Women Rabbis - Part 3

I have written about this before on these pages but it deserves another few words.

Our generation has been blessed with an explosion in the education of girls and women. The gedolim [at least most of them] in Europe approved of the changes and enhanced education because they felt that a strong background in Torah was the most effective way of stemming the tide of assimilation. [Rav Soloveitchik took the same logic one step further by giving the first gemara shiur in Stern College. The other gedolim of his time weren't ready to go that far and encouraged more intensive study of halacha, tanach etc. but not gemara. An interesting topic for discussion but not for now].

The result is that girls today know a ton more than their grandmothers ever dreamed of knowing. When a good frum girl dates a yeshiva boy, chances are that she will know hilchos shabbos better than he does and certainly hilchos hafrahsas challah which he never learned and she is an expert.

The down side is that all of this advanced education forces men to teach women. Ideally, a man should have nothing to do with any women other than his mother/wife/daughter/s. A woman, similarly, should have nothing to do with strange [not in the sense of "weird" but "unrelated"] men. The teacher-student relationship creates close bonds between unmarried [to each other] men and women.

Is this healthy?

No.

Is this holy?

No and no.

Is anybody talking about this problem?

I don't think so. [For this we have the blog:-).]

Do girls develop "crushes" on their teachers? Sometimes. Do teachers develop "crushes" on their students. Of course [you won't catch them admitting it though. Imagine a seminary teacher comes home and says to his wife "Malke, I really like this girl in my class. I think she likes me back"].  This is because they are human and human nature is for the male to be attracted to the female and vice versa. Maybe there are a few tzadikim out there who aren't but I am very wary. I hope there are [I also hope I was zoche to be one of them back when I taught women. I was very aware of the dangers and worked hard to keep everything holy]. I wouldn't let my daughters get "close" to any male teacher because you never know. אין אפוטרופוס לעריות - is the brilliant formulation of Chazal.  

So while I think that giving women the position and title of "Rabbi" is a danger to the integrity of the Torah, we should nevertheless encourage women to teach women.

I add that when men teach women they are usually compelled to because the alternative is poverty. Poverty also has its drawbacks... Also, girls are often more willing to receive Torah and guidance from a man, so he might often be the better guide.

But of course a tremendous amount of Yiras Shomayim is required.