I'm usually not the type to be overly concerned with women's issues or standing up for the feminist voice.
Perhaps this is because I go to a female dominated rabbinical school where riding the elevator with renowned female scholars is just another day in the life. This attitude could also be a product of the way I grew up and the values ingrained in my mind from my family and culture. To put it bluntly, I am accepted in my world and since I don't usually put myself in non-liberal environments, feminism hasn't been a big part of consciousness.
This all changed when I started doing daf yomi on the subway (I ride the F train) three days ago. This morning I experienced the CONTINUOUS unfriendly glares of an orthodox man trying to reconcile the combination of Schottenstein and Skinny Jeans.
Ironically, today's daf deals with issues of authority afforded to rabbinic leaders. Descendants of the Reish Geluta of Bavel are more authoritative than descendants of the Nasi in Eretz Yisrael. Why, you may ask? Well, the Tosafot say the reason is that the Reish Geluta was descended from the male line of the Davidic House, whereas the Nasi was descended from the female line! (5a footnote 13) There are endless discussions about why certain scholars have authority to rule independently in certain situations while others do not.
There was a particularly interesting discussion about whether a student has the authority to render a decision in the vicinity of his teacher. The conclusion is that if a student is within three parsaot of his teacher, he cannot render a decision but if the distance between student and teacher is greater than three parsaot, he does have authority to render a decision. A "parsa" is measured in time, not distance. Three parsaot is considered a third of a days travels, or three to four hours (Mishnah Berura 249:1)
As I was approaching the Broadway-Lafayette street station, I regretted my current proximity to my HUC teachers... I considered riding the train with this man to Queens so that I could render his stares "tamei."
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
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B"H
ReplyDelete1) Why do you assume that they were "unfriendly"?
Why not simply curious?
2) Lubavitcher Rebbe points out that in our time
when women are involved in working outside the house and otherwise interacting with the larger world around us they should study Talmud and he is not alone in the Orthodox world to hold such opinion.
3) Instead of considering rendering "his stares "tamei" (which you of course intended as a metaphor, but is halachikly a meaningless statement - stares don't become tamei) why didn't you simply introduce yourself and speak with him? Wouldn't that be more constructive thing to do?