254. Feminine Future

Mayim, Thank you. I agree. Thanks so much for replying. I am so embarrassed, I posted this, somehow on the wrong topic.

Thank you again

One of the later entries from Rabbi Freeman says that a good wife is a woman who makes her husband want the right things.

Debra. Now we know. Now, when return to Eden, we will appreciate the beauty of Eden & never destroy it with our own choices again. Thank you for your environmental consciousness.

Some take it literally, some metaphorically. I keep a lot of the laws regarding the Shabbos & holidays & have found lots of wonderful comfort, inspiration & guidance through Chabad & similar organizations. I sift authors like Adin Steinsaltz, Akiva Tatz & Noson Gurary. Sift. Hold onto what makes sense & incorporate it into your life. To me Shabbos is a holy & profound experience which purifies my soul & reminds me that the world was perfectly peaceful & will be perfectly peaceful again. I like the mystical elements behind Shabbos: Shabbos is telling us that the world was perfect Utopian Bliss & it will be perfect utopian bliss again. But u wouldn't catch me eating at a Chabad table because I'm a strict vegetarian & killing animals is sacrelige to me, & nothing in the world would entice me to bring a child into this world, & I know perfectly well how to pay my own way & have done so for a long time. Sift. Use your own brain & heart. You need to do what you know is right in your core.

Comment to Matty... do you actually know any Chabad women?

I don't mean to be crude, but I am yet to see a case in which the wife did not "wear the pants in the family." Pardon the pun (siince they wear only skirts).

And the women have as many children as they feel they can handle.

And most of them have a career of some kind. Often they bring home more money than the men.

Alas, the place of discrimination is not the home. The discrimination/oppression of women is always when it comes to shul, or ritual -- even in the home. It is real, it is kind of cruel, it is depressing. Religion is when it's all about the men, and as if the women were not fully Jewish.

But even this can and will change the minute the women decide that they want it to be different.

Mayim,
it would be nice if we could say that we should take this metaphorically, but the fact is that the lifestyle promoted by ultra-orthodoxy, including chabad, is that the woman has as many children as possible, (while many women may be happy with this, and being a mother is certainly wonderful, the fact is that it will obviously limit her ability to be anything but a mother), the men control both halacha and much of the culture, and these statements about gender roles seem to be taken pretty literally! Women are not, by and large, leaders in the orthodox world. They are followers. For some this may be good, but it certainly does 'lock each sex into a stereotype,' and, as Chaim implies, I think we need to allow women more into the decision-making role.

Yes, Chaim, each person does what he or she does best. Locking each sex into a stereotype does hamper our divine missions, because the lines are not clearly divided on sex. There are individual men who make wonderful homemakers and are meant to be homemakers, and there are individual women who make wonderful political leaders and are meant to be political leaders. But the Rebbe's comment regarding men and women is to be taken metaphorically, as a lesson for life, to be applied to many situations in a metaphoric way, not literally. Often literal translations cause damage and confusion, while metaphoric explainations illuminate reality and lead us towards true comprehension and redemption.

Tomorrow never comes.
NOW is all there is.

Saying men do this & women do that limits both. Each person does what she or he does well. Locking men and women into rigid roles prevents either from reaching his/her divine potential.

Chasidus is not an equal opportunity system. Chasidus sees women existing as helpers (ezer knegdo) so men can do their thing. If men could manage without any women, that would be, from the point of view of Chasidus, an improvement.

Actually, the word "ezer" in the TaNaKh is not "helper" but HELP.
"O HaShem, Thou hast ever been our HELP."

SO women are to be identified with G-d.
Men need Woman--not as helpers to men's own ideas, but as Divine creatrix.
Women's creativity, insight, & input into halachah are desperately needed.
Stop allowing men to arbitrarily say what women "ARE".
Instead, women must decide to be what Gd made them.
Each woman must be what SHE IS.

Shalom,
The future, etc. is in the hands of both men and women. It's actually in our hands, only. We can change or may not have a future because of our good or bad deeds.

Metaphorically, in the future the man will circle his wife at their marriage because the woman's spiritual aspirations will be the focus of the marriage, not the man's money. That is the role of a true teacher: Look upon the student and see what the student can become with proper guidance, effort, exertion. And that is what we were told in the Tenth Commandment. We were told that we can reach a point where we no longer desire what belonged to others. And not only were we told that we could become so pure that we no longer desired what belonged to others, but we were told that, for the sake of our own peace, we had better choose to purify ourselves so completely that we no longer desired what belonged to others.