Q&A: Mixed Society
Mixed Society
Question
I saw that the Rabbi supports a mixed society.
A few questions on the matter:
1) If we were to neutralize the benefit that comes from such a society (preparation for life, which is mixed, and the like), would the Rabbi still support such a society?
2) Where does the Rabbi’s assessment come from that a mixed society in childhood helps with coping later in life? Does the Rabbi have data on this, or an impression from people he knows? Or is this only a logical assumption? Because if it is an assumption, there is an opposite assumption: that precisely maintaining separation at a young age causes a person to create automatic boundaries in the future (I know several such people), and so there is actually less danger. And if so, why is it that in school and the like it is agreed by everyone (or almost everyone) that it should be absolute?
3) The Rabbi wrote in one of the exchanges here that one must decide between two possibilities: a mixed society or not, and that there is no place for intermediate definitions. I don’t understand how the Rabbi exempts us from thinking about the details with a sentence like that. After all, this is about a place where they would listen to us, or even regarding the individual person: is it proper to go to a movie together with girls, to get together on Friday night at girls’ homes, to sit with them around a bonfire on Lag BaOmer, and to eat pizza with them?
Would the Rabbi himself act this way? / Instruct his sons to act this way?
Thanks in advance.
Answer
Hello Ronen.
First, you correctly divided this into two different questions: what is the ideal form of society, and how should one act today in our given situation.
At least nowadays, it seems to me that the discussion is theoretical. We live in a mixed society. Ignoring that is ignoring reality. The question is how far to take it. There is room to set limits. For example, joint combat military service does not seem advisable to me. Still, my claim is that one first needs to make a strategic decision whether to accept the fact that society is mixed, and then think about where and how to set limits, or not. That is what I was talking about, not that there are no shades in between. Obviously there are things we would not do together (shared showers and the like). There is no point in that kind of formalistic interpretation.
In general, my impression is that even in an ideal world it is better for society to be basically mixed. True, this has disadvantages, but it seems to me that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. This is of course an impression and not the result of research, just as nobody else formed his position on this issue on the basis of systematic research.
There are arguments and counterarguments for everything, and each person forms his view in his own way. A mixed society has advantages not only as preparation for life, but also in an essential and principled sense. Each of the sexes contributes something to society that would be lost if it were single-sex. Beyond that, there is also the more proper preparation for life (in my opinion), and of course equal social standing between the sexes.
In school too, in my opinion, it is preferable that it be separate, for several reasons: different educational and learning tendencies among boys and girls; the gender identity of the educator; and the fact that the mixture distracts from study. Aside from that, there is nothing in school that is essentially different from any other framework.
And finally, when my sons/daughters decide to take instructions from me, I will think about what to instruct them. In the meantime, this is a law for the messianic era.