Reply To: Feminism

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philosopher
Member

As I consistently and in my view, clearly argued that

1. Chazal have with divine inspiration created halachos that we need to follow in all generations and while never changing, the realities of life change and therefore the way it is applied in every generation changes

2. different minhugim adopted by different communities throughout the ages can have an effect on how halacha is applied as well.

Let me give you another example in addition to the ones I bought earlier in the thread. Rabbi Falk writes that in communities where it is the custom not to wear long robes, one shouldn’t put on a long robe as it becomes a beged of pritzus, as obviously, it attracts attention because it’s different than what other women in the community wear. Some Chassidishe communities even ossured long robes where they were previously worn.

Now before the early 1900’s women wore dresses sweeping, ankle length dresses. When women started wearing calf length dresses, it was considered a breach of modesty. Obviously, before shorter dresses (not short) became an accepted style, the tznius halachas were applied differently. For example (I have to spell everything out because people take my words out of context) it would obviously be against halacha to wear a shorter than the ankle length dress which was the accepted tzniusdige length at the time.

Did the halacha of the chiuv of women acting ,dressing and behaving modestly change? Absolutely not!

However since the lifestyle changed the way halachas of modesty and covering of ervah is applied.

Therefore, if a husband feels that they are within their rights to force their wife to do anything that is generally accepted as abuse within one’s community i.e. imposing on one’s wife rules when she may go out or forcing one’s wife to wash his feet against the wife’s will, should ask a shalah if they are acting within the parameters of halacha because at the end of the day we are halachic Jews.