Mixed Seating

simcha – doesn’t matter how low level you feel the female dancing is. Men can’t be in the room watching women dance. Period.

You keep on bringing up how the immature ones are not ready for mixed events. I assure you that the people who want to just hang out have plenty of means of doing so without utilizing a mixed seating situation. As I keep on saying, the mature ones are ready for a mixed event where they can meet someone they can eventually marry.

I think Touro should become mixed too – imagine how many singles can meet then 🙂 I know of several Brooklyn College shidduchim that are great marriages.

simcha613, I am SHOCKED! You described yourself as the perfect reason why men shouldn’t be in the room with dancing women, at a wedding or bar mitzvah or anywhere. You go watch women dancing at your mixed weddings, and then come here to justify that by saying, eh it wasn’t so bad for me to watch the women dancing by my mixed weddings since it was slow.

Feh.

dunno, you can’t add another venue to encourage “the immature ones” to stumble. Especially with a venue that everyone goes to, rather than one where they have to go a bit out of their way to find trouble. You could also also “help alleviate the so called shidduch crisis and reduce stress levels of singles in shidduchim” by opening a bar or disco.

While it is muttur for men to dance in front of women, it is assur for women to dance in front of men – or for men to watch women dancing.

I’m a woman and agree with Simcha – women walk around in a circle, at least the outer 95%. Its really hard to see on the inside of the circle, even when you are TRYING to.

I still don’t know what coed functions lead to because I’ve been to many and nothing improper happened.

Thank you Max well. I am going to review the sources when I get a chance.

Sister Bear,

There are a lot of differing opinions regarding what kind of mechitzah is required for tefillah. Follow the minhag of your local shul.

Gavram

You say, “It would just not work today, not with our children.” What is wrong with the education that has been provided to our children that what worked fine a generation ago does not work today? Orthodoxy is today MORE isolationist and MORE separated from the general secular culture than it has ever been in America. (And don’t tell me that the general secular culture is worse today than a generation ago. The teen birth rate in America peaked in 1957. There was plenty of licentiousness back then; people just weren’t as open about it.)

Moq wrote,

“And Gedolei Yisroel clearly and unambigously are 100% opposed to mixed seating at a wedding. “

Rav Aharon Kotler z’tz’l, Rav Moshe Feinstein z’tz’l, Rav Yaakov Kamenitzky z’tz’l, and Rav Yosef Soloveitchik z’tz’l all attended mixed seating weddings.

“Far worse can and does happen. Open your eyes! Look around.”

Indeed. I look around and see more unmarried frum people than at any time in history.

charlie, that was when America was at a lower spiritual madreiga, and the gedolim were still raising our spiritual level closer to what we had in pre-WW One Eastern Europe.

And I love how you libs twist facts, like you did with your 1957 reference. First of all it is inaccurate, as the peak was in 2007. Second of all, the peak of 1957 was of MARRIED TEENAGERS, not the rampant licentiousness of today! See a CDC for report from 1998 for this fact: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/98news/teenrel.htm

“The national teen birth rate was at its highest in 1957, at 96 births per 1,000 women ages 15-19. However, most teenagers giving birth in the 1950’s and for the next two decades were married while the vast majority of teenage mothers today are unmarried.”

Dunno- You mean make all Touro colleges mixed. It’s not Touro’s responsilbilty to get rid of the stigma. As long as frum students won’t go to mixed schools, they will cater to this crowd. If you come from the background that you want mixed, there are plenty of Touro colleges that are.

:::sigh::: nevermind…

Health:

I don’t think it’s the students that mind a mixed setting. You are right that there are plenty of other colleges. I just think that Touro (at least the Ave J campus) has mainly frum students of marriageable age so it would be a good place to allow shidduchim to happen.

YU has seperate classes and then events that are specifically coed. These events yield many, many couples every year.

Max Well,

You didn’t read your reference very closely. Those births were to teens who were married at the time the child was born, not necessarily at the time the child was conceived! “Shotgun weddings” were very common back then. And the rate of teen births in 2006 was 42.5 births per 1,000, less than half the rate of 1957.

charlie, now you are engaging in conjecture and speculation to cover the inaccuracy of your previous incorrect assertion that there is no more licentiousness today than then, using misconstrued “facts” trying to make it seem the teen birth rate of ’57 was of unmarrieds, while the fact is they were of marrieds, unlike todays where it is unmarrieds. A major omission on your part. (The CDC made a special point of pointing this difference out, since it is very material.)

Thanks charliehall, I’m not asking about my shul, I know that one’s fine 🙂 Let’s say your going to visit someone else…

The need for a mechitza is so the men don’t see the women by davening, right? Or is the issur that women aren’t allowed to be seen davening?

So if there is a mechitza, but one that the men could see right through and/or over then is one allowed to daven there? Is a women? Is a man?

While my personal feelings understand your point, the only way to de-stigmatize something is for people to start doing it. If more Yeshivah kids would start going to those colleges again (even at night when a more Yeshivish crowd traditionally is there), people would stop having anything to say. Just my humble opinion.

youth in the eighteenth century that aren’t much different from what we see today!

so youth today do not behave more immorally than in the past.

well thats surely a well known fact borne out by thousands of studies. who could possibly argue with such an assertion?

“The need for a mechitza is so the men don’t see the women by davening, right? Or is the issur that women aren’t allowed to be seen davening? So if there is a mechitza, but one that the men could see right through and/or over then is one allowed to daven there? Is a women? Is a man? “

Actually it is a machloket poskim. Rav Henkin z’tz’l, Rav Soloveitchik z’tz’l, and Rav Moshe Feinstein z’tz’l did not hold the above opinion; rather they held that the need for a mechitzah was to create a separate halachic domain for women (which would allow a mechitzah to be much lower). You should consult your local Orthodox rabbi as to whether you can daven in a beit knesset in which the mechitzah is according to the opinion he does not follow.

You might be interested to know that the oldest synagogue in America is an Orthodox congregation in which the mechitzah in their small beit knesset is barely waist high. Their main beit knesset does not have a mechitzah at all; women sit in the balcony where they can see the men very easily — and men can see women as well. Given the number of beautiful old classic halachic synagogues in Europe with that kind of architecture (which inspired similar synagogues all over America), it is difficult to argue that it is an absolute halachic prohibition for men to be able to see women during the service.

dunno:

What purpose would a mixed Touro (Brooklyn) serve (not as if it will ever happen)?

As others have pointed out, if one wants to go mixed, they can go to a CUNY school.

it is difficult to argue that it is an absolute halachic prohibition for men to be able to see women during the service.

Very old Machlokes HaPoskim, with the origins being what and why the Ezras Nashim did in the Beis Hamikdash.

Satmer & Hungarian Poskim hold there was a visual problem as well, Rav Moshe (as Dr. Hall pointed out) among others, held it was a separation/reshus issue only.

To provide singles with another means of making shidduchim

Those who want to meet in college can go to CUNY. There is no need to provide additional means, which would drive out many of the current student body.

SJSinNYC – “I still don’t know what coed functions lead to because I’ve been to many and nothing improper happened.”

I’m going to adresss this one point at a time:

“I still don’t know what coed functions lead to”

Let me spell this out for you: Boys and girls, when they get together, tend to form relationships that rarely end in marriage, but almost without exception leads to issurim.

“I’ve been to many and nothing improper happened.”

Well people aren’t going to do anything improper right in the middle of a public simcha now, are they?

oomis1105 – “”People wouldn’t go to a mixed college because of the stigma involved. “

There is only a stigma in the minds of some people because THEY stigmatize it. I have no problem with mixed colleges. Two of my children met their wonderful zivugim there, and I could not be happier. There was a time when there were no Touro Colleges with separate schedules, and all the frum kids went to Brooklyn or Queens College (otherwise to a branch of YU). They are the parents of the generation that now does NOT go to mixed college. Should anyone have a chashash on those parents? They seemed to turn out well religiously.”

Mixing colleges would indeed help make more shidduchim, and the products of the mixed colleges do indeed often “turn out well religiously”. Nobody is arguing that. However, mixing genders will definitely lead to one thing – aveiros. And short of pikuach nefushos, we cannot knowingly put ourselves on a course that will lead to aveiros, no matter what benefits it looks like it will bring to us in the future.

Oh, and a quick reminder – Hashem runs the world. He, and only He, controls how many shidduchim are made and how many are CH”V not. He does not need our help. Now obviously we have to do our hishtadlus, but only within the confines of following the ratzon Hashem. And I highly highly doubt that it is the ratzon Hashem that we go down a path that will lead to more aveiros being done.

Sister Bear – “The need for a mechitza is so the men don’t see the women by davening, right? Or is the issur that women aren’t allowed to be seen davening?

So if there is a mechitza, but one that the men could see right through and/or over then is one allowed to daven there? Is a women? Is a man?”

R’Moshe holds as long as there is a physical separation between the men and the women, davening is permitted. (However, a man cannot daven/learn/say a brachah when seeing an inappropriately dressed woman.)

SJSinNYC – “it would be nice to do away with the stigma of meeting someone on your own, especially if its through a kosher outlet”

Again, whether the outlet that a boy and girl meet through is kosher or not, once they meet they can have a relationship as unkosher as they want.

dunno – “I don’t know who you’re in contact with but I have spoken to many Touro students who would love for it to become mixed. The frummer ones tend to lean towards Sara Schenirer and Raizel Reit. I am not trying to push my hashkafos on anyone – I was involved in the Touro community and the general consensus was that it would be easier mixed.”

And if you took a poll whether the issur of negia should be suspended, I wouldn’t be too surprised if most people said yes. Just because something is popular doesn’t mean its right.

“[Frum colleges should be mixed] To provide singles with another means of making shidduchim.”

As gavra_at_work said, those who feel they need to be in a mixed college inn order to find a shidduch have plenty of options already. Also, as I pointed out to oomis1105 above in this comment, Hashem is the only One who makes shidduchim, and He does not need our help. We obviously still have to our hishtadlus, but we shouldn’t kid ourselves into thinking that it is all up to us, and therefore if we have to go down a path where aveiros will happen so be it. Our job is to do what Hashem tells us to do, and He will take care of the end results.

mw13:

You seem to equate going to a mixed college with negiah issues. If that is the case, it’s not worth arguing with you.

There is another thread about this – I think it was BP Totty who pointed out that the world views the younger generation as terrible while that is not the case.

EDITED

GAW-

No comment

2) That you decided to go to Hunter or City is not my problem.

Irrelevant

3) I never said that all frum people avoided the co-ed schools, just that there were separate education options.

3) I never said that all frum people avoided the co-ed schools, just that there were separate education options.

Vassar!