I thought that Rabbi Yaakov Blau's comments "No one was questioning if women's learning was permissible or advisable" is not fully correct. The truth is that much of this whole conversation about women learning torah was really precipitated by Rabbi Mordechai Willig's observation that this matter needs reconsideration. Rabbi Mordechai Willig -- who is in the iconic picture with the Rav and Rabbi Berman -- states simply and directly:
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However, in the words of a "pioneer of the religious feminist wave" cited in the aforementioned article, "What is happening today is a direct continuation of the beginning of Talmud studies for religious women in the 1980's." This candid admission must, for the genuinely Orthodox, call into question the wisdom of these studies. Although there are ample reliable sources that encourage individual women who have proper yiras Shomayim and whose motives are consistent with our mesorah to further their Torah study, the inclusion of Talmud in curricula for all women in Modern Orthodox schools needs to be reevaluated. While the gedolim of the twentieth century saw Torah study to be a way to keep women close to our mesorah, an egalitarian attitude has colored some women's study of Talmud and led them to embrace and advocate egalitarian ideas and practices which are unacceptable to those very gedolim. [
www.torahweb.org]
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He is very directly questioning the advisability of women's learning torah on a general curricular level and much of the material written seems to be to be intended to directly or indirectly be addressing his claim. This is true both on Lehrhaus and many other places. Some concede the correctness of Rabbi Willig's claim and think this is good as we should be more egaliterian, some do not concede his claim and think that the problems are not related, and some think that the good exceeds the bad and thus should be continued.
Furthermore, it seems to me that there is not enough focus on an aspect of Rabbi Willig's claim (as I understand it).
The purpose of women's torah shebal pe learning -- and this is what Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein implied as well in his very novel view -- is different from men's learning. Men learn because the learning itself is a mitzvah and like all mitzvot needs to be done because it is a mitzvah. (Thus, I learn even when I do not enjoy it, just like I daven even if I do not enjoy it.) Orthodox Jews do mitzvot as such is God's will. Of course, with positive commandments, there is sometimes more discretion than negative one's, but still a mitzvat aseh is a mitzvah and should be done because of the will of the Almighty. ) Fun or not -- a religious Jew is an eved hashem and servants do not have fun all the time.
Torah study for women is not such a mitzvah -- rather it is a tool to accomplish some other set of goals (some of which are very worthwhile, I agree -- that is Rabbi Lichtenstein's point, and Rabbi Willig's also) and some of these derived goals are themselves a mitzvah. But, it is like wearing tzitizt at night on a night garment -- it is only valuable when the other goals are accomplished, rather than for its own purpose. Women thus seek something from abstract torah study independent of the mitzvah status. In this model, as I understand it, Rabbi Willig is calling for a reexamination of women's learning to make sure that the external upsides of Torah study do not exceed the external downsides of torah study (which Rabbi Willig claims is a weakening of Orthodox observance). This examination of the long term consequences of Torah study is not done as diligently for men studying torah, Rabbi Willig could claim, exactly because men studying torah is an intrinsic mitzvah, and women studying is not.
Rabbi Willig's call this is simple in this view: As times change, and the reality changes, how much and of what type of Torah study women ought to do, should be reconsidered regularly, since it is a tool and not a mitzvah. For men, the mitzvah validates, even if it is not valuable in other areas and maybe even if it is harmful in other areas. For women, if it is not externally valuable, maybe other things can be done better or this should be modified.
I am not actually claiming it is so, but I am claiming that the nature of the chiyuv to study torah ought change how we study it and what is deemed success. (This is why the yoatzot are so important -- they avoid this issue exactly because they are working in an area of halacha that for a variety of reasons it is hard for men to fully get -- the issues are so technically halachic that mitzvah performance is clearly enhanced by this learning.)
That point was missing from most conversation. I know it is politically hard point to make, but it is important as a matter of the field within the Orthodox community, I suspect.
All the best,
MJB
Michael J. Broyde
Professor of Law
Emory University School of Law
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/2017 07:24AM by mlb.
