Reply To: Women's Bina Yeseira

No, HaLeiVi, I simply quoted the Maharal. My point was in response to a frequently heard misconception (for which there is no actual Torah source – and the above sources contradict) that females are more spiritual than males. What they are trying to do is use it to say that women are more spiritual in general when binah is but one form of spirituality. Men excel in others. Rav Nachman Bullman said the practice of telling women they are more spiritual than men is actually subtly condescending.

And whether or not being spiritual should mean anything to anybody, it is taken to do what TV commercials do, show the man as the fool and the woman as the capable and mature party. This has an effect on marriages, shiduchim, and even mitzvos. When the woman (or man) thinks, there goes the man, off to put on that tefillin that he needs because he is so low – this has a terrible effect on people. Our grandmothers had enormous respect for their fathers and husbands. Not so the women of this generation or even the last generation. If someone doesn’t think that feeds into divorce and confusion among the youth, then they aren’t thinking.

The world today, lead by America, values money and career success – male domains historically. It does not value family, love, community – all the stuff women are good at. It glamorizes career, when most people hate their jobs. The college professors have interesting and easy jobs and they brainwash the youth about the glory of career. So then of course women will want to have one. Talk to the women of the 60s and 70s, how career turned out to be a bust. Many that gave up child bearing years for career and they hate their careers and wish they had more children. The contemporary woman (speaking of general society, not necessarily frum society) is a train wreck. She has lost her binah and her modesty and her warmth and everything that is so special about women.