Kabbalah on Female Superiority

I heard nothing in this class of creating another idol "masculinity". You are confused into thinking this is about man vs woman - not only are you mistaken to think there is a "vs", you are mistaken because the Rabbi is saying how the feminine is superior to the masculine. Jewish Law *obligates* a man in service. The woman has choice. Rabbi Akiva's daughters laid tefillin!. But what I gathered from this class, is that men are obligated because obligation suggests a weakness of character. A woman is not obligated because she has a stronger character.

When we start giving feminine traits equal validity to masculine traits, we see that a man contributes to creation but a tiny speck, and a woman not only contributes a speck, it is feminine mechanics that gestate, nurture and nourish those combined specks to fruition. So therefore, a woman negates herself, when she only exercises the weaker masculine traits.

a woman lights candles on a certain time. we are in just as much flux - e.g our monthly cycle is an internal time flux. i like the rabbis ideas but it needs some development and its too generalized. women and men contain both masculine and feminine energies. some men are more spiritual than women and vis versa. some women want to b rabbis and study and they should be allowed to do so. and they will. i feel like the Rabbi has taken very big concepts and tried ( unsuccessfully) to apply this to the gender issues, which will not go away by trying to gloss over them throwing in big kabbalistic concepts. So while I feel that the Rabbi has made many interesting comments and I definitely learned a lot from listening to this talk I do not think the parallels he draws to men and women always apply.

I quote "anonymous": 10/08
"Women are not perfection. Women are not more spiritual than men. This is just a diplomatic way of keeping us subservient. Saying women are already perfect is rationalization to keep us out of Torah and Service. Such exclusion steals our ability to perfect ourselves."
.......hmm.... I think you're right. I've gone over this issue so many times, and I'm just not "feelin' the love".

Women are not perfection. Women are not more spiritual than men. This is just a diplomatic way of keeping us subservient. Saying women are already perfect is rationalization to keep us out of Torah and Service. Such exclusion steals our ability to perfect ourselves. Males please don't make another idol -- masculinity! Let's not worship gender and give women an equal chance at service to Hashem.

Very enlighting and informative.

Very informative. How can we get this in writing for continued study.