[Avodah] Education - was RAYK and the end of chol

[T613K at aol.com]

From: "Richard Wolpoe" _rabbirichwolpoe at gmail.com_ 
(mailto:rabbirichwolpoe at gmail.com) 


>  My father once said to me (I have mentioned this before) that there was
>  nothing wrong with Mizrachi that wouldn't be corrected by Torah  learning,
> that whatever was wrong with Mizrachi -- laxity in mitzvos, or  in tznius
> -- stemmed from amaratzus and a lack of Torah knowledge, and  that when they
> began to seriously learn Torah, these faults would be  corrected. [--TK]
 

RRW then wrote:
>>I have  a feeling that is perhaps part of the reason why  RYBS wanted women
learning Talmud because nowadays education is paramount.  And those who
understand the process of Talmud and poskim have a much better  appreciation
for applying Halachah in everyday  life.<<

 

>>>>>
Yet in the Torah world Talmud learning for girls is considered a radical,  
politically motivated innovation, and we do not in practice see the same  
correlation between advanced Talmudic learning and dikduk bemitzvos among women  
that we see among men.  Often it is just the opposite (see Hollywood FL for  one 
example) -- in the MO communities where women are more likely to have  learned 
at least some Talmud, there is visibly LESS tznius among the  women.  If 
anything, the correlation goes the other way -- across the  spectrum, in the 
schools and communities where women do NOT learn Talmud, they  are far MORE likely 
to cover their hair, not wear shorts or sleeveless  dresses in public, and so 
on.  Learning Talmud does not seem to have  the same positive effect on women 
in terms of increasing halachic observance and  yiras Shamayim that it has on 
men.
 
Having said all that I will add that my father did not hold that it is  
always absolutely assur for a woman to learn Talmud (certainly there have been  
individual great women in history who learned Gemara), but he did hold that this  
should not be done on a community-wide basis as a general part of women's  
education, as a matter both of halacha and of public policy.
 
I would suggest that it is more important to encourage young women to MARRY  
talmidei chachamim than to BECOME talmidei chachamim.  Men have a strong  
tendency to live up to (or sometimes, sadly, down to) what is expected of them  by 
the women in their lives.  This is why women have such a civilizing  
influence on society.






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





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