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Nom; of course there are unfit lomdim – my rebbe rav belsky used to say that “there are people with time on their hands… They could be taking walks, eating chicken… They want to write seforim”
Doesn’t change the ridiculousness of female talmud “scholars” who would struggle to understand the notes on the bottom of an artscroll.
How do general rules work? Rav Yehuda is not dismissing Beruriah just because an average lady is not boke in shas. As my first statistics teacher, my grandmother O’H who never took a formal course used to say: a cow drowned in a river that was on average up to her knee.
Nashim Da’atan Kalos
Dear Ujm,
That is an empirical thought. It follows that it does not take much to prove the exception. I know of men that da’atan kalos is an understatement.
ujm, see my comment above. You can use a klal a priori to recommend not to have Gemora in Bays Yaakov, but when you meet a Beruriah and she corrects your speech, you better pay attention.
Empirical evidence: when my daughters hear Daf Yomi I am listening, they do not care much. But when there is an interesting sugya and I describe it to them, they have no problem understanding and relating to their other learning and human psychology.
N0m: Are you really disagreeing with Chazal?!
Beruriah thought she was an exception to daatan kalos. She wrote that in her notebook (this was before torah she baal peh was written). Rebbe Meir said “chayech, by your life, you will admit to then (the chachamim) in the end”
We know exactly what happened in the end.
Dear Avirah,
It ended in humiliation for both of them. And apparently she had the greater intellect. But never underestimate the machinations of the wicked. It is smarter than both of them.
Dear Ujm,
Go ahead and ask them. I was just giving you some clarification of what using that statement means to me.
By all means, you can share your own explanations.
Avira, you are right about that. I am also curious how the end of her story jabs with her acceptance as a scholar. Maybe it means that social condition in general creates a condition and one should be careful. So, yes, Beruriah was able to overcome her natural tendencies and that is why she wrote about it, as everyone working on his/her middos is keenly aware of them. Still, an additional push from R Meir did her over. There is a general idea that people have an ability withstand test that Hashem sends to you, but if you add up your own test, good luck with that! So, this creates both a question for Beruriah – why she put herself in danger; but even more for R Meir – why did he feel necessary to over-test her.
edited
You don’t have the right to have a statement of Chazal to mean to you something other than what Chazal meant by making the statement.
AAQ: The Gemorah derides Bruria’s mistaken notion that she could overcome women’s natural tendencies.
ujm, could you be more specific with your reference?
R Yehuda mentions her, unprompted, as an example to someone who is less capable mentioning her learning from multiple teachers. Presumably, none of those teachers refused to teach her.Rebbe Meir is enough of a source, being a tanna – his word is torah misinai. He said she is wrong – she was not a tanna; she was very big in learning and was nosei venosen with tannaim, but not every learned person is a tanna, and she definitely was not.
Rebbe meir said she was wrong for writing that she was an exception to chazal and set out to prove it to her. The ben yehoyada writes that he sent a talmid who was impotent and physically unable to sin, so it was harmless in that regard. He also tempted her in an appeal to her midas hachesed, not stam taavah. He did not expect her to lose her sanity and commit suicide.
As the drishah famously writes, exceptional women can learn gemara, like beruriah. She was not criticized for learning, rather for thinking that she was an exception to chazal’s dictum of noshim daatan kalos – she simply was not, as evidenced by her being nichshal.
AAQ, she didn’t put herself into a nisayon; rebbe Meir may have initiated it, but it was min hashomayim, as no one has the ability to harm or help anyone else without it being nigzar in shomayim.
> Rebbe Meir is enough of a source, being a tanna
haver wife’s honor same as havero, so maybe she is also a tanna :)?> As the drishah famously writes, exceptional women can learn gemara,
Drisha indeed had a proof – his own mother (order of candlelighting on yom tov)> she didn’t put herself into a nisayon
I mean that she put herself into the nisayon by her learning. I think “daatan kalos” is a mida of being able to do/consider multiple things at the same time, not only/necessarily a put-down. As mentioned, she was learning from multiple teachers.> rebbe Meir may have initiated it, but it was min hashomayim
min hasomayim is never an excuse for someone’s actions, of course.Rebbe Meir was correct and proper for testing Bruria (a test that she failed.) The Gemorah is nothing but complimentary of Rebbe Meir. If there had been any reason to be critical of Rebbe Meir for, the Gemorah would have voiced such criticism. There was none.
I’d also like to thank n0m for having accepted (based on his Shtika K’hodaah) my last comment on this thread in our discussion of a Titanic-like situation. N0m, if you at any time in the future have any follow up questions or comments on that discussion, please start a new thread with a proper descriptive title (rather than this off-topic tangent) so that I’ll notice your question or comment, that I’ll likely miss noticing in this thread.
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