[Avodah] Tzeni'us and gender roles

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Jul 22, 2009 at 04:34:50PM -0400, Joseph C. Kaplan wrote:
: I still don't agree.  When I have to me mechallel Shabbat to save a life 
: I'm not violating the value of Shabbat; I'm choosing, as halacha tells me 
: to, a different value...

This is the whole question of hutrah vs dechuyah.

If you say dechuyah, then yes, you are violating Shabbos because halakhah
tells you to follow the other value. If you say huterah then you are
not violating Shabbos. Something done for hatzalas nefashos is not a
melakhah. One nafqa mina would be whether someone who must eat meat on
Shabbos to live but there is nothing nishchat should eat neveilah or
should have meat shechted for him on Shabbos. If Shabbos is hutrah,
then shecht the meat; if it's dechuyah, then neveilah is the lesser
mitzvah to be overridden.)

Also the discussion of tum'ah hutrah betzibbur really means mutar,
or maybe it's also dechuyah.

However, here it's not halakhah; it's middos. IOW, one would have to
say that to breach one's privacy for the sake of the communal need or
some other personal need one isn't practicing a lack of privacy. There
is no parallel to hutrah, where the middah doesn't even come into play.

Rather, you are, as you write "choosing ... a different value". IOW,
developing one's achrayus for others (eg) at the expense of developing
tzeni'us.

R' Dr Shinnar writes:
> What I (and I think others) - do not see the dichotomy as public
> versus private - but as a mode of being and behavior - hatznea lechet
> and anavut are fully compatible with being a public figure  - and
> therefore there isn't the necessary tension.

The two sides of being vs behavior don't exist independently of eachother.
Haadam nif'al lefi pe'ulaso, as the Chinukh reiterates and reiterates.
There is no way to act without middos being involved. This unity of being
and behavior underlies Yahadus. It's how "heyei tamim" or "qedoshim tihyu"
translates to masei mitzvah rather than navel contemplation in some
cloistered meditative setting.

(It also underlies a point of Hebrew grammer -- is "boneh" a builder,
or the present tense verb?)

And is also why there is no parallel to "hutrah" for middos. E.g. Someone
who kills in a milkhemes mitzvah is still more able to kill than I am
and a shocheit is less queasy at the sight of blood than when he started.

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Zion will be redeemed through justice,
micha at aishdas.org        and her returnees, through righteousness.
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