[Avodah] Kol Isha - HETER

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Feb 03, 2010 at 03:16:06PM +0200, Michael Makovi wrote:
: > Arguably, it is more accurate to define kedei leihanot as:
: > Only if there is no shred of desire to find hana'ah, even if that desire
: > remains unfulfilled.
...
: But, I don't want to quibble on exactly what hirhur / hana'ah is,
: because if you really pushed me into a corner, I'd have to say the
: fear of hirhur / hana'ah is that it will lead to illicit
: relationships....

: But R' Micha's statement seems fair, that illicit hirhur / hana'ah
: includes even the mere attempt to find hirhur / hana'ah, even if that
: attempt fails....

But you missed my focus on KEDEI leihanos. I'm not defining hana'ah, I'm
pointing out the word before it.

I think this is the implied basis of RYBS's pesaq, that opera is okay,
but listening to someone who uses non-tzeniusdik attire (even if you
can't see it) would be a problem. Because the latter is trying to create
hanaah.

But in either case, others showed that your presumed level of sufficient
hana'ah isn't born out by the sources.

: >> 4) The Jewish communities of the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, Syria,
: >> Germany, and Cochin were historically lenient....

: > Which proves nothing. You would need to show that they historically
: > weren't being yelled at, despite violating the pesaq of their own
: > community's rishonim. Most Litvisher women didn't cover their hair, but
: > no one was pasqining it's okay. Just that it wasn't a battle they could
: > win.

: Which is precisely why I combined both halakhic and historical
: examples...

Yes, your brought textual proof from someone who is more machmir, and
mimtetic indication from a community that we don't know if their own
leaders believed in the appropriateness of what they were doing.
And you are bringing a historical example of a different community as
though it's more relevent than the history of the community in question???

...
: Furthermore, some of these anecdotes of mine actually involve rabbis
: themselves listening to kol isha, so it's difficult to say the rabbis
: merely chose not to fight the battle. As the Egyptian testimony of
: mine says, the rabbis of Egypt used Umm Kalthoum's tunes in the
: synagogue, even though they knew exactly where they came from! I think
: it's fair to say that this is an actual implicit permission to listen
: to her.

Where's the qol ishah in your example? Because they knew where the songs
were from when they heard a male chazan sing them?

:> And RYYW [ = Rabbi Yehiel Weinberg] was only meiqil because
:> it was to inspire kids who would
:> otherwise seek clubs not particular to promoting Yahadus! You keep on
:> invoking him, but RYYW didn't buy into any of your arguments except
:> where there was a conflicting mitzvah involved!

: That's true, but it's not the whole truth. Rabbi Weinberg first
: established that:
: 1) Kol isha is mutar when hirhur / hana'ah is absent
: 2) Here ( = mixed-sex youth groups and Shabbat zemirot) there is no
: hirhur / hana'ah

: Only then did Rabbi Weinberg invoke the Mordekai's eit la'asot lashem,
: to be lenient in kol isha for the sake of saving the Torah.

This actually WEAKENS your argument. RYYW considered your arguments and
found them insufficient for general use. He only allowed them to be
invoked in a near eis-laasos.

We are meiqil in stam keilim einam ben yonam WRT grandma's fine china
in cases where we wouldn't be meiqil if the cup in question were a $7
mug from the local mall. A poseiq would invoke hefseid merubah.

Which would mean state that he wouldn't use the line of reasoning for a
lesser hefseid, and someone who did so couldn't claim to be following
the original teshuvah.

On Wed, Feb 03, 2010 at 07:52:01PM +0200, Michael Makovi wrote:
: My interpretation of the Rambam is explicit in Rabbi Yehiel Weinberg.
: Rambam says something like assur l'histakel b'etza ketana kedei
: leihanot, v'gam lishmoah kol shel ha-erva. Is there any possible
: interpretation other than to say (as Rabbi Weinberg does) that both
: kol isha and etzba ketana are conditioned on kedei leihanot?
...

Well, look at Issurei Bi'ah 21:2 inside. The Rambam lists:
    Someone who does one of these (21:1) chuqim is chashud al ha'arayos.
    It is prohibited for a person to make a sign with his hands or feet,
    or hint with his eyes to one of the arayos
    o lischoq imah
    o lehaqeil rosh
    or even to smell the spices which are on her
    or to look at her beauty is assur.
    And someone who premeditatedly does one of these things gets maqas
    mardus.

    Someone who looks (mistaqeil) even in a woman's etzba qatana with
    the intent to get hana'ah, it is as though he looked in the most
    private place
    and even listening to the voice of an ervah
    or so see her hair
    is prohibited.

This last piece most naively reads as as three item list:
    - looking at her pinky with the wrong intent (complete with
      comparison)
    - qol ishah
    - sei'ar
Where would one assume that the intent applies to all three?

And in fact as I will argue further down, I don't even think RYYW found
his argument compelling, and only included it among his sum of factors.

: I realize my interpretation is cavalier, but what can I say? The
: rishonim will interpret kol isha based on time and place, and Ra'avad
: and Ra'avya both limited it to singing based on this, whereas the
: clear peshat of the Gemara (as well as the interpretation of Rambam
: and Rabbi Yehuda he-Hasid) is that is that kol isha includes even mere
: speech. How can the Aharonim say that hergel is an illegitimate means
: to limit kol isha, when they rely on the hergel-limitation when they
: say kol isha is limited to singing? ...

That's a great question -- not an answer.

Issur veheter aren't defined by looking at the rishonim and pretending
that the subsequent centuries of halachic development didn't exist.
Their words are binding, at least to some extent, and certainly can't be
dismissed until after you understand where they'r coming from and can
prove a different al mi lismoch.

:                They are relying on hergel at the very moment they say
: hergel is not a legitimate factor! If you reject hergel, then you MUST
: say that to speak to a woman violates kol isha. And if you say kol
: isha is limiting to singing, that itself is a legitimation of hergel.

Except that speech wasn't permitted simply due to hergel. Veharaayah,
how many conversations with women are quoted in the gemara? "Al TARBEH
sichah im ha'ishah..." -- a little is not being advised against, and a
lot is a Pirqei Avos issue, not tzeni'us one.

So, I would go back to the Rambam, but, well, Bar Ilan and I can't find
anything about talking to women in the Rambam. Greetings, yes, but that's
even via a messenger as well (ibid halakahha 5). It's not about voice.

: Read Rabbi Howard Jachter's article (cited in my essay), for example.
: It's an excellent article, and a very useful one, to which I am
: indebted. But it's rather frustrating to see him discuss Rabbi
: Weinberg at length, and then conclude that no posqim have allowed
: hergel to mitigate the prohibition. Excuse me?? Isn't that EXACTLY
: what Rabbi Weinberg did??...

Not in general. Just as a tzad heter among other tzedadaim.

On Mon, Feb 08, 2010 at 04:32:46PM +0000, kennethgmiller at juno.com wrote:
: Isn't this exactly what the Aruch Hashulchan was referring to in his
: p'sak (O"C 75:7) about saying brachos in the presence of a married woman's
: uncovered hair? His view clearly seems to be that because we can safely
: presume that the average man's hirhur/hanaah will be insignificant,
: therefore it becomes mutar for him to say brachos there.

Except that miDas Moshe, she still isn't complying to halakhah.

The parallel to nidon didan would assur kol ishah, but allow someone to
daven while a woman is singing in the background. (Assuming a culture
where hearing a woman sing is common place.)

What RMM tried doing by citing the Rambam was effectively to argue that
the Rambam holds qol ishah is das Yehudis. I find it methodologically
wrong to cherry-pick like that; to use a machmir to "prove" a qulah
probably meant you misunderstood your source.

Except that's not necessaerily what the Rambam said, and the only
person of the hundreds who write on the subject after having learned the
Rambam who might suggest otherwise was trying to matir something in an
in extremis situation. And I am not even sure RHJ actually agrees that's
RYYW's intent altogether!

In general, I find your reliance on prefiltered sources, reading the
promary sources via secondary ones and never revisiting them to form your
own opinion bothersome. Particularly since you keep an unbalanced set
of secondary sources. People can extrapolate, and then you extrapolate
for them, leaving you cantilevered over the abyss.

But then you're combining this level of knowledge with a willingness
to second guess centuries of poseqim who invested so much more time
analyzing the same topic.

And THEN, what I really find troublesome is that a web site associated
with a nascent finds that level of discussion of an innovation of halakhah
to be an article worthy of their audiences consideration.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "Fortunate indeed, is the man who takes
micha at aishdas.org        exactly the right measure of himself,  and
http://www.aishdas.org   holds a just balance between what he can
Fax: (270) 514-1507      acquire and what he can use." - Peter Latham