[Avodah] Women and Tallis

[Chana Luntz]

> 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
> : didnot grant her permission to wear a Talit).

And RMB replied:

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

...

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

I see the value in your criticism, but I have an even more fundamental
question.  Why, even within a Brisk "halachic" world view is this not
something that can be justified within a halachic analysis?

Chagiga 16b
Rabbi Yosi says Abba Elazar told me that once we had a calf of an offering,
and we brought it to the women's courtyard and the women leant on it, not
because leaning is obligatory for women but in order to give "nachat ruach"
to the women.  And if you would think that one needs leaning with all one's
strength because of nachat ruach for the women would we [allow them to do]
work with kodshim?  Rather, derive from this that we do not need with all
one's strength - no, I can say to that we do need with all one's strength,
and they said to them float your hands [ie they told the women not to do
leaning with all their strength, even though that is what the men were
doing]  - if so, [it was not necessary to explain that] it was not because
of leaning for women.  Let him [Rabbi Abba Elazar], explain that they did
not do leaning at all.  Rav Ami said, one and another thing, one, that they
did not do leaning at all and further, it was done to give nachat ruach to
women.

Now there are various ways the rishonim explain what is going on here.
Ra'avid (beginning of Toras Kohanim) says that when women brought their own
korbanos they did and could do the full leaning, and what the gemora in
Chagiga here is describing when refers to getting women to float their hands
over the korban and not do the full leaning was in circumstances where they
did not actually have a portion in the korban (like if it was paid for and
brought by their husbands).  

Tosphos however suggests that all women were encouraged to only float their
hands and not do the full leaning.

Tosphot Chullin 85a
Women may lean: - this is to float their hands like that which is said in
bain dorshin (Chagiga 16b) but with all their strength Rabbi Yosi agrees
that it is prohibited and [it can be asked here] how can Rabbi Yosi permit
women to lean by floating their hands even though it would seem like they
are doing work on kodshim [a rabbinic prohibition] and here also to blow
[shofar] there is only a prohibition that is rabbinic and Rabbi Yosi permits
this for women.

That is, according to Tosphos, if women are not obligated in something, they
are prohibited from doing it if it would mean that thereby they would
violate an issur d'orisa, but that if they would only violate an issur
d'rabbanan, then it is permitted.  Floating the hands is only an issur
d'rabbanan and hence was permitted to give nachat ruach to women.

But regardless of whether you take the Ra'avid's approach (which seems also
to be Rashi, as he seems to suggest that women could do the full fledged
leaning) or Tosphos' - there were clearly some circumstances (whether it was
when the women in question had no portion in the korban, or all women), when
the chachamim allowed women to do something (floating the hands) which
clearly had no "religious or halachic value" in order to give nachas ruach
d'nashim.

That is, given the accepted halachic position that real smicha involves
leaning with all one's strength, floating one's hands is merely imitative
nonsense - making it look like one is doing smicha (and hence, according to
Tosphos, violating a rabbinic prohibition) when in reality one is not.

How does that differ from the woman and the tallis case?  What she did
(actually what RYBS apparently suggested she do) was do something that
imitated what the men were doing without actually constituting the mitzvah.
And when the woman reported back to him that she had indeed had nachas ruach
- as one would expect given the gemora in Chagiga, how can RYBS then throw
that back at her?  Is it not tantamount to rejecting the halachic legitimacy
of what was done by Chazal as documented in Chagiga?

> That said, I see value to R' Aviner's observation about yuhara. 

The question about yuhura and tallis is a bit deeper than just R' Aviner's
observation.

It is actually a Rema in OC 17:2.  But it is also important to quote all of
the Rema, as he explains there why in the case of tzitzit is different
stating *hoil v'aino chovot gavra perush sheino chayav liknot lo talit kedei
shechayav b'tzitzit*.

The point being that tzitzis is only a mitzvah kiyumis - a man is not
required to wear tzitzis, only if he wants to wear a four cornered garment
must he put tzitzis on.  And for many times during our history it is not
clear that anybody except the pious wore tzitzis (yes, today, three year old
boys are required by their schools to wear tzitzis, but this seems to be a
new fangled custom, certainly amongst many communities).  For a woman to
take on a mitzvah that only the pious were doing raised issues of yehura -
if you look at the general discussions of yehura in other contexts, they
mostly centre on any (male) Tom or Yankel taking on actions that are
specified as only being for talmidei chachamim and the like.    Tzitzis may
originally be a mitzvah kiyumis, but today by minhag it has the status of a
mitzvah chiyuvis.  Once could debate whether, in a world whether every three
year old boy who is barely toilet trained is putting on tzitzis, the Rema's
concern remains or applies.

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...)

It seems to me that your father's concern is therefore justified, given the
Rema in question.  You technically don't have to get yourself into the
problem as this is only a mitzvah kiyumis anyway.  And the fact that I
suspect you do feel you need to get into the question and do not take a
standard modern approach (found on most other topics except this one) of
avoiding all questions of machlokus on the subject by never wearing a
garment that needs tzitzis, speaks to the fact that today, tzitzis is not
really regarded as just a mitzvah kiyumis.

 
> Tir'u baTov!
> -Micha

Shavuah tov

Chana