Women and Tzitzis

"The Gemara asks a question, if a blind man should wear tzitzis on his garment. He has a four corner garment, does he need tzitzis? Because it says uri'isem oso, 'you should see it' and a blind man cannot see it. So maybe it's patur from tzitzis. So the Gemara says, no that's no reason because sha'ani tzitzis sh'yeshnah b'riah etzel acharim (Menachos 43a) other people should see his tzitzis. So a blind man should wear tzitzis not really for himself, (but) for other people to see. Now that's a remarkable thing we are hearing now. It means the tzitzis that you are wearing are not only for you to see, it's for me to see too. So let's say a woman thinks I'm not wearing tzitzis so it doesn't apply. No it applies to her too. As she sees her boys going around with tzitzis she should see the tzitzis uri'isem oso, you should see the tzitzis uzachartem, 'you should remember'. And oso doesn't mean only tzitzis, oso means you see Hashem when you see the tzitzis."

R' Avigdor Miller
Lecture, "Forever and Ever" #952

External movements

External movements never work well for Jews because we always take them too seriously; we turn them into religion. From communism, to capitalism, rock music, to sports, we take it all way more seriously than the goyim do. And we are mesiras nefesh for it. So too feminism. It's so much more overboard in the Jewish world. Goyish movements are full to talk to cover their weak intentions. The leaders get paid for all the talk. Jews take it all as Torah and get very warped. The whole woman's issue today is like that. People are out of control with it. They are so full of compassion for the women that they have lost all reason and actually wind up hurting women by destroying what women value most - family.

Harsh Words for Aish

The Aish view is invalid. It's made up and lacks Torah commentators. It involves a comparison between men and women and that's where it goes off. If you want to say women are great nurturers, they live a life of chesed -like R' Miller does, that's focusing on one positive aspect. That's fine. But that's not what they do. Rather, they put down men, just like American TV commercials and sitcoms. They claim to have the whole picture. They say that when the men march off to minyan it's because they are lower than women and need to catch up to them. It's so toxic and emasculating and discouraging. It causes divorce and shiduch problems. It causes young men with poor self esteem to go off the derech. It causes women to say, I'm complete, no need for me to put in effort at being a Jew. A young BT told me the other day, she was told women are at the top and just need to hold on. No need to grow. So I guess Moshe Feinstein had to spend his life catching up to 12 year old girls who are born holy and complete. That's the Aish approach, which is not an approach of course, it's an act of tiva - the Satan desires Chava. It's the work of the Satan, possibly even the eruv rav. It damages every home, or many homes. And it makes Aish a traife organization because the damage is so widespread and fundamental.

Why the Spirituality Vort is an Act of Yetzer Hara

Because it's a chutzpah which works slightly differently for men and women. The idea that one is 'above' mitzvos which connect us to the Divine or even understands mitzvos, which are infinite in their purpose and meaning minimizes mitzvos and embarrasses them. The idea that one is above half the human race, including their fathers and grandfathers and gedolei hador and Avos is egotistical. It also defies logic. Is a 12 year old girl from Teaneck above Moshe Rabbeinu? This whole simplistic, pat women as better speech is lacking in discipline and intelligence. It's juvenile and that is a chutzpah and an act of yetzer hara. People are attracted to it in part because it's perverse. It's such a chidush because it's perverse. And people love perverse chidushim because it makes them look very, very smart. Ah, the whole human race thinks X, but I'm really smart and I know that the real truth is Y. Look how smart I am. A lot of evil in this world has been done by people who came up with radical explanations on life.

It also is a backdoor assault on the cavod of men. Tell me, if men are inferior  spiritually, then why are they the leaders? Maybe the women should be the rabbis and the spiritual authorities in the home.

So I'd worry about women for whom this concept resonates.

I'd worry about men for whom it resonates too, but doubt in most cases that they really believe it. Much of the time it's a case of the Satan lusting after Chava and telling her whatever he thinks she wants to hear. Truth is, few women want to see themselves as being better than men. Most just want respect and equality. The thirst for being better, for conquest, is masculine.

For Lubavitchers, the chutzpah has a special dimension because the Rebbe spoke on the topic of the exemption and said nothing about women being better. He said only they are not worse. He also said that women are connected to these mitzvos via their husbands, not that they are above the mitzvos. So half of Chabad tells me the Rebbe is moshiach and the other half tell me he was the gadol hador, yet they won't listen to him and utilize his explanation. And that is chutzpah and yetzer hara.

Some Thoughts in Response to the Hesilis Book

Everything in this world works in a balance with something else. That's the key point. If you want to say that men go higher and lower (see R' Kook on shelo asani isha), that's fine. But what you cannot say is that women have a bigger yetzer tov and a smaller yetzer hara. If one is big then the other is big. Otherwise you are describing God and that is why I worry that this woman worship trend is a kind of avodah zara. Yet, this is something people in kiruv say all the time - one way or another. And it's just flattery. Remember the Satan lusts after Chava and uses flattery to get her. Sometimes I listen to kiruv rabbis wax on with this women's spirituality routine and I think of alpha male baboons that beat down all the males and take the women for themselves. It seems adulterous at times. And it's lashon hara against men and sinas chinom too. And it's the worst kind of sinas chinam. If the Chasidim mock the Litvacks, that's wrong but the Chasdim can still live successfully in their own community. But if you mock men, then every community goes bad because men and women live in the same communities and the same homes. And women don't work well with men that they look down on.

The idea that something about the 'status' of women as a group will change in the period before the geula is not new. The Baal HaTanya talks about that. I saw the source 25 years ago. Same with the idea that women's bodies have a special kind of ruchniyus to it. R' Hirsch mentions the creation from body not earth.  If what Ms. Heshilis is saying is true it shouldn't be new to Torah thought, even if it was new to some people. If it is new to the readers of her book, maybe they should digest it a bit and see how it meshes with the words of the Maharal and others who posit that men are more spiritual before they present these ideas to the public. This topic is quite complicated so if you read something that makes it all seem simple and clear then you likely are working with oversimplifications.

As for changes to the world at the end of days, we have to recognize that what also happens close to the geulah is an emergence of evil in the world, of a takeover by chutzpah, and violation of nature. Would you say that the public acceptance of homosexuality is a positive sign of the end of days too? What about sexual immorality? What about the chutzpah of the young? The social order has been turned upside down and generally that's a bad thing. Our society is in a meltdown and feminism is a primary cause of that. So we need to be careful with this topic.

One sign of a decaying society is the degradation of men. Picture the American ghetto for example. If you tear down the men, then you tear down your society. Klal Yisrael at the end of golus is in a terribly degraded state. Is one playing into that with a portrayal of these topics which lists everything good about women and everything bad about men?

I think he is, if his portrayal is not balanced. If you feel that you cannot even hint that women are less spiritual, then you cannot say the other stuff either, particularly that which associates women and the shekina. Talk about idol worship. (Remember the shekina is not God, it's an outer aspect, the inner being male). And this is likely why contemporary gadolim portray men and women as equal, because people cannot handle the complex picture of differing statuses and advantages. We should follow their lead and not deem ourselves as knowing better.

It doesn't matter that the apologetics are common amongst kiruv 'professionals.' As for kiruv, well let me tell you that I know the field well, and can tell you that it isn't a science. Few people are 'trained' in kiruv. They just go into it, largely for parnassah. And they make mistakes all the time, terrible mistakes. Beyond that, I know many kiruv people who know not to teach feminist apologetics.

I also know many men who are very turned off by the apologetics. They are just furious about it. It's emasculating. You have to wonder if it feeds into men going off the derech. Some say that less men become BTs and more men go off the derech. If that's true, do the apologetics play into it? What would happen to a baseball manager that told his players how bad they were all the time? Would that be motivating? Rather managers generally build their players up. I know story after story, particularly of the very successful ones. That's why people do it for the women. Are the men any different in their need for self-esteem?

All kiruv groups  have a very low success rate of seeing people become frum for all the people they meet so we can't assume that because this kind of teaching is so common that it doesn't hurt kiruv. So we must consider the effect of kiruv presentations on everyone, particularly the sensitive men. The arrogant ones may need to be taken down a notch. The sensitive ones need some encouragement to take on the heavy, heavy burden of Judaism. People in kiruv  love being frum and assume every other man will too, no matter how you portray it. Just give him a Gemara and he'll be happy. That's a bad assumption. For many, it's a difficult life and an overwhelming one to take on. Aside from the massive financial burden, just consider the rules concerning sex. Wow! Talk about being unfair to one gender. Furthermore, BTs are at the bottom of frum society. It can be very depressing to go from feeling like a hotshot at Yale to being the underclass in the frum world where even your kids can't marry into the mainstream. You want to add to that bad feeling by making men seem like the bottom gender too? It turns many off. It breaks up many a marriage. It's very short-sighted. It also shows a misunderstanding of women, who don't want to see themselves as better. That's a male trait actually - competitiveness. Much of this woman as better stuff is what men in kiruv think women want to hear.