[Avodah] Maharat

[Isaac Balbin via Avodah]

Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2017 18:57:06 -0500
From: Noam Stadlan via Avodah 

> R. Isaac Balbin wrote about women having women gather and men having men
> gather.  Which is all the more reason to have female rabbis.  So that women
> can gather around women rabbis.  

I'm sorry this does not compute halachically or logically. The men don't
gather around the Rabbi either, and I have never seen a problem when
the Rav who has been directing everything requests women on one side
and men on the other.

> certainly it is not an argument against
> women rabbis.  

It was a comment that even in a place where the Yetzer Horah is least
likely to have an influence, we are asked to be separate from each other.

> And unless you are making a claim(which I think some like
> the Ger Chassidim do, but Modern Orthodox certainly dont) that a modestly
> dressed woman or man, acting in a modest way, is a problem from a sexual
> immorality point of view, the last paragraph about separation at funerals
> does not apply either.

Ger does not make that their focus. They have Gedorim for their own
wives even if dressed Tzniusdikly etc

One doesn't have to be modern orthodox to encounter women in the
workplace either.

It would be good if there were more women asking shaylos period. For
Nida shaylos there have always been ways to treat a matter discretely.