[Avodah] Tzeni'us and gender roles

[Meir Shinnar]

> RAF
>
> On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 10:00:20PM +0200, Arie Folger wrote:
> : Thus, according to RMB, the reason many consider shul centered  
> worship
> : more fulfilling than home based worship, is that shul centered  
> worship
> : is showoff worship.
> RMB
> A bit more baldly put, but basically yes. One nuance I would add to  
> that
> is that I'm contrasting it to quiet-behind-the-mechitzah worship as  
> well
> as home worship, something you can't really address in the way you cut
> this tangent.
>
> In short, my reply will be off topic to your point, because I'm not
> looking at shul as showoff, I'm looking at a particular attraction
> people have toward shul because it allows a possibility of showing off
> that davening at home doesn't have.
>
>

One of the issues with many of the discussions about women's issues is  
that many presume to know the motivations of those involved, and find  
them passul.  This "game" is problematic, especially when done by  
people who don't have close knowledge of what is actually occuring.

I think RMB is misreading something which is actually quite  
different.  In the MO community, the move for a long time has been  
away from the large shuls with hazzanim to the Young Israel model of  
participatory davening.  While for some this reflects an issue of  
showing off, as a communal model the values that this shift reflected  
(and still reflects) is the value the community puts on participation  
- that everyone can play a role.  Even with the older shuls with  
hazzanim, getting a kibbud - even as minor as being one of the five  
people opening the aron (as happens in some large suburban shuls), the  
issue isn't the honor per se - but that one participates in the  
functioning of the community as a community.  This involves both the  
administration of the shul and the community - but, as the davening is  
the major part of the shul community, it involves being a part of the  
community in its central activity as a shul - davening. Many shuls try  
on yamim noraim that everyone gets at least one kibud - not just for  
honoring (and payment..), but it makes the people involved feel part  
of the community (every gabbai, rav and membership committee member  
knows the importance of making people feel that they are part of the  
community)

In my shul, we have someone who does not have much of a background. He  
quietly came to the gabbaim and said that he knows that he is unable  
to be a shliach tzibbur (even for psuke dzimra), but he is a trumpet  
player, and therefore wanted us  to consider him to blow shofar - as  
one of the few things he could do for the community.  He was extremely  
happy that we understood (he did an excellent job). That sense - that  
one has to participate in the community davening - is one that is very  
strong.


Many (?most) women brought up in a modern community in the last 20  
years have a similar sense - they wish to be part of the community -  
and that means not being a spectator, but having some  communal role.   
What that role is needs to be defined, and it is not necessarily an  
egalitarian impulse - roles have to be dfiend.  However,  if they do  
not have any communal role, it means that they are not part of that  
community.  In the past, that involvement involved aspects outside of  
the actual tefilla - sisterhood, kiddush committtee, tzedaka  
organizations.  Because of educational issues, participation in the  
tefilla itself was of more minor concern (and viewed as unreachable).   
Today, the lack of participation in the tefilla is viewed as a  
statement that they are not part of the tefilla community.  That is  
problematic.  This isnt an issue of showing off - but of participation.

Meir Shinnar