[Avodah] Shelo Asani Isha

Tue Aug 30 04:17:59 PDT 2011

On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 12:02:38AM -0400, Daniel Bukingolts wrote:
: In these types of matters does it even matter whether or not you have a
: minority opinion supporting your stance if the whole point of your stance is
: simply because of modern cultural liberal agendas? Do motives mehind the
: change play a roll at all in respecting or following these decisions?

I feel this reflects a misunderstanding of the dynamic.

For most of the women involved, the feminist reality is a given. E.g. Take
Susan, a hypothetical Managing Director at a large bank, responsible for
dozens of employees. The notion of being a leadership role isn't something
she is trying to impose onto Judaism -- it is part of her life, and now
leaves her feeling a lack in her current mode of observance. Her desire
to have a turn leading a prayer group is from an honest religious hunger.

I am more bothered by something else, and people who were through the
previous iteration can skip down to my reply to RnCL's posts. It hasn't
been that long ago for this to be interesting reading.

What bothers me is the lack of real cheshbon hanefesh. IOW, Susan
the manager's need for more leadership and being in the front in her
religious expression is being treated as a given. It exists, now how do
we fill that need. There is not enough asking whether it is a positive
or unavoidable part of her psyche, or at least neutral, and therefore
/ought/ to be accomodated. Or whether it is a breach from the culture
of the observant community because it stems from a desire we are better
off trying to work to reduce.

I then invoked RHSchachter's understanding of tzeni'us, that tzeni'us is 
what motivates the obligation of a man who is asked to take the amud to
decline the offer. That such being in the limelight something men,
because of our chiyuvim, are forced to do -- to serve the community
even though one is paying a personal price. Not something we are really
supposed to want.

And from this mindset, Susan the MD's attitude is not really one we
should be accomodating, given a choice. Rather we should be educating
ourselves away from it.

And that includes the men who run to take the amud. (For reasons other
than compassion on the gabbaim, who really don't want to have to spend
5 minutes circulating the room looking for a baal shacharis when they
should be saying their own Pesuqei deZimra.) Our error (given how often I
work my running aishdas.org into conversations with people I meet, I have
to include myself) doesn't justify putting more people in that position.

But whether or not you buy into RHS's specific shitah -- and last cycle
those advocating change didn't find it convincing -- I mean it more as
an example to show that issues that make one wonder if this religious
need /should/ be accomodated /do/ exist, and do require addressing as
a precondition to any discussion of what changes are "black letter of
the law" halachically okay.

On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 07:18:53PM +0100, Chana Luntz wrote:
: But in the interests of honesty, it should be clear that in gemora didan, ie
: Menachos 43b, no such explanation is given...

: Menachos 33b-34a
...
: 
: Now leaving aside whether or not the original text here says sheasani
: Yisrael (which in itself is difficult to align with a mitzvah count
: rationale....

I don't know if we can. Because if we're using a different nusach, then
this may be an exception to the rule, a case where we hold like EY over
Bavel. And if so (and this is admittedly a hypothetical I'm raising
for consideration, not an assertion), starting from "gemara didan"
would not be appropriate (in this one case, it's not "didan").

...
: If Rabbi Meir's braisa is quoted correctly, then the original is shelo asani
: bor, which cannot be understood as being a reference to a mitzvah count (as
: a bor has the same mitzvah obligation as a talmud chacham)...

Then it would be:
1- Thank G-d for not making me someone who would neither be obligated nor
   would fulfil the mitzvos
2- Thank You for not making me someone obligated but doesn't fulfil the
   mitzvos (lo am ha'aretz chasid), and
3- Thank You for not making me someone for whom many mitzvos I am only an
   einah metzuvah ve'orah.

...
: And again, which the question that an eved is the same as an isha could be
: based on an equivalent level of obligation in the commandments (but again
: only if you posken, as I have previously posted, that an eved has no more
: mitzvos than an isha - and that is by no means pashut), it can also be
: equally well understood (as per Rashi's first explanation) that it is a
: matter of shibud....

Why emphasize Rashi's first explanation, if (as you already noted) the
providing of a second explanation means he found the first problematic?

On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 12:45:03PM +0100, Chana Luntz wrote:
: RAF writes:
:> In continuation of my previous post to Chana Luntz, my brother (R.
:> Prof.) Dov Frimer writes:

:> Aryeh, we already anticipated this in our WPG article around footnote
:> 26-  or more accurately the Rav did. See RHS, Eretz Hatzvi pp 96, at
:> length, where the Rav explains that an eved has only miktzat keddushat
:> yisrael - and therefore has certain partial OBLIGATIONS - while a woman
:> has complete kiddushat yisrael with partial EXEMPTIONS. While the
:> bottom line may be similar with regards to the performance of mitzvoth
:> aseh shz??g, the starting points are at exactly opposite poles.

: The problem I see with this is, that the exemption for avadim in
: relation to mitzvas aseh shehazman grama is learnt out a gezera shava
: "la", "la" from the obligations of a woman, as is explicit in Chagiga
: 4a....

I don't feel comfortable discussing the strength of RYBS's position
without seeing the lomdus he used to get to that point first. But...

Does a gezeira shava imply a thematic similarity, or only that the legal
result is the same?

I was under the impression that while derashah outranks peshat in halachic
authority, when it comes to values, we draw them from peshat. And in fact
there are cases, such as ayin tachas ayin, we were are told that the whole
reason why the peshat in the pasuq diverges from the din is to teach us
the value despite it being impossible to reflect directly into the law.

And if so, lah-lah doesn't rule out the possibilities that avadim are
peturim for entirely different reasons than the case we are learning from.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             People were created to be loved.
micha at aishdas.org        Things were created to be used.
http://www.aishdas.org   The reason why the world is in chaos is that
Fax: (270) 514-1507      things are being loved, people are being used.