[Avodah] The Rav on the Ordination of Women

[Chana Sassoon]

RAF responded to various of my postings as follows (although I have
rearranged the order somewhat of his comments):

I wrote:
> >"One other thing in the above piece puzzles me.  RAF writes that Rav
> >Moshe was "unaware that we indeed find the Rambam's formulation in the
> >Finkelstein edition of the Sifrei".  Given that Rav Uziel writing in 1920
in his
> > psak on women voting (Mishpatei Uziel 44) knew of this addition to the
Sifri,
> > it seems rather surprising to suggest that Rav Moshe, writing fifty
years
> > later, was ignorant of it."
> 
> 
> 
> IMHO Rav Moshe Feinstein was obviously unaware of the alternate Girsa
> in the Sifrei since he wonders where the Rambam got the idea that women
were
> excluded from all minuyei serara.  He concludes that there is indeed no
> source and it was Rambam's own logical extension -  presumably
> extrapolated from ger.  Clearly, RMF was unaware of an alternate girsa
which comes
> out just like the Rambam.

This is indeed true.  It is extremely curious, however, and gets even
curiouser when one reads the teshuva that is printed right after (Iggeros
Moshe Yoreh Deah 2:45) the original one on women and serarah (Iggeros Moshe
Yoreh Deah 2:44).  The second teshuva is written to defend what he wrote in
the first teshuva after encountering what seems to have been significant
criticism of the first, a) for potentially causing a michshol by telling
people that the majority do not posken like the Rambam, and b) on various
halachic grounds.  But the one criticism that does not appear to have been
put to Rav Moshe was this one, ie what about this discovered Sifri, and is
this not the source of the Rambam?    The first teshuva from Rav Moshe is
dated Purim taf shin kaf [ie Purim 1960] and the second, while not dated,
has to be later.  Rav Uzziel's teshuva was dated 1920, I believe, and he
quotes the additional piece of the Sifri as "coming from the geniza that was
revealed by HaRav Shlomo Aharon Vartanheimer".

I wrote:
>> "I cannot see anywhere where RYBS addresses the question of the
> >Levush's reason (ie that women faint)"
> 
And RAF responded: 
> Chana is correct.  I responded from memory and erred.  The Rav does not
> relate to the Levush and Fainting - only to the claim that lo rainu
> ra'aya.

Although to be fair, in the pages of Shiurei HaRav which relate to this
matter, and which RAF has now kindly sent me, the view of Tosphos in Chullin
(2a) and the explanation of the Beis Yosef on that Tosphos is brought in a
footnote, these almost certainly being the basis of the view of the Levush.
Not understanding this book, I don't know what to make of the footnotes.
Were these referred to in the shiurim, or are these additions by the author,
later? at the time?  In any event R' Gil did not translate these footnotes,
which is why I had not seen the reference previously. 
> 

I wrote:
>> ". whether RYBS held that the Rema was ruling like the Rambam in the
> >face of the majority of the rishonim."
> 

And RAF replied:
 
> I'm not sure Briskers were ever terribly concerned whether the majority
> of Poskim agreed with the Rambam or not. The Rambam was a Giant, and that
> was that.

This seems a little bit harsh on the Briskers.  As far as I am aware, they
are not Yeminites (whom, I believe, do indeed posken like the Rambam both
l'chumra and l'kula).  For example, in our recent discussion on this list
regarding bishul achar bishul on a d'var lach, if RYBS were simply to take
the view that the Rambam was a giant, and that is that, then he would never
have postulated what he postulated (in fact, the position of the Chazon Ish
discussed here is more compatible with a position that the Rema is following
the Rambam, given that the Rambam holds that ain bishul achar bishul on a
d'var lach).

But leaving the relationship between Rambam and ultimate halacha aside for a
minute, I did want to point out that if one was just learning the Rambam on
this, but with the knowledge of the Sifri from the geniza, it is possible to
come up with the kind of chiluk so beloved by Briskers.  This is due to the
differing language of the Rambam in relation to women and to converts, as
can be seen in the two halachos that follow each other, and which I quoted
in a previous post, namely:

Rambam Hilchot Melachim perek 1 halacha 4 A king shall not be appointed from
the community of converts, even after many generations unless his mother is
from Israel, as it says [Devarim 17:15] do not put upon yourselves a
foreigner who is not your brother, and not to the kinship alone,  but all
"sareros"  in Israel, not a sar [ie prince] of the army, and not a sar of
fifty or a sar of ten, even the one given authority over the waters that
they divide from there for the fields, and it is not necessary to say a
judge or a nasi that he should not be except from Israel as it says "from
the midst of your brothers shall you place on yourself a king", all
appointments which you shall place shall not be except from the midst of
your brothers.

And then:

Rambam Hilchot Melachim perek 1 halacha 5 We may not appoint a woman to the
kingship as it says on you a king and not a queen, and so for all the
appointments [mesimos] in Israel we only appoint [maminim] to them a man.

Now Rav Moshe, who assumed that the Rambam got this second halacha from the
gemora regarding converts (and there is logic to that, as the language in
halacha 5 tracks that of Yevamos 45b and Kiddushin 76b regarding converts
"kol mesimos"), therefore applied all of the other aspects of serarah that
come up in the gemora.

But if you assume that the Rambam's source for halacha 5 was in fact the
[newly discovered] Sifri the language  of which is A foreigner:  from here a
man is appointed a parnes [community leader] on the community [al hatzibur]
and a woman is not appointed a community leader on the community [parnes al
hatzibbur]", you can then say that the fact that the Rambam did not repeat
all the portions about a sar of fifty and a sar of ten and the one who
divides the waters is in fact davka.

That the issue at stake vis a vis a ger is indeed serarah, in terms of
authority over somebody else (in the way that Rav Moshe understood it), but
that the issue at stake vis a vis women is something different, something
that could be summed up in the phrase minui hakahal - ie community wide
appointments.  Why? Because that is what the Sifri specifically refers to, a
parnes *al hatzibbur*.  And that is why the Rambam uses very different (and
more limited) language, because he is getting at different concepts.

Now if this was what RYBS was getting at, then that would answer at least
some of my questions - in particular the one about where did he get this new
concept about minui hakahal which he appears to layer on top of the general
prohibition of serarah, and for which there appears to be no source
whatsoever (it still does leave him relying on what appears to be the
minority rishonic opinion, although it may be possible, given this
alternative understanding, to bring more rishonim into line than one can
with the classic convert serarah definition).

However there are two reasons that one might not want to assume that this
was what RYBS was getting at:

a) it would mean that whoever wrote Shiurei HaRav did not understand RYBS,
because the language of these shiurim is clearly phrased as, serarah and
minui hakahal, ie that there is a dual problem for women, and that women
have a greater problem than converts, whereas this chiluk would suggest that
a) at most it is just a different problem and b) probably it is a lesser
problem; and

b) while if you took this chiluk and applied it to women shechting, then you
would indeed come to the conclusion that women could not shect as a matter
of halacha, *but only in the circumstance that RYBS refers to specifically
in the shiurim*, and here I quote RGS's translation:

"The Shulchan Arukh (Yoreh De'ah 1:11) wrote that if a community issued a
decree that only one butcher may slaughter but someone else did, his
slaughtered meat is forbidden. The Shakh (no. 34) explains in the name of
Rabbenu Yerucham that the reason is because he is considered suspect for
this matter. However, according to our idea above, even without this reason
we would still forbid his slaughtered meat. Since slaughtering is a communal
appointment, anyone who is not appointed by the community is excluded from
slaughtering and his slaughtering is forbidden., wrote that if a community
issued a decree that only one butcher may slaughter but someone else did,
his slaughtered meat is forbidden. ie where there is a community appointed
shochet, whose position is so secure that to eat from anybody else's
shechted meat is assur! "

Ie in a circumstance where a community appointed shochet's position is so
secure that to eat from anybody else's shechted meat is assur, then it would
be forbidden to allow a woman to shecht, as this is a community position.
But if the situation reverted to that prior to it (as indeed it has today),
where we eat from a range of different shochtim, then the Rema's prohibition
falls away.  That is, it actually works out to be a kula not a chumra.

Note however that this chiluk does answer the question about school
principals. That is, if one says that there is in fact no problem with a
woman exercising serarah, then there is no problem with the Rav's wife
bossing around as many male pupils as she likes at a school like Maimonides,
regardless of whether or not they are halachic adults.  Because you can
indeed then say that school pupils are a section of the community, and not
the whole community (ie they are not analogous to a parnes al hatzibbur or a
community wide shochet who is the only one whose shechita is kosher).  But
again you end up with huge kulos compared to what has been proposed, because
given today's proliferation of shuls, the same would have to be said for any
given shul.  And yet where you would indeed find problems is in running for
Knesset, because those are indeed community wide appointments.

Note by the way that Rav Uzziel has not too dissimilar a chiluk in his
teshuva on women running for public office, but he focuses on the word
"appoint", which he understands to be by Sanhedrin or beis din, in
opposition to kabala or acceptance by the general populace (as I have noted,
however, this is very close to the chiluk that the Rashba brings, again in
the Rambam, as quoted by the Beis Yosef in Beis Yosef Choshen Mishpat siman
8 and which is quoted l'halacha by the Rema in Choshen Mishpat siman 8 si'if
1, so it personally seems to me to be better grounded.)

And finally RAF writes:

> It would seem to me that the Rav proposes the second approach because
> he is fundamentally unhappy with the proposal that inaction can create a
> minhag!
> This leads him to suggest what he thinks is a more satisfying answer.

I agree that the Shach is difficult (it is clear from his comments further
on in Yoreh Deah on this that he was seriously attacked for this
suggestion).  But what I don't have a feel for is the extent to which RYBS
believed providing a more satisfying answer intellectually is grounds to
abandon that which has been discussed by the achronim and the rishonim when
it comes to halacha l'ma'ase (especially as there may be other, even more
satisfying answers out there that we just haven't thought of).

As I have suggested above, the idea that RYBS was suggesting not serarah
plus minui kahal as the applicable prohibition in the Rambam, but minui
kahal instead of serarah is arguably far more intellectually satisfying and
works far more beautifully with the sources, if not with Shiurei HaRav.  How
far is one prepared to rely on the intellectually satisfying answer,
especially if it leads to kulos rather than chumros, is, of course, the
question.

Regards

Chana