[Avodah] woman reading a ketuba

[Micha Berger]

On Fri, Jan 02, 2009 at 10:13:00AM -0800, R Harry Maryles wrote:
: It is true that when one is asked to daven for the Amud, tyat he should
: at first decline as a sign of Tznius. But Not because being a ST is in
: any way not Tznius. It is because one must not run after Kibbudim...

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.

: That is a different kind of Tznius than what RHS suggests. He seems to
: be saying that davening as a ST is in an of itself a necessary violation
: of Tznius. I don't think one can say that a Mitzvah mandated by Chazal
: to lead the Tzibur in Teffila could in any way be construed as a form
: of Tznius violation.

LAD the problem isn't with identifying tzeni'us with avoiding kibudim,
but something else.

RHS is arguing it's a "necessary evil" -- someone has to violate personal
tzeni'us for the community's greater good. People should hope it's not
them.

But IFF the tzibbur's need outranks tzeni'us -- dechuyah, not hutrah
-- then should't one leap to be sha"tz so as to save someone else the
nisayon? If it weren't better to have a sha"tz than preserve everyone's
tzeni'us, there wouldn't be a concept of sha"tz. Since there is, we see
that there is an overriding priority. In which case, why shouldn't the
same override mandate one to accept the gabbai's first offer?

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             When faced, with a decision, ask yourself,
micha at aishdas.org        "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now,
http://www.aishdas.org   at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?"
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter