And for the umpteenth time, I don’t believe for a minute, as someone who knows many living breathing MO Rabbis, (some even YCT grads) that anyone in that community actually would take a position on halacha that they believe the Mechaber would disagree with were he alive.
I don’t know why you are so sure about that.
I have already pointed to someone in that community, who is even listed as an advisor on their board, who wrote pure kefira. (Saul Berman)
I quote you a few choice lines.
“Most important of all in this area, we must encourage women to develop in a creative fashion whatever additional forms they find necessary for their religious growth… It might involve the creation of new religious artifacts.”
Nice. That is surely part of our religion- creating new religious artifacts.
“To suggest that women don’t really need positive symbolic mitzvot because their souls are already more attuned to the Divine, would be an unbearable insult to men; unless it were understood, as it indeed is, that the suggestion is not really to be taken seriously but is intended solely to placate women.”
Hmmm. I’m pretty sure rishonim say that. So I guess he is suggesting they were merely trying to placate women, and didn’t mean it seriously.
And the kicker-
“Indeed, these were the very same sages and scholars through whose interpretative skills capital punishment was virtually abolished; through whose legal creativity the task of the transformation and eventual elimination of slavery was accomplished”
Clearly he is saying that the Torah provided for capital punishment, but the rabbis thought it was immoral so abolished it. And the same for slavery.
This is not out of context, this is the real McCoy. This is not Judaism. We get out ethics from the Torah, we don’t impose our ethics on the Torah.
You can read the rest if you wish. It is called THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN HALAKHIC JUDAISM By Saul J. Berman. Published in Tradition in 1973. Google the title and I’m sure it will come up.