Milah and Length of Purification Period

"The day when the father performs milah, the first duty a man must perform for his son, should imbue the father with the sacred resolve to "raise his son to walk in moral strength before God, the God of the Law," and to serve his son, by his own conduct, as a model for such a way of life. Similarly, the fact that the woman's path to purity following the birth of a daughter is twice as long as after the birth of a son certainly should serve to impress the mother with all the solemnity and grandeur of her own task to become teacher, guide and model for the Jewish woman of the future. After all, the mothers' influence in the molding the moral standards of her daughter is twice as great as her influence on the moral development to her son. With sons, the main thrust of their training comes from the father, to whom they can look as a model for the own future male role. With daughters, on the other hand, the mother is not only their role model but also the molder of their character, so that after the birth of each daughter she will do well to prepare herself with redoubled intensity, both for her own sake and for the sake of her newborn daughter, in order that the both may ascend the lofty path or purity and morality to the heights of God's own idea of holiness." R' Samson Raphael Hirsch, Vaykira 12: 4-5, The Chumash, Judaica Press, Gertrude Hirschler translator.

High Threshold for a Get

THE LEVEL OF SENSITIVITY TO THE PEOPLE OVER WHOM HE had responsibility, the level of creativity, and the level of wisdom that R' Gustman was called on to employ, both as the Rabbi of Shnipishok and as dayan, were high. This was especially so because the young rabbi was being supervised by one of the most sensitive, creative, and wise poskim of his time, R' Chaim Ozer. He learned from R' Chaim Ozer that apparent "common sense" and the" obvious" do not always lead to the halachically correct result.

R' Gustman related a lesson he learned from R' Chaim Ozer in that regard, concerning the high bar for issuing a get. The story the Rosh Yeshiva told was as follows:

In Shnipishok, well-known in his community, lived a couple notorious for their acrimonious and vociferous fighting that could be heard in the neighborhood on any given day. After a few years of fierce battling, the couple decided to divorce and they came to R' Gustman for the get during the very early years of R' Gustman's tenure there.

R' Gustman, who was then still a young rabbi, was sure that this ill-suited, unhappy couple were prime candidates for divorce, and with that attitude, he mentioned the case to R' Chaim Ozer, who asked to speak to the couple themselves. Afterward, R' Chaim Ozer's reply was sharp and unequivocal: "They should certainly not be divorced. Absolutely not."

This response came as a shock to R' Gustman. He remonstrated, "But they are unhappy and fight all the time! Everyone in the town knows how they go at it! Who could be unhappier in a marriage than they are? Who could be more appropriate candidates for the institution of divorce due to sheer unhappiness?"

"We go by the rov [majority]," replied R' Chaim Ozer. "Let us do the calculation together: For eight hours a night, they are asleep and do not fight with each other. Then, the husband is gone all day for at least ten hours, working, praying, etc., during which time they also do not fight. Then there is time they spend alone in the bathroom, again without quarreling. During all of these times throughout the day, they do not fight. Therefore, the actual time they are alone with each other to fight on a daily basis cannot be more than twenty minutes. We go by the rov. Since most of the time, they do not fight, they are not candidates for divorce. It is not worth issuing a get for twenty minutes of fighting."

From this calculation of R' Chaim Ozer's, R' Gustman, as a young rabbi, learned the lesson of the high standard required for breaking up a Jewish marriage. It was this rule he followed as a dayan and later as a Rav and Rosh Yeshivah.

David Page, "Rav Gustman," pp. 81-82, Artscroll Biography of R' Yisrael Zeev Gustman, the youngest Dayan of Vilna.

[I think what's going on here is that he met the couple and could see that nothing extraordinary was happening, that neither of them were insane. They were just two people that needed to work on their middos and learn to control their mouths. The talk about rov is just a cute way of saying, look you are not together all that much, can you just control yourselves for 20 minutes a day? To let you get a divorce would be playing to your yetzer haras and destroying your children and we can't allow that.]

The War on Men - the beginning

When the disease really began to take hold of society, right around 1982. Key line, "I am Edward Kimberly. Edward Kimberly. And I'm not mentally ill, but proud, and lucky, and strong enough to be the woman that was the best part of my manhood. The best part of myself."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smTXkhM6v-Y

What is he saying here that the best part of a man is the woman within him? Is this the beginning of the war on men? That woman good, man bad? Sounds like an Aish HaTorah class on why women are exempt from positive mitzvos.

Rav Gifter, parshas Emor

More mitzvos means more spirituality.

pirkei torah pp. 167-8

We cannot survive feminism

"Throughout our history we have faced extraordinary dangers against our physical and spiritual existence, from Korach all the way to the Karaim and the Maskilim. But there has never been, in all of history, as dangerous an attack on Klal Yisrael's existence as the one that the feminist movement presents to us today. We have been able to survive heresy and idolatry, but we cannot survive feminism.

"You have to understand that Klal Yisrael was given a Torah only because the women accepted it. If the women had not accepted the Torah first, there is no way that the men could have maintained it. If there will continue to be a bris between Hashem and ourselves, it can only be if the women of Klal Yisrael want the Torah and accept it with enthusiasm, willingness, and desire. And it is not simply because they are the guides and primary teachers of Jewish children; it is a great deal more.

"Klal Yisrael lives only through the family. Those in the secular world somehow manage a little without a family, but we cannot. That is because we require a morality and a value system that goes against that which is prevalent among the population in which we live. And giving our different values, outlooks, and purpose in life requires a family environment; there is no other way by which that can be accomplished."

Rav Yaakov Weinberg talks about chinuch, 42a, pp. 124-5, Targum Press, 2006.

Commentary on Avos 1:17

The Maharal writes, “The point is that taking into account that a person is a physical being, he gains from silence. Speaking is... a physically based power. Speech is a physical attribute, not a mental one at all. For that reason, speech should be shunned so as not to suffer from an error or mental disintegration. When a person is involved in verbal activity, he is negating his mental resources… One should, therefore [try to] maintain silence and take initiatives with his intellectual features that are not corporeal, as is the power of speech, thus avoiding errors.” (AbsoluteTruth613.blogspot.com)

Q. How do you answer someone that says religious woman are second class?

Q. How do you answer someone that says religious woman are second class?

A. Religious women are A-1 class. There's nobody better than religious women. Now what about religious men? Also A-1. Certainly. We are not going to say women are better than men. They want to say they are second class compared to religious men? Look. With HaKadosh Baruch Hu there's no such thing. Everybody is judged on his merits. Like I mentioned before, a righteous Torah woman, a woman who is Orthodox, and is loyal to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, and tries her best, can many times outdo the biggest tzadickim.

I gave you one example here, the Rebbetzin Kaplan who made a revolution in America, and she did more than any single Rosh Yeshiva did in America.

But even if you are not such a successful personality, in your own home, if you serve HaKadosh Baruch Hu with a pure heart and you try very hard, there's no question you can become great.

What do you want, you want to hold speeches? Speeches are not for women to hold in public. There's a reason for that. It's a biological reason. Can't be helped. Women can speak to women. But you can't become a Rosh Yeshiva if you are a woman. And don't bewail the fact that you can't become a Rav HaKollel, a chief Rabbi. There's a reason why women cannot do that. It's a technical reason.

Therefore, every person should utilize his opportunities. And women have opportunities to become great no less than anyone.

R' Avigdor Miller, I Created All of Them for You #491 1:13:45