Who Has Made Me According to His Will – Rabbi Tau’s Remarks on Women

The rabbi’s opening post

Who Has Made Me According to His Will – Rabbi Tau’s Remarks on Women

Sent on 1/8/2012

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Who Has Made Me According to His Will – Rabbi Tau’s Remarks on Women

In the booklet called ‘Who Has Made Me According to His Will,’ which Rabbi Tau published, he argues (I have not seen it myself; I am relying on what was published) that a woman’s place is in the home, and that pushing her toward education and a career is destructive to society, to the family, and to her as well. He further argues that women are constituted more by emotion and less by intellect. These are common and self-evident notions in the Haredi world, but outside it they are perceived as complete anachronisms.

Not directly related to this, in a parallel thread I wrote, based on my impression (not an entirely well-founded one), the following generalization: women who choose to leave a life of religious commitment (whether out of compulsion or by choice) do so for different reasons than men. Men are more occupied with theoretical and philosophical questions (not all of them there either, of course), whereas women decide this more intuitively or emotionally. I also suggested reasons for this there, but this is not the place to elaborate.

These matters should be discussed on several levels:

A. Regarding the harms (the problem of tendentious correlations). Why does Rabbi Tau think that this is destructive to her, to society, and to the family, while his opponents think it is wonderful in all these respects? This indicates an unwillingness to think in a complex way, one that is prepared to see several different dimensions of the issue and to formulate a position by weighing them. After all, one does not necessarily depend on the other. Must every aspect of a problem point in the same direction? Is it not possible that this really does harm the family, but not society, or society but not the family? These remarks apply to Rabbi Tau and to his opponents alike (we did say equality, didn’t we?).

B. Regarding women’s character and abilities. Is Rabbi Tau entirely wrong about women’s character? Is there nothing at all in what he says? Clearly this is only a generalization, and generalizations have limits and exceptions. But as a generalization, is it wholly untrue? My remarks above indicate that there is something to this generalization (unless I too was mistaken there. I am waiting for Lomedet’s response).

C. On one point I completely disagree with him. Even if his remarks are a correct generalization, I see no justification for using them to dictate a life direction to a particular woman (if indeed he intends to dictate rather than recommend; I have not read it). There may be a woman for whom this is suitable, and there may be a woman for whom it is not suitable but who nevertheless wants to go in such a direction. On the other hand, the prescription in the opposite direction as well, which pushes all women toward careers and ‘equality’ in the simple sense, and holds that they should be allowed into every sphere even if they are not entirely suited to it (as is customary in our circles), can be no less harmful.

D. In the background of these remarks there is also the question of the principled attitude toward the words of the Sages: whether we must necessarily take their statements (about women and in general) at face value even in our own time. But that is another debate, in which I also do not agree with Rabbi Tau’s approach (if I understand it correctly).

To sum up, both polar sides in this debate are problematic. In a more balanced and less strident discourse, it would have been possible to express a more complex position as well: he is right as a statistical generalization (so it seems to me; it is worth examining), and yet still say that it is wrong, on the basis of this generalization, to dictate a priori to every woman (and likewise every man) a direction in life, neither toward a career nor toward the home.

Just as, even if it were true to say that black people have, on average, lower intelligence (I do not know; this is only an example), that still would not mean that one should treat a particular black person as someone less intelligent (not admit him to a university, or recommend that he devote himself to housework for the sake of the wholeness of the nation, the family, the people, and the land).

Source (the ‘Stop Here, Think’ forum): http://www.bhol.co.il/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=2970621&forum_id=1364