, who mistakenly takes refuge in her tent.

Barak triumphs and joins his friend, the Judge, in an antiphonal song. Unfortunately, as seen through rabbinic lenses, Deborah sings of herself too boastingly. Because of this act of arrogance she is deprived of the spirit of prophecy for a short period. Yet she gains the Lordís favor again and, like Hannah, one of Scriptureís most sympathetic characters, is credited with composing praises unto the Lord which were never rivaled by all the writings of men. She had received the secret of divine wisdom and had explicated her gift with exquisite grandeur.

Who was Deborah? Better perhaps to ask: "Who wrote the story of Deborah?" Most assuredly, this stunning narrative was written by a Proto-Semitic-Feminist.