writersoul:
First of all, regarding your first two sentences and your third sentence, you’re welcome and thank you respectively.
Now on to business:
The issue of keeping the status quo, is an interesting one. I think there is definitely value in keeping things the same, generally speaking. However, when there are reasons to change, I thing it should be considered. (In fact there are several threads here, where I have argued strongly against keeping things the same, most notably http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/techeiles/ starting about halfway down page 9.)
But, I would quote Professor Umbridge here: “Progress for progress’s sake must be discouraged, for our tried and tested traditions often require no tinkering.” Meaning that we shouldn’t be changing things just for the sake of changing it. There has to be a reason to change. But I think you, and DaasYochid both agree with me on that. The only disagreement would be what the necessary standard is, which is very likely going to be dependent on the circumstances of each individual issue, and in proportion to the strength of the reasons behind the current position. If that wasn’t so clear, what I mean is that not all status quos are necessarily equal. And just to clarify, when I wrote in my earlier post about the reasons pro not outweighing the reasons against, I wasn’t saying that that is in fact the case here; I was saying that that is DaasYochid’s argument.
Now about the article, when I said that I have what to ding zuch on each of her three points, I did not mean to summarily dismiss them. It’s just that I have some quibbles with them which I’ll mention now:
I didn’t really get her first point. While in theory it is true that women want their husbands to be learning, I don’t think it would be relevant here. There are 120 members of the Knesset. Even if every single one of them was Chareidi, that would only entail 120 men not learning. There are many more than 120 Chareidi men working. She had suggested that women could work in the Knesset instead of in other fields; you could say the same thing for men. So I don’t think that the Torah learning is a real issue here.
My issues with her second point are not really significant enough to justify making this post longer than it will already be.
Her third point, I thought was good, but I think she should have kept the focus on women having a voice in general. Many people would be sympathetic to such a claim. But they might be turned off when she brings up the Rabbis and divorce issues.
But I tend to agree with you regarding her reasons against women in the Knesset, or rather the lack thereof. Essentially all she said was that the particular method of achieving this change is inappropriate, which obviously does not address why there shouldn’t be change, and then she said simply that we shouldn’t be trying to change the system. She mentioned Rebbetzen Weinberg as a good model, but wasn’t that precisely the second issue she mentioned earlier – that only wives of great Roshei Yeshiva have a voice. So I’m not sure how that helps. She also mentioned that it’s a bad environment for a frum woman, but as I think you pointed out, she doesn’t explain why it would be a bad environment for a woman but not for a man. The only thing she really said was that women shouldn’t be in the spotlight, (which conceivably is more of an issue with the Knesset than with any old job) which is in fact the argument that some people were making here.
DaasYochid also made the point that women in the Knesset would be “reinforcing the view of a woman’s role as career oriented, at the expense of her role taking care of her family”, but I think that would be equally an issue (or non-issue) with any career.
So in short, what it comes down to is how you weigh the issues on each side. I think the issues should be discussed, because otherwise people will just say that it’s bigotry vs. egalitarianism, which is what it seems like from some of the other posts here.
If you actually made it to the end of this post, then I thank you for taking the time to read it (Moderators too).