Is orhtodox Judaism based on sexism?

[leftyjew]

The answer is obviously no. However, a lot of Jews that I know use the degree of female participation as THE way to distinguish orthodox from conservative. This is a big problem. It means that otherwise observant people are shunned by mainstream orthodoxy because they feel that women should be allowed to read Torah or lead shacharit or (heaven forbid!) put on tefillin or tzitzit - two commandments only time-bound because of poor lighting at night. If that's the only thing that divides you, then what are you basing your religious identity on? I remember R' Ari talking about the old yeshivas in Lithuania which, when asked to either teach math and science or close down, decided to close down. Using "women" as a dividing "issue" is incredibly dehumanizing. Women are people, not issues. I'm not the biggest Jewish feminist. I think that halakha does not permit a mixed minyan. I think that halakha does hold women and men to different levels of obligation. I do, however, have a problem when "orthodox" Jews who eat trief or daven twice a week or embarrass their fellow or commit loshon hara, etc, turn their noses up at women who wear kippot or tefillin or daven in mixed company. This seems like something we shouldn't bother addressing until other problems have been worked out. it was only by the merit of the righteous women that we were redeemed from egypt. What makes you think men have any greater role in redeeming us from this exile?

And jitw was great.

Comments

[alanscottevil.livejournal.com]

i agree.
and i agree.

weird set of sentiments.

[sen-ichi-rei.livejournal.com]

I love this post. especially because jitw was all of one sentence. And the line "women are people, not issues."

silly masculine categories

[arctic-alpine.livejournal.com]

Or maybe we need to shed these masculine boxes and categories and restrictions that we call denominations, and instead use more feminine, fluid constructs of "values halacha and observes parts of it" "values halacha and observes much of it" "doesnt value halacha but observes much of it" "values some parts of halacha and observes those parts of it"
disclaimer that I hope you all know me well enough not to need: yes, I am aware that I used reverse sexism here, I used it tongue in cheek, and so no, I did not mean it seriously, I was just playing with feminist language, and sort of mocking a part of it I find silly.

Re: silly masculine categories

[arctic-alpine.livejournal.com]

but take out the words "masculine" and "feminine" and I was indeed being serious:)

[arctic-alpine.livejournal.com]

i respect where you're coming from regarding the orthodox world dealing with other "more serious problems" before dealing with feminism, but does your argument imply that we're still a problem to be dealt with, just rather low on the list?

[leftyjew.livejournal.com]

Does it? I don't know. Does the fact that something doesn't accord with my sense of halakha make it intrinsically a problem? I don't think so. There's still a lot I don't know. And there's a lot that no one knows and we just have to guess about. But I think that's what halakha primarily is - guessing.
I was having a difficult conversation with a friend who said that he was really confused about ideas of the world to come. he said that there's a dispute between rambam and rashi and a different dispute between ramban and rambam and there were all these ideas floating around and no one to simpliy and lay it down in a book like Karo and Isserles did for the Talmud. So who are we supposed to follow? Aren't they at the same level? At least with the halakha of the Talmud you have a decision made (in the Shulchan Aruch). With this afterlife stuff, no one's made any rulings. He wishes there was someone who could spell it out for him. I wish there wasn't quite so much spelled out in the S"A.
The "problem" I'm referring to is more a dispute that should be resolved. (Am I going back on what I just said? Or is it that I find a need for it to be decided because of the paradigm that already exists in jewish law?) Point is, I think that most feminists I know consider orhtodoxy's treatment of women as a problem. I think most anti-feminists I know consider the taking on of mitzvot by women as a problem. Until we can agree on that, it is a problem. When we have people saying "Oh, that sounds... egalitarian" or feeling excluded from observance, that's a problem. I don't have an answer. It's one of those "we as a religion have to deal with this or we're going to have a new denomination" and I really don't like denominations. I think it's important for people to be able to daven together. And eat together. And I know lots of people who assume that if you're egalitarian, you must be breaking laws left and right (and sadly, most people who are egal - ie, most of America - do break laws left and right). They refuse to eat in their homes because they must not hold by their level of kashrut. This is a problem. Looking down the line at the continuation of this, it will be a problem if conversions or marraiges are not recognized by mainstream orthodoxy. (about 20 years ago, many conservative batei's din conversions were recognized by orhtodox judaism, but that is no longer the case).
Where do I fall on the issue? Somewhere. I think that women are great teachers of Torah and I am personally offended when I'm told (by women for instance) that women are not supposed to teach. I think that women and men are equally qualified to learn anything and do anything. I know that at minimum, Rashi's daughters, and maximum, the women of many generations prior to Tosafot laid tefillin. I know that there are many female-identified women who connect to various male-labelled mitzvot. Who is the commander there? Well, who's the commander with any commandment? It's almost never straight G-d. Even meat and milk goes through layers of interpretation before it becomes a commandment. Hopefully, rabbinic laws have not distanced a good part of the people from G-d. And by "hopefully," I mean "unfortunately, this is the case, but I wish it weren't." I don't know. I'm just confused. But I do like the idea of mesorah and halakha.

I understand halakha not as a set of rules, but as a process to create rules. I feel that it was damaged when reform judaism broke off. It became a reaction against change. I wish that halakha would work well again, but I don't know that it can happen unless most Jews hold themselves as halakhic (i include non-orthodox understandings of 'halakhic' here). But while there's this splintering, which won't go away any time soon, we have to work with what we have. I'm not sure what the answer is here. I'm just expounding on some ideas that have been stewing for about for the last year or so.

I once heard that you shouldn't correct someone unless you know for a fact that what they are doing is wrong. I think that's a good note to end on.

[leftyjew.livejournal.com]

And rereading my post and your question, I think I was originally talking more on an individual level than you were. I was saying less about "the orthodox world" and more about people who consider themselves orthodox. And who says that any problem is going to be worked out, anyway?

[leftyjew.livejournal.com]

Yeah, just some things that have been swimming around in my head.

[alanscottevil.livejournal.com]

I understand halakha not as a set of rules, but as a process to create rules. I feel that it was damaged when reform judaism broke off. It became a reaction against change.

According to my high school Gemara and Chumash teachers, this started way before Reform, at the time when the Sanhedrin stopped convening. The halachic system is, by definition, broken. Which is why it pisses me off when I hear all these Charedi apologetics about why specific anti-progressive versions of halachot are perfect. Because if we still had a Sanhedrin, it's likely our psaks would be completely different, because they'd be ruling based on meta-halachic values, not based on reactionism.

[tobeginagain.livejournal.com]

woa, go easy on your rav elisha there!

Which is to say, if you're ever in a really brainy mood, check out http://commonsensehalakhah.blogspot.com/. It's the makings of a book by R' Elisha Anscelovits about values-based halakha ish. He's brilliant. And kinda undecipherable. בהצלחה!