[Avodah] R' Ovadiah Yosef re candle-lighting

[T613K at aol.com]

(re-directed from Areivim at the request of the moderators)
 
   
 

article in J-m Post today:
 
==begin quote== 
Rabbi Ovadia: 'Women should stick to cooking,  sewing' 
by Aaron Magid 
July 30, 2007  
____________________________________
        
____________________________________
 
"Women should make hamin and not deal with matters of Torah," the  spiritual 
leader of Shas, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, said in a speech to supporters on  
Saturday night.  
Yosef made the statement in the context of a major Halachic campaign he is  
currently engaged in as to when women should recite the blessing over the  
Shabbat candles.  
Many prominent Ashkenazi rabbis, along with a few Sephardic sources, have  
ruled that women should say the blessing after lighting the candles. However,  
according to Yosef, the blessings should be said before the candles have been  
kindled, similar to other blessings.  
Yosef blasted the opposing view, saying it was based on the opinion of "a few 
 stupid women. A woman's knowledge is only in sewing," he ridiculed. "Women  
should find other jobs and make hamin (cholent) but not deal with  matters of 
Torah."  
In addition, he admonished women for following in the steps of their mothers  
in the order of the recitation of the blessing instead of adhering to his  
opinion.  
"It has to be announced that women should not listen to the voice of their  
mothers or grandmothers not to continue with this mistake," he warned.  
==end quote==
 

for the whole article, see
 
<_http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1185789791242&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull_ 
(http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1185789791242&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull) >
 
Of course one never knows whether the J-Post is reporting anything  
accurately or fairly, but if ROY really has embarked on this campaign, and if  the 
quotes are accurate, this is very strange.  
 
Women make a bracha /after/ lighting because by making the bracha, they  have 
brought in Shabbos, and now cannot kindle a candle. (On yom tov  they light a 
match, then recite the bracha and then light the candles from  the match.)   
In order to maintain the usual order of bracha first,  mitzva after, they 
close their eyes while reciting the bracha, then open their  eyes and look at the 
candles after saying the bracha.  (They also welcome  the Shabbos queen with a 
sweeping-in gesture of their arms, three times.)
 
I know that I have just said something absolutely elementary and basic to  
everyone on arvm.  But to ROY, all the above is the product of a mistake  
introduced by some woman -- when exactly?  
 
Actually he seems to be saying two different things that are prima facie  
contradictory:  1. we light before the bracha because we are blindly  following 
mistakes made by our grandmothers and
2. we light before the bracha because women have been trying to learn  Torah, 
for which they are totally unsuited, and have misunderstood what they  
learned.  Had women not tried to learn Torah, they never would have made  such a 
mistake!
 
(Is he saying that our GRANDMOTHERS tried to learn Torah and misunderstood  
what they learned?)
 
Anyway, I would be very interested in hearing how all this is going over in  
Israel, in charedi and in Sefardi circles.



--Toby  Katz
=============




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