[Avodah] woman reading a ketuba

[Rich, Joel]

On Wed, Dec 31, 2008 at 11:19 AM, Eli Turkel <eliturkel at gmail.com>
wrote:
> any problem with a woman reading a ketuba at a wedding?

Two quick online maareh mekomos:

http://www.torahweb.org/torah/2004/parsha/rsch_dvorim2.html - RHS's
famous parrot and monkey quote
http://www.5as.org/content/default.asp?artid=207 - A somewhat more
modern view

My own personal take; given that the primary point of reading the kesuba
is to have a hefsek; what better way to be mafsik than by doing
something controvertial which will force everyone to start whispering,
talking, interrupting, and maybe even walking out? ;)

I don't know what the minhag hamakom is in Israeli (non-chareidi,
obviously) circles is; in America, all the non-chareidi weddings I
attended always had a non-trivial chareidi population, and I never
actually saw this in practice. I'm sure it's done, however, and I find
it hard to argue why it's wrong for communities where women regularly
address large mixed crowds in a formal religious setting.

-- Mike Miller
Ramat Bet Shemesh
_______________________________________________


I made the same argument (re: hefsek) but it is usually trumped by what
I call the giving aid and comfort to the enemy argument.
You might find this article of interest
http://media.www.yuobserver.com/media/storage/paper989/news/2008/12/30/T
houghtsOfStudentLeaders/Women.In.The.Framework.Of.Halakha-3581376.shtml
My response was : Women/halacha - IMHO the general current YURabbinic
thinking is that anything that seems to give a positive response to
something that could be construed as feminist generated (or worse
conservative generated), even if there are many women who want it for
all the right reasons, will not be viewed positively (a la R' Moshe's
Tshuva)
One may think this is good or bad, but , that is the shikul hadaas as of
now. Sara may think it wrong, but how do you get it changed(imho only by
convincing rabbis over time that the change is really coming from within
not from without). Btw imho the same thing applies to heksher tzedk.

R D Gottlieb of Shomrei emunah makes a similar against meta argument.

KT
Joel Rich
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