[Avodah] Women and Tallis

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

R' Micha Berger wrote:

> We do many things that come from sources outside the mitzvah.
> "Hinei Keil yeshuasi" before Havdalah, for example.

If one simply mumbles the words, then your point is valid. But we should be taking the time and effort to understand the words, and use them as a means of getting a good start to the week.

> Qabbalas Shabbos. Etc, etc, etc...

Ditto

> Why is this woman wanting to do something that makes her feel
> connected to the Borei valueless just because it is non-halachic?

I'd put the emphasis elsewhere. I agree that merely being non-halachic is not a good enough reason to declare something valueless. However, the one who calls it "valuable" must be able to show where the value is located.

> Would RYBS have given the same advice to NCSY and tell them to stop
> doing kumzitzin or a pre-havdalah "ebbing" for an hour?

I hope not! For the type of people that NCSY works with, singing a song in Lashon Hakodesh can be very meaningful. Even if they don't understand the words, it establishes a kesher with one's people, and I don't see that as valueless.

(More directly to the point of RYBS's outlook: Can someone explain where he saw Pirsumei Nisa in a case where one read Megilas Esther without understanding any of it? I wonder if there is a parallel between that case, and the NCSY kumzitz.)

But this woman wore a garment whose only shaichus to kedusha was that it *could* be used for the mitzva of tzitzis, if only someone would actually put some tzitzis on it. It seems to me that RYBS judged this act to have less than a mashehu of value.

> 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.

A new variant? Or merely an alternate explanation of existing minhagim? Please, teach me more!

> 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.

His answer fit into my worldview very nicely as soon as I saw it. I'm looking forward to seeing how other listmembers understood that story.

> 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...)

And when I finally got near the Leadership side of YU's Torah Leadership Seminar, one of the first things I did was to print a songbook with translations of the songs we sang at our kumzitzin, because I do agree that it is difficult (though not impossible) to find value therein if one does not understand what he is singing.

Akiva Miller


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