[Avodah] [Areivim] Rabbi Broyde responds

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 01:33:19PM -0000, Chana Luntz wrote:
: RMF forwarded us a comment written by RMB[royde]...
: And then quotes RMB's posting in: 
: http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol06/v06n092.shtml

Tangentially, a comment on that post:
> Allow me to conclude with an observation. I was once participating in
> an email discussion about cheating on income taxes in Israel (I was
> against it), and one of the corespondents was quoting rationale after
> rationale and verbal conversation after verbal conversation with 'poskim'
> who permit this (he claimed). I observed that I can find more published
> teshuvot permitting married women not to cover their hair than I can find
> written teshuvot permitting cheating on Israeli income tax according to
> Jewish law! To my surprise, this statement deeply bothered people --
> even as I think it a true statement about the published literature --
> certain people view the obligation of married women to cover their
> hair as a crucial social component of orthodoxy, to which no breaches
> in the wall shall be tolerated. That approach is inconsistent with my
> understanding of how halacha ought to function.

What I find problematic is that we self-define such that we find chumeros
in how women cover their hair, and yet can hunt for qulos in pying taxes,
or consider a tax evader a "good Jew".

It's like the issue being batted around between RET and RTK. RET suggested
that someone who doesn't light her menorah tonight for anti-feminist
reasons is making the same error as someone who makes a point of lighting
one -- despite what momma did -- to make a feminist point.

We are so busy defining ourselves in how we are different than the
liberal movements, we ended up playing down and being meiqil in those
values they did /not/ change. Or at least no longer see them as defining
qualities of being a good Jew.

As I wrote in the past, the shift from a good Jew being "an ehrlicher
Yid" to today's notion of a "frum Jew" is very telling.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Feeling grateful  to or appreciative of  someone
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