Reply To: Ladies First – Is it respectful or not?

I just located a paper I wrote once on the topic of equality. I think it’s extremely relevant to the topic at hand, so I copied and pasted parts of it:

From what we have seen, it seems as though the Torah view is that there is inequality. Different types of Jews have different levels of importance. However, it is not so simple. If one looks further into the Mefarshim, he obtains a deeper perspective:

To the extent that one is focused on avodas Hashem, the concepts of inequality have no meaning. Korach was focused on himself and his own honor and thus, he was upset by his seemingly lower position. If he had been focused on Hashem and not on himself, he would have realized that to the true oveid Hashem, there is no inequality. If nothing exists but Hashem, there can be no inequality.

As Rav Hutner wrote in a letter to a student embarking on a career:

[of Shema]
A multitude of points scattered, one under the other, certainly has the quality of disunity; but, the same multitude of points arranged around a central point is ONE circle.