S/O Nashim b'mai zachyan

simba

Sun, Sep 22 2019, 4:55 pm

amother [ Cobalt ] wrote:

Simba- seriously? The fact that you are not assumed to be a liar makes you feel superior?
Do you distrust your dh’s word about any of his mitzvos?
(Also- btw, lighting candles is a beautiful mitzvah, but it does not make it shabbos in your house. You maybe are mekabel shabbos then, but you don’t have to be, not do any of the members of your house. In fact, most men I know are not mekabel shabbos with their dw/dm, but in shul)

Yup, seriously.

It’s not about trust and whether I lie or not. It’s that the whole of this important mitzvah depends on me. The mitzvos my dh does are far more individual and I don’t depend on him. Save for מחצית השקל and הטרת נדרים, which are not the same magnitude of the mitzvos he relies on me for.

And Shabbos in my house starts when mommy bentches licht. Could dh do something if the 28 minutes didn’t start yet, technically, but it’s shabbos in the house.

You can find a bone to pick with everything I say or choose to see beauty.

simba

Sun, Sep 22 2019, 4:57 pm

amother [ Cerise ] wrote:

There are apologist answers that frankly are pretty weak. I think it's something along the lines woman are so smart and have such concrete opinions that she will not be able to listen to a dissenting opinion.
I'd rather not post the glory details but the gemara has very specific words to describe a womens intellectual capacity, and promiscuity.
There's a spin answer for everything of course.

Ok. Before you go into answers can you at least admit that the Torah isn’t equating women with minors, deaf and mentally ill people? Can we establish that?

GreenEyes26

Sun, Sep 22 2019, 6:33 pm

It helps me a lot to frame the Gemara/halachot/etc in the context of the time it was written and codified.

Things did not change for thousands of years...and then all of a sudden it’s the industrial revolution and things have changed faster in the last few hundred years than ever before, and keep changing at a rapid pace.

I don’t think my life in 2019 is anything like my great-grandmothers was in 1919, let alone what my great.....grandmothers was in 1519...1019.... you get the picture.

I think we, as a people, need to work harder on bringing modern life and sensibilities (no slaves, women are not inferior to men, etc etc) and our religion together. It’s the only way we can survive and flourish.

Isolated ourselves to an extreme degree isn’t working, and it isn’t healthy. Doing whatever we feel like isn’t working either - Reform Jews intermarry a very high rate, and if they’re men, their children aren’t Jewish.

Let’s combine the two and bring Judaism to the 21st century.

amother

Amethyst

Sun, Sep 22 2019, 7:24 pm

amother [ Cerise ] wrote:

I actually learned just the opposite. That women are easily influenced, and that is in fact a strength of women, that they are often more insightful BECAUSE they are more open to hearing different perspectives, so in many ways they can come to conclusions that are superior to men's (who tend to be more hardheaded) but as a witness, that can be problematic.
Miriam Kosman discusses this in an interview on Halacha Headlines. (Show 213, 3/23/19) Excellent episode for those interested in the topic.

amother

Amethyst

Sun, Sep 22 2019, 7:45 pm

amother [ Orchid ] wrote:

You might be right. But this is to make it clear that people love to point out Chava's curse
when they don't even know the Bereishis story properly. Hashem told Adam not to eat from the Eitz Hadaas, not Chava. Adam told Chava, so it was second hand info. A serpent was sent to ensnare Chava, not Adam. Are men immune from being ensnared into trouble?
no.
So we see that the entire one gender being superior while the other inferior was designed by hashem. pashut pshat....

(This will be a bit long, but valuable for those interested in this topic.)
This is not pashut pshat at all. Hashem told Adam not to eat from the Eitz Hadaas for the simple reason that Chava was not yet created at that time, so yes, she ended up hearing it second hand.
I'll quote from the Hirsch Chumash about what Rav Hirsch says regarding Chava's creation:
"Thus - unlike the case of man - in the case of woman, the material for her body was not taken from the earth. God took one side of man and formed it into woman. Man, as it were, was divided into two, and one part was formed into woman. Scripture does not say vayivra, vayeitzer... but rather vayiven: one side was built and arranged into woman. What was previously only one creature was not two. Scripture thus attests to the complete equality of woman.
"Our Sages ascribe all the special qualities of woman - her voice, character, and temperament, as well as her earlier spiritual and intellectual maturity - to the way in which she was formed. She was formed from the already feeling, sensitive, and living body of man - as opposed to man, whose body was taken from the earth."
That's page 89 from The Hirsch Chumash: Bereishis. And Rav Hirsch can hardly be called a modern-day apologist for feminist ideals... In general, I highly recommend all of Hirsch's work, as a Torah perspective that's incredibly respectful of women.
As far as "Chava's curse," the Torah doesn't say that Chava became inferior, only that "your longing shall be for your husband, and he will rule over you." Hirsch explains that it is the nature of women "to feel that she can fulfill her life's purpose only when she has joined her husband..." and since man must now work for bread, "the woman became became dependent on her husband, the primary breadwinner. Thus the original equality between man and woman was shattered... Only the Torah will bring redemption... Man and woman will return to their priestly calling and serve God as equals..."
Not sure what that last piece abt redemption meant, but it's clear that woman is not inherently inferior, only that her dependence on him as the breadwinner (she can't farm the land while having babies obviously) disrupted the original balance and equality since his position as provider gives him more control of the household.
More control. Not the same as superior.

behappy2

Sun, Sep 22 2019, 7:51 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

Yes, but if you tell me that my tafkid is to be a supporter of Torah, I'm perplexed. G-d didn't really give me the skillset to do so. That means to me that either I don't have a purpose here or there's something more to the picture.

No. That's not your tafkid. You're hanging your whole your purpose on one line in gemara? If I was you and this perplexed I would talk to my Rav to clarify. Every person's tafkid is complex. But if you always do the next right thing you will unknowingly be doing just what Hashem put YOU in this world for.

Reasons Hashem put us here (among many)

Work on our anger
Become more generous
Work on tznius
Go through yesurim
Learn to love ourselves
Become close to him
Bring others close to him

Seriously you think we all wake up in the morning and think im going to earn olam haba today by supportingTorah?! Never for one day in my life.

amother

Seagreen

Sun, Sep 22 2019, 7:53 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

There are 613 mitzvos. Limud Torah is one of them. An important mitzvah, but one.

I think the gemarah discusses how women can get a portion in this mitzvah, that's all.

And according to Ben Azzai, women can learn as well, and get the zchus of learning on their own. So I guess you can follow Ben Azzai's shitah.

amother

Cerise

Sun, Sep 22 2019, 8:02 pm

amother [ Amethyst ] wrote:

This is exactly what I mean. This is the definition of an apologist answer. I'm sorry but it really makes no sense. None. So Rochel and Leah witness person "A" kill person "b". They sees it happen right in front of them and are certain of what she saw. Now if it was Avrohom and Yitchak who witnessed this event, they can go to bais din and testify. But you're trying to tell me that since Rochel and Leah are so insightful and reasonable that they might use these superpowers to misinterpret what they saw, therefore we disqualify them as witnesses.

Look, if you want to say we don't understand why woman can't be witnesses, fine. But please don't tell us that the above scenario actually makes logical sense to you.

Laiya

Sun, Sep 22 2019, 8:51 pm

GreenEyes26 wrote:

Mainstream halacha, as it's practiced, has done that for the most part

amother

Amethyst

Sun, Sep 22 2019, 8:54 pm

amother [ Cerise ] wrote:

Ok. Apology here.
I went back and listened to that section of the interview again. Reb. Kosman actually gives that explanation to explain "Nashim datim kalos." She says that Rashi explains that this means that they are more easily influenced, more easily swayed, and her point was that this isn't necessarily a negative statement. It simply means they are more open to another opinion, more flexible... She also points out that as a society we once valued rigid kind of workers - the 9-5 employees who did the same thing for years - and nowadays we value flexibility, openness to hear new ideas, ability to change and move quickly... and she points out that these are actually feminine traits.
So I'm sorry about this. Her discussion was NOT about women not serving as witnesses, but about the Chazal quoted above. (Maybe that was discussed later in the interview but don't have time now to go through all of it.)

Laiya

Sun, Sep 22 2019, 9:12 pm

amother [ Cerise ] wrote:

Criminal law is one area where bd has not kept up with the times because bd has not had enforcement power. In other areas where women should not be called as witnesses in bd, so many exceptions have been carved out for this rule as to make it very rarely, if ever, applicable.

amother

Pearl

Sun, Sep 22 2019, 9:24 pm

amother [ Cerise ] wrote:

You can label her answer “apologist” but that doesn’t invalidate her answer. The true answer may sound apologist but that doesn’t detract from it’s correctness.

Assuming the straw man argument you proposed is true, perhaps women are indeed statistically more likely to reason and misinterpret what they saw, thus invalidating their testimony? I have yet to see a study on this specifically but it’s certainly possible. There are many provable, documented differences between the genders, and this may be one of the ways in which they manifest themselves.

In the Gemara, reasons like “This really makes no sense to me” with no proof don’t fly, which may be precisely the point it was trying to make.

Please do enlighten me if I have misread your argument.

amother

Pearl

Sun, Sep 22 2019, 9:32 pm

GreenEyes26 wrote:

Please explain?

As far as I know, mainstream Orthodox Judaism is growing at least as fast as at any point in history, and the intermarriage and assimilation rate is relatively low.

amother

Cerise

Sun, Sep 22 2019, 11:03 pm

amother [ Pearl ] wrote:

Because it's absurd, ridiculous, and completely nonsensical to suggest woman are so imaginative and creative, that anything they say literally cannot be believed. Forget bais din, witnesses, and testimony. If you tell your husband you saw so and so at a wedding last night. The idea that he would for a moment think, hmmm, my wife is a woman. Who knows if she really saw that person last night at a wedding. Who knows if she was even at a wedding last night. After all, she's a woman with a wild imagination. Would you accept this for even a second? Of course not. So why would you be willing to accept the possibility that maybe indeed woman do have runaway imaginations and can't be trusted with what they say in bais din?