[Avodah] Tzeni'us and gender roles

[Chana Luntz]

RAM writes: 

> This halacha is in the Mechaber, Orach Chayim 53:16 - "One 
> who is not the Shatz Kavua (regular chazan) has to decline 
> somewhat before going to the amud..." The Be'er Hagolah gives 
> the source as Brachos 34, which seems to be a reference to 
> the very first lines of the new gemara near the top of 34a: 
> "A braisa: One who goes to the amud has to refuse; and if he 
> does not refuse, he is domeh l'tavshil she'ain bo melach (he 
> is like a cooked food which has no salt)." I don't recall 
> hearing this phrase ("l'tavshil she'ain bo melach") before; 
> perhaps it means that he has acted in poor taste?
> 
> Aruch Hashulchan OC 53:15 says pretty much the same thing as 
> the Mechaber did, including that if the person asking is an 
> "adam gadol", then one should not decline at all, but should 
> go right away, because one does not turn down a gadol. But 
> the Aruch Hashulchan adds this interesting point: "But for 
> something which involves sh'rirus (leadership), then one 
> should decline a bit even when a gadol is doing the asking, 
> since the declining will give the impression (d'hasiruv hu 
> mipnei she'yisraeh) that perhaps he is not fit for the task 
> (d'oolai aino ra'ui l'kach), and this is good manners (v'hu 
> haderech eretz)."

Bingo  or Eureka, or whatever you want to call it - I had completely
forgotten about this gemora, and I suspect when I learnt it I had yet to
meet my husband and the implications certainly did not strike home.

But my response on just reading your post was to turn to my husband and say
- do you realise there is a gemora source for this weird custom you lot have
about refusing seconds of food?  You see, in - well I don't know if it is
general Sephardi culture, or the Egyptian/Syrian Sephardi culture he comes
from, or general Arab culture or what - but it is desperately impolite, if
offered food (or maybe it is seconds of food, I am not quite sure) to accept
first time, you have to say no, and the hostess has to insist, and if you
are really polite, you refuse again a second time, and only take on the
third offer (although you run the risk if you do it too many times that the
hostess will not continue offering, and it can be seen as overdone, so you
have to draw a careful line).  And the family has all these hilarious
stories about going to Ashkenazi houses in circumstances where they were on
best behaviour (eg dating type scenarios) and not ending up eating anything
at all, because they were trying to show they were polite and well brought
up, and the Ashkenazi hostess had no idea and understood no to mean no.

It is clearly the same dynamic going on - if you told somebody from my
husband's community that if one accepted food straight away one was "domeh
l'tavshil she'ain bo melach", but if one refuses too much one is "dome
l'tavshil shehikdichatu melach" - they would all nod their head and say, but
of course, that is what it means to be well brought up.

> Thus, I'd like to suggest that when a person declines the 
> honor of being offered the amud, it is NOT because of tznius, 
> but because of simple humility. Humility (anavah) and modesty 
> (tznius) are very similar, but they are not identical.

So I don't think that it is even a question of anavah exactly - that is not
the dynamic going on at the Sephardi table.  I think rather it is a question
of not being seen to be greedy  - and the same must be true for the
chazan/aliya case - ie it is not problematic to eat food, but gluttony is
not a desirable trait, and neither is chasing after kavod, so a well brought
up person shows that they can wait.  Obviously though if they end up
starving, the dynamic has failed to work as it is supposed to.


> Akiva Miller

Regards

Chana