OneOfMany –
Isn’t there intrinsic value in learning torah, regardless of its role in the scheme of things?
Perhaps, but it shouldn’t be pushed. Any “advanced Torah course” should be an elective rather than a required course.
The ones that are capable usually want the utmost in limudei kodesh too.
Unless guys and girls are very different, I don’t think you are right, and if it seems that way, maybe it’s simply a you-want-it-because-you-can’t-have-it motivation that’s behind it. In other words if you would change the system and make girls learn just as much as guys, they would have less of an interest. Just my conjecture.
I agree with you that it isn’t right to generalize. It’s ignorant and stupid and your principal never should have told you that. And I don’t know the details, but perhaps a limud z’chus – It could be he thought (clearly, mistakenly) that you personally could not handle such a course, and in his mind he believed that it would soften the blow to make a general comment about women than about your specific shortcomings, because in this way he is saying “don’t worry, you are normal.” Which clearly was the wrong thing to say, but I’m just saying that perhaps he didn’t mean to imply it the way you took it.
I’m getting a bit carried away again, but the on the topic of judging someones words in a favorable context, the Rambam writes:
“Should he notice any opinions with which he does not agree, let him endeavour to find a suitable explanation, even if it seem far-fetched, in order that he may judge me charitably. Such a duty we owe to every one. We owe it especially to our scholars and theologians, who endeavour to teach us what is the truth according to the best of their ability.”
Anyway.
By the way, I stated on another thread today that the Rambam’s opinion* is that the natural sciences are not just a complement to Torah, they are Torah. (In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that the Vilna Ga’on vehemently disagreed.) So by studying advanced physics you would be shteiging in limud haTorah according to the Rambam anyway.
*See, for example, his comments at the end of the fourth chapter in Hilchos Yesodei haTorah.