[Avodah] Maharat

Fri Jun 9 09:39:54 PDT 2017

On Thu, Jun 08, 2017 at 09:36:08PM -0500, Noam Stadlan via Avodah wrote:
: I am sorry I do not have more time to devote to this discussion and will
: bow out.

A shame, as we went in circles on one issue and didn't touch the others.

Including my assertion that the Chinuch (142) speaks "ishah chokhmah
hare'uyah lelhoros" and "assur lo leshanos letalmidav" -- whether
someone who has the skills to give hora'ah shouldn't be teaching
when drunk. No mention of hora'ah, but ra'ui lehora'ah and teaching.
Because, he explains, their teaching will be accepted by those who
look up to them, as if it were hora'ah.

Similarly the Chida (Birkei Yoseif, CM se'if 7:12) rules out ordaning
women, following the example of Devorah. People can voluntarily listen
to Devorah (or, it would seem, to a yo'etzes), but she cannot be
appointed a rabbi nor ordained as one because her opinion could not be
imposed. Picture the town hiring a rabbi that any chazan can say, "Well,
I don't follow him" and therefore can break from the shul's norm, or even
"I don't follow him on this one." But more to the point, following the
Chinukh (who is cited), he says "deDevorah haysah melamedes lahem dinim."
R' Baqshi Doron mentions this problem in his letter, which RGS has
scanned at
http://www.torahmusings.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Rav-Bakshi-Doron-on-Women-Rabbis.pdf#page=2
REBD concludes that because of this, women should not be tested or
given semichah, as that would be an appointment rather than voluntary
acceptance of a particular teaching.

And, while the Chida (and thus REBD) says "ishah chokhmah yekholah
lehoros hora'ah", he is defining this as teaching law, not interpresting
law -- nidon didan. Which is consistent with the Chinukh the Chida
is building on.

Nor did we get to my non black-letter-halakhah concerns. Including my
concern that the whole project reflects a misrepresentation of Judaism's
demands by thinking that anything that can fit the black letter of the law
is in compliance with the Torah. That there is none of the more nebulous
side of the law; an obligation to pursue a given value system and ethic.
The fact that "Mesorah" is dismissed as political rather than a real
Torah issue is to my mind a blunder; and your disinterest in discussing
this aspect actually hightened those concerns.

Nor the question of telling women that they are correct to seek value in
a manner that has a glass cieling for them.

Nor the question of whether a woman belongs in shul service, or whether it
was designed to be a Men's Club. And if not designed, whether its function
as a Men's Club is too useful to be sacrificed. As one example, but not
the whole problem: Will male attendance lessen if we lose that character;
will Tue, Wed and Fri (workdays with no leining) Shacharis attendance
among O men go the way of Shabbat attendance among their C counterparts?

But on, the topic we did discuss...

:  I may have misrepresented the Chatam Sofer in that he was critiquing
: certain categories of semicha and not the entire enterprise, I have to look
: up the underlying sources to be sure.  The article is in Or HaMizrach 44
: a-b p 54. by R. Shetzipanski...

But having a reference in the CS itself would have been more 

...
: In the volume found on Otzar Hachochma, the teshuva addressing semichah of
: the Maharik is number 117, not 113(as stated in the OU paper), which may
: explain my difficulty in finding it.

It's the Rama who says 113. (It's either that the copy in OhC is
idiosyncratic, or, the OU copied a typo in the Rama and didn't check.
I know that's what I did.)

: I think the plain reading of the Rambam in Hilchot Sanhedrin 4 is that he
: is discussing Mosaic semicha that was still operative in the time of the
: Gemara. which is why in 4:6 he states that it can only be done in Eretz
: Yisrael and in 4:8 he includes a discussion of semicha for dinei kinasot
...

Limnos ledavarim yechidim is not always to be a dayan. One can get reshus
lehoros be'issur veheter or lir'os kesamim but not ladun. It's the same
process as geting reshus ladun or ladun dinei kenasos, or... Do you think
"lir'os kesamim" was ever limited to dayanim? The fact that the Rambam
treats reshus lit'os kesamim and reshus ladun as one topic that's the
whole point!

(And that addresses Zev's recent post, which I approved while this one
was sitting around mid-edit.)

Now that you found the Mahariq that the Rama se'if 6 says he bases
himself on, I would have like to have heard if you disagree that he too
is treating the rules for yoreh-yoreh and the rules for Mosaiq semichah
as one topic.

And Tosafos?

: I very much appreciate the time and effort that was expended in the
: discussion and I hope that I have been able to illustrate at the very
: least, that there is a very good and rational case to be made in favor of
: women's ordination and it certainly is not 'beyond the pale' of reasonable
: understanding of the Halacha...

I haven't heard a complete defense, but I didn't see at all a positive
case for.

After all, the burden of proof is on the innovator. We didn't touch the
whole conversation of proving that the innovation is positive enough *in
Torah values* to justify settling for just what could be read as a
not 'beyond the pale' understanding.

On Thu, Jun 08, 2017 at 03:01:33PM -0600, Daniel Israel via Avodah wrote:
: 1. Why is the halachic question the primary point of discussion? ...

: 3. RBW wrote regarding who can decide on these kinds of questions: "My
: example for this would be chassidut. The changes that it brought were
: huge and as we all know, so was the opposition to it. Yet here were are
: today, with chassidut thought of as glatt kosher."
...
: That said, I think we are indeed looking at something where there are two
: camps, with extremely strong opposition partly based on a concern that
: this is a change which, even if one finds a way to make it technically
: okay, will open the door to a slide away from proper halachic practice,
: much as happened with the Conservative movement...

My own concern is (as Avodah long-timers should expect) more meta.

Why is the only quesiton that of black-letter halakhah? Why the ignoring
of -- what do I call it, "gray-letter halakhah"? -- laws that don't
codify cleanly, that require a feel for what seems in line with the
Torah, that which RHS calls "Mesorah"? (Although "mesorah" has become
an ill-defined concept, including both Torah-culture values and mimetic
practice. For that matter, I find that R/Dr Haym Soloveitchik's use of
"mimeticism" also blurs both, as both are transmitted culturally.)

To me, that's a critical meta-innovation that warrants asking if we're
still all playing by (evolving our practice with) the same rules.

I am not worried about a slippery slope to C. To my mind, that's worrying
about when the problem, if there is one, becomes symptomatic. To me the
question is whether procedurally, the process R/D NS is defending is
already unlike the rest of O IN A DEFINITIONAL WAY.

After all, once you define MO to include an openness to modern values,
following the Torah becomes just using the halakhah as a test -- can
this new idea fit black-letter law or do we have to do without? But
also our test itself changes. Deciding which shitah to follow depends
in part on our priorities, and in LWMO, those modern values also define
the priorities.

As R/Dr Stadlan put it:
:            ... I hope that I have been able to illustrate at the very
: least, that there is a very good and rational case to be made in favor of
: women's ordination and it certainly is not 'beyond the pale' of reasonable
: understanding of the Halacha...

Thinking something is okay to do as long as one can find understandings
of shitos that can combine to show the idea is plausible and not "beyond
the pale" is to my mind itself beyond the pale.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Life isn't about finding yourself
micha at aishdas.org        Life is about creating yourself.
http://www.aishdas.org                - Bernard Shaw
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