Reply To: Centrist Orthodoxy, and the English Language

ben:

I have an expansive view of step one. I reject your ambiguity because it is clear that he is tapping into allegations of bigotry by noting that chazal were male.

If you must go to step two, I note that if he thought that chazal’s meaning was not bigoted, he could simply have that meaning in mind and not be bigoted. There may be more than one interpretation, but yours is not one of the reasonable ones.

As long as that doesn’t mean that the halachos are invalid, how does it damage the mesorah.

First, because it is being used to disqualify very old minhagim, which is bad enough.

Second, because it inherently undermines the validity of the mesorah. The fact that they think there is apparently some other reason to observe hardly makes up for that.