[Avodah] Tzeni'us and gender roles

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, Jul 19, 2009 at 08:12:09PM +0200, Arie Folger wrote:
: You know, you state so confidently and so obviously that "you aren't
: accomplishing as much being a stay-at-home mom is ... false." While I
: am all for giving stay at home mums the respect they deserve, I am not
: quite sure that we can dismiss the feeling of many women that they are
: achieving a more meaningful, fulfilling life by having a career, with
: some mere hand waving.

You're talking about how they feel, and I'm talking about value as
avodah.

There aren't too many tasks equal in value to building a Jewish home and
raising the next generation of shomerei Torah umitzvos. I didn't really
think that point needs defense.

As I see it, at the core of deciding the advisability of this sort of
innovation is whether the woman who feels her life is less meaningful and
fulfilled ought to be given a form of avodas Hashem on these new terms,
or are we to invest that effort in changing her feelings about which
avodah is more meaningful and fulfilling. Perhaps she is unfulfilled on
the religious plane because her definition of what G-d wants from her
isn't entirely in line with what He actually does want.

I understood RHS to be arguing that the sacrifice in vehatzneiah lekhes
im E-lokekha is an overly high price to pay for accepting the new terms.
That even if economic and social realities have women in the workplace,
modifying our modes of avodah to sacrifice this kind of tzeni'us is a
step away from the Torah's ideal.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             None of us will leave this place alive.
micha at aishdas.org        All that is left to us is
http://www.aishdas.org   to be as human as possible while we are here.
Fax: (270) 514-1507            - Anonymous MD, while a Nazi prisoner