Terumah – Feminism

דבר אל בני ישראל ויקחו לי תרומה. Rashi kotev ויקחו לי תרומה לי לשמי that the trumah which bnei Yisrael gave for the construction of the Mishkan had to be given l'shem shamayim, purely and totally l'shem shamayim. This stands in apparently in marked contrast to the Gemara in Pesachim and elsewhere which tells us about tzedakah that

האומר סלע זו לצדקה על מנת שיחיה בני הרי זה צדיק גמור.

So even though we approve of this mingling of kavana elsewhere in terms of contributing and giving, when it comes to the meleches haMishkan for the construction of the Mishkan, so the Torah says no veyikchu li, it has to be lishmi, it has to be l'shem Hashem. Why is that? So I think there are a few possible answers. One, in Parshas Pekudei the Torah tells us

וירא משה את כל המלאכה והנה עשו אתה כאשר צוה ה' כן עשו ויברך אתם משה.

Rashi again quoting from Chazal says that the bracha which Moshe Rabbeinu gave upon the completion of the meleches haMishkan was shetishre Shchina b'ma'ase yadeichem. So interesting, not just shetishre Shchina in the Mishkan but תשרי שכינה במעשה ידיכם. The impression you have is that what evoked the Hashras HaShchina was the ma'ase yadeihem of klal Yisrael in constructing the Mishkan. What merited the subsequent Hashras HaShchina was that ויקחו לי תרומה לי לשמי. The fact that the ma'ase yadeihem of klal Yisrael that everything had been done l'shem shamayim, so that was instrumental in evoking the Hashras HaShchina, and that's what Moshe Rabbeinu said, that may your ma'ase yadayim be worthy of the Hashras Shchina. And for that reason the Torah insists on a higher standard, we're not just talking about doing any mitzvah, we're talking about evoking a Hashras HaShchina. To be worthy of that bracha shetishre Shchina b'ma'ase yadeichem, it was necessary ויקחו לי תרומה לי לשמי. The Torah tells us in Parshas Vayakhel

ויבאו האנשים על הנשים כל נדיב לב הביאו חח ונזם וטבעת וכומז כל כלי זהב וכל איש אשר הניף תנופת זהב לה'.

All the raw materials necessary for the Mishkan were contributed. The Torah says ויבאו האנשים על הנשים. The Ramban says on this pasuk that what the words mean is that הנשים באו תחלה והאנשים נטפלו להן. That the women came first and they were the primary contributors of the raw materials for the meleches haMishkan, and the phrase of ויבאו האנשים על הנשים means that they were secondary, both in both chronologically and in importance in terms of the contribution for meleches haMishkan. Which means that the nashim played a pivotal instrumental role in creating the ma'ase yadeihem which later was deemed worthy of Hashras HaShchina. We're all familiar with a famous Chazal about how the kiyor was formed from the glass, the mirrors which the nashim had used in Mitzrayim. B'zchus nashim tzidkanios the Gemara in Sotah says nigalu miMitzrayim. And perhaps most striking of all, Rabbeinu Yonah says on the pasuk of כה תאמר לבית יעקב ותגיד לבני ישראל in parshas Yisro that prior to Matan Torah Hakadosh Baruch Hu tells Moshe Rabbeinu first speak to Beis Yaakov, first speak to the women, and later to the men because ultimately the women play a more pivotal role in kiyum HaTorah in the in sustaining Torah than the men do. So first you have to appeal to them, first you have to speak to them כה תאמר לבית יעקב and only later v'sageid livnei Yisrael. How do women play this pivotal role? Be it in the geulas Mitzrayim, be it in the hashras hashchina of the Mishkan? How do they play this pivotal role? So the Torah says upon the completion of the melachas haMishkan that Moshe Rabbeinu's bracha was prompted by the fact that

וירא משה את כל המלאכה והנה עשו אותה כאשר צוה ה' כן עשו.

That all those who participated in the melachas haMishkan were not looking, they didn't approach the melachas haMishkan with any outside, any external considerations, but it was merely כאשר צוה ה' כן עשו. That's what motivated them, that's what guided them, and in fact that's what they succeeded in doing, כאשר צוה ה' כן עשו. The power of speech is such ויהי האדם לנפש חיה לרוח ממללא. The power of speech is such that talk can clarify, it can also confuse, it can help organize ideas, it can also help obfuscate. I think for a few minutes our time would be well spent for some clear, simple talk. As I'm sure most if not all of us are aware, there's much talk about feminism and feminism in Orthodox circles. It's important to again, clear talk, to understand a couple of basic facts. And here it's not, it's not that we're going bar shema, there's no discrepancy here between bar shema and bar taama. We're not, we're not concerned with semantics but with substance. There's no such thing as Jewish feminism. There's no such thing as indigenous Jewish feminism. Feminism, and this is a simple, indisputable historical fact, is a secular movement which has made inroads in the Orthodox community. And then it's a secular movement which has been applied and targeted against the Orthodox community. There's no such thing as Jewish feminism. It's a secular movement which has encroached upon Yahadus. There are two basic tenets of feminism which to understand what the issues are and what the agenda is that we all need to be aware. And as these apply to secular society, whether they're true or not, whether they should be true or not, is not our concern. But since these have been adopted and adapted in terms of confronting Torah, so it's of vital concern to us. Principle number one is that equality, when you speak of equality... quality of the genders, male and female, that it has to mean that it connotes identity or sameness. And equality is only deserving of that name if the two genders are given the same opportunities and identical opportunities. Now that our society lives by this is, I think, abundantly clear, something we all know to the extremes of even altering the job requirements of something like a firefighter to downgrade the physical requirements so that women should be able to qualify for these jobs as well. The fact that it's biologically, anatomically that there's more, that there's a higher percentage of muscle in a man than a woman, which is not a value statement and not a value judgment, it's just a fact, so that's politically incorrect and the job requirement has to be such that men and women can equally qualify for any position, any position, because principle number one of feminism, and this is something which our society swears by, is that equality means identity or sameness. That's, that's principle number one. Principle number two is, and again, the historicity of this as it relates to secular society is not, not our concern, is that throughout the generations, men in a male-dominated society have consciously, with premeditation, denied women this equality. Now when you transpose these tenets of secular feminism away from secular society into the Orthodox community, into the world of Torah, the same demands are made, the same expectations are there, and the same demands are made. And we all have to understand that these premises are simply fundamentally wrong and absolutely unacceptable. The Torah clearly, clearly, I'm not telling you any chiddushim, I'm not telling you any secrets, I'm telling you something we all know, that תינוקות של בית רבן know. The Torah clearly distinguishes the roles of men and women. That's as clear as day, as clear as day that the Torah distinguishes the role of men and women from one another, and that equality for the Torah does not connote sameness or identity. And if the Sifrei tells us that שום תשים עליך מלך ולא מלכה, that for a minuach shel serarah HaKadosh Baruch Hu says you're supposed to appoint men and not women, so we may or may not understand why that should be. Maybe we do, maybe we don't. In many, many cases we don't necessarily understand, or certainly not fully understand. But it's quite clear that the message is that according to the Torah's approach and according to a Torah outlook, the premise that equality means sameness or identity, that that tenet of feminism is fundamentally at odds with the Torah. Recently in an article, Rabbi Halap was interviewed, and I think that we all, there are not too many people who have the courage and conviction to speak politically incorrect truth. And he said that any Orthodox Rabbi who ordains a woman is by definition not an Orthodox Rabbi. Now that may be popular or unpopular, I think we know which of the two it is, but truth is not put to a popularity vote. You don't, some prominent politicians in Washington decide what's right by taking polls, but in Torah you don't do that. And if the Torah clearly, clearly distinguishes the role of men and women, and the Torah says that a minuach shel serarah men are eligible and women are ineligible. So our task is not to try to pressure rabbinical institutions or pressure individual rabbonim into ordaining women. Our task is to try to understand what the Torah teaches us to the best of our ability and to try to educate ourselves accordingly. Our task and our response is not to try to manipulate halacha and to try to find ways to circumvent and to try to invent all kinds of distinctions which let us get around what the halacha says. No, our response should be, well, what's lacking in our educational system if what the Torah says clearly and unambiguously doesn't sit well with us? The problem is not in Torah, the problem is in us. When there's something in Torah which we struggle with, which we grapple with, and make no mistake about it, it's easy enough for us in this room to very glibly quote that Sifrei. It certainly hurts a lot of women and sincerely it hurts them and I don't think I don't downplay it and I don't think anyone should downplay it and I don't think that their struggles should be acknowledged with compassion and with empathy and responses need to be forthcoming. But in order to respond, we have to point ourselves in the right direction and the direction to look when there's something which is clearly in the Torah. And again, this distinction between men and women that yes, that men can serve as rabbis, which is rabbinic authority is a mino shel swara, but women can't serve as rabbis, is something that's clearly in the Torah. If we have problems with that, so the problem is not to see, well, what are the pressure points in the system that we can push, but our goal should be what is it that we can do educationally to orient ourselves to the Torah system. The Rav zichrono livracha used to talk about it in one of the famous drashos that he gave about the Rambam at the beginning of Hilchos Krias Shema about how Talmud Torah is a kiyum of קבלת עול מלכות שמיים. And one of the things the Rav said is the reason for that is that when a person comes to study Torah, he doesn't come, he can't come with any preconceived values, he can't come with his own system of logic, but everything has to be internal. The axioms, the values, the logic, the way of thinking, all has to come from the Torah. I can't come and then try to subject the Torah and mold the Torah according to my values. No, the kiyum of קבלת עול מלכות שמיים in Talmud Torah is that I come and I try by exposure to chachmei hamasora of earlier generations and by studying, so I try to see what are the axioms and the values and the logic and the way of thinking of Torah and the chachmei hamasora throughout the generations. So we certainly do have a problem. There's no question that our orientation is not totally consistent with the Torah's orientation. But what's the response? The response is not to look to see well how can we manipulate the halacha. If a bas mitzvah wants to have an aliyah and wants to read from the Torah, so the question is not, well, how do I manipulate halacha so that I can say technically I'm not violating anything in Shulchan Aruch, so I can say well, נשים מברכות ברכת התורה, so therefore I'll just orchestrate things that they're not saying any brachos which they're not allowed to say. But that's not what it says in Shulchan Aruch. That's manipulating halacha. That's not implementing halacha, that's manipulating halacha. And our response, the issue is a real one, it's a very real one, and it's a very painful one, and the pain is searing. There's no question about it. There's no question about it. But the response has to be an educational one. The response has to be what are we missing, what are we lacking in our understanding of Torah, in our understanding of Torah that this causes such pain, not how can I manipulate halacha to try to make halacha, to transform halacha into something egalitarian and something unisex, which it clearly isn't, which it clearly isn't. The second tenet of of feminism that the inequality which women have suffered throughout the generations is again due to the male hegemony and domination, again, is not something which can be transposed to Torah and Masorah without contesting the very validity of Masorah. Again in that same droshe, again which I'm sure many many of us are familiar, so the Rav said you can't assail the Chachmei HaMasorah either. It's not just what the Chachmei HaMasorah say qua transmission, but what the Chachmei HaMasorah say as an interpretation of Torah Sheba'al Peh. That can't be assailed either. There are some in the feminist group who say it openly and there are others where it's lurking beneath the surface that the attitudes of Chazal and subsequent Chachmei HaMasorah were holding women down and denying them this equality. And that's what we have to fight to restore. And again whatever the validity or accuracy of such a claim in secular society in general history may be, when you transpose that to Torah and to Masorah it's a very very dangerous and erroneous and prohibited notion. Undoubtedly there are many women who are totally sincere and whose intention is ka'asher tziva Hashem, who unwittingly and unknowingly are caught up in this tide of feminism. And certainly it would be wrong and unfair to generalize and classify them all together. But nevertheless sincere intentions notwithstanding, involvement with feminism, speaking of Orthodoxy and feminism, is misguided. And the solutions which we there are real problems, there are people who are struggling and we certainly have an obligation to try to address those problems and try to alleviate that pain. But the solution has to be to look inward. The solution is educational. The solution is not to again to try to tamper with rachmana litzlan, not to adopt a program of looking for increased ritual role for women or whatever other buzzwords exist nowadays. That's not the solution. We have to look for better education, not just for women, for men also, for all of us, that our hashkafos should be more pure, should be more pure and as such that's the only way to undercut and undermine the clash, the conflict, and the tension which exists between our our contaminated orientation which has been contaminated by secular influences and that of the Torah. So we certainly should marshal all our resources and all our strength with as much sensitivity and as much empathy as possible because it's warranted, but not to look to see how we can try to make Halacha look as egalitarian and unisex as possible, but how we can understand that the Torah assigns different roles for men and women and that each each should understand the importance and the the pivotal role which they've been assigned and we should aspire to כאשר צוה ה׳ כן עשו and we should be zoche to the bracha of השראת שכינה במעשה ידינו.