[Avodah] Shemini Atzeres as a time for Hislamdus

[Joseph Kaplan]

I was the chaver Micha referred to in his lengthy explanation of his quote from Rav Wolbe about hislamdus which references  the Rambam‘s full statement about a father not teaching his daughter Torah.  

Minha thinks it’s about the ability of “picking the elements they accept out of the ones
they don't.” That’s not what concerned me at all not do I think that was my failing. Rather, i was concerned with history and educational techniques. 

By history, I mean that I know what an obstacle the Ramban’s statement was to those who fought hard — and in my circles fought successfully — to get to a stage where the level of Torah taught to women is equivalent, it almost equivalent, to that taught to men. It was hard and it took a long time. The non-O jews That Micha refers to weren’t, I guess, clued into that history and thus could easily slough off the statement. Those of us who are could not, and it has little to do with picking out elements. 

As for educational techniques, I’ll use an analogy. (As all analogies, this one is imperfect. But I think close enough. Feel free to disagree.)

A literature professor is making a point about fiction writing and chooses as his text a section from Huck Finn in which the word “nigger” is used several times. The use of that word is not relevant to the point being made and the professor makes no comment at all about it. I believe the teacher made a serious error. He didn’t have to spend the lecture on it. But he did have to recognize it and, at the very least, acknowledge there’s an issue about it that he’ll leave fir another day. 

If you think ignoring the use of that now objectionable word  was good teaching in the English class then you should have no problem with the hislamdus post. I think, however, both were errors from an educational standpoint. 

Joseph

Sent from my iPhone