http://arabbiwithoutacause.blogspot.com/2014/02/women-and-tefillin-online-saga.html
http://arabbiwithoutacause.blogspot.com/2016/01/chiddush-about-women-and-tefillin.html
Of course the real tefillin scandal is this - how lost tefillin ended up in Alabama: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/mitzvah-rabbi-finds-returns-pairs-tefillin-article-1.1854447
Parshat Tetzaveh
by Rabbi Avi Billet
This week we will devote our attention to two of the many Midrashic passages on our parsha. After describing the clothes of the Kohanim , the Torah tells us, "V'zeh Hadavar – and this is what you should do for them, to sanctify them to be kohanim for Me," bring certain requisite animals as sacrifices. (29:1)
The Midrash Rabba (38:2) quotes a verse in Habbakuk (1:12) - "Are you not from everlasting (mikedem), O Lord, my God, my Holy One? We shall not die…" In other words – You, God, are immortal – why aren't humans? The Midrash suggests that until Adam ate from the forbidden tree he was supposed to be immortal. Death was brought to the world, however, once he did what he was commanded to not-do.
The argument the Midrash advances is, "God, if you want us to be holy and sanctified and separate, then remove death from among us – as You said in Habakkuk." Give us a chance! Life is too short! The answer is given in the same verse "Lamishpat samto" – they have been ordained for judgment – in other words, they will nonetheless die. (Interestingly, the word "samto" can be read "she'metoo" – that they die.) Do your best with your limited time. But perhaps learn from the example of Adam – you have mitzvot you are given and mitzvot you are not given (or ones you are told "not" to do). Embrace your role.
On the same verse from the parsha (29:1), the Midrash (38:8) asks, "With what merit was Aharon able to enter the Holy of Holies?... the merit of circumcision. It says "B'zot" Aharon enters (Vayikra 16:3), and it says "Zot" my covenant (Bereshit 17:10). And as Malachi (2:5) notes "My covenant was with him, of life and peace." (The Midrash has another interpretation that the word "Zeh" (this) has a numerical value of 12, and perhaps he carried the merit of the 12 tribes with him.)
Most women I know are quite pleased that bris milah is something relegated to males only (except for a female Reform rabbi I once conversed with – she felt the women were getting the raw end of the deal on that one. I don't think she understood that all Jews are part of the Covenant. It's just that the males bear the mark of the Covenant in their flesh). With this in mind, however, the notion of the merit of circumcision protecting Aharon could certainly stand as one of the reasons why a woman could never serve as Kohen Gadol.
It should be noted that though most Jewish males are, in fact, circumcised, there are many other barriers preventing us (I include myself) from ever being a High Priest – such as not being a kohen. We are fine with this (as was the convert in Shabbat 31a who learned he could not be the Kohen Gadol.)
A lot of time and energy has been expended in the wake of the "tefillin scandal" involving a couple of Orthodox Jewish High Schools in New York City. One of the rabbis involved with the issue delivered a sermon which was disseminated on the internet entitled, "Much Ado About Something."
I respectfully disagree with the message conveyed by the title, simply because I don't see Orthodox girls banging down doors to wear tefillin.
Rabbi Marc Angel wrote about this issue in his weekly blog (jewishideas.org) this week, stating, "If for whatever reasons halakha has exempted women from the commandment of tefillin, should women feel that their spirituality is thereby diminished?... Prayer is an inner spiritual experience, dependent on one’s spiritual frame of mind. Wearing tefillin does not make one pray better; not wearing tefillin does not prevent one from meaningful prayer."
Before concluding with an important reminder to the community about prayers and spirituality in general, Rabbi Angel posed this reflection: The question might be reframed from "Why shouldn’t females also be allowed to don tefillin?" to "why should females feel the need to don tefillin during prayer services if they are exempt from the mitzvah of tefillin?"
Of course the argument can be made that women are exempt from most "mitzvot she'hazman gerama" – time-bound commandments (other than Shabbos, eating Matzah on Pesach and Hakhel – gathering once every seven years in Jerusalem), but they nonetheless participate in Shofar, Sukkah, Lulav, counting Omer and saying Shema twice daily.
It is worthy to note that Maimonides claims (Laws of Tzitzis 3:9) that for all of these mitzvot, women should not say the blessing (when there is one) – which would stand to indicate that while the mitzvah performances are at best optional, they are not commanded (Hagahot Maimaniyot takes Rabbenu Tam to task for suggesting women could say the blessings when participating in these mitzvot).
And this is really the crux of the issue. Is tefillin a mitzvah that women accepted upon themselves through the millennia? It seems the answer is "No." It is very different from Shofar and Sukkah and Lulav which are basically "one-time" events on holidays that boil down to "you either show up or you miss it." They blow Shofar in shul anyway. The family is eating a meal in a sukkah anyway. So why not?
Sefirat Ha'Omer is hit or miss. I would bet that most women who do not go to shul have a smaller chance of counting the full 49 days, without missing one, each year.
Along similar lines to sefirah – except that it is all year – tefillin, the way the mitzvah is fulfilled today (in shul, daily) is a very different kind of commitment that women never accepted. So while all of the others are mitzvot in which women participate, they are different kinds of mitzvot. And their obligation, acceptance and responsibility is not one women need to bear except that it is convenient to do so in the context of what the community is doing anyway. Stand and hear shofar. Sit and eat in the sukkah.
Not to bring the following argument to its full obvious conclusion (which kind of relates to the Midrash quoted at the outset – I am not suggesting a death punishment for anyone!), but Nadav and Avihu tried to fulfill a mitzvah they weren't supposed to fulfill. When the dust settled, their father didn't cry out, "What, God? Are you denying my children the chance to fulfill a mitzvah?" Aharon was silent. Because he knew that they had brought "a strange fire, that they had not been commanded to bring." (Vayikra 10:1)
We should all be blessed to become experts at the mitzvot relegated to us before we expand our horizons into the "uncommanded" realm. Most people never become experts at their own responsibilities. We all have the responsibility to put our own houses in order before we venture into houses that were not assigned to us.
* by "commanded" and "uncommanded" I mean that there are mitzvot from which women are exempt, even though the commandments were given to all of the Jewish People. In some cases the tradition was that women fulfilled them anyway. However, particularly with tallis and tefillin, these practices were not taken on by women - with very few exceptions in thousands of years (only one mentioned in the Talmud) - until the Conservative movement introduced Tefillin to women in the 20th century.
There are a number of circumstances in which men are exempted from performing certain mitzvot as well:
ספר אבודרהם ברכת המצות ומשפטיהם
ויש שהן פטורין לעולם בכל המצות כגון חרש שוטה וקטן (מכילתא תשא) ויש שהן פטורין לפי שעה כגון החולה והעוסק במצות והסומא. החולה שאינו יכול לכוון את דעתו פטור מן המצות הצריכות כונה. ואם הכביד עליו חוליו לפי כובד חוליו יהיה פטורו. ותנן (סוכה כה) חולין ומשמשיהן פטורין מן הסוכה. והעוסק במצוה פטור מן המצוה ותנן (ברכות טו, ב) חתן פטור מק"ש בלילה הראשון ותניא (סוכה כו', א) ר' יעקב אומר כותבי ספרים תפילין ומזוזות ותגריהן ותגרי תגריהן וכל העוסקים במלאכת שמים לאתויי מוכרי תכלת פטורין מק"ש ומן התפלה ומן התפילין ומכל מצות האמורות בתורה וכן מי שמתו מוטל לפניו והשומר את המת והסומא תניא בבבא קמא בפרק החובל (פז, א) ר' יהודה אומר סומא אין לו בושה וכן היה ר' יהודה פטרו מכל מצות שבתורה.
READ MORE ABOUT THE TEFILLIN SAGA (including links to the articles referred to above) HERE
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