[Avodah] Tzeni'us and gender roles

[Chana Luntz]

RMB writes:

> The line is subtle, and probably the subject of machloqes. My 
> own opinion is that tzeni'us is not drawing attention to 
> oneself, more of a mode of interaction with others, whereas 
> anavah is realizing that one is part of Hashem's bigger plan 
> rather than thinking I'm in charge. (Thus the connection to 
> other ayin-nun words like answering, reacting, etc...)

You ask me to further define tznius in accordance with common practice.

I think that part of the issue is that there are two distinct meanings of
tznius in common understanding:

(A) as the opposite of pritzus.  Pritzus is inappropriate sexuality, and
tznius is the opposite of that.

(B) the use of tznius in tzanua laleches - which is a lot closer to anavah -
in fact this is often translated as walking humbly with one's G-d.  The
b'tzina, the privacy part of this, is not the public action, but the
dedication of the heart toward G-dliness, rather than towards external
reward.

I can understand the desire by RHS (and others, Getzel Ellinson tries to do
the same thing) to unite these two separate definitions, but I am not
totally convinced that it can be done, without (mostly) losing (A) (and even
parts of (B).  And even if it can be done, it does not mean that RHS's
attempt is the right one. While RHS's formulation may appeal to the Western
mind, which sometimes struggles with the idea that there is inappropriate
sexuality - or at least inappropriate expression of sexuality, I don't think
it is right or true to source.  When the gemora contrasts the tznios and the
pritzos in terms of what they assume about their husbands' failure to return
in time to nullify a get, - it has nothing to do with drawing attention to
themselves, it has to with their willingness to contemplate alternative
sexual relationships.  I could bring dozens of other examples.  By trying to
stretch a single definition to cover both of these two separate situations,
you may end up distorting both definitions, and it seems to me that a
definition that tznius means a non public role does just that.

> But the line isn't my point. Whether it's an issue of 
> tzeni'us or of anavah, it would still mean that accomodating 
> feminist aspirations in the synagogue is actually enabling 
> the further spread of middos that don't fit the Torah's ideal.

Again, I have a basic problem with the whole thesis that the ban on women
having aliyos has anything to do with tznius or anavah.  The gemora says
quite straightforwardly that the reason why women cannot have aliyos is
because of kovod hatzibbur.  Like it, don't like it, that is it.  Tznius,
anavah, what have you is all modern apologetics, and in attempting to do so,
you end up having to say all sorts of things that are, to my mind,
problematic - not just about women, but about men.  And of course, about the
halacha of aliyos, and public roles etc etc
 
> You mean like when the CC published the book that gave him 
> his nickname anonymously? Or the Bahir, or the Chinukh, or 
> the numerous other anonymously published sefarim that were 
> written before the author was known for other reasons...
> (<http://seforim.traditiononline.org/index.cfm/2005/11/8/Anony
> mous-Sefarim>
> has an interesting topic on anonymous works, acrostics, 
> leaving the name implied, etc...)
> 
> I think the burden of proof is actually on the suggestion 
> that there is another definition of tzeni'us (or anavah) that 
> fits common practice. I don't even know if there is a 
> different shitah to claim we follow.

There is no question that there is, in halacha, a concept that one should
not run after kavod - that is all over the place.  And indeed it is an
important mida.  But that does not mean that there should be no public
roles, or that somebody who takes them necessarily finds themselves with
diminished midos.  There is also a concept that gluttony is a bad thing, but
that does not mean that the ideal is that one should not eat, and that one
who eats has diminished midos.  Just as one should eat in order to serve
one's creator, one should take public roles in order to serve one's creator.
Thus there appears to be a confusion and instead of identifying the
inappropriate desire as bad, food is identified as bad.  So too here -
desire for kavod is bad, the public role is not in and of itself bad, it is
how it is used.
 
> But here we're talking about the opposite -- a set of 
> innovations that overturn major fundamental mimetic issues 
> (significant change to our lifestyle). To invoke burden of 
> proof again, it's one thing to say we could be doing more; 
> it's another to say that we should take major steps AWAY.

...

> Actually, I say that exactly -- that the lifestyle halakhah 
> and history pushed men into gives us many conflicts between 
> tzeni'us and other responsibilities (many of them, like 
> leading a minyan, are chiyuvim) and therefore tzeni'us often loses.
> 
> Now, justify changing women's lives to embed the same decision.
> 

But you are talking here as though RHS's argument is the only bar to women's
aliyos - strip away his argument and then women's aliyos are a shoe-in.  Now
*that* is very dangerous.  Once you say that the reason for the rule is X,
and people are able to attack X, you actually make the rule more likely to
be broken.  And to do that on the basis of a novel view of a modern Rosh
Yeshiva at YU, without reference to the reason the gemora gives, strikes me
as extremely problematic.
 

> : I think this is a non sequiter - ie you are raising a 
> completely different
> : topic here, that of the home and the synagogue, something 
> which has little
> : to do with our other topic regarding the definition of tznius.
> 
> I'm not as sure. I think at least one element that makes 
> davening in a WTG more tempting than behind the mechitzah or 
> at home, and why being a Maharat is a calling for someone who 
> wants more than being an eim habanim semeichah is this notion 
> of the synagogue centered avodas Hashem.

Yes, it is.  But that does not mean that a notion of synagogue centered
avodas Hashem has anything to do with tznius.  You are insisting that the
two are linked.  I think the issues are quite different - that is we have to
deal with the reasons driving a synagogue centered avodah Hashem separately.
And it has nothing to do with whether you can find a way of defining tznius
as per RHS to pick up the two classic tznius definitions.  
 
> And I think that too is intimately tied to confusing the role 
> in the limelight and the quiet service of the home. Shul 
> worship has the disproportionate place it does in our psyche 
> at least in part because it's showier.

Part of the reason I don't think that is the case, is that where there are
genuine female communities based on the home, women generally have little
interest in the synagogue. You would need to show me a situation where the
historical female community centered around the home(s) was intact, and yet
the synagogue remained attractive because it was showier.  If you can do
that, then you may have a point - but I don't think you can.  First the
female home community disappears, then the synagogue becomes attractive as a
home substitute.  Then there is a push for full female involvement in what
has become the home substitute.
 
> : But you see, by defining tznius the way you do - you are 
> not just saying
> : that what Rn Jungreis does a violation of tznius (even if 
> the pros outweigh
> : the cons) you are also saying that what Moshe Rabbanu did was also a
> : violation of tznius - after all, it is impossible to think 
> of anybody who
> : was more "out front" than he was....
> 
> Yes. Dechuyah.
> 
> ...
> : It is probably barely necessary for me to say that I think this
> : understanding is dead wrong.  

...

> I think you're conflating tzeni'us and anavah. Someone who 
> violates tzeni'us for the right reason coild still be anav 
> mikol adam, but MRAH certainly did NOT live with an attitude 
> of besokh amo hu yosheiv, or vehatznei'ah lekhes im E-lokav! 
> There was nothing betzin'ah about it!
> (Even his sex life became millennia of public discourse!)

The issue is much more fundamental than that.  "Lo kum b'yisroel k'Moshe
od."  Reasonably fundamental principle could we say?  But you are
disagreeing with that. You are saying that Moshe would have been greater if
he had not had to have a public role.  It certainly implies, if not states,
that there may be millions of yidden who are and were in fact greater than
Moshe, because he had to take up a public role, and they didn't - and even
if there weren't certainly that there could be - since Moshe had a
fundamental and inescapable midos problem due to the nature of his role.

But one of the fundamental principles of our belief is that Moshe Rabbanu
was the greatest Jew that ever lived, and, (perhaps excluding Moshiach - who
is also going to have an extremely public role), will ever live.  Certainly
the traditional way of understanding his greatness is that at least part of
the reason he was so great was *because of* the public role he occupied, and
certainly not despite it.  Yes, it was because of the way he was able to
handle the test of that public role, agreed, but passing that test allowed
him to be the greatest person that ever lived.

And you are turning this whole understanding on its head - and why?  Because
for some reason you don't like the reason the gemora gives for why women
can't have aliyos, and you want to substitute some alternative
understanding.

> ...
> : Which is why I think the issue is not whether one is public 
> or not, but
> : whether one is l'shem shamayim or not.  One can do exactly 
> the same thing
> : and take exactly the same role, and if one is doing it for 
> the kovod he or
> : she will garner, then it is not l'shem shamayim and it is not tzanua
> : laleches and it is all about ga'ava.  And if one is 
> fulfilling the public
> : role l'shem shamayim then one can be doing exactly the same 
> action, and
> : indeed it will be tzanua laleches.
> 
> I don't see it. Betzin'ah means "in private", and doesn't 
> address lishmah.

And Dovid haMelech dancing before the aron was not in private, therefore he
was not tanuah laleches according to you.  It was clearly not necessary, why
does he not accede to Michal's criticism?  

That is why I think that a much more classic definition of tanua laleches is
not that it is only open to the hermit who walks with G-d privately, but it
is open to all whose (by definition private) heart (since nobody knows what
goes on in our hearts except Hashem) is properly dedicated to Hashem (ie
l'shem shamayim) even if he or she happens to be "walking" in public - ie
occupying public roles.  Many Xtians have a different view, and certainly
the Buddists do, they glorify the private individual living in his cave.  We
do not, we glory in the creation of communities and the public roles that
they produce.  That is a much harder test.  It is much harder to maintain
tanua l'leches in such an environment - but that does not mean that, in my
view, the ideal is not to try.  Nor that it is impossible.  The assumption
is that the most noble of us will succeed, as Moshe Rabbanu was able to
succeed and will indeed be nobler because of that success.  Your definition
sets the fundamental concepts of Yehadus against the possibility of tzanua
laleches - and makes a lot of the Xtian criticism of our halachic system
valid as stunting midos development.  Mine validates the stress that Yehadus
indeed places on the public and community as important and necessary and of
assisting in midos development.  You just need to understand the ban on
women having aliyos has having to do with something else.

> Tir'u baTov!
> -Micha

Regards

Chana