[Avodah] Women and Tallis

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 03:15:54PM -0400, Moshe Y. Gluck wrote:
:            Ha-Rav Soloveitchik said: "For three months, you have been
: wearing a garment without any religious or halachic value, it is thus clear
: that your feeling comes from a source outside of the Mitzvah", and he did
: not grant her permission to wear a Talit).      

This is part of RYBS's general position about the relationship between
halakhah and following the Torah. One that I believe is distinctly Brisk.

Recall that this is someone who wondered for years what the value of
nevu'ah was, given that it can't relay halakhah. Most of us place more
importance on things that move us spiritually and never would have even
asked the question. Nevu'ah is for mussar, it's for deveiqus -- it can
have value without contributing to the din.

We do many things that come from sources outside the mitzvah. "Hinei
Keil yeshuasi" before Havdalah, for example. The particular patterns of
hand washing most qehillos use for neigl vasr or before hamotzi. Qabbalas
Shabbos. Etc, etc, etc...

Why is this woman wanting to do something that makes her feel connected
to the Borei valueless just because it is non-halachic? Would RYBS have
given the same advice to NCSY and tell them to stop doing kumzitzin or
a pre-havdalah "ebbing" for an hour?

This is the poseiq who created a new variant of the minhagim of aveilus
during the 3 weeks and 9 days because of his position that all minhagim
are stamped with the matbei'os of halakhah, and thus the aveilus of this
period must parallel to the kinds of mourning of the mitzvah derabbanan
of aveilus.

Most of us simply don't view halakhah this way, so I don't see how citing
RYBS's answer can be fit into our worldview.

That said, I see value to R' Aviner's observation about yuhara. It's
for this reason that when I first got ahold of murex dyed strings,
my father only wore them on his tallis qatan, not on display. (My own
tallis qatan's strings /are/ on display...)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             When a king dies, his power ends,
micha at aishdas.org        but when a prophet dies, his influence is just
http://www.aishdas.org   beginning.
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