[Avodah] Life's Role / Gender Roles

[David Riceman]

In one of his comments Rabbi Grossman writes that he taught Maharal to
girls in his high school. I, too, am an admirer of the Maharal, and one
of the things I admire most about him is the way he manages to include
every detail of a ma'amar Hazal in his analysis of its implications.
In this case, however, Rabbi Grossman seems to have ignored many details
of the ma'amar Hazal at the center of his essay.

That ma'amar is the saying of R. Eliezer in the third perek of Sotah (as
emended by the Talmud there): "Kol hamelamed es bito Torah k'ilu lamdah
tiflus". Here are some examples of Rabbi Grossman's lack of precision:

1. Where the mishna uses the paradigms of father and daughter, Rabbi
Grossman uses the paradigms of man and woman.

2. Where the mishna uses Torah (meaning, the poskim assure us, Torah
she'b'al peh; cf. H. Talmud Torah 1:12 that Biblical commentaries are
included in the category of Torah she'b'al peh), Rabbi Grossman is
specifically concerned with Talmud.

3. Where the mishna cites tiflus as the reason for the prohibition,
Rabbi Grossman comes up with a novel explanation.

4. Where the mishna presents a mahlokes (Ben Azzai says "hayyav adam
l'lamed es bito Torah"), Rabbi Grossman implies that the archetypes he
articulates are undisputed.

I'm particularly troubled by the last point. Rabbi Goodman says that the
archetypes he describes are "rooted in reality". Yet I suspect that he
accepts that every machlokes is a dispute about legal classification,
not about reality. To me that implies that any metaphysical speculation
based on this mishna must be able to be harmonized with Ben Azzai's
opinion, yet Rabbi Grossman makes no attempt to do that.

David Riceman