THE FIRST EQUALITY REVOLUTION

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Few revolutions have shouted louder about equality – or practiced it more selectively – than the French Revolution. As Alexis de Tocqueville later observed in his study of that turbulent era, “The French nation is prepared to tolerate… those practices and principles that flatter its desire for equality, while they are in fact the tools of despotism.”

In 1789, the streets of Paris rang with the cries of Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité! It sounded like the dawn of a new moral age, born out of years of indulgent corruption and indifference by the French king and his aristocratic associates.

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was hailed by its revolutionary authors as humanity’s most perfect charter of freedom. Except – as soon became painfully clear – the word “man” in the title meant quite literally only men; women were barred from becoming citizens.

To be clear, this didn’t land well. Thousands of women, including the fearsome fishmarket ‘Poissards,’ all fiercely loyal to the Revolution, had marched to Versailles from Paris in October 1789, demanding bread and justice. As they gathered outside, they presented a petition calling for full equality. The newly formed National Assembly simply ignored it.

A few brave voices did try to challenge the exclusion of women. The philosopher Nicolas de Condorcet and the feminist pioneer Etta Palm d’Aelders appealed to the National Assembly to grant women the same civil and political rights as men.

Condorcet put it bluntly: “He who votes against the rights of another – whatever that person’s religion, color, or sex – has henceforth repudiated his own.” But for all its lofty rhetoric, the Revolution had its limits. Their pleas were dismissed, and the march for “equality” rolled on without half the population.

Then, in 1791, Olympe de Gouges, the scandalous playwright and flamboyant pamphleteer, decided to expose the absurdity of the Revolution’s double standard. She published the satirically pointed Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen, a transparent rewrite of the men-only manifesto.

“Woman is born free and remains equal to man in rights,” she declared. With biting sarcasm, she observed that women could be guillotined for opinions they weren’t even allowed to express: “If woman has the right to mount the scaffold, she must equally have the right to mount the rostrum.”

Her audacity sealed her fate. Two years later, the Revolution that had promised equality sent her to the guillotine.

The man behind this extraordinary hypocrisy was Maximilien Robespierre, known to all – without a trace of irony – as “The Incorruptible.” He had begun as a fierce opponent of capital punishment, denouncing it as inhumane and unworthy of a civilized nation.

But as the Revolution gathered pace, Robespierre enthusiastically embraced the guillotine. First, the king and queen were executed, then anyone deemed a “traitor to the Revolution” – many of them his former allies. The erstwhile champion of virtue became its most zealous executioner, reduced to a despotic murderer.

His ‘Reign of Terror’ descended into the ‘Great Terror’ until, inevitably, Robespierre himself was dragged to the very guillotine he had glorified. The Revolution he had championed finally devoured its own moral prophet.

Every age has its Robespierres – people who loudly preach justice and identify threats, while in reality serving only themselves. The faces have changed, but the pattern remains. Today, they come dressed for television and curated for social media, but they are the same moral frauds who, in every generation, manufacture enemies and thrive on paranoia.

Tucker Carlson thunders about freedom but gushes over autocrats and neo-Nazis. Candace Owens rails against victimhood even as she builds a brand based on grievance. Dave Smith claims to defend the oppressed although he finds every excuse for his favored oppressors.

At the other end of the spectrum, Zohran Mamdani and AOC deliver moral lectures while refusing to condemn the chant “Globalize the Intifada,” while Cenk Uygur and Hasan Piker livestream moral outrage for millions, though their moral clarity seems to blur significantly whenever the topic is Hamas.

This week, it hit me just how differently morality is projected in the narratives of the Torah compared to the modern moral code shaped by the ideals of the French Revolution. At the beginning of Parshat Chayei Sarah, Abraham mourns Sarah, his equal partner in every way.

The passage opens with an unusually phrased verse (Gen. 23:1): וַיִּהְיוּ חַיֵּי שָׂרָה מֵאָה שָׁנָה וְעֶשְׂרִים שָׁנָה וְשֶׁבַע שָׁנִים שְׁנֵי חַיֵּי שָׂרָה – “And the life of Sarah was one hundred years, and twenty years, and seven years — these were the years of Sarah’s life.” Rashi observes that the repetitive phrasing means all of Sarah’s years were equally good – not because her life was easy, but because her faith, integrity, and moral strength remained constant.

More importantly, Abraham’s reaction to her death – and the Torah’s deliberate framing of her life – make it clear that Sarah was not some kind of footnote to Abraham’s mission. She was his full partner, his equal in every respect.

The Midrash teaches that the beautiful hymn Eishet Chayil — the “Woman of Valor” (Prov. 31:10–31) – was originally composed by Abraham as a eulogy for Sarah. One line captures her essence perfectly: “She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.” Sarah was no passive companion; she was a voice of insight, a moral compass, and a spiritual equal.

Together, Abraham and Sarah launched a true revolution – the most revolutionary idea in human history: that God exists, and that all human beings are created equal b’tzelem Elokim, in the image of God. Long before France even dreamed of equality, Abraham and Sarah lived it.

The contrast with Ephron the Hittite – the antihero of Chayei Sarah – could not be more striking. When Abraham asks to buy a burial plot for Sarah, Ephron’s reply sounds magnanimous: he insists Abraham take the land for free. But once the crowd disperses, his true colors emerge. “What is four hundred shekels between friends?” he says with faux humility – while shamelessly gouging Abraham.

Ephron’s civility and generosity are pure theater. Beneath the polished manners lies greed and hypocrisy. Like Robespierre’s “virtue,” Ephron’s altruism was all performance. When the mask came off, what lay beneath was ugly.

Abraham and Sarah’s model could not be more different. Their virtue was real. They lived their principles. Their tent was open to all, and their respect for each other sincere. It was Sarah’s wisdom, in fact, that shaped the destiny of their family.

God tells Abraham, “Whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her voice” (Gen. 21:12). In that single line, God affirmed what the French Revolution never could – that true justice rests not on dominance, but on moral partnership.

And when Abraham eulogized Sarah, he didn’t speak of liberty, equality, or fraternity. He spoke of kindness, faith, and valor – qualities that endure long after slogans fade. Robespierre’s Revolution ended in blood and betrayal. Abraham and Sarah’s Revolution endures in blessing. So much for the “Rights of Man.”

The real Revolution didn’t begin in Paris in 1789, but in Hebron three millennia earlier – when a man and a woman stood together as equals before God.