A Woman’s Avodas Hashem

Thank you Rabbi Neuburger. Reshut l'mara de'atra. I'd like to try this evening to discuss the topic of a woman's avodas Hashem from a non-apologetic perspective. Non-apologetic in the sense that our discussion is not going to be framed by the questions which nowadays all too often do frame such discussions. We're not going to discuss why aren't women obligated in such and such, why can't women put on tefillin, why are women different than men. I'm not saying that these questions don't have their time and place, but when these questions frame the discussion, it doesn't allow us to do justice to the Torah's position regarding a woman's avodas Hashem. What's more, sometimes, sometimes, not always, there's an unspoken premise to such questions as though Torah has to answer, when the apologetic approach is used and is imposed upon such discussions, so sometimes there's an insinuation that Torah has to answer to the standards, to the values of contemporary society and obviously that's something which we categorically reject. Torah doesn't have to answer to anything, but rather Torah is the measure for everything. So therefore let's tonight try to approach the topic non-apologetically and let's frame the question in a positive and a proactive way of what's the Torah's conception of a woman's avodas Hashem. Now what we're going to discuss tonight are two or three elements, two or three emphases which distinguish a woman's avodas Hashem. But this shouldn't obscure all the fundamental areas and mitzvos in which there's no difference between a woman's avodas Hashem and a man's avodas Hashem. Specifically and most importantly basically all what Rabbeinu Bachya terms chovos halevavos. All the basic mitzvos of emunah, the Rambam's yud gimmel ikkarim, the mitzvos of ahavas Hashem, of yiras Hashem, the mitzvah of Shabbos. Somehow or other the differences and divergences between the genders they get all the press and the elements which are identical and which converge are ignored. So even though we're going to be focusing on those distinguishing elements we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that there is much much in common and again especially chovos halevavos. In thinking about distinguishing elements of a woman's avodas Hashem so right away I think the first thing that comes to mind is tznius. Again, not that tznius is an obligation which men don't share, they certainly do share the obligation to be tzanua as well, but there's no question that this is something which is accentuated and which is stressed more in context of a woman's avodas Hashem than a man's avodas Hashem. If we can understand what the Torah's concept of tznius is, I think it will contribute greatly to our understanding of our topic of a woman's avodas Hashem. Tznius underlies many halachos, right? Most obviously with regard to dress. It also, the Rav explains, is what underlies the fact that the Torah disqualifies women from serving as eidus. That this technical disqualification the Rav said also has to do with the fact that the woman is, as the Gemara in Shevuos quotes the pasuk of כל כבודה בת מלך פנימה, that due to the modesty of a woman she's not to be put in the spotlight of giving eidus and that that's the basis for the Torah's technical disqualification of a woman giving eidus. Similarly, ultimately, it's this concern for tznius which underlies the Gemara in Megillah's disqualifying a woman from receiving an aliyah, from serving as a baal korei. It's interesting to note that considerations of tznius also accord special privileges to women. Specifically the Ri Migash and then this is quoted by the later Rishonim as well say that a woman, he speaks of nashim yekaros, that a woman is not required to come to beis din. If a man has a litigation with someone, so he can't tell Beis Din, you send a shaliach Beis Din, you send the court stenographer to me and I'll tell the court stenographer what my tainos are, what my claims are. No, he has litigation, he has to show up in Beis Din, and then he can present his claims and his arguments in Beis Din. If when nashim yekaros have some matter of litigation, so then the Ri Migash says that they're entitled to tell the Beis Din, please send a shaliach to us, please send someone who represents the Beis Din and we'll tell him what our claims are and then he'll represent that to you, to the dayanim. So tznius is not limited to those other halachos in terms of dress and the like, but it's also something which is responsible for a special privilege which is accorded to women as well. So we generally translate tznius as modesty and the translation is an accurate translation. Tzanua means something hidden. For instance, that's what it means etymologically. So for instance when the Mishna in Pesachim says that after doing bedikas chametz the night of the 14th of Nisan, if you're saving some chametz to either eat for breakfast in the morning or to burn in the morning, so the Mishna says yanichenu b'tzina, put it in a hidden spot so that you don't have to worry about animals getting to it and then dragging it throughout the house and then you'll have to re-check the house. So clearly etymologically that's what the word does mean. It does mean to be covered, to be hidden. That's what it means etymologically. But when you look in Chazal, you see that for Chazal the way they used tznius, they used it in a sense which is not covered by our term of modesty. There are a few mishnayos in Seder Zeraim. For instance, the Mishna in Demai talks about a dispute between Beis Shammai and Beis Hillel. Beis Shammai say that when you sell olives which are going to be pressed and made into oil, that you should only sell this to a chaver. A chaver is someone who in the times of the Beis HaMikdash had an established reputation that he was very meticulous about tumah v'taharah. He was very meticulous not to be metamei anything even when he was handling chullin. It wasn't necessarily trumah that he was handling, it wasn't necessarily meat from korbanos or something, even if it was plain chullin, a chaver had this reputation that he had earned that he would not be metamei this. And Beis Shammai say that in Eretz Yisrael we don't even want chullin, we don't even want the regular food consumed on a daily basis to become tamei, and therefore you're not allowed to sell your olives for pressing unless the person is someone who has the reputation of a chaver. And Beis Hillel say that's not necessary. As long as you can trust him to set aside trumos u'ma'asros, he doesn't have to be trustworthy with regard to being metamei. We don't care if he'll be metamei. Then the Mishna concludes and listen to the punchline. The Mishna says that tznu'ei Beis Hillel נוהגים כבית שמאי, that the tznuim in the academy of Hillel, so they used to be stringent and follow the practice of Beis Shammai. And there are two other mishnayos in Seder Zeraim as well which use the term tznuim in the same sense. Nothing to do with what we associate with modesty, but also has to do with stringency and with meticulousness in observance of mitzvos. And as a matter of fact, the Rambam, if you take a look in these places, in this Mishna we mentioned is in Demai and there's another Mishna in Ma'aser Sheni and there's a third Mishna in Kilayim. All you have to do is stumble upon one of them and then the Rambam sends you to the others. If you look at any of these three mishnayos, so the Rambam says in each case that the definition of tznuim are people who are medakdekim b'mitzvos, who are medakdekim b'issurim. They're meticulous either about their fulfillment of mitzvos or they're meticulous about the caution and the care that they have not to violate any issurim, not to violate any prohibitions. So what's that got to do with modesty? How is it that that same term which we associate and again etymologically correctly, the term tzanua that we associate with modesty, so here we see it being used in a totally totally different sense. Now there's also a very, very strange, very, very strange passage in the Gemara in Berachos. The Gemara in Berachos says that to describe a person as being tzanua, so one could only describe a person as being tzanua if one knows how that person conducts himself in the bathroom. That only if one would be, would be privy to such private information, could one responsibly and accurately describe a person as being tzanua. Ad kedei kach, this is amazing. The Gemara tells a story, I think it's about Rav Nachman, that someone, hahu saftana, someone was giving a eulogy and he was eulogizing the person and he said that this person was a tremendous tzanua. And Rav Nachman confronted him after the hesped and says to him, how do you know that he was a tzanua? Did you ever follow him into the beis hakisei, into the bathroom and see how he conducted himself in the bathroom? So what a seemingly strange, strange Gemara. So what does it mean? So it's quite clear that what underlies all these different usages of tzanua is that Chazal's understanding of tznius is, yes, tznius is modesty, but the sense of modesty which a person has, a sense of modesty which is then manifest in dress and in general in terms of a person conducting himself, herself in a way that doesn't call attention to oneself, that what engenders that sense of modesty is ultimately not modesty vis-a-vis one's fellow man or woman, but ultimately that of modesty is vis-a-vis Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And that's why the Gemara says, if you want to know whether a person is tzanua, you have to know how that person behaves and conducts himself or herself when that person thinks that no one else is watching, because then one can really measure, does that person have a sense of modesty before Hakadosh Baruch Hu? As long as I'm in the presence of others, so then you can't judge whether, whether I have tznius. You can, you can perhaps come to the conclusion that I don't have tznius, but you can't come to the conclusion that I do have tznius. Maybe I'm acting modestly, maybe that's being engendered, maybe that sense of modesty is being engendered by my attitude towards my fellow man. Maybe that's what's engendering the sense of modesty. If you want to be able to characterize a person as a genuine tzanua, so then it has to be the case that you observe that person under circumstances where to the best of his or her knowledge, no human eye is watching, only the Ayin Roeh L'malo, only Hakadosh Baruch Hu is watching him. That's the ultimate, that's what the ultimate definition of tznius is. And now we understand how the Mishnayos in Seder Zeraim are using the term tzanua as well, because if tzanua ultimately, again, it manifests itself as modesty, but the essence of tznius really is, again, this awareness of being in Hakadosh Baruch Hu's presence, this constant, this constant omnipresent awareness of being in the presence of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, if that's what engenders modesty, then we also understand why one would be described as a tzanua because of one's meticulous care and attention to mitzvos and to issurim. Again, it's the same root, it's the same root. So the essence of tznius, again, we know how tznius manifests itself. We mentioned some of the halachos in terms of how one dresses. And often this can be, I guess superficially viewed and maybe even experienced and, I guess on a certain level, it certainly is true, as constraints and and they certainly are constraints on one level. But it's so crucial to understand what in, in the understanding of the Torah what underlies all these parameters and definitions of tznius. All of this is a way of, on the one hand, reflecting, manifesting, on the other hand, instilling a constant awareness of being in the presence of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Now the Rambam has a passage towards the end, end of Moreh Nevuchim, which the Rema sees fit to quote verbatim at the beginning of Shulchan Aruch. This is the very, very first comment of the Rema in Shulchan Aruch. In his mind, this sets the tone for all of Shulchan Aruch. So the Rema writes, quoting the Rambam, the Rambam elaborates on the posuk in Dovid Ha... in Sefer Tehillim where Dovid Hamelech says שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד הוא כלל גדול בתורה. That Dovid Hamelech says that I placed Hakadosh Baruch Hu before me, right? I placed Hakadosh Baruch Hu before me, right? I I concentrate, I'm aware as though I see Hakadosh Baruch Hu kavyachol in front of me constantly. And then the Rambam goes on to elaborate how basically this principle is the essence of religious life and the essence of religious behavior is to constantly maintain this awareness because this affects and influences and molds everything a person does, everything a person thinks, how a person walks, how a person speaks, everything, everything is affected by that awareness of שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד. That's the essence of religious life, the Rambam writes, the Rama quotes that how a person, we know that when a person's at home, so we let our defense down, right? And very often people act differently, people act differently at home than they do in public, right? Says the Rama, if only, quoting the Rambam, if only we would be constantly cognizant of the fact that there is no discrepancy, there is no distinction public and private because the ultimate audience we're always in the presence of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, it would transform everything: how we speak, how we walk, how we act, everything. So this, this שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד is the essence of religious life and basically that's what tznius in all of its manifestations and all of its applications reflects and seeks to instill is this notion of שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד. When the Navi Micha seeks to hone in on the major principles of avodas Hashem, so he says הצנע לכת עם אלקיך, to be tzanua with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, that that's what the essence of Torah is. Now another element, another element of a woman's avodas Hashem which is accentuated, again, it's unique to a woman by virtue of the extra emphasis and stress which is placed upon it is certainly in the area of chesed. Certainly on I'd say the level of conventional perspective, so we certainly view a woman as being called upon to show a greater degree of self-sacrifice than than a man is. A woman in her role as wife and mother is certainly called upon, again the way we view it, the way we experience it, to show a greater degree of self-sacrifice. So what's the significance of self-sacrifice in in the scheme of avodas Hashem? So Rav Chaim Volozhiner, the famous, the famous disciple, the leading disciple of the Vilna Gaon, so he instructed his son that of all his ksavim, of all his Torah writings, the one which he considered most important and the one that he wanted his son to see to it that was published first was the Sefer Nefesh Hachayim. So his son Rav Itzele, who succeeded him as head of the Yeshiva in Volozhin, he published it after his father's death and he wrote the hakdama, an introduction to that sefer. So in that sefer he quotes something that his father always used to tell him. And he writes as follows, כה היה דברו אלי תמיד, this is what my father constantly, constantly used to tell me, שזה כל האדם לא לעצמו נברא, a person was not created for himself, rak l'hoil l'achreini, but rather to help others, ככל אשר ימצא בכוחו לעשות, to the best of his ability, to the best of his ability. And that's what Rav Itzele writes, כה היה דברו אלי תמיד. This is what my father constantly, constantly used to tell and tell me and reinforced shezeh kol ha'adam, right, shezeh kol ha'adam, this is all there is to life, this is all there is to man, so a person is לא לעצמו נברא רק להועיל לאחריני. He's not created for himself but rather to help others. Certainly, certainly the importance of self-sacrifice in religious life, in a life of Avodas Hashem is paramount. But what makes self-sacrifice possible? When a person displays and demonstrates that aptitude for self-sacrifice, what does it bespeak? Clearly what it shows is a lack of ego. If someone can put someone else's welfare before one's own, the only way that's possible is with a total lack of ego, ego in the negative sense of the word, not in the sense of healthy self-esteem, but a total lack of ego again with all the negative pejorative associations with the term ego. And the way a person has a total lack of ego is if he or she is totally devoted to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. If a person has healthy self-esteem and yet no ego, the way that combination is made possible is through total devotion to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And in fact that's the essence of Anavah. The essence of Anavah is that a person is totally devoted to Hakadosh Baruch Hu because he recognizes that we are totally beholden to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And hence a person doesn't have his or her own agenda, but a person's agenda is as the Mishna says in Pirkei Avos, Asei retzoncha kiretzono, that we're supposed to make that what we desire is what Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants of us. That total lack of ego which is the driving force for self-sacrifice, what that comes from again is a sense of Anavah, which again according to the Tomer Devorah, according to the SMaG, is the most important middah. The SMaG was one of the Baalei Tosafos in the 13th century I think and he wrote a compilation of the 613 mitzvos. He labored at this sefer for years and finally he finished. Then he describes this is absolutely fascinating. He writes this in the hakdama and then he repeats it again in one of the mitzvos. This appears in two places in the SMaG. He says that upon finishing his sefer he had a dream. In the dream he was told here you undertook to write a sefer, to compile a list of the 613 mitzvos and עיקר חסר מן הספר, the most important mitzvah you forgot. And he was told that he forgot the pasuk to enumerate as one of the taryag mitzvos the pasuk in Parshas Eikev of ורם לבבך ושכחת את ה' אלהיך. He forgot the prohibition against being haughty, against being arrogant, the antithesis of Anavah, of humility. And that's what he was told in a dream min hashamayim that עיקר חסר מן הספר, you forgot the most important mitzvah and he goes back and he revises his sefer based on that dream and in fact the compilation, the list that we have from the SMaG of the 613 mitzvos includes this mitzvah of the prohibition against ga'avah. And then he retells the story, the story which he tells on the hakdama, then he retells the story in his listing of that mitzvah. The call, the challenge to sacrifice, to show self-sacrifice again is a way of reflecting, is a way of and simultaneously developing and cultivating what is the most important middah in one's Avodas Hashem which is Anavah, which is a sense of no ego but living solely for what Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants to advance what Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants and what Hakadosh Baruch Hu asks of us. Now another perspective on chessed, perhaps before we come to that, but the Vilna Gaon has something similar in mind. The Vilna Gaon comments on the famous Gemara in Shabbos. The Gemara in Shabbos tells the story about the prospective ger who comes to. to first Shammai and then afterwards to Hillel. And he challenges them as follows: he says למדני כל התורה כולה כשאני עומד על רגל אחת, teach me the entire Torah while I'm standing on one foot. So Shammai throws him out. Shammai throws him out, he's a joker, he's a mechutzaf, whatever he is, he throws him out. He comes to Hillel and Hillel tells him in, tells him in Aramaic paraphrase of ve'ahavta lerei'acha kamocha and says אידך פירושא זיל גמור, and the rest is all commentary, go, go and learn. So what's going on in this Gemara? The ger is really being so chutzpadik, he's making such a mockery of Torah by saying, 'Teach me all of Torah while I'm standing on one foot' and Hillel actually responds and accommodates him? What's going on? So both the Vilna Gaon and the Baal HaTanya, right, coming from ostensibly from different ends of the spectrum, say the same pshat. And that is as follows: the Mishnah says in Pirkei Avos that על שלשה דברים העולם עומד, that there are three pillars which uphold the world. There's a pillar of Torah, there's a pillar of avodah, and there's a pillar of gemilus chasadim. So the study of Torah upholds the world, avodah, either the avodah in the Beis Hamikdash or the substitute, the equivalent that we have of davening, and finally gemilus chasadim, that these are the three pillars which uphold the world. So the ger comes and says, 'I want you to simplify that formula even further for me. I want you to tell me למדני כל התורה כולה על רגל אחת, reduce that formula. Instead of telling me three pillars which uphold the world, I want you to reduce that formula even further.' So Shammai throws him out. Shammai says the Mishnah says that there are three pillars that uphold the world. You can't reduce it any further. That's as simply as it can be reduced. And yet Hillel responds, Hillel says, 'You're right, it can be reduced further. It can be reduced to the one pillar of chesed.' And that's why Hillel paraphrases ve'ahavta lerei'acha kamocha. So that's the pshat which the Vilna Gaon and the Baal HaTanya say. But the obvious question is: how can Hillel say that? How can Hillel say that? Ve'ahavta lerei'acha kamocha, chesed is very nice, chesed is very important, Yiddishkeit stresses it very much, but it's not a religion of ethics, it's not only a religion of ethics. There's bein adam lamakom also! So how can Hillel have reduced for him and telling him that chesed is the pillar? If you want to identify one pillar, not three pillars, it's chesed. So the answer is that what the Vilna Gaon and the Baal HaTanya are telling us is the same idea that we were just talking about, that in the ability that one has to show kindness to another, the ability one has to sacrifice for another also bespeaks something about one's relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And ultimately, the way one, the capacity that one has to sacrifice for another, the willingness, the willingness to engage in self-sacrifice, ultimately that doesn't only make a statement about one's ethical behavior, but it also makes a statement about one's religious behavior because ultimately, again, that lack of ego, which makes possible, which is the driving force behind the self-sacrifice, reflects a total sense of hachna'ah, of submissiveness before Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And that's what Hillel is telling him. 'You're right, it can be reduced further, because a person's bein adam lachaveiro does reflect something about, does reflect his bein adam lamakom as well.' And again all this, again, is the first perspective that we're trying to provide on the significance of the stress upon chesed within a woman's avodas Hashem. There is another perspective as well, and that perspective is reflected in a beautiful and positively remarkable Gemara in Kiddushin. The Gemara in Kiddushin quotes the Amora Rav Yosef, and the Gemara says that when he would hear his mother's footsteps, כי שמע קל כרעא דאמיה, so Rav Yosef would say, איקום מקמי שכינה דאתייא, 'Let me get up in the presence of the Shechinah which is approaching.' Right? That's what he said when he heard his mother's footsteps. So what does that mean? What that means is when a person genuinely, when a person meets that challenge of showering unstinting, self-sacrificing love upon others, especially... especially upon children, when one rises to that challenge, so one is basically acting as Hakadosh Baruch Hu's shaliach for showering his love, right? How does Hakadosh Baruch Hu, how does Hakadosh Baruch Hu shower his love upon us? Hakadosh Baruch Hu he gives us parents who nurture us and who take care of us, he gives us teachers who teach us, and he gives us friends who care for us. All these people act as as emissaries, as shluchim of Hakadosh Baruch Hu again to reflect and to to bestow upon us his love. And that's what Rav Yosef was saying, that he he saw in his mother's self-sacrifice for him, he glimpsed in that Hakadosh— a an infinitesimal amount of Hakadosh Baruch Hu's infinite love for him. And that's also again a perspective to be had on the challenge of chesed and and the emphasis upon chesed, that basically one is being called upon to act as Hakadosh Baruch Hu's representative, as Hakadosh Baruch Hu's human go-between in showering his love upon others whom Hakadosh Baruch Hu loves so much. The final element which I just wanted to very briefly comment on, I think another association which we all immediately have, something which stands out as a distinguishing feature and element of of a woman's avodas Hashem is certainly in the realm of Taharas Hamishpacha. Now obviously when when the halacha requires, obviously the abstinence has to be practiced equally by both husband and wife, yet clearly, clearly it's the woman who's the guardian of the family purity and and sanctity. She's the guardian of Taharas Hamishpacha. The Rav zichrono livracha used to make the following observation: that the Rambam Sefer Mishneh Torah is also known, he gave it this second name as Yad Hachazaka. And in calling it the Yad Hachazaka, so the Rambam intended a pun, because Mishneh Torah is subdivided into fourteen books. There are Yud-Dalet Sefarim, hence Yad Hachazaka in Mishneh Torah. Now one of the Yud-Dalet Sefarim is called Sefer Kedusha, right? The first is Sefer Mada and then comes Ahava and then comes Zmanim and then comes Nashim and then comes Sefer Kedusha. So what is what is Sefer— so Sefer Mada includes Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah, the fundamental beliefs of of Torah, and it includes Hilchos De'os, the correct dispositions a person is supposed to have, and it includes Hilchos Teshuva. And Sefer Ahava includes the halachos of Kriyas Shema and Tefila and Brachos and Birkas Hamazon and the like. And Zmanim has all the halachos of Shabbos and Eiruvin and Yom Tov. And Nashim has all the halachos of Kiddushin and Geirushin and Kesuvos and Yibum and Chalitzah. And then, and then when the Rambam gets to Sefer Kedusha, so what does Sefer Kedusha have? So Sefer Kedusha, A, begins with Hilchos Issurei Biah, prohibited marriages, prohibited relations, and then it proceeds to Hilchos Ma'achalos Assuros, forbidden foods, foods that we're not allowed to eat, and it also has Hilchos Shechita, the halachos of Shechita. So says the Rav, because the essence of kedusha is in the most mundane, right? In the area of life which is most physical, that's where the Torah says that kedusha has to be manifested. The Rav had a similar comment, this is actually I think in the Artscroll Chumash, they quote this from the Rav, that the pasuk says in Parshas Yisro: ויהי ממחרת וישב משה לשפט את העם. It was on the morrow, it was on the following day, Moshe sat to judge the people. So vayehi mimochoras, on the morrow of what? The morrow of which day? So it's the morrow of Yom Kippurim, right? It's after the third of the forty days that Moshe Rabbeinu spent in Har Sinai. So Moshe Rabbeinu came down, so we would have expected Moshe Rabbeinu came down, he he had reached the highest level of kedusha and he had finally finally attained for us forgiveness for the Eigel, so we would have thought Moshe Rabbeinu should come down and Moshe Rabbeinu should be preoccupied with the the most lofty spiritual matters. He should come down and he should say a shiur for five hours. And what does the Torah say? ויהי ממחרת וישב משה לשפט את העם. He was adjudicating disputes. He owes me fifty dollars, he doesn't owe me fifty dollars, he broke my window, he didn't break my window. Because Torah has to be implemented in mundane life. Without that, there is No kedusha. So the Rav had a similar, not exactly the same obviously, the Rav had a similar, a similar observation about which sets of halachos comprise the book of kedusha within the Rambam's Yad Hachazaka, that it's hilchos issurei biah, its hilchos machalos assuros, and its hilchos shechita because it's in the areas of issurei biah, of forbidden relations and in the area of of eating where kedusha has to be manifest. So when the halacha, when the Torah ultimately entrusts and the empowers a woman as a guardian of taharas hamishpacha, of kedusha, so basically again, kedusha is, the Rambam explains that that if you look in his minyan of taryag mitzvos, so the Rambam doesn't have a mitzvah of kedoshim tihiyu, even though that's an imperative, right? Kedoshim tihiyu, you have to be holy. So why doesn't the Rambam count it? So the Rambam in his introduction to Sefer Hamitzvos, he tells us what the guidelines are, what the rules are that he formulated in in deciding which mitzvos should be included in the list of taryag. And one of the rules is that if the mitzvah is an all-encompassing mitzvah, if it's if it's the overarching goal to which everything is geared and to which everything in Torah is oriented, so then it's not listed because the six hundred and thirteen are six hundred and thirteen distinct, separate, individual mitzvos. If you have a mitzvah to which everything is geared, to which which is the goal of everything, which is the goal of all other mitzvos, so then that's not an individual mitzvah, that's a that's a catch-all, that that encompasses everything. And the Rambam says, and for example, that's why you won't find in my list of taryag the mitzvah of being kadosh, the mitzvah of sanctifying oneself, because that's the goal of everything, that's the goal of all our religious life, that's the goal of all our spiritual life. And hence, hence it it says volumes again about the importance, again of of the fact that a woman is is given the again responsibility and privilege as being guardian of taharas hamishpacha which is the essence of kedusha. And again, it's not coincidental right that alongside when we speak about the three, when the mishna in Bameh Madlikin speaks about the three special mitzvos which are entrusted to a woman, hafrashas challah as well, that represents the other half of sefer kedusha in terms of ensuring again that the other half of the physical realm in terms of food and and drink is also sanctified. That these mitzvos are entrusted to women again also explains that and that the focus, the focus within the woman's avodas Hashem is kedusha. So I I hope that these that this understanding of how tznius ultimately is intended to reflect and instill a sense of שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד, how chesed and and sacrificing for others, be it husband, be it children, be it others, that that sacrifice, that chesed again bespeaks anavah, the most important middah. That chesed means that one is acting as the shliach of Hakadosh Baruch Hu to bestow His love on others. And finally, the area of taharas hamishpacha which means that kedusha, which is the the goal of all religious and all spiritual life, that taharas hamishpacha, that kedusha, the woman is entrusted with with that task. A gut yom tov.