Avodah Mailing List

Volume 26: Number 165

Wed, 12 Aug 2009

• 1. Re: Women Learning Torah (Ilana Sober Elzufon)
• 2. Re: Women Learning Torah (rabbirichwol...@gmail.com)
• 3. Re: School Tuition + Fundraising (rabbirichwol...@gmail.com)
• 4. the mordechai (Eli Turkel)
• 5. Re: Inconceivable! (kennethgmil...@juno.com)
• 6. Tz'nius (rabbirichwol...@gmail.com)
• 7. Re: Women Learning Torah (Ilana Sober Elzufon)
• 8. Kashrus of a Restaurant Under the Supervision of its Owner (Prof. Levine)
• 9. Re: the mordechai (rabbirichwol...@gmail.com)
• 10. Inconceivable! (Jonathan Baker)
• 11. Classical Academia, Deconstruction, and Mesorah (Micha Berger)
• 12. Re: Kashrus of a Restaurant Under the Supervision of its Owner (Zev Sero)
• 13. Women Learning Torah (Ilana Sober Elzufon)

>
> RRW: Thus I support allowing women to choose a Hareidi-style education OR A
> RYDS-style fully modern yeshivisher curriculum, gmara and all.
>
> And that no woman would be "shamed" into either role, rather to learn what
> best works for her as an individual.


Sounds like a good idea for men too, no?

In practice, I don't think there is that much choice for individual girls
until high school or, more commonly, post high school. Families tend to
choose schools based on what is available in the community and suitable for
their hashkafah, and accept whatever curriculum goes along with that. Thus,
there are families whose boys get less secular education than they would
like, because the school that is otherwise right for them doesn't offer
much. And girls (like mine) who don't learn gemara because the schools where
they fit in religiously and socially don't offer it.

>
> The decision to produce Orthodox women clergy will be postponed; but
> there will be women ready to go at any time.


"Produce"? The way to "produce" clergy is by teaching them Torah, and this
hasn't been postponed. There are more than a few qualfied women already. And
they are not sitting quietly on the shelf "ready to go at any time" waiting
for someone (who?) to make a "decision." Many of these women are young. Some
are spending most of their time raising families. But others are moving into
the kind of teaching, pastoral, and leadership roles that they are suited
for, in schools and midrashot, and in communities.

- Ilana
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20090812/48d5393c/attachment-0001.htm>

Ilana:
> "Produce"? The way to "produce" clergy is by teaching them Torah, and
> this hasn't been postponed.

That's not quite my point

My point is to produce Torah-lishma learned women FIRST and NOT to
produce learned women who are motivated to be called "rebbe" until much
later in the game!

The correct understanding is as I wrote
    Teach Now
    Clergy possibly later

RYDS would probaly hold
    Teach Now
    And
    Women Clergy Never.

And Hareidm hold
Don't teach women now.

I am davka calling for 2 distinct steps over the course of a generation
    STEP 1 - allow/encourage fully learned women
    STEP 2 - see what happens as communties sort this out
W/o step 1 step 2 would have to be delayed.

By having a trained army reserve they will be battle-ready almost
immediately.
Or maybe the call might not come
And since the call might NEVER come therefore all the learning of this
transition generation perforce would be lishma only w/o expectations of
being called "rebbe"

Anything less and I think the ideal will be compromised or dilluted
by women eager to assert themselves as "rebbe" which will engender a
gender reaction.

Parallel Parable
In 1948 Gen. Douglas MacArthur egotisitcally thrust himself as a
Presidential candidate. His bid failed and he was labeled an "American
Napoleon"

In 1952 the country practically begged "Ike" to take the office for
the asking.

Ike won 2 landslides because America was eager to have him

MacArthur was soundly rejected because he was eager to become President.

------------------------


counterproduction!

KT
RRW
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

DI:
> Can you clarify what problem is bothering you?

First others will identify what bothers them! That's more important.
My goal was reflection and introspection

Disclaimer/apology:
I used th the term "ethics" - it was too strong.

I guess my salient AISI is
The Lack of yosher in terms of 
Lack of Tamim as opposed to being straightforward, guileless. Think of
Yaaqov before living with Lavan - ish tam.

With schools there is the issue of perpetuating this "tricky" approach
to life generation to generation.

__________________

There was a Cold War joke about a 2-person race between a Soviet
runner and an American runner. The American wins. The Pravda headline:
"Soviet runner finishes second, American next to last!"

Pravda was being truthful but coy [I suggest looking up the defintion
of pravda]

KT
RRW
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

yahtzeit of the mordechai

Mordechai ben Hillel, the ?Mordechai? (~1230-1298). A descendent of
the Ravyah, he was a principle disciple of the Maharam miRottenberg,
and a close friend of the Rosh. The Mordechai cites views of French
and German authorities and brings the piskei halacha of the Tosefos
without the discussion. He, his wife, and their five children were all
burned at the stake during the Rindfleisch pogroms, when over 100,000
Jews in Bavaria and Austria were murdered, and well over 100
communities disappeared.

-- 
Eli Turkel

Regarding the Ben Sorer Umoreh, R' Jonathan Baker asked:
> R' Yonason says ... there was one and I sat on his
> grave. So is the maskana that it's impossible, or
> is it that it's rare and extremely unlikely?

I strongly suspect that this is actually not a question of halacha (what's the maskana?), but rather a question of terminology and linguistics and style.

In my experience, Chazal often spoke with exaggeration and hyperbole. Many
of the things they said will sound so simple and straightforward that many
people accept them at face value without even considering that they were
not intended to be understood that way.

One of the main offenders is the formula "Ayn X elah Y." -- often
translatable as "Situation X does not occur unless Condition Y is present."
Chazal will say such a thing to show the relationship between X and Y, and
it is indeed a real relationship. The problem is that people take it too
literally, and think that it means "Situation X absolutely never occurs
unless Condition Y is present", whereas the truth is that "Situation X
*almost* never occurs unless Condition Y is present."

The simplest proof of my point is that "Every Jew has a chelek of Olam
Haba" and "Aveira XYZ causes one to lose his Olam Haba" are incompatible if
taken too literally. There are many ways of resolving these two statements,
and they all involve understanding one or the other (or both!) as less
extreme pronouncements.

In the case at hand, regarding the Ben Sorer Umoreh, RJB asks, is it really
totally and unequivocally and categorically impossible? Or merely unlikely?
My *first* answer would be that Chazal were exaggerating, and the Ben Sorer
Umoreh is merely unlikely. If anyone has a problem with that, my *second*
answer would be, "Fine. Have it your way. The difference between 'extremely
unlikely' and 'categorically impossible' is too small for me to worry
about."

Akiva Miller

____________________________________________________________
Click to get free auto insurance quotes from top companies.
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL21
31/fc/BLSrjnsHEaDT3rKEcwfDoSYrPR2uiLwu0vLLEid9axPLR6gPJ71vCOnl4S8/

J Kaplan:
> If it were really  
> the ideal, then you'd see it in practice somewhere; you'd see RY turn  
> down sidur kidushin or reading the ketuvah

I think RY don't turn this down to honor the chassan and kallah by
their acceptance

IOW it's not necessarily about their own Kavod.

A relative had R Henoch Lebowitz Z"L be mesadder qiddushin. AISI it
was lichavod the Chassan.

KT
RRW
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

RRW:
>
> I am davka calling for 2 distinct steps over the course of a generation
> STEP 1 - allow/encourage fully learned women
> STEP 2 - see what happens as communties sort this out
>
> W/O step 1 step 2 would have to be delayed.
> By having a trained army reserve they will be battle-ready almost
> immediately.
> Or maybe the call might not come
>
> And since the call might NEVER come therefore all the learning of this
> transition generation perforce would be lishma only w/o expectations of
> being called "rebbe"


1) Did you write this post in 1980? The "course of a generation" has
happened. Learned women are already encouraged and allowed. The change is
still admittedly fairly recent, so that the vast majority of these women are
under 40 - not major-talmid-chacham age, but as old, and in some cases as
accomplished, as the young men who are getting smicha and serving as pulpit
rabbis or teachers.

2) Who is the "call" supposed to come from? Orthodox Judaism does not have a
single governing body, or a single "rabbinical seminary" whose admissions
policy defines who is eligible for smicha. R' Avi Weiss has already issued
one kind of call. R' Michael Broyde, another - see
http://hirhurim.blogspot.com/2009/07/orthodox-women-clergy.html. I prefer
the latter.

Communities are already sorting this out and qualified women are starting to
find themselves in leadership/teaching/pastoral positions appropriate to
their talents, abilities, and yirat shamayim.

3) If only it were so simple to figure out what motivates us to learn Torah
or do mitzvot - much less what motivates other people! Would you say that
all the men in yeshiva who expect to get smicha at some point are not
learning "lishmah" but only in order to gain a title and pursue a career?
Most people have very many mixed motivations and it is hard to untangle
exactly what leads us to do things.

4) It may be that what you are advocating has already happened. When my
friends and I were getting involved in learning 20 years ago, there were no
titles like toenet, yoetzet, or maharat. Most of us didn't see that these
things were coming down the road in a few years (I certainly didn't). What
made us so excited about gemara and halacha? Probably a lot of factors, some
more lishmah and some less, but I really don't think we were looking for
kavod or titles. I think many women are given kavod because their students
or members of their community recognize their level of Torah scholarship,
yirat shamayim, and commitment to avodat H'. They do not, as a rule, run
after it.

- Ilana
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20090812/58311908/attachment-0001.htm>

Recently a kashrus announcement was circulated that said (with
identifying information removed)

Such and such restaurant located in such and such a place is no
longer under the supervision of a certain kashrus agency.

This kashrus alert was then followed by an editor's note saying, "The
restaurant is certified by Rabbi [name], a [religious job description],
who also owns the restaurant. The restaurant is located in the
[instituion] (that Rabbi name runs)."

Is a person giving supervision on an establishment that he owns a problem
from a halachic standpoint? Is this indeed a valid hashgacha, given that
the owner and kashrus supervisor are one and the same?

IMO, this is not the same as someone saying that his or her home is
kosher. In one's home there is presumably no profit motive involved.

Years ago someone told me that there is a teshuva of the Chasam Sofer
that says that such supervision is not valid, but I do not know which
teshuva this is.

I am personally uncomfortable with a private hashgocha, because the idea
of the person who is being supervised paying the supervisor directly
does not sit well with me. (I am not saying there is any problem with
such hashgachas from a halachic standpoint.) However, here the "payee"
and the supervisor are one and the same!

Yitzchok Levine
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20090812/e9d2a0a5/attachment-0001.htm>

RET:
> Mordechai ben Hillel, the "Mordechai" (~1230-1298). A descendent of 
> the Ravyah, he was a principle disciple of the Maharam miRottenberg," 
 
 
Several more points of interest: 
Like the Rosh The Mordechai AFAiK used the Rif as his basic text --
adding Pisqei Tosafos
 
[See the sefer me'iras aynayim ChM 25 re: Toeh bidvar mishnah; that
the halachah is KeRif EXCEPT when Tosafos argues. It seems Mordechai
(and Rosh) usually followed this sheeta]
 
Fastforward: 
AIUI the Mordechai was the Main peirush on Talmud used by the Rema. Thus,
the Moredchai's heavy [yet underrated] influence on Ashkenazic P'saq.
 
PS I can also see parallels between the structure of the Darchei Moshe
Ho'oruch and that of the Mordechai.
 
KT 
RRW 
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

From: Daniel Israel <d...@hushmail.com>
> Jonathan Baker wrote:
> > Daniel Israel:

> >> The loshon in the gemara is "lo hayah, v'lo l'asid lihiyos."  It 
> > R' Yonason says there was one and I sat on his grave.

> > So is the maskana that it's impossible, or is it that it's rare and
 
> I'm not clear what you are asking.  Obviously R' Yonason holds it is 
> possible, I was speaking entirely in the other man d'amar.

But how can we, after the fact, speak about history only in one man d'amar?
Do we pasken history based on one opinion only?  Or do we take multiple
opinions into account and try to balance them?  This isn't a question of
"what constitutes zolel usovei" or "is abortion == murder," where you have
multiple opinions and you have to decide among them.
 
> I understand R' Yonason's response as meaning, not only is it possible 
> in theory, but I can prove it can happen, because it did happen.

Therefore, the other man d'amar may be wrong, and we can try to figure out
if the history really is R' Yonason's version, or the other version, or 
what.   The historian has a different task and a different outlook from
the posek.

But it seems a bit anachronistic to say, 1500 years after the fact, 
"I was speaking entirely in the other man d'amar."

--
        name: jon baker              web: http://www.panix.com/~jjbaker
     address: jjba...@panix.com     blog: http://thanbook.blogspot.com

RMM asked a while back about the relationship some time ago (see
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=R#R%20TZADOKTSBP>,
2nd post onward) about post-modern literary theory and halakhah. it
started when he quoted R' Marc Shapiro:
    Furthermore, it is possible that an author is not aware of all
    the wisdom contained in his work. This idea is well established
    in literary circles, which stress that the most reasonable
    interpretation is not necessarily identical with the position of
    the author. Although the notion that an author understands his
    words better than everyone else would appear to be self-evident,
    and most intellectual historians still operate in this fashion,
    modern literary and philosophical thought argue that even the author
    does not recognize all that is found in his work, both in terms of
    backround and motivation as well as content.

I emailed RDI something recently that I think captures the issue. In
short, I think RMM was tripped up by a false dichotomy.

The classical academic approaches a text looking to see what the author's
original intent was. This is bound to be flawed, since we know less
about the tannaim than the amoraim did, live in a more different culture
from that of the tannaim than they did, and therefore are bound to make
fundamental errors. As the quote notes, even the author isn't aware of
all his own thoughts going into the text.

The post-modern approach is not to look for the meaning the text had to
the author, but the meaning the text has to the reader. A hyper-correction
to the opposite extreme. As I wrote in that previous thread that I think
it's the key to C, to Mordechai Kaplan's concept of transvaluation. It
literally asks the reader to recreate Judaism according to how he wants
it to be.

Mesorah, however, is a living tradition of a development of ideas. More
important to us than what R' Yochanan's original intent is what R' Ashi
thought that intent was, which in turn can only be understood through
the eyes of what the Rosh and the Rambam understood R' Ashi's meaning to
be, which in turn can only be understood through the eyes of the Shaagas
Aryeh and R' Chaim Brisker. It's not what the text meant to the author,
tied to understanding the historical context and weltenschaung of the
tanna. Nor is it what it means to me from a clean slate, an open field
defined only by my encounter with the text, and thus shaped in part by
personal desire and ignorance. It's entering the stream of mesorah and
following how the idea is developed.


In general, post-modernism is incompatible with mesorah. Here's one
definition of post-modernism:
    Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity
    toward metanarratives.
                    - Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition

Where a metanarrative is "global or totalizing cultural narrative schema
which orders and explains knowledge and experience." (John Stephans)
A metanarrative could be the underlying unity of all fairy tales that
leads us to a particular expectation and understanding of them.

One can see a central theme of Yahadus, or almost any religion, is to
bedavka impart a metanarrative. Questioning the metanarrative means
never really encountering the narrative.

Postmodernism bedavka asks one not to follow naaseh venishmah, to let
the framework of halachic life speak for itself. And without "ta'amu",
one will never get to "ure'u ki tTov H'".

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Man is equipped with such far-reaching vision,
mi...@aishdas.org        yet the smallest coin can obstruct his view.
http://www.aishdas.org                         - Rav Yisrael Salanter
Fax: (270) 514-1507

Prof. Levine wrote:

> This kashrus alert was then followed by an editor's note saying, "The
> restaurant is certified by Rabbi [name], a [religious job description],
> who also owns the restaurant. The restaurant is located in the
> [instituion] (that Rabbi name runs)."
>
> Is a person giving supervision on an establishment that he owns a problem
> from a halachic standpoint? Is this indeed a valid hashgacha, given that
> the owner and kashrus supervisor are one and the same?

From a halachic POV, absolutely not a problem.


> IMO, this is not the same as someone saying that his or her home is
> kosher. In one's home there is presumably no profit motive involved.

It is almost the same.  Eid echad ne'eman does not depend on the lack
of a profit motive.  A person in his home also has a motive to lie,
just as a woman has a motive to lie about her counting, but the Torah
says to believe her anyway, unless there is good reason to suspect that
she's lying.  The only difference between a home and a business is that
in someone's own home one needn't positively know the person to be a
yerei shamayim, one merely must not know that he isn't; in his business
the Rama says the absence of negative information is not enough, one
must have positive information about him.  In this case, one does, so
that's OK.

 
> Years ago someone told me that there is a teshuva of the Chasam Sofer
> that says that such supervision is not valid, but I do not know which
> teshuva this is.

If so, it would have been a chumrah or takanah specific to the
circumstances of his place and time.  The CS surely did not have
the authority to change the basic halacha in the SA and Rama,
for all times and places!


-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
z...@sero.name                 eventually run out of other people?s money
                                                     - Margaret Thatcher

I suspect part of the debate between myself and RRW is due to our being on
different continents - I'm in Yerushalayim; he's in Teaneck. So we have
different perspectives. Most of the noise about "women rabbis" is coming
from the US, esp the NY area, and maybe most of the serious women's learning
is happening in Israel.

The learned women I know here are mostly teaching in high schools or
midrashot without any title at all and not particularly "showing off." If a
woman has halachic expertise, other women may turn to her with questions,
which she will either answer or refer to / consult with a rabbi, depending
on whether they are within her realm of competence. The only real titles I
see used here are "yoetzet halacha" - and yoatzot don't go around flaunting
the title or attaching it to their names - and "Rabbanit," which, if the
woman's husband happens to be a rabbi, is sometimes used to convey respect
for her own learning as well.

The titles business seems to be centred more in the US, especially NY, where
the pulpit rabbinate is much more important. And I guess I have a certain
sympathy for the young women with the Torah learning and pastoral skills to
take a leadership role in a community. I also suspect that Rabbi Broyde is
correct that, since this is happening anyway, it will work much better if
there are structured training and certification programs. To the extent that
a title enables a woman to serve the community - and earn a parnasah - I
don't see why she shouldn't have one. I don't know these women, but I can't
imagine they consider the title the ikar of what they are doing.

- Ilana
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-ai
shdas.org/attachments/20090813/43755633/attachment.htm>

------------------------------


Avodah mailing list
Avo...@lists.aishdas.org
http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org


End of Avodah Digest, Vol 26, Issue 165
***************************************

Send Avodah mailing list submissions to
	avodah@lists.aishdas.org

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
	http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
	avodah-request@lists.aishdas.org

You can reach the person managing the list at
	avodah-owner@lists.aishdas.org

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Avodah digest..."