To the Master of Darkness and Light — greetings,

Dancing on one foot is problematic, both because it insults the other foot, and because that is the way of the Hasidic women, and you have already taught us to keep our distance from the ways of pietists and pietistic women.

However, in my humble opinion there is a problem with drawing out “Amen” too much, because it lengthens the prayer and burdens the captive audience,

and therefore it seems to me that the best thing is to say: “AmeM.N,” by which we make clear that our intention is both men and women.

With blessings, AmeM.N — snatcher of Apache ululations

With Heaven’s help, 23 Tevet 5781

But perhaps there is no difference? Just as we understand that jealousy and competition have no place between the right foot and the left foot, since both are inseparable limbs of a single organism.

So too there is no room for jealousy and competition between man and woman, for both together are meant to function as a unified organism, and only through the joining of the yod in “man” and the heh in “woman” is the divine name made complete; and specifically the difference between father and mother is what makes balanced education of their children possible.

And as Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik explained in “Man and His House — Six Essays on the Family,” based on the words of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi in the Mekhilta, that the father and mother are equal in the honor and reverence due them, for the father “teaches him Torah,” strengthening in the education of the son or daughter the dimension of accepting obligation, while the mother “coaxes him with words,” shaping in her education the dimension of love and desire.

With blessings, Yaron Fish"l Plankton

One may say that the two aspects of “Amen” — “the matter is true” and “would that it be so” — parallel the difference between man and woman as described by Rabbi Soloveitchik: the man is entrusted with the fixed and stable dimension, while the woman is entrusted with desire and aspiration toward a better future. The man is good at seeing what exists “in actuality,” while the woman “understands one thing from another” and also perceives what exists “in potential.”