feeling suffocated by yeshivish world view of women

Ima_Shelli

Thu, Jul 12 2012, 1:33 pm

Tova wrote:

ChutzPAh wrote:

sky wrote:

ChutzPAh wrote:

Just curious, are there pictures of Rebbetzin Kanievsky in the new biography about her life?

yes, lots

Well, then I'm pleasantly surprised.
The last article I saw in mishpacha magazine about a special rebbetzin who died, only included a picture of her grave! Sometimes the frum publications (in magazines geared to women!) are nice enough to only publish a picture of the person's husband, or like I said, grave.

Yup, not the cover like the biographies of the Gedolim (cover has her and R' Chaim's (lbclc) apartment but plenty of photos inside.

To their eternal credit, Artscroll and Feldheim Publishers have NEVER stopped publishing pictures of women in their books, and the Reb Kanievsky biography is published by Artscroll. Not sure how they've had the courage to withstand the pressure. They didn't put a picture of her on the cover, though, presumably so they'd be able to advertise the book, along with a picture of its cover, in contemporary frum publications which would consider such a cover photo unacceptably offensive or untznius or whatever.

Ruchel

Thu, Jul 12 2012, 1:47 pm

Ima_Shelli wrote:

Tova wrote:

ChutzPAh wrote:

sky wrote:

ChutzPAh wrote:

Just curious, are there pictures of Rebbetzin Kanievsky in the new biography about her life?

yes, lots

Yup, not the cover like the biographies of the Gedolim (cover has her and R' Chaim's (lbclc) apartment but plenty of photos inside.

I'm still looking for women who are horrified enough, to want to build a role model thing with pics for our daughters Smile

Vegieburger

Thu, Jul 12 2012, 7:59 pm

I haven't read everything, but I feel the same way op. I went to bais Yaakov, when I was a teen the kollel was building a beautiful new Shul with a balcony, I was so excited to be able to see the Torah, rabbi etc. I got there on Rosh hashana and there was a thick, thick curtain in front of the balcony, women were prying it apart to peak at the shofar. That's just one of the memories I have thinking " not for me". My mother offered many times to buy me binah and mishpacha but I won't have it in my house until they print pics of women and girls. I don't label myself but I know "yeshivish" isn't for me, I am a happy Halachic Jew.

amother

Thu, Jul 12 2012, 10:23 pm

Do you understand how privileged you are?????? your husband is actually giving you the option to move to a place where you will find happiness, no matter if it affects your level of observance! I would give any money in the world to be able to do that! I'm stuck in a community where the beliefs are 100 times worse then what you described. yet, im here to stay, and there is no way I will ever be able to follow my beliefs & dreams. so, wishing you luck on finding your true place & have me in mind Very Happy

!!!!

DrMom

Thu, Jul 12 2012, 10:46 pm

amother wrote:

!!!!

Pretty sad that some women would consider a woman whose husband takes her feelings into account when making major life decisions as "privileged."

And I don't think a move to a less misogynistic community will necessarily adversely impact one's level of observance. If anything, it may make it stronger. As someone pointed out earlier, more chumradik does not equal more observant.

amother, have you ever sat down and had a serious conversation with your husband about the impact of your community on your explained to your husband hoe your community makes you feel? Are there other communities nearby? Perhaps you could start befriending women in a more open-minded community and slowly gravitate toward those social circles. Perhaps this could be the groundwork for moving there.

amother

Fri, Jul 13 2012, 1:44 am

OP here -

Yes, I BH do have an awesome dh. I said that immediately. My happiness has always been important to him. But don't think it didn't take him a very long time to see the validity to my feelings on this issue. At first, he told me I was overreacting and being ridiculous, and then when I told him to spend a week viewing things from my perspective it all changed. We had many an argument before that.

I told him to go to every shiur and sit behind a wall. I told him to go to a simcha and not feel free to enter any area for women - even at the end of the event to find me to go home. He even told me later that it's ironic how men enter an area of women's seating since the whole reason for the separate seating is so that the men don't see the women/see the women dance. I told him to go into a kiddush via the back door. He came home and said it is derrogatory. He finally understood how I viewed so much of this as a lack of basic derech eretz.

Now, we avoid this discussion because he can't defend it. He keeps on telling me he is not this way, and none of his friends are. I keep telling him that is the saddest part of it all... that everyone simply accepts and follows something that they would be horrified to personally do to their wife, daughter, or any woman.
He even told me that he went to a meeting at work, and was envisioning the reaction of people if the women were placed behind a curtain.... major discrimination lawsuit. He envisioned the headlines in newspapers if they only knew what a relatively educated and fine community accepts.

He used to tell me to go to women's only shiurim... and I would explain to him that many of them were on a very low level (after all women aren't bright ) and the ones that were on a high level would be enjoyable but then I'd walk out of the shiur and find myself back in a world where I was marginalized. How would he feel if that was what he'd encounter after an uplifting shiur especially if it (like many shiurim ) had some discussion of the importance of bein adam lechavero.

So, as for moving - my happiness is key to his happiness. He doesn't really care what people think or would say if we relocated. He just doesn't want to spend his life with me feeling unwelcome by the world we live in. We both agree that just because a community accepts chumras, it doesn't mean they are frummer. It doesn't mean they have more yiras shamayim. As my dh has told me, it takes a gadol to make a kulah (ie. Rav Moshe ZTL and cholov stam) but an am haaretz can find all the chumras alone.

amother

Fri, Jul 13 2012, 10:23 am

Ruchel wrote:

For the record, chalav stam is not Rabbi Feinstein's invention.

You are incorrect. There used to be only cholov akum and cholov yisroel. Fear of farmers mixing milks made drinking milk that was not supervised at milking by a yid ossur. Rav Moshe ztl felt that with all the USDA regulations today, milk was now cholov hacompanies (how he refers to it in Igros Moshe) and based on his opinion contemporary poskim developed the notion that today one can eat milk as cholov stam - ie. unsupervised at the time of milking by a yid simply because there is so much government regulation on milking that there is no fear of unkosher milk.

amother

Fri, Jul 13 2012, 10:23 am

Ruchel wrote:

For the record, chalav stam is not Rabbi Feinstein's invention.

emhabanim

Fri, Jul 13 2012, 10:26 am

amother wrote:

Ruchel wrote:

For the record, chalav stam is not Rabbi Feinstein's invention.

Having just attended a shiur on this, I can tell you it is Rav Moshe in Igros Moshe, Yoreh Deah 1:47 where he develops this kulah.

emhabanim

Fri, Jul 13 2012, 11:32 am

amother wrote:

Ruchel -

Not sure what you meant by not being American being wrong.
Your quote just explains Rav Moshe's reasoning and how he arrived at his conclusion.

Actually Rav Moshe never called it chalav yisrael de facto as those poskim quoted seem to rather he developed his own category.

anyhow, this all seems a thread in its own ...

In actuality you are all proving it was Rav Moshe.

See, these poskim quoted state that when there is no chashash of treif the milk is kosher.

It was Rav Moshe who said that government monitoring of milk in the US and developed countries is so strict that we can rely on their monitoring to say that the milk is not treif. Prior to this, nobody accepted that the milk watched by the government had no chashash of being treif... where was the eid? Where was the witness to the milk being kosher? Where was the shmira that could guarantee the milk was Kosher?

That was genius of Rav Moshe. He took the concept of government regulation and said it was eidus based on the kalal of anan shahedi (ie. that we are all witness to a fact). Rav Moshe took known and accepted supervision and the known scrutiny of the government and he made the next step by connecting it to the klal of anan shahedi (ie. that we are all witnesses to the fact) to allow ALL milk processed in the US and developed countries with high government regulation to be kosher. That is the gadlus of Rav Moshe.

The sources quoted do not make that jump, do not bring the klal of anan shahedi (ie. everyone is an eid to this) and do not therefore allow milk that is under government supervision as kosher. It was only Rav Moshe who was able to apply all these principles in such a logical manner.

The issue of government supervison to the degree we know it today did not apply in previous generations. Rav Moshe was the one who took new developments in the world and applied klalei haTorah to them in regard to many things and definitely in regard to cholov stam.