[Avodah] Tzeni'us and gender roles

[Chana Luntz]

The other slightly odd thing about this discussion - leaving aside the
issues that I have been objecting to, is that RBB's thesis, to my mind,
opens the door to precisely what he is objecting to. RMB writes:

> Is the benefit a Maharat over a Yoetzet bring to the table 
> the public's or in her opportunity to serve G-d in the way the
contemporary world
> told her was more valuable? Or the benefit of being at the amud for
> Pesuqei Dezimara rather than behind the mechitzah that of the 
> community?

See I am sure that R' Avi Weiss would answer you and say - it is the
public's.  He would tell you that looking around at the community he serves,
he sees too many girls and women who are alienated from  Yiddishkeit, and
reluctant to engage or ask shialas, and that by having a Maharat holding a
public position in the community, it is possible to re-engage with those
women.

With your thesis, you will struggle to disagree with him. Because while
maybe in your community you do not see this need, you have identified that
you do not really consider yourself MO, and maybe you are just mixing in
different circles.  
...

> All halachic or mussar terms aside, the Maharat who gets a rabbi-like
> role leading a shul and its congregation will have a harder 
> time walking privately with G-d. It's straight psychology, if not the
Chinukh's
> constant refrain.

So let's accept that she has a harder time just as a man will have a harder
time.  But if the need is there - and remember it is being identified as
being a need by, inter alia, the Rav of a sustantial and significant
community - according to you, it becomes imperative, based on the male
model, and given that it is a gender neutral obligation, to push aside her
own personal growth for the growth of the community.  End of story.

> In short, I would argue that the Maharat as an insitution violates qadeish
es atzmekha bema shemutar lakh (cast into lashon 
> neqeivah). It's not assur by the letter of the law, but it's not stepping
back from
> something whose middos negatives far outweigh the benefit.

But why, according to you?  Let us analyse what are the possibilities.  What
are her functions: - teaching Torah and poskening shialas, presumably.  Now
if the community learns some Torah from her that they would otherwise not be
learnt, then is that a positive or a negative for the rabbim?  And who is
going to be asking her shialas?  Is it going to be somebody who has a good
relationship with their existing Rav?  Let's face it, is it likely to be
men?  How many shialas do you think are going to be switched to her from
others and how many are going to be shialas that people were not prepared to
ask of the existing men out there?  So even were you to say that we should
prefer men to take up such a role to women, all things being equal, and we
ought to be trying to produce sensitive rabbis that people (and particularly
women) feel comfortable going to - it is not too hard to demonstrate that
the reality on the ground is that most women in particular can't find such
rabbis (attribute it to the weakness of our generation if you like).

So, according to you, if the congregation will learn torah that they will
not learn elsewhere, and shialas would be asked that would not otherwise be
asked, then it would seem, at least according to you, incumbant on a woman
who can (because lets face it, for a whole host of reasons, there is not a
huge pool of women around who can) to push aside any reservations she might
have and step up to the plate, as it were.  That is what public service
means does it not?

> -Micha

Shabbat Shalom

Chana