[Avodah] Minhag Yisroel

[Jonathan Baker]

From: "Micha Berger" <micha at aishdas.org>
> On Wed, October 31, 2007 9:35 am, R Jonathan Baker wrote:

> : Or is it that the MOTHERS teach the daughters Torah, in which case they
> : too are making the diyuk that Micha and I see in the text - it's not
> : the FATHERS, it's the MOTHERS.
 
> RJJB and I are making very different diyuqim.

Well, that was an offhand guess at the end.  I was making what I thought
was the usual diyuk: father no, third party yes.  This was just an
extra thought bringing in the old text/mimetic thing - that absent
the male text-study orientation, there's still the matrilineal mimetic
training.  Which would go entirely around any question of "limud Torah"
qua quantitative text study (there are texts, they have structure, and
content, etc.).
 
[tzivu thing snipped]

> I do not see how the rationale of the content being tiflus would make
> this an inyan gavra rather than cheftza, and therefore don't see a
> reason for RJJB's diyuq, actually. (He must be more of a "formal
> process" man than I.)

I don't know, since I'm not trying to pasken, rather to rationalize
what we do.

But I don't see anyone saying that the *content* is tiflus.  Rather,
the clear sense of the mishnah, is that by teaching her Torah as 
some object, regardless of content, teaches her tiflus, because of 
the bitter-waters protection.  

1. If a father teaches his daughter, she will have Torah learning.
2. A woman who has learned is protected from the bitter waters test
3. One who is protected from the bitter-waters test can stray without
consequences.

Therefore, if a father teaches his daughter Torah, he gives her the
tools to allow her to stray without consequences.  Not that learning
"when it says min hatzon, it means tzon that have not been used for
mishkav beheimah" or "elu metzios shelo elu chayav lehachriz" is
specifically tiflusdic content, but the fact of the teaching indirectly
allows her to stray without consequences.

That's what I see as part of the usual diyuk, perhaps it's only used
in the post-Bais-Yaakov era, but it seems to be the plain sense of the 
mishnah, without the mishnah being reused to ban all women's Torah learning.

And it seems that this diyuk would NOT distinguish between the father
and the third party as teacher.  Nor would it actually be operative since
300 BCE or whatever, when the bitter-waters test stopped working.

--
        name: jon baker              web: http://www.panix.com/~jjbaker
     address: jjbaker at panix.com     blog: http://thanbook.blogspot.com