Is a Boy Looking to Date a Girl or a Chavrusah?

oomis –

Your own mashal disproves your point. Also, all your examples disprove your point, as they all are applicable ad hayom hazeh.

The takana of Rabbeinu Gershom is as valid today, as when Rebbeinu Gershom issued it. Same about the prohibitions with speaking to women.

I think the answer to the title’s question is, A girl. Definitely.

G123,

Beautifully put.

“not having intellectual stability” —- what is the phrase actually used?

“The takana of Rabbeinu Gershom is as valid today, as when Rebbeinu Gershom issued it. Same about the prohibitions with speaking to women.”

I heard some time ago that this takana has expired (though no one is looking to go back to the old way of marrying more than one woman at a time). Is what I heard true?

And if it is assur to talk to women, then there are an awful lot of men who are oveir the halacha A LOT!!!!!!!!!! And how do out boys get shidduchim if they are not talking to the girls when they go out with them?

jphone, as previously quoted:

Torah Temimah:

Girls do not have the intellectual stability and are, therefore, unable to make profound inquries with a sharp mind and appreciate the depth of the Torah. It is possible thay by using their own minds, they will transgress the Torah.

Re: Talking to girls. The Sfas Emes says a nice pshat on the mishna “Al Tarbe Sicha Im Isha”. This is not the proper forum to discuss the mishna and it would certainly be appropriate for those who can, to look it up themselves, to see for themselves what he says instead of hearing how I learn the SE.

jphone,

one of the most important jobs a wife has is to take care of her husbands learning, whether he wants to limit his bashert to just waking him up for davening,learning or wants a chavrusah is his decision

To add to 000646’s statement, there are many women who FAR surpass their male counterparts in both intelligence and common sense. And are women not supposed to have BINA YESAIRA? That would tend to make me think that those who made that statement seem to feel that we are in at elast oen respect superior to men, intellectually speaking.

Will Hill,

First of all i am a man.

Second of all the whole qoute was,

“Girls do not have the intellectual stability and are, therefore, unable to make profound inquries with a sharp mind and appreciate the depth of the Torah”

If you can explain that torah temima in a way that fits with the reality nowadays please do so if you cannot please have the intellectual honesty to admit that just maybe i may be correct. Thank you.

ywn are you gonna post my reply

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NOTE FROM YW-MODERATOR: please have patience, on a newsday as busy as today, it may take longer to see it appear in the thread.

ROB: I hope all is well with you. Hatzlocha Rabba.

000646, I strongly suggest you go do some introspection. What you are stating is simply what one who c’v expect to hear from a reform “rabbi”.

The interesting thing in the Torah, is that it shows our avos and emahos with all their mailos and also their chesronos. Unlike the non-Jewish world, our tzaddikim are shown to be flawed and not god-like. We call them Tzaddikim, not because they are saints, but because they acted with tzedek, even when they made errors of judgment. Those Tzaddikim were on a higher madreiga than our rpesent day gedolim, and Hashem is very careful to show us that ANYONE even Moshe Rabeinu, ZT”L, could make a mistake in halacha, in the carrying out of ratzon Hashem. Our gedolim are subject to the same foibles, weaknesses, influences in our day, as other tzaddikim were in theirs. They are not Hashem, and they make mistakes. And it is mamesh arrogant to think otherwise, or to state that. Our gedolim are not The Pope l’havdil. We do not believe them to be infallible as Catholics believe of their spiritual leaders. Sometimes a rov comes from a mindset from his community, from his time period, from his own family minhagim, that lead him to a particular hashkafa. I have no quarrel with that, nor would I presume to be so arrogant to as to tell him he is wrong. But the fact is that when there are shivim panim laTorah, there will be seventy-ONE opinions, all of them halachically valid. And today, there may be a different type of validity to things that might have not been viewed as favorably in the shtetls of Europe, because for example, in GENERAL, women did not do certain things, whether they were Jews or not. There was a time when women did not vote, either. Is it untzniusdig for them to go out and do so nowadays?

inttelegent,

It isnt.

my point was just that if you look down on evreybody that disagrees with you on an issue and you cannot even defend or explain why you hold what you do hold, you probaly have more of a reason to do some introspection then i do even if what im saying may sound to you like somthing that one would expect to here from a reform rabbi.

To Joseph – So far, I have agreed with just about every shtark “shita” of yours I have seen on various posts…and I am impressed with just about all of them. But I do have to contend with 1 point in your first postings here…you imply that ALL torah she’beal peh is assur for women. From what I have seen, and/or heard from gedolim, they don’t specify that any learning is assur for women except for being very shtark that GEMORA is not accepted. I would be curious to see if you found that Rav Moshe or anyone like that insisted that mishnayos (when it’s nogeiah or if necessary to help/teach a son), or other torah she’beal peh is truly assur or even extremely wrong. If you do find it for me (as I am not a “bukie” b’shas v’poskim) I will stand corrected.

To the thread as a whole –

As per the original post, I am a kollel wife who is a “chavrusa” type – in mussar and halacha (the latter is to my husband’s credit, as I wasn’t as “into” it before we got married – I was mostly into mussar). Personally, I think that it really depends on both sides of the couple whether they want (or should want) a chavrusa or not. Clearly this girl was not for the OP. My husband was told by his (REAL) chavrusa, who ironically ended up being our shadchan, NOT to marry a chavrusa….and he DID…and he is very happy he did, because he is that “type”. That being said, I will admit to other women who are unmarried, and men who ARE looking for “chavrusa”s, that the chavrusa-type of women should get training b4 marriage in house stuff (cooking, cleaning, etc) and get used to it, because as a mother, it’s taken 8 years for me to get to this point of “managing” (WITH hubby’s help b”H) with housework – and when you don’t learn before marriage to get “sipuk” from anything besides seforim and the like, you will not be able to run a home well. To the guys – now that I mentioned the down side, the plus side of the “chavrusa” type is that they are women with more logic (“stira”? :p) and will be more analytical in life and able to come up solutions for a torah home more easily even when you are not around to advise her – and how to deal with ruchniyus issues as the kids get older even when ur away at yeshiva or work etc etc….. and she could always learn before marriage if she does chesed enough in pples houses how to “autopilot” in house tasks (or maybe she learned at home, even better)…

I am not sure how clear this is but I don’t have tome at the moment to write this out more thoroughly – I hope you get the drift and I am not misunderstood. Both are great “types” and both have their pluses and minuses and all have their basheret.

As far as the “hock” back and forth here – Rav Moshe, who IS the decisor posek, for sure for most of America, has a teshuva where he is very clear that women should not be learning Gemora.

Whether it is officially “assur” or not, personally I believe to be a mute point, since anyone looking to grow in avodas Hashem and do His ratzon (will), has so many other avenues for growth, learning and even “hasmoda”, that I can’t understand why anyone would choose to “davka” use that avenue, unless they are looking to prove a feministic agenda. That being said, I do not think most of the gedolim hold it is assur or wrong for a husband to quote what he learned in a given gemora (assuming they are not “learning gemora in depth” together), or for a women to be shown a quote from a gemora in order to prove something she NEEDS to know for her avodas Hashem.

I believe learning for what she NEEDS for her avodas Hashem, includes all or most sifrei mussar, kitzur halacha, english halacha, and even mishna berura (w/ shulchan aruch), if it will help her to be clearer on halachos that are nogeiah for her. This is how the frummest seminaries are madrich and “maskim” for their girls to learn, and regardless of the sources and differences of opinions in shas, it seems to be how the gedolim paskin for girls & women today.

That being said, I’m not sure why this whole “hock” needs to be “argued” or causing machlokes, as each person should have a rav who they can ask what and how to learn and whether they should continue a shidduch when they see potential red flags…instead of taking advice from the “hamon am” and causing possible machlokes on these threads…

Dveykus, you said “I can’t understand why anyone would choose to “davka” use that avenue, unless they are looking to prove a feministic agenda”

There are many women who enjoy learning gemara because they enjoy that kind of halachic debate. It is a way that they can get closer to hashem. My friends who are really shtark learners do it truly because they enjoy it, not because of some feminist agenda. Learning gemara is much more lively then reading a mussar or halacha sefer. I always enjoyed following things from Tanach through the gemara and then rishonim and acharonim. We did a bunch of this in High School. It really shows you the logic and depth of Torah that you do not get from basic halacha/mussar sefarim alone.

The truth is my most “feminist” friends dont learn gemara but wear tefilin. That was one that I never truly understood.

I think feminism is a word that is misused in the Torah world. It does NOT mean a women who wants to be exactly like a man. Sure there were people like Gloria Steinem who were radicals – but women like here were needed as an extreme to get the equality that women have today.

And, I still maintain that kollel has created a feminist society. Its one of the few groups in the world where women outearn the men 🙂

brooklyn – not outLEARN but outEARN. Meaning the women earn more money than the men. If you look at society in general, men outearn the women (even in the same jobs) and its one of the gripes of feminists 🙂

I have said this before and I will say it again. Regarding women wearing tefillin – if those very same women are properly fulfilling the mitzvos that they ARE obligated in, such as lighting candle, taking challah, and taharas hamishpacha, then I have no problem with them wearing tefillin if it is not assur. The problem with many so-called feminist Jews is that they do NOT want to do THEIR mitzvos, but rather the mitzvos that are obligatory on the men. They want to be counted in a minyan. Were they coming to shul three times a day every day (or even just on Shabbos) and davening properly before that? (Maybe for some women the answer is yes). They want to be called “rabbis.” If they are that dedicated to Torah as they claim to be, they would understand that just as a Kohein can only be a male descended from Aharon HaKohein, so too, can a rabbi only be a male who receives smicha from another male rabbi. That is what the Torah teaches. A woman who is really connected to the Torah would find an avenue that IS permissible to her, such as becoming a really excellent teacher of Judaic studies, as the job of a rabbi is first and foremost to transmit Torah to the next generation. She can also do the job that truly was dsigned for her by Hashem, and that is to bring up the next generation of Torah-observant Jews. But that is not what many of the feminists want. They are looking for the trappings of kovod that they perceive comes with the territory and title of “rabbi.” I don’t say this is true of all Jewish feminists, but I grew up in the 70s and 80s, and BOY was that ever the case. So I am a little suspect when I hear certain things nowadays in this area.

That being said, many women are way more qualified than many men to understand the nuances of Gemarah. Hashem did after all give us Bina Yesaira. Would the men here who believe women are not really able to understand the logic of Torah, also of the opinion that women should not become lawyers, because their grasp of legal concepts and logic might be weak???? Tell that to our new Secretary of State. Should they not become doctors (the world at large thought that for a long time)? Well B”H there are many female doctors today, many of them Orthodox Jewish women, who are very sensitive to the needs of their female patients.

I was taught that it is permissible for women to learn Gemarah, though not necessarily a recommended thing. Still, it is awfully nice for a fifth grade boy coming home from school, to be able to ask his mom for help with his Talmud homework, especially if daddy is not yet home from work, or is in the Beis Medrash himself. Though it is not realistic to expect any women to want or be able to do so, it should not be looked at askance if some can.

what happened to “nashim daasan kalos”? (don’t attack me! this is a VERY strong-minded thread!)

dveykus613,

Firstly, thank you much for the very kind words. If this is indeed the extent of your disagreement, we are not only on the same page (and line), but in fact on the very same word! You are a member of what the Gipper (a/k/a the Great Communicator, Ronaldus Magnus) would call the silent majority. I am glad too you found one slight area you may disagree with, otherwise Ed Koch would have us see a shrink for agreeing with each other all the time. 🙂

But to the point. You asked if this is applicable to all Torah She’baal Peh, and the answer is yes. In fact there are even limitations of Torah She’bicsav. You ask for the source. There are many. But its in fact a bfeirush SHULCHAN ORACH (Yoreh Deah siman 246 sif 6.)

This is a long thread and it seems you just came across it. I dealt with your question previously at greater length, with a reposting of a commenter’s post from a previous thread. You can read it here:

http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/is-a-boy-looking-to-date-a-girl-or-a-chavrusah#post-12463

Oomis, I have great analytical skills. We learned to take apart mefarshim, figure out what the kashe was, etc. But I always feel I have to sit this discussion out. Personally, I would NOT get the type of geshmack out of learning that the men I know do. My husband can decompress after work learning whatever daf comes next, no matter how dry. The type of learning or shiur that would enable me to decompress would be much more hashkafa and goal oriented. And my husband thinks it’s just great to raise a great kasha. I HAVE to know the answer. Not that I don’t accept that there are unanswered questions in olam hazeh, of course there won’t be answers to everything. But when I am learning something, I like to leave as few loose ends as possible.

I really think that this is part of the male/female dynamic. And I also accept that there are other sorts of women. Some have agendas. Then, there are some yechidos who go through life feeling like the proverbial square peg because they can’t find their place. I really have compassion for them. Then of course there are women who really could learn gemara but like me, either don’t want to, or don’t need to, or have reconciled themselves not to.

It’s why I have a hard time flat out condemning learning for women. But I honestly believe that a lot of the learning that women do is agenda driven, and superficial. My sons had serious preparation to starting gemara in middle school, flash cards, proficiency in Rashi, a few years of mishnayos. I don’t know where my BY could have fit in the time. (And BTW, the boys are DEFINITELY losing out by not having the grounding in Tanach and dikduk that the need, but that’s a whole nother thread.)

joseph: at least post something pertaining to the topic to make believe your not just trying to get this thread to the top of the list 😉

asdfghjkl: haha.$

joseph-there are 8 threads on shidduchim on the cr homepage but only 7 in the shidduchim forum lol

Thanks – this has been fixed.