Friday, December 30, 2011

Equal?

The following is a quote from R' Sherer at the Agudah : "The first bill of rights for the frumme yid is Anochi Hashem Elokecha! …There is no freedom of speech and freedom to write in our constitution of Anokhi Hashem Elokecha! …Let it be said very clearly: Total subservience to Torah."


 Now, i did not fully understand what point he was trying to make here. However, one of my friends claimed that he had a good point. He said that, "everyone nowadays tries to reconcile the Torah with modern society (whether it be modern science or America's version of "ethics." R Sherer is saying that its not true." 
He was saying that no matter how much you try, The Torah's views on equal rights are not that of modern society;  in ideology, they are radically different. Throughout the Torah (Bichsav and Baal Peh), it becomes that apparent that there were sharp differences between men and women.Many, Many "feminist" rights do go against halacha, and there is nothing you can do about it.
I argued, that that doesn't matter, for practically, you can ignore the differences. As for a way that Torah values and equality values can both be kept- I tried to argue that in the time of the gemara, where men were the prevalent gender seen on the street, there were restrictions on women. And so now, when women are equally prevalent in the world, there should be restrictions on men( as in men cant wear extremely tight clothing, or women cant go to men's concerts the same way a man cant go to women's concerts.)That way, men and women are technically equal, and you're still being politically correct.
To me, equality doesnt mean being the same. The majority of men are radically different than the majority of women  mentally and biologically. (you could even say the same thing abot races). "Same," means mutually superior over each other. Men are superior to women in some areas (although there are exceptional women who are better than men at some of these things; and vice versa) and women are equally superior to men. Now, my friend argued that it is known that men have stronger desires than women, so allowing women to be "free," could be dangerous; and that is the reason there are restrictions placed on men having connections with women. However, Rashi in Bava Metzia in the seventh perek, daf 84a d"h: ki ish k'gvuraso" does say that women have greater desires then men. Now this may seem contradictory, but i think the gemara in b"m was talking about two specific women.The same way some of my friends talk about people like Selena Gomez and others, girls talk about people like Taylor Lautner, so one could argue that restrictions against men are equally applicable.He argued that America's version of equal is equal, and not just mutually superior. Like I said, as long as its politically correct, and it within the confines of halacha, I dont care and we should do what must be done. IY"H i will post more on this, perhaps in regard to the changing of the siddur.

1 comment:

  1. I don't know how far you can take this idea, but it's worth a shot:
    Just like with any religion (yeah, I said it), the Jewish legal system only worked and took root because it didn't freak out its original recipients. The Torah couldn't have set up an egalitarian society, because the Ancient Israelites would never have been able to handle it. (I have heard this idea in a number of more parve contexts from respected individuals, though I can't remember any specifics.) So, it's conceivable that God "believes" (whatever that means) in some form of egalitarianism (as well as other Western moral concepts) but couldn't express it through the Torah for practical reasons. The problem is, we're stuck with a system that's REALLY hard to change. I'm not sure whose fault that is...

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