Wednesday, February 5, 2014

More On Women's Issues

"Gets your facts straight first.
Then distort them as you wish"

Mark Twain

More on tefillin donning women here.

A general thought. When the Bnos Tzlafchad requested a portion in Eretz Yisrael, their request was granted. It is often not the request that makes the difference but the people asking. The Bnos Tzlafchad were holy pious women.

My daughter is a 12th grader in a Beis Yaakov in Yerushalayim. She and her friends have no desire to: Wear tfillin, learn gemara, make kiddush, read from the Torah etc. etc. etc. Are they spiritually deficient?

No. They are merely serving Hashem as they were taught and are not influenced by external feminist ideals. If they would come out of the blue and say "We daven every day, say tehillim, dress bi-tzniyus, perform chesed, help at home etc. etc. but there is something missing. Maybe when no one is watching we can taste a little of the gemara that gets boys so excited as maybe it will help us better serve Hashem" then I would perk up. When a girl is completely detached from Facebook, Internet, Iphones, secular newspapers and magazines etc. etc. and has a pure desire for kirvas Elokim then she is on the right road, But strangely enough, the last 40 years of feminist rancor demanding increased religious practice for women comes primarily [if not completely] from women [and the no less vocal men] who don't even keep what they are obligated in.



If I were a principal and a girl asked to wear tfillin I would tell her, first סור מרע - if you have a sincere desire to get close to Hashem then stop using Internet [unless you are checking R' Ehrman's blog], wear stockings, daven at least twice a day and stop attending coed activities. A girl will have a bat mitzvah and read from the Torah. Then for the party she and her friends will be on the dance floor with boys at a discotheque. But their parents will claim and even convince the girls that everything is completely halachic. Hmmmmmm. A Beis Yaakov [or similar minded] girl isn't so holy. She doesn't read from the Torah or even get an aliyah - but she is also not boogeying with the boys. Ahhhhhhh.



Sweetest friends, my vocabulary is far too inadequate to describe how [often innocently] misguided people are. I include the many who go on vacations described in the advertisements as complete immersions in olam ha-zeh including many issurim ..... with a daily daf yomi. Can't forget the daf yomi. I am happy that yidden learn daf yomi. I am less happy that they don't perceive the internal contradiction that they are living. It is not only that frum people go to these places that bothers me - it is that they are not embarrassed.



[Note - If someone wants to disagree, then feel free to do so. But I don't obligate myself to answer every email. Life is too short for fruitless arguments. What I do suggest is that a person immerse him or herself in kdusha for a few years, divorced from filth of this world and then see if their attitudes change. A person in the [spiritual] mud often doesn't realize how dirty he is. וד"ל. ]

Love and blessings:-).
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