Volume 52 Number 18
Produced: Sun Jun 18 10:47:25 EDT 2006
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Change, Halacha and Women
[Shoshana L. Boublil]
Women again... (2)
[Ira L. Jacobson, Avi Feldblum]
Women and kaddish
[Jonathan Baker]
Women saying kaddish
[Chana Luntz]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Shoshana L. Boublil <toramada@...>
Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 13:09:29 +0200
Subject: Re: Change, Halacha and Women
> From: SBA <sba@...>
> You have ANY source that require or even suggest that women should learn
> (or say Tikun Leil Shovuos - which BTW was the original idea/minhag) on
> Shovuos night?
>
> SBA
> But I would think that an average frum woman, when told that virtually
> all poskim are not in favor of women saying kaddish and this has not
> been done by 99.9% of women in the past 2000 years, she would accept
> this without too much heartache.
R' Avi wrote:
> If it is a positive halachic
> activity, and she desires to do so, then it would seem to me that she
> should be allowed to do so. If it is a negative halachic activity, she
> should be discouraged from doing so. If it is a neutral halachic
> activity, it needs to be balanced with other community implications and
> the call made by the LOR. The last statement is also true with the
> previous two cases.
>
> Avi
I've purposely put both issues together, I wish to address a larger issue.
When examining our lives and comparing them to the lives of our
ancestors, there have been many, many changes, but most of them impact
women directly more than men.
The death toll from childbirth has B"H grown much smaller.
The number of women who are single -- never married, divorce or widowed
is much higher (percentage wise) than in the past.
Roles of women both in the family sphere and in the public arena have
changed.
Women's education has changed so that those who are the least
knowledgeable are usually far more knowledgeable (Judaically and
secularly) than the average woman over the last 2000 years.
And yet, I don't know of any poskim/Rabbanim who have examined these
changes prior to being faced with the women who are asking/demanding
answers to issues that are a direct result of the above changes.
Now, if the rabbis had "read" the social changes and understood their
impact, and had discussed and suggested ideas to match the changes also
in the religious sphere of life, then many of the questions and
discussions we have today -- would have looked very different.
We (women) have been taught that the rabbis are wise and knowledgeable
and "know what's best for us". But our experience has been the opposite
-- there are very few who have addressed the impact of these changes on
the spiritual life of women.
Most comments are actually reactions to women getting up one morning and
deciding to solve their own "problems". So, we have women Minyan; and
women tehillim groups and Midrashot for women (fashioned after the
manner of yeshivot); We even have a Hesder for women nowadays and kollel
for women.
The rabbis are then reacting, and unfortunately, they appear to be
reacting more out of fear than out of understanding that there are
issues that need Torah based thinking.
When a rabbi is asked by a woman: "I am used to studying, but now that
I'm married and a mother I don't have the time and I miss it" and the
rabbi responds "well, what do you expect, you are now a wife and
mother". It just makes it clear that the rabbi has no understanding,
and apparently no interest in understanding the problems facing women
nowadays.
Yes, the issues should be based on halacha -- but also on Machshava!
There are philosophical issues at hand. In the G'mara, the rabbis had
no fear allowing women to Lismoch on animals (for sacrifice) b/c it
Garam Nachat Ru'ach for women. Nowadays, a typical response would be
the "tale" of a woman who went to a Rav about a tallit and at the end
the Rabbi responded -- "it may have given you a spiritual high, but
that's a false high b/c there was nothing halachic in what you did".
Where is the Torah positive guidance?
Shoshana L. Boublil
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Ira L. Jacobson <laser@...>
Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 17:48:52 +0300
Subject: Re: Women again...
Freda B Birnbaum stated, first quoting SBA:
>> You have ANY source that require or even suggest that women should learn
>> (or say Tikun Leil Shovuos - which BTW was the original idea/minhag) on
>> Shovuos night?
>
>Do you have any source that says they are not permitted to?
That reminds me of the question (strange in some circles; better known
in others) of where is it forbidden for the hazzan to hold a white cat
by the tail, in his right hand, when he is intoning Kol Nidre.
Vehamevin yavin.
IRA L. JACOBSON
mailto:<laser@...>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Avi Feldblum <feldblum@...>
Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006
Subject: Re: Women again...
To the extent to which I am mavin / understand, what I am yavin / infer
from Ira's posting is that I see it as extremely demeaning or
insulting. The implication I understand from Ira is that either the act
of holding a white cat by the tail is something that is obviously
forbidden so there is no need to say that it is forbidden while intoning
Kol Nidre, or that while the action of holding a white cat by the tail
may not be inherently inappropriate, but doing so during the intoning of
Kol Nedre is very obviously inappropriate.
In looking to Freda's question, I think that it is clear that the action
of women learning Torah (what learning being differently defined by
different groups) is something that all should agree is a positive not a
forbidden activity. A claim that there is something that
makes it inappropriate for women to learn on Shavuot night, while
possibly obvious to Ira, is totally not clear to me. So I would side
with Freda's question that those that believe that there is something
forbidden for Women to stay up on Shavuot night should bring forward the
sources or arguements to support their position. I do not see Ira's
response as valid.
Avi
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Jonathan Baker <jjbaker@...>
Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 07:48:18 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Women and kaddish
Avi Feldblum:
> Along with that is the statement that is the Shulchan Aruch did not
> explicitly discuss and permit something, then the assumption is that
> doing that activitiy is a negative or forbidden activity. A related
> premise is that if something has been done in a certain way for many
> years it is assumed to have halachic validity / value.
> There does not appear to be any disagreement that there is a halachic
> status to a son to say Kaddish for a parent during the 11 months
> following the death of the parent. That is not in a disagreement that I
>From what I've heard, it's a kiyum (instance) of kibud Av v'Em. Aren't
women also obligated in honoring one's parents? The original midrashim
that speak about a son's saying Yisgadal veyiskadash are clearly talking
about the context of leading davening, because they also speak of saying
Barchu. Women are certainly not eligible to lead those parts of
davening that are called "devarim shebikedushah", such as Barchu and
Kaddish, which require a minyan. Until the last century, a singular
mourner would lead the synagogue in kaddish, representing all the
mourners, so having a woman do so would have been inappropriate - it was
treated as an instance of leading the services.
> There also appears to be a view, and understanding the sources that
> support this would be of interest, that someone other than a son who
> says Kaddish for a departed person also imparts merit / benefit to the
> deceased. SBA refers to one such organization, Kolel Shomrei Hachomos,
> who do this activity.
Seems to me that if one can create an innovative "custom" to pay a
stranger to say kaddish in one's place, surely it would be no worse for
a woman to say kaddish for her parent, where she is herself obligated in
Kibud Av v'Em.
If the issue of innovation is a problem, the whole negative association
of women with synagogue is itself an innovation, based primarily on
Sefer ha-Niddot, which keeps women away from shul entirely, prohibits
them from touching sifrei kodesh, etc. It's fairly clear that this is a
matter of minhag that largely opposes rabbinic texts, and it is a set of
minhagim that have largely passed off. Women do go to shul beyond the
High Holidays. Women (maybe not chasidistas) do touch the Torah when it
passes through the women's section. The custom of all the mourners
saying kaddish (rather than one designated as prayer-leader) is itself
fairly new, probably 20th-century. So there's another innovation. And
if minors can say Kaddish, who are not obligated in mitzvot at all,
(which is why it's after Aleinu, after all of davening), why not a
non-male who is obligated in honoring one's parents??
> The fundimental question then becomes, in my opinion, how one views the
> interplay between the social /halachic desire to minimize change vs
> viewing the social / halachic value of any given change. The total
> social environment today is different from what it was 150 years
> ago. Choosing to allow / encourage women to say Kaddish moves the social
> / halachic fabric in one direction, prohibiting / discouraging women
> from saying Kaddish moves (or one may look at it as preventing movement)
> in the other direction. Different halachic communities come up with
> different answers to what the greater halachic good is.
> In general, the charedi community tends to try and preserve / recreate
> the social / halachic fabric that mimics what was the existance 150
> years ago. One impact of that, as Freida indicates, is that there is a
Not "what ws the existence 150 years ago", but an idealized recreation.
Just as the frummie novels often reflect and idealized version of the
frum world, the frum world as a whole creates an idealized frummie
world, where guys can sit in learning for years, instead of going out to
work, where women are kept out of sight, out of mind in synagogues with
walls around the balconies (how many European synagogues had the kind of
visual blocks that today's black-hat, not to mention chasidic,
synagogues have?), where everyone is machmir, where those who want to
question are swept under the rug. A textualist ideal, rather than the
mimetic reality, where people did what they did with little
understanding of the halachic principles involved, where people
questioned God with little grounding in theology, etc.
R' Joel Wolowelsky (distant cousin & fellow member of Yavneh minyan)
wrote a fairly comprehensive article on women & kaddish, surveying
poskim and practice both in the States and prewar Europe. A number of
rather frummie places allowed a woman to say kaddish (the Gaon's Kloiz
in Vilna, the prewar Mir with R' Chaim Ozer's permission, prewar
Eisheshok where a daughter of R' Naftali M. Hutner, the town rav, said
kaddish for her father at the graveside, as her brothers were out of
town. It's a fairly illustrious family - her uncle was R' Moshe
Mordechai Epstein, rosh yeshiva at Chevron, her sisiter married R' Meir
Chodosh, later mashgiach at Chevron.
You can find the Wolowelsky article here:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0411/is_n3_v44/ai_17422962/print
- jon baker <jjbaker@...> <http://www.panix.com/~jjbaker> -
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Chana Luntz <chana@...>
Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 13:59:44 +0100
Subject: Re: Women saying kaddish
Avi Feldblum writes:
> This then lays the groundwork for the halachic discussion
> concerning women saying Kaddish for their parents. This is an
> activity that the Shulchan Aruch does not discuss, so there
> is no requirement for them to do this, but also no clear
> prohibition for them to do this. ...
>
> The fundimental question then becomes, in my opinion, how one
> views the interplay between the social /halachic desire to
> minimize change vs viewing the social / halachic value of any
> given change. The total social environment today is different
> from what it was 150 years ago. Choosing to allow / encourage
> women to say Kaddish moves the social / halachic fabric in
> one direction, prohibiting / discouraging women from saying
> Kaddish moves (or one may look at it as preventing movement)
> in the other direction. Different halachic communities come
> up with different answers to what the greater halachic good is.
> In general, the charedi community tends to try and preserve /
> recreate the social / halachic fabric that mimics what was
> the existance 150 years ago.
One of the ironies, of course, is that R' SBA is closely identified with
certain chassidic communities, and my impression is that very similar
charges were levelled against chassidism in its early years regarding
inovation and absence of permission from (or even contradiction with)
the Shulchan Aruch by those (the "misnagdim") who were against what were
seen as the inovations of chassidism.
I know there is / has been a lot of writing (including academic writing)
on the chassidic/misnagdic split. Does anybody know, however, whether
there is material discussing precisely this topic - ie the
justifications given by the chassidim for what were quite clearly at the
time significant halachic changes (and the extent to which the responses
of the misnagdim are replicated in similar current debates)?
Regards
Chana
----------------------------------------------------------------------
End of Volume 52 Issue 18
