Women are usually bad?

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amother

Crimson

Sun, May 10 2020, 9:35 pm

My great great grandmother, back in the shtetl wore tzitzis and put on tefillin. She came from a rabbinical family, her husband was the rav of the town. Apparently the family was proud of her being such a holy woman, as the story was passed down.

Hillery

Sun, May 10 2020, 9:46 pm

@Puce

It's risk vs. reward. When you're mechuyav to do something, there's no choice. You have to do it.

And if you need to work hard at being guf naki the whole time, so be it, you work hard. And after doing your best, you leave the rest to Hashem, relying on Him that He will facilitate your guf naki so that you can be mekayem what He commanded.

But when there's no chiyuv, and conversely the risk of it ending up being an aveiro is great, you don't take such a risk. Because if you do end up wearing tefilin without a guf naki, you won't have an excuse for Hashem "well what could I have done, I had to be mekayem the mitzvah", because you didn't have to be mekayem it.

And re-read what I wrote. The men's practice changed since the time of the gemara, and they takkeh don't wear tefilin all day because of the difficulties involved. All the gemara discussions were because they wore tefilin all day.

BTW I checked the halacha, and the Rema clearly writes that if a woman does want to wear tefilin she should be stopped (this might not be the perfect translation, the words are מוחים בידם). So Ashkenazi women certainly have no business wearing tefilin.

And slightly off topic, it's very clear from Chazal that they held men and women have different mental capabilities and weaknesses. They absolutely held that men and women are not the same, and as their information came handed down straight from the Creator, it would behove us to trust them. Women have stronger intuition and perception, but are weaker at holding out against being swayed.

Women are said to have binah yeseirah (intuition) and to recognise guests for what they really are (perception). But otoh they are דעתן קלות which means easier swayed.

amother

Sapphire

Sun, May 10 2020, 9:55 pm

If anything, women usually care a lot more than men about having clean bodies.

imorethanamother

Sun, May 10 2020, 10:08 pm

Hillery wrote:

BTW I checked the halacha, and the Rema clearly writes that if a woman does want to wear tefilin she should be stopped (this might not be the perfect translation, the words are מוחים בידם). So Ashkenazi women certainly have no business wearing tefilin.

And slightly off topic, it's very clear from Chazal that they held men and women have different mental capabilities and weaknesses. They absolutely held that men and women are not the same, and as their information came handed down straight from the Creator, it would behove us to trust them. Women have stronger intuition and perception, but are weaker at holding out against being swayed.

Women are said to have binah yeseirah (intuition) and to recognise guests for what they really are (perception). But otoh they are דעתן קלות which means easier swayed.

Let's not muddle the waters with your ideas of דעתן קלות when no one ever mentions this with regard to tefillin. In fact, the Rema, which you mention, does not mention this at all. The Rema says strictly that women can't wear tefillin because we don't know how to be clean.

כתב הר"ם נשים פטורות מתפילין מפני שהוא מצות עשה שהזמן גרמה שהרי אין מניחין אותן בשבת ויום טוב ואם רצו להניח אין שומעין להן מפני שאינן יודעות לשמור עצמן בנקיות ע"כ

I mean, he's not even referring to menstruation, like "At times, women's bodies are unclean". Instead, it says that women don't know how to be clean.

amother

Chartreuse

Sun, May 10 2020, 10:46 pm

Hillery wrote:

Yes.

Hillery wrote:

And slightly off topic, it's very clear from Chazal that they held men and women have different mental capabilities and weaknesses. They absolutely held that men and women are not the same, and as their information came handed down straight from the Creator, it would behove us to trust them. Women have stronger intuition and perception, but are weaker at holding out against being swayed.

Women are said to have binah yeseirah (intuition) and to recognise guests for what they really are (perception). But otoh they are דעתן קלות which means easier swayed.

No. That's not what דעתן קלות means.

malki2

Sun, May 10 2020, 11:51 pm

Here’s my 2 cents. With all due respect. If someone is a truly great woman, one of those unique women who should be wearing tefilin, she would know that she is, and would go buy a pair and put them on (or borrow them from her DH) and shut up about it, and keep the matter a secret. She wouldn’t kvetch and whine to a bunch of ladies on some website about some purported sexist conspiracy theory promulgated by the Chachmei Yisrael throughout the ages to prevent women from wearing tefilin.

imorethanamother

Mon, May 11 2020, 12:20 am

malki2 wrote:

If you're uncomfortable with discussing halacha, then there are plenty of Covid threads that you can attend to. Otherwise, we don't call people names for trying to understand things. Nobody is kvetching and whining, and no one said anything about conspiracy theories.

amother

Peach

Mon, May 11 2020, 12:27 am

When a woman voices her opinion, it is kvetching and whining, even if a man with the same opinion would be speaking Torah.

Mothers

Mon, May 11 2020, 12:45 am

malki2 wrote:

I think there are too many halachic objections to women wearing tefilin for a woman to take that upon herself today. Tzitzis, OTOH, can be worn without a problem (even with a bracha) as long as it is hidden discreetly under her clothes - and not being worn ostentatiously (I.e. to make a statement). Only caveat is to add some kind of ruffle, flower, something pink, etc, to distinguish it from a begged ish.

malki2

Mon, May 11 2020, 1:20 am

imorethanamother wrote:

Halachah is defined by practicality. This means understanding that if something is not done, and has never been done, this in and of itself makes it the Halachah, even if we do not necessarily understand it, and we do not have some breakthrough einfall enabling us to do it. It is also defined by common sense, or what is known as the “Fifth Shulchan Aruch.” This means being able to understand that, no matter what it might say in a single Rema, we know with clarity that neither the Rema, nor any Torah personality, nor our (normal) husbands for that matter, ever treated or related to their wives as “usually bad” or “unclean” and never treated them with anything but the utmost respect. And nevertheless, we don’t wear tefilin because we don’t wear tefilin. There’s a lot of things that we don’t have answers to. As the saying goes, “Fun a kasha, shtarbt men nisht”. (No one ever died from an (unanswered) question.) We don’t take a single comment and build an edifice out of it as if it constitutes the whole of Judaic hashkafa with regards to the Female gender and further attempt to derive halachic ramifications based on the questionable applicability of that comment.

imorethanamother

Mon, May 11 2020, 3:39 am

malki2 wrote:

So your response is (based on no halachic source):

1) If no one ever did it before (which is incorrect), then that's all you need to know. The why's are unimportant.

My response to that is actually, the whys are everything. In masechtas Brachos, the reason given for women not wearing tefillin is because it's time-bound. Therefore, it's not an article that women wear. So you would think that when the question the Gemara poses in Masechtas Shabbos arises, asking if women can carry a tefillin from rishus harabim into reshus hayachid, the WHY regarding tefillin and women would make it impossible. According to the basis that tefillin is time-bound and thereby constrained to only men, it would be considered a burden instead of a legitimate beged, and would follow the ruling of a woman wearing a signet ring. (Which is not allowed on Shabbos, as it is usually a male piece of jewelry). However, because the Gemara says that women actually CAN wear tefillin, then this is incorrect and women can carry tefillin from one reshus to the other by wearing it.

SO. Knowing the whys of something being halachically or not halachically permissible is actually quite important.

Which lead me to my next question. If the WHY of not wearing tefillin is NOT that it is time-bound, then what is the reason?

And that led to my original post, which you derided as "kvetching" and "whining".

2) Most Jewish men are nice to women, in your personal experience, and therefore we can never discuss the role of women in halachic discourse, or in the Torah in general.

I'm sorry, what? This was seriously your answer?

3) Questions do not have to be answered.

We've had this discussion before. And I'll tell you again: If YOU personally don't know the answer to a question, kindly ask someone who does, or sit back and wait. In general, this is not a normal response to anyone who actually has questions about their learning. This isn't the first time you've tried to stop a discussion by telling people that they have no right to expect an answer. I believe that answers ARE out there, and I don't think it's helpful to tell people to sit down and shut up.

malki2

Mon, May 11 2020, 6:10 am

imorethanamother wrote:

Bit of a different tone here than your original post. A little more intellectual and less whiny/kvetchy. (Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like some of your posts definitely do come off as “how come the men get to do it and we can’t. Just look at the title of your post: Women are Usually Bad.) So I’ll answer you a little differently, addressing the Rema’s words specifically, keeping away for now from the Mitzvah Aseh Shehazman Grama discussion:

The concept of guf naki, as it relates to tefilin, refers not to actual cleanliness, as is being mistakenly understood here, but specifically to being able to restrain one’s flatulence while wearing tefilin. It is well known that women are more affected by urinary and fecal (specifically re flatulence) incontinence than are men, mainly due to having undergone childbirth. While one may argue that a woman could judge for herself whether or not she can restrain herself from flatulating while wearing tefilin, since this condition is considered to be relatively common, it was understood that if you permit some women to wear tefilin, other women who cannot control themselves properly will wear them as well. So a general rule was made.

Last edited by malki2 on Mon, May 11 2020, 9:36 am; edited 1 time in total

CiCi

Mon, May 11 2020, 9:32 am

From chabad.org .

https://www.chabad.org/library.....n.htm
Footnotes on webpage

Why Don’t Women Wear Tefillin?
By Yehuda Shurpin
Since time immemorial, the widely accepted practice in the Torah-observant community is that women do not wear tefillin. Let’s explore this issue in the light of halachah.

Do They Need To?
Tefillin is a time-bound positive mitzvah. In plain English, this means that it is something that must be done at a specific time. Women are generally exempt from such mitzvahs.1

But even if they are exempt, shouldn’t they be encouraged to wear tefillin anyway of their own volition? After all, we find that most women do hear shofar on Rosh Hashanah and shake the lulav on Sukkot, even though they are technically not required to. Why whould tefillin be any different?

Man’s Clothing
Our first point of reference is the biblical prohibition against crossdressing. The Torah states,2 “A man’s attire shall not be on a woman, nor may a man wear a woman’s garment, because whoever does these [things] is an abomination to the L‑rd, your G‑d.”3

The great Talmudic sage Yonatan ben Uziel, in his elucidated translation of the Torah,4 sees this as precluding a woman from wearing a tallit or tefillin, since they are male apparel.5

Others, however, are of the opinion that the prohibition of crossdressing applies only to clothing worn for style or appearance, but it would not apply to ritual items like tefillin.6 Accordingly, this prohibition alone would not be sufficient reason for women to refrain from doing this mitzvah.7

Excessive Piety
Halacha teaches that when someone does a non-obligatory pious act that is not performed by the vast majority of their peers, it draws undue attention to their excessive piety in an inappropriately ostentatious manner, and is to be discouraged.8 For this reason, there are some who say that women wishing to go the extra mile may not put on tefillin.

This may help explain why women refrain from putting on tefillin publicly. However, it is not clear that this reason would apply to those who wish to do so in the privacy of their own homes.

Extreme Holiness of Tefillin
While our discussion centers on why women don’t wear tefillin, the truth is that this isn’t the only question.

Let’s take a step back and ask ourselves why men don’t wear tefillin the whole day. After all, the mitzvah isn’t to wear tefillin just during the Shema and prayers, but applies from early morning to evening.9 Indeed, in ancient times, it was the custom of many to wear tefillin the entire day. So, what changed?

Another strange phenomenon we find with regards to tefillin: We train our children to do almost all mitzvahs at a young age, so that these habits are deeply ingrained by the time they reach the age of majority. When it comes to tefillin, which is a lot more complex than other mitzvahs, we wait until weeks (at most two months) before he turns 13 to start training. Why the delay?

The reason for all this can be traced to the exceptional degree of holiness of the tefillin. Due to this sanctity, wearing tefillin requires purity of thought and body.

While some view this requirement as going so far that one needs to be pure of sin to wear tefillin,10 most explain it to mean that when one wears tefillin, he must foster an awareness of G‑d and strive to constantly be conscious of the tefillin he is wearing. A high degree of physical cleanliness11 is required as well.12

The importance of all this cannot be overstated. In fact, if a man cannot meet these requirements,13 he doesn’t put on tefillin (although a rabbi should be consulted). It is for this reason that nowadays, to avoid compromising the holiness of tefillin, men wear tefillin only during prayers, when they are in a state of awareness of G‑d and of cleanliness.14

This is also the reason why boys are not taught to wear tefillin until close to their bar mitzvah.

It seems that this requirement is also one of the reasons that there was a period of time when many men refrained from wearing tefillin altogether. Rabbi Moshe of Coucy (13th century) relates that he traveled throughout Western Europe, exhorting men to wear tefillin during the morning prayers, teaching that they could maintain cleanliness and purity of thought for at least the duration of the services.15

In light of the above, since women are not obligated to wear tefillin, the Code of Jewish Law rules that they should not do so, as it would mean voluntarily positioning themselves to perhaps wear tefillin in an inappropriate state.16

The Historical Exception
Having discussed some of the reasons why women don’t put on tefillin, it must be noted that historically we find rare exceptions.

(There is the famous legend that that the pious and learned daughters of the renowned commentator Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi) used to put on tefillin, but this is most certainly a myth.17)

The Talmud notes that Princess Michal, daughter of King Saul and wife of King David, used to put on tefillin.18

Already in Talmudic times, the rabbis disputed whether her behavior was condoned by the sages of her era.19 Those who say that the sages protested are of the opinion that women are explicitly prohibited from wearing tefillin.20

Others explain that due to Michal’s extraordinary piousness and the fact that she was a princess and queen,21 she was able to maintain purity of body and thought when putting on tefillin.22

Regardless, it seems quite clear that her actions were not intended to set public precedent. Indeed, the very fact that the Talmud needs to go back more than a thousand years to the days of King Saul to find an example of a woman wearing tefillin indicates that it was a unique occurrence.23

On a deeper level, the Kabbalists explain that although for mystical reasons (as well as those outlined above) women do not put on tefillin, Michal, being the deeply spiritual woman she was, knew that she was a reincarnation of a male soul (which also explains why she bore no children), and it is for that reason that she wore tefillin.

Aylat

Mon, May 11 2020, 9:49 am

Hillery wrote:

I once heard an explanation that guf naki is something hard to maintain (especially nowadays), because it means purity both in body and in spirit. Wearing tefilin without guf naki is not only not a mitzveh, but actually a bizoyon to tefilin and an aveiro.

So men, who are mechuyav to wear tefilin, can't abstain because of a chashash, namely that they might not have a guf naki.

Women, otoh, since they are not mechuyav, shouldn't put themselves in a situation where they might be wearing tefilin without guf naki. Basically if you're not mechuyav to do something, don't go into a situation where the risk of transgression is so high.

BTW even men have changed their tefilin wearing habit because of guf naki. In the times of the gemara people wore tefilin all day, but now it's only worn for davening. For this very same reason, if you're not mechuyav, don't take any risks with kedushas tefilin.

This is my understanding too.

ETA I commented on this before reading the rest of the thread. Imorethanamother, you raise important points and I don’t know what to think about the רמ"א you quoted.

CiCi

Mon, May 11 2020, 10:29 am

imorethanamother wrote:

I don't understand what is so complicated. According to the Gemarah women could wear tefillin, but we are not mechiav because it is a time-bound mitzva. Because of chashas of not having a gif nuki the entire time of wearing tefillin, we don't wear it. Since men have an obligation to wear tefillin, they have to strain themselves to be clean in body and thought for the duration of prayer.

Aylat

Mon, May 11 2020, 10:47 am

malki2 wrote:

I agree that tznius (as opposed to publicity) in avodat Hashem is important.

But malki2, you should have stopped the comment there. please don't cast aspersions or be negative towards frum women trying to understand Torah as it relates to us. The fact that we're bringing it up and discussing it* is because we are bnot Yisrael who care about ratzon Hashem.

*Thanks imorethanamother. My learning has been much more skim lately, thanks to lockdown and kids around all the time. I admire you.

malki2

Mon, May 11 2020, 10:51 am

Aylat wrote:

Aylat, I would generally agree with you. But when the title of the thread is “Women are usually bad”, it implies some sort of complaint or underlying deeper issue than merely a question for academic purposes. None of the Chachamim ever thought or felt that women are usually bad. It should not be the impression that someone gets from the Torah. I’m sorry, but I am sensitive to these things.

amother

Teal

Mon, May 11 2020, 10:52 am

imorethanamother wrote:

It's clear from this quote that the reason women don't have the mitzvah is because it's time-bound. Then the Rema adds, If women still want to put on tefillin anyway, "don't listen to them bec they don't know how to keep themselves clean".

Q: Is the Rema saying Don't listen to them, the same as saying that it is assur for them to put on tefillin? If yes, then what does that have to do with מצות עשה שהזמן גרמה? It doesn't read, to me, like he's offering an alternative reason. More like a sidebar.

Anyway, maybe the Rema had a chauvenisic view of women and thought they are always physically dirty. Another possibility that comes to mind is, women as homemakers and taking care of the kids were probably more likely to be covered in gook.

I don't think you need to infer a particular negative outlook on women, to the mefarshim, to make sense of their words.

Aylat

Mon, May 11 2020, 10:55 am

malki2 wrote:

There’s a lot of things that we don’t have answers to. As the saying goes, “Fun a kasha, shtarbt men nisht”. (No one ever died from an (unanswered) question.) We don’t take a single comment and build an edifice out of it as if it constitutes the whole of Judaic hashkafa with regards to the Female gender and further attempt to derive halachic ramifications based on the questionable applicability of that comment.

Argh. Frustrated. I know this. I'm honestly okay with saying תיקו. I have said תיקו to 6 day creation, the Big Bang and evolution. But the question exists! Saying we don't know the answer doesn't magically remove the question. And what a shame for that to be the initial response to all questions! There are lots of things that knowledgeable and wise people do know the answer to. (Though with all due respect to my peers here, most of them are not on imamother and - imorethanamother, we need to search and ask elsewhere.)

Malki2, maybe you have experienced people asking questions that are really statements challenging Orthodox Judaism? That's not what's going on here.

Aylat

Mon, May 11 2020, 11:03 am

malki2 wrote:

1) Personally (and as an educator) I sometimes pose questions in an extreme manner to highlight the issue. But I'll let imorethanamother speak for herself.

2) "Complaint"? No. But it hurts. It doesn't hurt you to read statements in Chazal that - at face value! - read as negative towards woman? It doesn't drive you to ask, why, how, what does this mean for me? Davka because I care about dvar Hashem.

3) The bolded. You can really contribute to this discussion by bringing sources and perspectives that resolve the incongruity between seemingly negative statements about women and yet Chazal's respectful attitude. Rather than just stating it.

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