[Avodah] Deputy Ministers

[Joseph Kaplan]

This just kicks the can down the road a bit by requiring us to decide what
is "significant change." And let's stick with women -- deaf -- mutes are
a much easier case since I doubt anyone in this list (and beyond) really
wants to treat people who use ASL to speak as a cheireish in the Talmud.

So, what about aliyot? At a time when most women couldn't read Hebrew, it
might have been impugning the kavod hatzibur to give them aliyot rather
than men. But in times where there has been significant change such
that there is universal teaching of Torah to women on a level equal or
almost equal to men in many communities, is that a "significant change"
enough to revert to "all are called up for aliyot."

Or in a time when there has been such significant change in the status of
women such that there are women CEOs and women heads of schools including
yeshivot and women candidates for the most powerful position in the world,
what's the to'eles of telling such a women CEO or principal (I don't think
this question applies to Harris) that she can't be a shul president or,
indeed, a shul rabbi other than to treat her as a second class citizen
and perhaps both turn her off to Torah and mitzvot and/or deprive the
shul and its members of the very best candidate fur the job?

Significant change is a pretty flexible standard.

Joseph
Sent from my iPhone

On Aug 20, 2024, at 4:29PM, Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org> wrote:
>> Putting aside my friend Toby's political opinions which, unsurprisingly,
>> differ from mine, I'm happy to see that we agree that halacha can change
>> with the times and circumstances.

> I think it's rarely a real change. In the vast majority of cases,
> we recognize the precedent as binding. We instead note a change in
> circumstances that mean something significant change that makes that
> apparent precedent as irrelevent. And that the already existing halakhah
> needs to be applied to a new case -- which produces a new outcome.

> For example, a deaf mute who can learn and communicate through a sign
> language like ASL isn't in the same situation as a cheireish. We didn't
> change the dinim for cheireish; we found that the existing laws simply
> had underlying assumptions that don't apply after means of communication
> were invented.

> RAYK's pesaq was based on the idea that the state wouldn't allow women
> sufferage, thereby avoiding women having sherarah. But if the electoral
> body includes women having sherarah either way, the motive for the
> his saying it is prohibited is undecut. Instead other aspects of our
> lives would be made more difficult by losing votes, but for no to'eles.