Personal regulation

Emotion is to women what sex is to men, an all consuming drive. It needs to be regulated. The drive in men when channeled becomes like fuel for a rocket. It gives a man energy to study Torah, daven 3x a day, do mitzvos, guide his family, build communities, etc. It also needs a direct outlet and that comes in the form of marital relations about which there are rules as to when and how. It must be wholesome, not perverse. Without the regulation, a man, and nearly any man, can become like Tiger Woods, or Elliot Spitzer, or Anthony Wiener, or countless other men who are out of control sexually. They tear their lives apart.


Likewise, women's emotions when regulated become the fuel for her good deeds. Love is an emotion. Caring for others comes largely from emotions. Excitement for Yom Tov and Shabbos can be an emotion. Love of Hashem is largely emotional. There is plenty of room for emotion in a woman's religious life. It is a key component in her religious life. But unregulated, a woman becomes a Tiger Woods, an Elliot Spitzer. If she spills her emotions wildly, unregulated, undisciplined into her daily life, she tears her life apart and that of the people who depend on her. Emotion in women is a potent force like sex in men.


The regulation goes on all day long. A man wants to look at every woman who passes by. He must not. He wants to do all kinds of things that he must not. He must use his chochmah and his will to discipline himself. He feels good about himself when he does. He becomes holy when he does.


Likewise, a woman must regulate her emotions all the time. She can't explode with torrents of emotion on a daily or hourly basis or be consumed with negativity which is a woman's version of being perverse. She must handle her emotions with maturity. She must use her binah and her will to regulate herself. She feels good about herself when she does. She becomes holy when she does.

chochmah

Maharal - men excel in Chochmah, women in Binah.

Baal HaTanya (a descendant of the Maharal) - Chochmah is higher than Binah.

"The soul-faculties of “knowledge” (Daat) and “understanding” (Binah) are lower than Chochmah; yet the level of Chochmah is prevented from acting upon them (and upon the other, still lower, faculties) as long as they are immersed in mundane pleasures. Thus, the Chochmah of their divine soul is dormant, not dead. It has lost none of its potency, only its ability to exercise it; just as when one sleeps he retains full possession of his faculties though he cannot use them." Today's Tanya Lesson, Shevat 10, 5779 · January 16, 2019, Likutei Amarim, Chapter 19

https://www.chabad.org/dailystudy/tanya_cdo/jewish/Tanya.htm

cycles of time

just saw this on the web, makes sense

According to the Mahral, men are more spiritual than women or in his words the Ish is the tzurah & the Isha is the Chomer. (this by the way is why women are more bound to the cycles of time then men are, they are more connected to the physical world than men are.

Acc.to M”A 611

only men can reach level of a mal’ach

Rav Avigdor Miller on Bas Mitzvahs and Holy Women

Toras Avigdor



Rav Avigdor Miller on Bas Mitzvahs and Holy Women
Q:
Why don't we make a bas-mitzvah for a girl, the same way we make a bar-mitzvah for a boy?

A:
I will tell you one of the reasons. And this is an important reason. The derech ha'Torah is to keep women undercover. The idea that women should come out in public more than required and  be on display - even a young girl - is not the derech ha'Torah. It can't be helped. We will not be foolish and ignore human nature. The nations of the world are doing their best to ignore human nature and they're suffering terribly because of that. There must be a separation between the two genders. להתרחק מן הנשים, to keep separate from women, is an ideal. Not because of any chisaron, chas v'shalom, in women. Women can be even greater than men in the eyes of Hashem. And often they are! But they have to keep away from men. And men have to keep away from women.

So at a boy's bar-mitzvah, he comes to shul, everybody's listening to him, looking at him. He's on display. It's not good for a girl to be looked at too much. The less they see of her, the better we off we all are. It can't be helped. Men have a drive which women don't have. Men are more easily excited than women are. That's why men have to be especially careful not to have women around them.

Any woman who walks in the street with her body exposed is going to pay a very big price for that. She's going to be punished terribly for what she has done to men. If she walks in the street exposing her body to men a great punishment will fall upon her. She doesn't realize how expensive that outfit really was. And that's because men are sensitive. It can't be helped. That's their nature. And therefore Hakodosh Boruch Hu says that there should be a great mechitza between men and women forever and ever. And that's the kedusha of the Am Yisroel. We are separate.

That doesn't in any way, chas ve'shalom, reflect anything about the Jewish women. Jewish women are kodosh kodoshim just like the Jewish men are kodesh kodoshim. And the Gemara says that in a certain sense women are more fortunate than men. Why? Because they sit at home and don't look for kavod like men. They don't fight about who gets shishi. They're at home and because of their nature it's easier for them to avoid many things that cause men nisyonos.

And therefore the Jewish woman is just as holy as the Jewish man. No question about it. And in Gan Eden they are considered no less than men. No less than men at all! Only that in this world we have to separate because that is the derech ha'Torah. That is the Am Yisroel. That is the Holy Nation.
TAPE E-191

Whence Lady Rabbis?

Orthodox rabbis everywhere are condemning Open Orthodoxy and its call for lady rabbis and other engagement by females in halachically prescribed and traditional male activity like reading from the Torah and the wearing of tzitzis and tefillin. However, many of these very same rabbis bear responsibility for encouraging this new trend by teaching that women are more spiritual than men.

The teaching that women are more spiritual than men implies that a man's role is more spiritual than a woman's. How so? One can reasonably ask, if women are more spiritual, shouldn't they be the rabbis and spiritual leaders of the home? So apologists like to say, the men "catch up" via Torah study, tefillin, and other positive time-bound commandments to which women are exempt. However, in order to catch up the man's day must be more spiritual than the woman's or he'd never catch up. Thus, according to that logic, taking care of the home and the children really is a less spiritual path.

But isn't this precisely what we didn't want the women to conclude? See where dishonesty gets you? No wonder we have women today that want to be rabbis and wear tefillin. Rabbis condemn them, but these women are in many respects products of what they have been taught by some of those very same rabbis. These women want to be spiritual. And they have been taught that the man's role is more spiritual.

Why do I call the apologetics dishonesty? Because there are no Torah sources that teach them. R' Samson R. Hirsch is most commonly cited. But one has to read his words carefully. He says only that the Torah “did not consider them necessary to be demanded from women” in part because they have “more faithful enthusiasm for their God-serving calling.” (Vayikra 23, Levy trans.) People get lost on his use of the word "necessary." A Levi doesn't need to do Birchos Cohanim. Only the Kohen, who has more holiness, has that “need.” The woman doesn't “need” those mitzvos for her role. But she doesn't have the man's role. You can't mix and match. R' Hirsch also say that "The male sex is zachar, it is the depository of the Divine revelations and the spiritual attainments of the human race. To it has been entrusted the zicharon, the tradition of the human race as it has developed, in him is formed the spiritual chain which links together the beginning and the end of the human race. (JE, Vol. 2; CW, Vol. VIII, "The Jewish Woman") This is not something you'd want to assign to the less spiritual person. Rav Hirsch also says in many places that men and women are equal in their spiritual levels even as their roles are different. Example:

"In the word איש and אשה. (man and a female man I.L.) lay the guarantee for the equality in rank and mutually complementing calling of Man and Woman. As long as man and woman were איש and אשה. there was no need for man to be emancipated from woman nor woman from man, neither could make the other into a slave nor yet into a god or goddess. The first who altered this designation - as indeed our sages remark, in no other language are man and woman designated by words coming from the same root and so regarded from the same trend of thought – brought it about that one man would yoke his woman to the plough while the other would throw himself at her feet." (R' Samson Raphael Hirsch, Genesis 11 :58)

As for other commentators, the Maharal says in many places that men are more spiritual than women (Tiferes Yisroel 28, Derech Chaim 1:5, Chidushei Agados Makkos 23b, Gur Aryeh, Vayikra 12:2 ) and says that women are exempt from positive time-bound commandments for this reason (Chidushei Agados Makkos 23b). The Baal Magen Avraham says women are exempt from positive time-bound commandments because their yetzer tov is smaller. (Zies Ra'anan on Yalkut Shemoni, Shmuel 1:1).

May we suggest that going forward we teach simply that men and women are equal in spiritual levels but different in roles? So taught the great leaders of our era Rav Moshe Feinstein, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, R' Joseph Soloveitchik, and R' Avigdor Miller.

R' Feinstein said that every mention of holiness in the Chumash refers to both men and women, telling us that the two genders are equal in holiness. The exemption of women from positive time-bound commandments is as the word says an exemption so that she can engage in child rearing and chesed. (Igros Moshe, Orach Chaim IV #49) R' Feinstein writes elsewhere:

"...every Jew should realize that he is sanctified with the holiness of the Jew, and it is only because of that holiness that we were given the Torah and obligated to do the mitzvos. As I have often written, mitzvos cannot be fulfilled properly unless the doer has the holiness of the Jew. The Kohanim, who have additional mitzvos, must have the particular holiness of Kohanim....The expression "Who has sanctified us with His mitzvos" should not be misunderstood as meaning that mitzvos are the source of the sanctity. It is self-understood that the sanctity the blessing refers to is the underlying sanctity of every Jew -- that which enables us to fulfill the mitzvos." (Darash Moshe, Volume II, p. 154, Vayikra, Kedoshim)

Thus, we should not say that men are not unholy until they do the mitzvos because their holiness is what obligates them in those mitzvos. Women also are holy, only they are exempt from certain mitzvos so that they can do other mitzvos. It's not that the women are less holy and not that they are more holy.

R' Soloveitchik said:

"The foremost distinguishing characteristic bestowed upon man is his Divine image, his tzelem Elohim, which denotes particular qualitative endowments, such as a moral sense, free will, and intellect. Man partakes of these attributes within human limitations, while God's representation of these qualities is absolute. Maimonides embodied man's likeness to God primarily in terms of his intellect (Guide 1: 1). This Divine gift was given to both men and women. 'And God created man with His image. In the image of God, He created him; male and female He created them.' (Gen. 1:27). In their spiritual natures, they were equally worthy." (Man of Faith in the Modern World, p. 84).

The Lubavitcher Rebbe said that when a husband (or future husband) does those mitzvos, he does them on behalf of his wife. She is affected by his actions. (Sichos in English, Iyar-Tammuz 5744, Vol. 21, pp. 69-72)

R' Miller says that the father performs those special mitzvos on behalf of the whole family (Q&A: Thursday Nights with Rabbi Miller, pp. 189-190) and that

"As we know, men are commanded to perform mitzvos asei she'haz'man grama, time-bound mitzvos. Women, on the other hand, are not required to perform these mitzvos. What is the reason for this difference? The answer is that women have other important obligations to tend to, which exempt her from these commandments. A woman must know that she is a briah shel chessed, she has been created for the purpose of performing chessed. Being a wife and mother is a very significant role, and it requires her to be selfless and totally dedicated to performing chessed! It takes a woman's entire effort to succeed in being an efficient mother and wife. Investing her abilities in raising children is very time consuming but is a tremendous zechus for her!" (Rabbi Avigdor Miller Speaks, p. 272)

Nobody is spiritually superior. That's the way for this generation to think of it. Let us note how the sages of our generation handle it and follow their lead. Otherwise, to quote a gentile writer "O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive!" (Walter Scott)

more boys than girls

The statistics are in for the year of 2016 with regards to the Israeli birthrate, and unsurprisingly the Chareidim are leading once again. Some 181,405 babies were born in 2016, an increase of 92 percent since 1980. 93,364 of those babies were boys making up 51.5 pecent of the total, while the other 48.5 percent at 88,041 were girls.

https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/israel-news/1488508/birthrate-in-israel-increases-charedim-at-head-of-the-pack.html

radical Modern Orthodox activist crowd

There will be exceptions but I wouldn't expect any dialogue with these people. Many are ideologues on these issues. And as R' Berel Wein puts it "You should never argue with an ideologue because his is always right." The moment you even attempt to discuss marriage or divorce with an eye towards justice or decency for men they lose it. They are coming from a secular perspective that the Torah is bad for women and just wonderful for men in every way and they must do everything in their power to correct that. And any man who ever, ever for a second advocates for himself or for his kids is obviously a monster and a demon to be shunned and shamed. The logic is simply that since men have it great then any attempt to advocate for any man in any situation is obviously an act of patriarchy and an initiative for even more male domination. They are quite sure of this so there's nothing to discuss and certainly not with the likes of you. Interestingly the men are much more vehement than the women, who for the most part are more reasonable if a bit hysterical. Even though their group allegedly works for social justice it really only considers social justice for certain types of people. White Jewish males aren't considered. Again, they take their queues from secular liberalism. If you put the words men and rights in the same sentence you trigger the kinds of reactions that the word feminism did 75 years ago. My suggestion is that you look at radical Modern Orthodox advocacy groups as a different religion. Dealing with them is the equivalent of ecumenical dialogue. Would you debate Orthodox Jewish marriage with a Christian? Would you discuss it with a Reconstructionist Jew? There are tremendous rifts in the Orthodox world today and it seems more and more that the different sides should just stay away from other. They need a divorce. Hopefully, the radical Modern Orthodox activist crowd will not withhold the get.