[Avodah] Women reading the ketuba

[Meir Shinnar]

RMB
Mah bein "one must not run after Kibbudim" and tzeni'us?

 >I think RHS's whole point is that they are identical. That when we  
speak
 >of kol kivudah bas melekh penimah and tzeni'us, we're speaking about
 >women lacking mitzvos that force that tzeni'us to be routinely  
overriden
 >by another chiyuv.

 >And I think the pasuq I just cited, which is the usual one WRT women  
and
 >tzeni'us (beyond the sense of covering ervah), is very telling. It's
 >explicitly about kibud.

The problem with RHS's tshuva is that it can be read in either of two  
ways - both of which are problematic, albeit for different reasons.

If one takes the maximalist understanding (that RMB seems to have)  -  
that giving public kibud to a woman is a problem because of kol kvuda  
bat melekh - which is not overridden by other chiyuvim  - the  
fundamental issue in the MO community (including the YU community) is  
why is this kibbud any different than any other public kibbud given to  
women - and in the MO community, as distinct from the haredi (I don't  
know the standard in hardal), it is quite common to give women public  
kibbudim and for them to give speeches in public - which is a form of  
public kibbud.  Eg, at a haredi yeshiva dinner honoring Mr and Mrs X,  
only Mr X will actually speak - while in a MO dinner, both will speak,  
and women give public lectures all the time  The question is why is  
reading the ketuba fundamentally different - because, after all, as  
RHS acknowledges, it has no technical legal status - and the sole  
issue then seems to be the public role for women.

Now, that is a point of argument of the MO  with the haredi community  
(going !15-20 years ago, there was a well reported speech (I believe  
republished in the JO) by rav Svei, responding to the Pell grant  
scandal - asking why this scandal occured, and saying that the problem  
was that women gave public divre torah - and the undermining of tzniut  
led to moral corruption).  RMB understands to RHS to be making  
essentially a similar argument.  However, this argument has been  
rejected by the MO and YU community - and I believe was already  
rejected by RYBS - so it is difficult to make that argument here.

A more minimalist reading is that there are certain kibbudim that one  
should intrinsically decline, but someone has to  do them.  However,  
as a practical matter, no one approaches these kibbudim in this  
fashion (I haven't heard of anyone going to their rav saying, I am  
sorry that someone has to read the ketuba..) which makes this reading  
seem disingenuous, at the least.  Yes, there is a problem with someone  
insisting it is their right to a kibbud - but accepting the kibbud  
that is offered??

There is another problem with all of this shitta, because, contra RHS,  
there is a hiyyuv - to be mesameach the hattan and kalla - and if it  
is their simcha and oneg that woman X (and not rabbi Y)  should read  
the ketuba, why should the woman refuse??


RMB writes about the slippery slope and being poretz geder -  but one  
has to be careful about the meaning of poretz geder - because there  
actually has to be a geder.  Recall the Seride Esh's tshuva about bat  
mitzva, and the question of when we say lo ra'inu eyno ra'aya - and  
when we can say that lo ra'inu is a ra'aya.   WRT to reading the  
ketuba, one hundred years ago, the situation in Eastern Europe (as per  
the aruch hashulchan and the hafetz hayim) was that few women knew  
enough Hebrew to bench, say mezuman, or even daven shemone esre daily  
- so reading the ketuba was not in question.

Again, the fundamental question that has to be answered is what is the  
appropriate halachic response to the different social status and roles  
of women today.  Some responses are halachically problematic, others  
might be the slippery slope, but there are multiple slippery slopes -  
the slippery slope to egalitarianism, but also the slippery slope to  
the taliban - and the slippery slope towards ossification and denying  
that we are a torat chaim - that the halacha deals with the world as  
it actually is    Perhaps the greatest danger is the slippery slope of  
using halacha to further one's own social and communal agenda -  
whether to be machmir or mekil

Meir Shinnar