[Avodah] Tzeni'us and gender roles

[Chana Luntz]

RKB writes:

> I marked up your email for my linguistic research (mostly for my own
> consumption, but a couple of example sentences may find their 
> way into a paper I'm writing) because I found it interesting, and also it
raised
> some issues about the linguistic structure of argumentative text that
> the other texts I've been using didn't touch.

This is interesting - what linguistic research?

> You raise some very cogent points about a woman's relationship with a
> rav, and I thank you for the insight. I'm going to suggest that the
> third option is best (having a female role model), but 
> discuss how this relates to Mahara"ts further down.

But if this is the best approach - how are such role models to be developed
and made accessible, and should there be any form of more centeralised
quality control?  If so, how do you get it - or is it just a matter of a
particularly charismatic woman attracting a following (as, for example we
saw recently in relation to this woman who advocated the wearing of burkas).
In particular, how is it to be developed in the more MO setting, where girls
are not necessarily in seminary, but in non Jewish universities and in the
non Jewish workplace (or do we try and ensure that girls only go to
seminaries, where the role models will be provided by those who teach
there)?

> If there's one issue in the frum world that's very common (almost
> universal, I'm told), but almost universally swept under the rug (much
> more so than issues of abuse, etc...) it's shemirat haberit. 
> Anyone who
> downplays this issue is deluding themselves. And from that respect,
> getting people (particularly men) married earlier is a very important
> goal, and we should rearrange a lot of other assumptions we have about
> the lifecycle process in this modern world in order to deal with it.
> 
> For example, a modern community that teaches secular studies in high
> school might construct some kind of vocational program in 
> high school so that their graduates might find a job parnasah when they 
> graduate.

I went to high school at a top notch non Jewish private girls school in
Australia.  One of the things that this particular school provided were, in
the final years of high school, a secretarial course and a catering course
(which I gather enabled more than one girl to obtain jobs as chefs).
However, these were provided specifically for those girls who were
struggling with the standard academic programme.  It was made very clear to
us, the scholarship girls (that is how I got there) and the others in the
top academic stream, that these courses were not for us - no matter how much
some of us might have loved cooking.  Just as it was made very clear to us
that the option to take General (ie "easy") maths for our Higher School
Certificate was for girls who were struggling with maths, and not for those
who could manage Pure and Applied.

Fast forward to England and Menorah Grammer School - a boys high school
affiliated with the German (equivalent of Chaim Berlin) Munks community.  At
the moment it is suffering from financial and other crises, but, at least up
until a couple of years ago, it also offered a catering course.  But again,
my distinct impression is that it was made very clear that this course, and
the other vocational courses offered, were solely for boys who clearly did
not have the zitzfleish to learn.   

The point is that both of these schools placed a very high value on academic
study and the progress to an institution of higher learning (in the case of
my school, university, in the case of Menorah Grammer, Yeshiva - Gateshead
or Manchester, usually, I believe).  A vocational programme in the high
school, for those capable of going on, would unquestionably impede their
going on - and so the vocational programme was structured so as to be only
really available to those judged unable to go on.

Now, while there are variations in modern Orthodox thinking - one of the
basic fundamentals tends to revolve around what R'Lamm has called Torah
U'Maddah - which is the valuing of the general - liberal arts and sciences
to be found in modern society.  The high value that my non Jewish high
school placed on those who are able continuing with academic study and going
to university, and the development of the intellect, are very much at one
with the values conciously adopted by the Modern Orthodox.  This is not what
RMB would call MO lite, this is about direct hashkafic choice.

So, while a Modern Orthodox school might offer a vocational programme,
similar to the one offered by my High School, it could not, ideologically,
offer such a programme to all its students if it was to be true to its
hashkafa.  Because it believes in a college education.

However, one does not have to be MO, or follow a Torah U'Madda philosophy.
Even somebody like RMB, who has had the benefit of a college education, the
elements of which, in terms of his exposure to Western Philosophy and
Physics shows up periodically in his posts, could well, like the speculation
re gedolim on Arevim, hold that the price is too high, and that it would be
better not to go that route, and the only real reason to go to college is
for parnassa, and hence if a vocational programme could be required in High
School, it might obviate the need to go to college.

Take, for example, the approach taken by ROY in relation to his oldest
daughter.  On the day of her exams, when she was, I believe, 14, he and his
wife locked her in her room so she was unable to take the exams that were
necessary for her to be able to proceed to matriculation and any form of
higher education.  Instead, he insisted that she train to be a seamstress,
because that would always provide a good parnassa.  As it happened, what
ROY's daughter really really wanted to do was Social Work, but in modern
society, even such a touchy feeling "woman's" profession like social work
requires one to have academic credentials.  As it happens, she is now
setting up charedi institutes where women can study social work, to give
women the opportunity that she never had (apparently with the approval of
her father).  

> Or YU and Stern might arrange their course of studies so that people can
have jobs and families at the same time. (Lots of students have jobs at the
> same time even in secular colleges so this should not be a big issue.) 

I think anybody who has been there will say that studying when one has
babies and/or young children is very very much harder.  I know people who
have done it, but it is extraordinarily difficult.  Lots of students in
secular colleges indeed have jobs, lots do not have children for a good
reason.  And especially in a place like YU, where they are already trying to
cram in a double curriculum, you are asking for a lot.  Let alone the extra
expenses that come with supporting a family.  Of course, you have not
mentioned the third alternative, which is for people to get married, but not
have children (ie use birth control) - that would solve quite a lot of these
problems, but a lot of people are not convinced of either its halachic
validity or its desirability.  In the interests of raising all options,
though, it should probably be raised as well.

Another factor to consider, however, about marrying young is this.  There
appears to be a consensus that people of 15/16/17/18/19 years of age are not
mature enough, today, to make good decisions about something as important as
the person they should marry.  The response to this consensus by the non
Jewish world and the MO world is to say, wait until you are old enough and
mature enough to make these decisions, ie don't marry at these ages.  The
response to this consensus in the charedi world is to get the parents
heavily involved, so that many if not most of the parameters of this
important decision are not left to those too immature to handle it.  There
are some fundamental hashkafic differences in terms of what is expected and
desired for our offspring that underpin these choices.  Given the values
that "traditional" Modern Orthodox philosophy puts on personal autonomy and
personal growth (probably as a consequence of the similar values to be found
among general non Jewish society), it does rather beg the question as to
whether such a philosophy could survive in a society dedicated to early
marriage.  That, of course, may be something somebody who is not sure he
defines himself as MO would welcome - and it could be argued that this is
precisely one of the areas where the MO have failed to grapple with
modernity, but have just accepted wholesale the values of the modern world.
But if that is the case, then somebody who disagrees with this approach
needs to do comparable grappling - with what is lost by having a shidduch
system that is, in its ideal functioning, run by the parents (especially as
mussar itself is often identified as a reaction to modernity, and being
similarly about growth and personal autonomy).  And I suspect if pressed,
most MO would deny that they had just accepted the modern thinking, but
rather would argue that they went into this with their eyes open, and that
this was indeed part of what they see as the positive value system of the
modern world, despite no ideological choice, like no medical choice, coming
without side effects and risks.

> Here's where I think the issue is. I think R' Weiss is being
> disingenuous about how he presents this. He wants to create a 
> woman who
> can be the sole leader of a community, and he's not doing it 
> because he
> thinks that people can improve their halachic observance that way. 
> AISI, R' Weiss wants to build a female pulpit rabbi so that 
> he can show
> the world we have gender equality. His constituency is so 
> enamored with
> the idea of gender equality that they're willing to pay for this.

OK, but again what you appear to be identifying is a public need, or perhaps
we should say desire (whether R' Weiss pursuaded his constituency or his
consituency pursuaded him) for gender equality, or showing the world we have
gender equality.  That may be a bad desire on their part, but it is no
longer a private one.  One might have a discussion about not pandering to
bad public desires, but that is a totally different question - this isn't
about individuals, it is about a community and communities and the way they
want to present themselves.  RMB's thesis about the tznius of individuals no
longer has any relevance.
 
 "In England, different members of the clergy (not all
> of whom even have semicha) go by distinctly different titles, 
> reflecting different roles: reverend, minister, rabbi, and dayan; maybe
that is a
> fine idea worth importing to America." 

But none of these are open to women, and I am not sure how any of these
could be converted into a role that provides role modelling for women - if
you agree this is desirable.  The only example we seem to have developed as
a reaction to modernity, is the head of seminary/teacher in seminary role
model, who can reasonably be compared to a Rosh yeshiva or mashgiach in a
yeshiva.  But a) you have to be in seminary to get these (as you have to be
in yeshiva to get the rosh yeshiva and the yeshiva maschgiach); and b) there
is really no quality control (my son was being taught kodesh by a Beis
Ya'akov graduate last year in first grade, and as one of his friend's mother
put it ""X" is coming home with some really strange things" - now the fact
that my son, male is being so taught is unusual, that being a product of
being in a co-ed school - but it would be normal for my daughter to be so
taught.  Truth is, my major frustration was not mostly that she was teaching
strange things, which he can probably grow out of, but that she was teaching
Sephardi boys in a Sephardi school Ashkenazi minhagim - I don't mind her
doing both, the school is very mixed, so she should be doing both, but the
fact that I had to have a fight with my son about getting his hair cut
during the three weeks but before shavuah shechal bo is very frustrating.
It is the usual thing about a little bit of knowledge being a dangerous
thing).  But it seems to be what we have.  What else should we be doing?  

> > No idea whether maharats will help deal with this mess - 
> and whether they
> > should
> 
> They probably won't deal with this mess, because they're 
> trying to solve
> the wrong problem.

That may well be true - so how do we solve this mess - it is all very well
to criticise MO lite for not grappling with modernity, but it seems to me
that there is a lot of non grappling about.
 
> --Ken

Regards

Chana