[Avodah] hirhurim ra'im

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

R' David Riceman wrote:

<<< I've been glancing through Rabbi Henkin's book "Understanding Tzniut".  He spends quite a lot of time discussing men's prurient thoughts and how the Rabbis tried to regulate them, but he doesn't mention women's prurient thoughts and whether the Rabbis tried to regulate them.  Is that simply not the subject of the book, or did the Rabbis in fact not try to regulate women's prurient thoughts? >>>

Rav Moshe Feinstein goes into detail about the different halachos for men and women in Igros Moshe, Even HaEzer 1:69.

He explains that both men and women are forbidden to have thoughts which involve doing forbidden acts, from the pasuk in Shema "Acharei Aynaychem".

In addition, he writes, from the pasuk "VNishmartem Mikol Davar Ra", men must avoid anything which might cause zera l'vatala. This can include thoughts which don't involve forbidden acts in any way. But such thoughts are allowed to women. He gives several examples, but I'd rather not quote them here.

To get back to RDR's question, here are some of my thoughts: If you look at the examples which Rav Moshe gives, it is easy to argue that many of them are genuinely "innocent" thoughts. This may be why the rabbis saw a need to regulate them: Without the regulations, it would be difficult to percieve them as wrong. In contrast, a smaller range of thoughts are forbidden to women, and they are more obviously wrong, so they was less of a need for additional regulation.

Akiva Miller
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