While the entire frum community is in up in arms over whether or not women can wear tefillin without hurting their chances at a good shidduch, I have moved on and am alarmed at the possible fallout from this weakening of the mesorah. You see, unlike most folks, I look to the past and future to deem if the present is really a good thing after all. I understand the fear that women will suddenly become promiscuous by becoming closer to Hashem without the right intentions, but I’m looking beyond the wrecked shidduchim, morning muffin tops across the mechitza, and the debate of Rashis daughters really being OTD and not something to base our paskening off of. I’m fearful of the fences around fences that are slowly coming down.
It’s pretty much understood that if you don’t keep chumros and random post Shulchan Aruch stringency’s, you will eventually whither away and become conservative. I think the modern orthodox world is headed towards conservatism and I’m not sure why they are so scared. I guess we can compare it to yeshiva guys fearing the word “modern” when they become learner-earners or go to college. Is this really such a bad thing? These so called neo-cons will be a great thing for the conservative movement, shuls with many shomer shabbos people, mechitzas, and no microphones or electric toilets. A hybrid, or maybe a hearkening back to the days of yore when the conservative movement followers shared the same theology as its rabbis.
My biggest fear is that when we troll the rishonim and try to justify our breaks with the mesorah, we may start to realize that much of our religion is based on stringency’s. I sure hope that everyone doesn’t wake up one day and decide to follow the shulchan aruch with regards to milk and meat, or worse yet, the Torah. When’s the last time you had a fried goat steak that was battered in buttermilk from it’s mother? It’s pretty hard to find and better yet, chicken and cheese is probably less of a problem than women putting on tefillin, at least the chicken is dead already and cannot become a feeble minded whore that distorts the words of the gemara because they don’t have the right intentions.
What about spehardic vs. ashkenazic custom? I fear that one day, white people will eat rice crispies on pesach and justify it based on halacha and not image. What about justifying not covering ones hair, or not wearing a yarmulke except to make a bracha. Such fears I have.
I fear that one day, those who scour obscure sources will find out that there is no sources for sexy sheitles, black hats, streimels, forsaking work for kollel, mistreating goyim, supporting dishonesty in business, and tax fraud. I fear that those who wish to say that women wearing tefillin is a good thing, will suddenly believe that women should get full time jobs and careers.
I fear for the men who may be exposed to arm-ervah while taking up space in the women’s section during shcachris. I fear for the women who will now be missing z’man krias shema because they daven at later minyanim, because they need to watch the children during the netz minyan.
I fear that the men will suddenly lose their grip on the frum community. I fear that there will be articles written by women on the frum websites, where they talk about their views. I fear that this will break down our tznius and frum media will finally show women’s faces in women’s magazines. I fear that the thought of tefillin on a woman may cause a man to have improper hirhurim and lead to a holocaust of wasted seed that will chase the Jewish people for eternity around the cul de sacs of Lakewood.
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I fear the ehrliche yidden starting to read Frum Satire.
“The only thing…Heshy has to fear is fear itself.” I believe that was said in the name of the Roosevelter Rebbe.
I think all women in Teaneck and Lawrence should start wearing tefilin immediately; it’ll improve the economy in Meah Shearim – where everyone’s an unemployed sofer – overnight.
The cul de sacs of Lakewood, LOL
I think all women in Teaneck and Lawrence should start wearing tefilin immediately; it’ll improve the economy in Meah Shearim – where everyone’s an unemployed sofer – overnight.
lol
it’s funny because it’s true.
this is why we have art scroll gemora
I only fear trivializing the mitzva. Once people who do not need to do it, start doing it for trivial reasons, it trivializes the mitzva for everyone. Are women going to get up well before dawn every morning, and come to minyan, and strap on tefillin everyday– you know, the way one who is obligated does? Or do they just want to do it sometimes, to exhibit a social statement.? Because once they reduce a mitzva to an exhibition of a social statement, they will be making a joke out of the obligation of mitzvot. And men will lose their sense of obligation.
Show me the women who are wearing tefillin in the places where they are permitted to. Because from what I see, they only want to wear it, where it is prohibitted. In a way, perhaps it would be right to allow woman to lay tefillin in Orthodox shuls. Because that is one thing that we can do, to pretty much guaranttee that they will lose interest, and not do it. Because they certainly are not doing it at the Conservative synagogues, but neither are the men. Mitzvot are not practiced anymore, once they have been trivialized.
I am a pretty progressive guy, in a pretty progressive congregation. Women do lots of things, in our congregation. But they do like to say things about ‘Torah happening among the men, but not among the women’. Torah happens when one concentrates on Torah obligations. If people try to make Torah happen, by performing rituals in which there is no element of obligation, it will be empty, shallow, and meaningless. That is why strapping up once in awhile, when there is no obligation to do so, is not going to give them the boost that they are looking for. Torah happens when one seizes the opportunity to accept obligations. In my community, our Rabbi once suggested that the women try to have one woman present at every minyan, so that when a woman comes in to observe a yahrtzeit, she will not be alone. I immediately noticed that they were being offered an opportunity to accept a community obligation. They did not seize the opportunity. They blew it off. And as long as they blow off opportunities like that, they are not going to get that feeling that they are looking for, in performing empty rituals.
Hey, Kenyon. I agree with you about “Mitzvot are not practiced anymore, once they have been trivialized.” I have heard Orthodox rabbis say, “If we start counting women in a Minyon, the men will stop coming.” Incidentally, I know which congregation you are referring to.
I myself have no intention of putting on tefillin. Nor would I wear a tallit or a kippah. I do, however, count Sifira and bentch Lulav & Etrog. I do those things every day that I am supposed to do them, not just when I feel like it. Do you feel the same way about women counting Sifira and bentching Lulav & Etrog?
Hi Minucha. Now that you have told me that you know what congregation I am in, I have to be careful or you might get me into trouble with my Rabbi! Nah, I am only kidding. No, I do not have problem with women counting Sifra or the Lulav and Esrog. In fact, I sort of feel sorry for the one lone woman that I frequently see, with Lulav and Esrog in hand, doing it alone.
There is something different about it. I think that it is the difference between festival mitzvot, and the ‘daily grind’ mitzvot. The daily grind is more vulnerable. People want to do the festival mitzvot, because of the festival. But for one who is obligated to the daily grind, the thing that keeps them doing it, is the sense of sacred duty. Trivialize that sense of sacred duty, and it is over.
And yeah, I know that I would stop going to minyan, if women were counted. I go to minyan, not only because it is a mitzvah in and of itself, but their might be yahrtzeit observers, who are depending on 10 guys showing up. Make it so that 10 guys don’t have to show up, and I simply won’t take the duty so seriously anymore. Especially since I am not going to respond to Kaddish or Borchu or Kedusha, if there are not 10 Jewish guys there.
Yonadav,
Why would the constant observance of a mitzva trivialize it?
I am from Riverdale, and in our shul, there was a woman who was saying Kadish for her father, for the entire year, three minyanim each day, (regular minyanim of men).
I don’t see how that trivialized it for any other Jew who was saying kadish.
Are you scared your mitzva will be less if someone else performs it too?
I respect your opinion. I stated mine, and feel confident in it. I do feel the need to debate the matter. I would only point out that I respect that woman’s decision to commit herself to going the whole nine yards in saying kaddish for her father. That is a VERY personal mitzvah.
Kenyon, I’m in agreement with the last paragraph. I’ve been to non-Orthodox services where women were counted in a Minyan. When there were fewer than 10 men, I also did not respond to Kaddish, Borchu or Kedusha.
P.S. I’m not going to out you to the Rabbi; however, if he reads this blog, he’ll recognize your name.
Yeah, I am the worst clandestine discussant on the planet. If I were a secret agent, I would tell people that I am a secret agent, and confuse them. But I know who you are, because I remember you mentioning this site to me. 🙂
I know your identity as well.
You have a punny name. 🙂
You can blame my parents (Z”L) for that. LOL 😀
Get a room…
THANK YOU. AMEIN.
I hate to be the one to tell you this, but at my Conservative shul, at least, there are a number of women who lay tefillin daily. They attend morning minyan every day, lay tefillin, daven and go on to work or school or whatever is going on that day. The men do the same.
I’ve been laying tefillin for a couple of years now and did so almost exclusively at home initially, since I was overseas in a country with virtually no Jewish community (bar Chabad, but obviously I wasn’t going to go to their minyan and start putting on tefillin). Now that I’m back in the States, I’ll put them on at minyan if I can get there and at home if I can’t.
I’m not sure why some people have such a hard time assimilating the idea of women taking this on as seriously as they take on any other Jewish obligation. In the case of the schools who have decided to allow girls to lay tefillin, the girls were *already* doing so daily- in the case of that school in New York, the rabbi made a point of saying that the first girl who asked him came in early every single day, went to the nearest congregation where she could daven, then came back to school for class. That sounds to me like she’s taking it pretty seriously.
Look — it is human nature to want your cake and to eat it too. I think most Orthodox women, especially MO women, are highly ambivalent about changing the status quo. On the one hand, they have equality in the secular world and it’s difficult emotionally to not have it in the religious wold. On the other hand, no, they don’t want the extra obligations. Women like to sleep in, men like to sleep in. Sleeping in is enjoyable to all humans.
The women I know personally who are trying to push the needle in the frum world are not sleeping in. Maybe you know different people, but my guess is that you don’t actually know any frum women who regularly lay tefilin so you are spectulating based on women who complain but who don’t actually want obligations. Okay, but two different groups of people.
These two particular girls — these two Jews — have worn tefillin every day for a number of years. The *frum* women I know personally who daaven with WOW are similar. This is not a stunt for them. What they do publicly, they also do every day privately.
OTOH, the beauty of being an Orthodox (Ashkenazi) woman is that your life comes with certain restrictions but also certain leniencies. Ashkenazi women are *allowed* to perform time-bound miztvot on an ad-hoc basis as the spirit moves them. Because it’s not an obligation, it’s not the same thing as a man doing that same action. But that doesn’t mean the action means nothing to that woman.
Stop looking over your left shoulder for a moment and consider some of the norms of Ashkenazi life. Frum girls grow up saying keriat shema when they wake up and when they go to bed. They don’t think twice about saying birchot keriat shema in dayschool, even though this is absolutely forbidden as brachot levatah by Sephardic poskim. They attend sedarim, they make kiddush for themselves when no one is nearby to do it for them. Most shockingly, they learn Hebrew and study Torah and often Mishna, something that most 19th century Jews would considered a form of transgenderism.
Tallit and tefillin are no different from any of the time-bound mitzvot above. There is no reason they could not become individually meaningful mitzvot for some women in an Orthodox framework.
The proplem is that your reasoning revolves entirely around the choice of individuals. Sure, some individual woman might choose to commit to some time bound mitzvot. Such women are finding places where they can do just that. And quite frankly those places are plentiful, and noticeably not filled with women who are doing it.
But here is the problem– mitzvot are never about individual choice. Men do not have a choice. And no matter how consistent a woman is about laying tefillin, it is never going to be about obligation; it is going to be about her individual choice.
When we mix people who see things in terms of choice, with others who *must* see the same things in terms of obligation, the only possible result is that the sense of obligation will suffer.
Mitzvot are not about individual choice. Making them about individual choice, inherently trivializes them. I have trouble taking anyone seriously on this issue, unless they are willing to talk about it in terms of *all* women being obligated to lay tefillin. Otherwise, they simply are not speaking in terms of obligation.
A woman who is serious about leining tefilling and does so during her tefillot every day, not just when its convenient or gains attention, but in her home or shul irrespective of who is or isn’t looking, has my utmost respect. That’s a real and worthy commitment and deserving praise. Halavai, that should be the worst character trait a prospective wife has! A woman who isn’t serious about it or has the wrong motives will generally just quit eventually. In my opinion, let it run its course and time will tell. However, women who do it only in public to gain attention or score political points — that does infantilize and trivialize the mitzvah and is a busha. The frum velt, however, should rise above and ignore such women. Attention is what they are doing it for — refuse to give it to them and you undercut their motives.