Reply To: Bais Yaakovs Today

#713640
rabbiofberlin
Participant

I am not sure I should get involved in this discussion lest I will be called (as Joseph intimates) part of the 21st century crowd….with all the supposed stigma it carries with it…But before giving an opinion, “jelamdenu rabbeinu”, did Devorah Haneviah bake cookies? Did Chana, from whom we learn our tefillos, bake cookies? Did Esther Hamalkah bake cookies? Did Beruriah eishes Rav Meir bake cookies?My point is not to give you a litany of many, many women in our history who were nevios, shoiftois, etc but to say again, that this emphasis on keeping women ignorant, because this is what JO Jo wants, was never a part of our history. We seem to be totally blinded in following a way of life that was not a part of our history and that only bacame so because we were in golus and abject poverty.

If you want to debate this matter, at least debate it on halachic grounds, whether teaching a woman Torah is permissible in in which way it is permissible. That is a valuable debate and ,at least , has some historical substance.

To keep women ignorant is not part of our tradition. (I won’t comment on Rav Shachs zz’l words.)