[Avodah] Tzeni'us and gender roles

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Aug 05, 2009 at 11:47:30AM +0000, kennethgmiller at juno.com wrote:
: > given the discussion on domestic abuse taking place ...
: > according to my understanding, a lot of professionals ...
: > have a very negative view of concepts such as kol kavuda
: > bas melech penima because they see such concepts as tools
: > that are extremely open to, well, abuse...
...
: I totally agree that these concepts are ones which are "extremely open
: to abuse". But this does not mean that the concept is inherently wrong
: or bad, only that it is easily misused. We need to distinguish betwen
: proper uses of the concept, and improper uses of it.

I planned on waiting another couple of days and replying to the next
round of responses at once. One of the items in the notes in the margins
of printed-out Avodah digests is this one. RAM did a clearer job than
I had in my head.

I just want to bring up one parallel to illustrate his point about
not avoiding institutionalizing something positive because some small
subset may abuse it (or, in this case, refraining from institutionalizing
something):

Much of halakhah and minhag can be severely abused by someone with
OCD tendencies. Our religion can be a minefield for someone with
this condition. One instance in particular, the way we (nearly all
non-Yemenites) wash our hands for neigl vasr and before hamotzi in
particular. It's hand washing, something someone with OCD is prone to
have problems with, and it's not ikkar hadin -- the patterns are al pi
qaballah. And then they have /different/ particular orders. Yet, I haven't
heard anyone turn that into an argument against maintaining the minhagim.

But the bulk of my reply to the responses to my previous post will come
later.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Between stimulus & response, there is a space.
micha at aishdas.org        In that space is our power to choose our
http://www.aishdas.org   response. In our response lies our growth
Fax: (270) 514-1507      and our freedom. - Victor Frankl, (MSfM)