Women Learning Gemara

As I pointed out on the other thread, R Soloveitchik’s position that a woman learning secular studies must also learn gemara has been shown in real life to be incorrect.

The controversy isn’t about a self motivated woman learning on her own, so the second part of your post is irrelevant.

“Thus he argues that women who study Torah have the opportunity to fulfill the Mitzva of Ahavat Hashem.”

Women intrinsically have אהבת ה׳ since they didn’t sin by the עגל & מרגלים

A woman can learn what she is mechuyeves, responsible like candle lighting. The aishes sema ruled that on Yom Tov the brocho should be said before lighting on which the Magen Avraham argues. The Chasam Sofer in Shabbos 24, on the mishna ein sorfim kodeshim be’yom tov. makes two rulings of hers related to each other.

I think we are narrowing down number of issues. Let me try to summarize consensus and disagreements. See if you agree:

agreements:
A1) A woman CAN learn whatever she wants and teachers will not send her away (Beruriah, etc)

A2) communally, most agree that women need to learn relevant halakhot at much higher level than in previous generations due to change in lifestyle

disagreements:
D1) Who may/can/should learn.
The question is of a communal policy of mass learning. Some may indeed feel “obligatory” as part of sending to MO school. In fact, when I told one learned friend what high school my daughters will go, exclaimed “And they will not learn Gemorah!?”. Still, I think even an ardent MO person will not press Satmar ladies into that, so it is more of “mass” than “obligatory”

D2) what are “relevant halakhot” – one extreme “candle lighting”, opposite “ahavat Hashem” that is so vague that includes everything
Chafetz Chaim is not at the first extreme with his suggestion of “pirkei avos”
Current BY curriculum is also somewhat beyond that

D3) how deep? one extreme – halakhot l’maase, another – in enough detail to appreciate it in current world including Gemorah.

One item that needs to be clarified: secular studies are not as they used to be!

First, current “universities” are really trade schools at best or waste of time at worst. I measured with kids complexity of American writing using current school grades – modern politicians come somewhere between 8th and 10th grade. So did Andrew Jackson, I think. Madison was at … grade 38. This is about 2 PhDs or maybe “Dr Rabbi”. So, most people now are not going to university to reject Yiddishkeit for some other type of morality. It ain’t there unless it is Yale Divinity School or something.

2nd, we always admitted “yesh chochma b’goyim” and science developed tremendously in last centuries. Talmidei Chachamim were always interested in science and technology and I can’t imagine Rambam not learning quantum physics in our times. And all amoraim discussing natural remedies would be fascinated by mRNA vaccines. One used to have help from heaven to time his tefilah so that you start shmone esre at sunrise (there was no cheap way to measure time at night). Recently, I saw two Talmidei Chachamim arguing about a timing difference between two apps on their respective phones.

These two point do not mitigate everything, of course, such as
1) social problems when kids are sent away from home into coed places
2) all science does not substitute for Torah knowledge and attitudes

A general outlook on this problem. I think we need to first be humble and realize that “modernity” presented a huge new era that Jews were not challenged with before. There was a lot of upheaval after 2nd Hurban and this is probably comparable. We had several moments with very narrow paths through which Jews developed, such as Yavno; remaining students of R Akiva….

We are “just” a couple of centuries in. We lost a lot – assimilation, Reform, communism, Shoah. It is not just a fault of Reform that they became Reform, but a joint failure of Jewish communities that we did not offer the right response. We eventually developed several models that survived. Maybe if early Reform will see current structures, they would end up at YU or at 770 or at Beis Mussar or at a Tisch, depending what exactly they were searching for.

so, at minimum, we need to appreciate that all current shitahs are part of this survival process and we need to hang in together. We are now wiser than 200 years ago and a lot of “hot” topics are resolved. Not many observant people now are converting to traditional religions, or going into Biblical criticism, or leaving because they need to work on Shabbos.

Avira > Aaq, a school that teaches gemara to girls as a part of the class that she must attend is definitely coercion

I agree that this is different from a unique lady who is interested in learning, but I am saying that, as far as I know, most people do not advocate for a universal obligation. Most MO will not call you to teach your daughters Gemorah. Furthermore, as far as a family is free to choose a school with or without Gemorah, and, presumably, the kid has some input in the process, it is not fully “obligatory”

On the other side, my daughters jump away when something might be a “mishna” or a “Gemora”. Maybe they were told that it is bad for a shiduch, not sure. At the same time, they are familiar with most of the material that I overhear from my Daf Yomi, except the pilpul and inappropriate topics. They just were not told at school that these are Gemoras.

I researched this topic back in my youth, and I wanted to share my thoughts.

It’s not so clear from the Rambam and S”A that women aren’t allowed to learn Torah Shebal Peh. Even though the S”A says that one who teaches his daughter Torah it’s as if he taught her “tiflus” (tiflus being something negative), the S”A also say that women receive sechar for learning it! Now if the S”A was saying that it is assur, the S”A wouldn’t have said they get a reward for doing it. The S”A just says it can’t be taught to them which I understand to mean that it is not allowed to be imposed on them, however if they learn it by choice, then they receive reward.

One also has to factor in (based on the S”A and the Rama) that a woman does not have a chiyuv to learn Torah which has no practical application, and has a chiyuv to learn Torah that has practical application (halachah, mussar, Tanach [Gemara in Megilah says that the only nevu’os that were recorded were those who’s messages are meant for all generations, therefore Nach is practical], etc…). It’s a positive thing to learn the areas which have no practical application (the S”A says they receive reward), it’s better than wasting time, but it’s not a chiyuv.

Based on this, I think there are 4 criteria that need to be met for women to learn Gemara:

1) They have to want to do it.

2) It has to be for lishmah reasons, not feminist reasons.

3) They need a teacher to guide them in the right way to learn Gemara.

4) It can’t come at the expense of learning those areas of Torah that are a chiyuv for them to learn, but it can only come at the expense of things that are reshus (learning secular subjects, going shopping, etc…).

Mindful – it’s exactly that reaction that chaim jachter wanted to elicit when he quoted the satmar rov as if he were the only one who qualified the heter of the chofetz chaim as applying only to tanach.

Your reaction is proof of his deceitful tactic working…. it’s far from “just satmar”… it’s chazal, rishonim wnd achronim across the board. Rav Moshe writes that it’s unnecessary to even address the issue, since it’s a simple gemara.

Also, did you know that the beis halevi – not a satmar chossid – says that women don’t wear yarmulkahs because their hair will be cut off anyway upon marriage, so it’s already considered cut and is therefore like a yarmulkah?

Your rant is an excellent caricature of the yatzer hora of modernity… purely emotional, copying feminist attitudes and making baseless claims of superiority over the more observant classes of Jews.

“”You can’t take a page out of Joseph’s book and just throw things on people’s heads in the name of holiness”

Azoy…so the Gadol Ha’trolls, aka “Joseph”, has been resurrected as Avirah. Who would’ve guessed….

I wonder whether R Feinstein and R Tendler ever discussed this issue at a shabbos table, or maybe Rebetin Tendler had to reconcile what her father says v. her husband. Is there any information about this?

AAQ, to think we are wiser than the gedoilim of 200 years ago is absolutely a folly. We are less wise, that’s for sure. Years ago almost no Jews converted except for a few individuals unless it was forced conversions, even then, masses of Jews died Al Kiddush Hashem. Today we unfortunately have individual Jews, mostly non-educated, who convert to Christianity. There Jewish women marrying Muslims and converting to Islam. And unfortunately we have boys and girls, too many too count, that go OTD. And we have adults who go OTD as well.

We are a shvache dor, we are certainly not better than our ancestors.

Avira > I realize this may horrify some, but I’m involved in chinuch. ..Interpersonally, one must be non judgemental

I am curious, could you clarify: if R Moshe Soloveichik have hired you to be a melamed of his son, would you try to discourage (directly or indirectly) him from going to the Free Polish University and to University of Berlin?

to bring you to those times, here are several professors that a young Yoshe Ber would encounter there:

Max Dessoir was born in Berlin, into a German Jewish family..An associate of Pierre Janet and Sigmund Freud, Dessoir published in 1890 a book on The Double Ego, describing the mind as divided into two layers, each with its own associative links[4] – its own chain of memory.[5] He considered that the ‘underconsciousness’ (Unterbewusstein) emerged in such phenomena as dreams, hypnosis, and dual personality..In 1889, in an article in the German periodical Sphinx, Dessoir coined the term ‘parapsychology’ (actually in its German equivalent, ‘Parapsychologie’): “If one … characterizes by para- something going beyond or besides the ordinary, than one could perhaps call the phenomena that step outside the usual process of the inner life parapsychical, and the science dealing with them parapsychology. ..Dessoir was an amateur magician who had used the pseudonym “Edmund W. Rells”. He was interested in the history and psychology of magic.

Eugen Mittwoch (December 4, 1876 – November 8, 1942) was the founder of Modern Islamic Studies in Germany, and at the same time an eminent Jewish scholar…Coming from an old Orthodox Jewish family, ..He initially wanted to become a Rabbi. During his studies in Berlin he discovered Islamic studies and did his doctorate ..In the early 1920s Mittwoch was involved in the planning of the Hebrew University and its School of Oriental Studies.[1] He was invited to Jerusalem to receive a professorship of Arabic for one year, but apparently refused the invitation. ..Since he was a leading specialist on Ethiopian languages world-wide, Mittwoch did not lose his academic position in 1933 immediately like almost all his Jewish colleagues in Germany did at that time. This had to do with a special intervention by Mussolini with Hitler on behalf of Mittwoch..Mittwoch used his “privileged” position in Germany (he continued to receive his salary as a German professor until the beginning of the war) on behalf of the Jewish community, he became head of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Berlin. [of course you would know only things up to 1930]

Aaq, just to be fair, rabbi yoshe ber would have been beyond my pedagogical abilities by age 8 – he was a veritable genius, all other considerations aside. I do appreciate the thought experiment though; very original!

I could relate more to being given the opportunity to be a melamen for my grandfather. He grew up in the 1910s, and learned in 2 yeshivos of note. He eventually went to the University of Berlin and came out….well, “nisht arein gein”. If I were learning gemara with him I would relate halacha to mussar, hashkofa, politics etc the way some of my rebbeim did; show him the breitkeit, the breadth of Torah and how applicable it is to every situation. Perhaps if he were satisfied in his knowledge that “hafuch boh vehafuch boh dekula boh”, and wanted only to use secular studies to understand Torah, not as a “complement” or as something independently important, it would dissuade him from following the mad dash off the cliff.

When I learn with my kids, I try to show them what learning can do for them, how enveloping and encompassing it is..we have a game where they try to find something in the world that has no connection to Torah, and each time I show them how everything is in the Torah. Once I took some of my boys on a laser tag trip – they said… that’s it, there’s no way you can find a Torah lesson in laser tag. I told them that laser tag teaches us that you can do something which seems to have no effect whatsoever…you don’t feel or see the laser coming out of the gun, but it definitely has a result!

My wife a’h wanted to go to Law School but her water did not let.

I don’t know how water got there when I meant father. I must have been asleep.

See Magen Avraham (263,12) as mentioned above.

Women overall have less inclination to deal with abstract issues, like math, maybe because they have more issues to attend in real life. So, maybe women should not plan their learning around dafim of Gemorah, but focus on a wide variety of mitzvos that they feel are relevant to them, depending on a person this could be kashrus and niddah, or also chesed, education of their and other children, business, speech, etc. If they want to understand those issues in depth, they can surely learn whatever helps them learn it, and this might be Gemora, poskim.