The Male - Female Thing In Judaism

Lady Light wrote a rather thought-provoking post, The Role of Women in Judaism.  Usually I don't get into the issue.  I don't know why davka today I commented on her post.  Having been raised nominally Conservative, including five years (I graduated) of Hebrew School in the Oakland Jewish Center, Bayside, NY, and having come of age when feminism was rising, you may be surprised at my feelings about the subject.

 Here's the comment I left on her blog:

Ironically, I think it was this past parshat shavua, which mentioned that it's forbidden for women to don men's clothes and the opposite, when it hit me that tallit and t'fillin must be included in that. Of course, that's my simple interpretation.

Last year, and G-d willing this year, too, I'll study in Matan. Most of the teachers, especially Tanach, are women, since men just don't know the subject as well. Women spend a proportionately larger time on it, while men concentrate on Gmorah.

I don't go for imitating men. I suffer no envy, as long as I'm not ignored, just because I'm a woman.

Biological men can't get pregnant. There are innate differences between the sexes, as I well know as I prepare to teach high school girls after more than a decade teaching boys. I do prefer teaching boys.

Every morning I'm totally sincere when I bless G-d for making me according to His will. And I'm happy to sit in shul knowing that the food is keeping warm on the platta and I don't have to learn the leining. I can just "meditate" on the words of the prayers and concentrate on G-d.

One of the keys in my philosphy of life is making the best of what we have.

Some of my feelings about this is probably due to the fact that I'm in Israel, and our synagogues and rabbis don't have the same roles as in the galut.

There are things we can't change and can't control.  According to Chazal (our sages) they are:

• when we were born
• where we were born
• to whom we were born

Lady Light mentions the late and revered Bible teacher Nechama Liebowitz as an example of women who were "berated" because they delved in masculine roles.  Many strictly observant Orthodox men attended her classes, because she had more Bible (not Torah) knowledge than one could learn from rabbis in yeshiva.  That's because Bible is mostly ignored in all yeshivot.  Even in relatively "modern" yeshiva high schools in Israel, it's part of the secular "afternoon schedule," along with History, Math, English and Literature.  The rabbis who "berated" Leibowitz also disapprove of that sort of modern curriculum.


I'm not some old-fashioned behind the curtains type of female.  I expect people to read my political observations without taking my sex into account.  I don't consider being female to be something which should hold me back in the blog world, not even the jblog world of Jewish Bloggers.


Honestly I have no desire to be called up to the Torah or be Shaliach Tzibbur for Musaf.  And I don't leave the dovening early to set up the community kiddush either.


From what I've read, just like in many other professions, the Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist and whatever "forms" of Judaism which have admitted women into all ritual roles, now find that men are much less apt to apply.  It has become "women's work."

ה לֹא-יִהְיֶה כְלִי-גֶבֶר עַל-אִשָּׁה, וְלֹא-יִלְבַּשׁ גֶּבֶר שִׂמְלַת אִשָּׁה: כִּי תוֹעֲבַת יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, כָּל-עֹשֵׂה אֵלֶּה. {פ} 5 A woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment; for whosoever doeth these things is an abomination unto the LORD thy God. {P}(Ki Tetzei)