Rabbi Eli Mansour "Teaching Girls Mishna"

[David Shasha]

Teaching Girls Mishna

By: Rabbi Eli Mansour          

 

Here is a short gem from the Ashkenazified Syrian Rabbi Eli Mansour that reflects the profoundly anti-Sephardi ethos of our community today.

 

It is fascinating to see the sleight of hand at the beginning of the article which glides effortlessly from Maimonides to Moshe Feinstein.  I will not get into the technical details on issues related to women’s Torah education in the context of many centuries of rabbinical discussion, but it must be said that there are no absolute precedents as Rabbi Mansour in his Ultra-Orthodox Daas Torah mentality seems to think.  New conceptions develop over time as situations evolve. 

 

His equivocation in the matter shows his profound confusion over how Sephardim and Ashkenazim have dealt with such issues.  There is absolutely no clarity in his final ruling.  Can women study Mishna or not?  Rabbi Mansour presents a twisted PILPUL: they can and they cannot.  Who knows what this actually means?

 

A critical resource for understanding the traditional Sephardic position on women’s Torah education can be found in the documents of the Cairo Geniza.  S.D. Goitein has presented these resources in volume 2 (pp. 183-185) of his essential study A Mediterranean Society in the section entitled “Education of Girls and Women Teachers” where he recounts a wealth of information on the matter. 

 

He discusses there the story of a woman and her brother who were in charge of a Yeshiva in Egypt.  The story was discussed in a responsum from Maimonides who, by and large, was dismissive of women’s Torah education, prompting Goitein to note that the phenomenon must have been a common one given the cavalier manner in which Maimonides mentions it.  The responsum can be found in the Blau edition I:50-52 as presented in Goitein’s footnote.

 

Rabbi Mansour also fails to note an important text by Rabbi Yom Tob Algazi which discusses the larger issue of women’s performance of the time-bound commandments (misvot she-ha-zeman gerama):

 

http://jewschool.com/2009/11/22/19032/strength-and-dignity-are-her-clothing/

 

Rabbi Algazi’s position provides the framework in which to understand the profound differences between Ashkenazi and Sephardi rabbis when it comes to dealing with the issues raised by the contemporary Feminist movement.  By studiously avoiding the complexity of the Sephardic rabbinical heritage as Rabbi Mansour does, the bigger picture is distorted and the legal conclusion is compromised in a way that reflects poorly on our community.  The outside world then wrongly identifies the Sephardic community as being less progressive on Feminist issues than the Ashkenazi community.

 

Rabbi Mansour is working with a faulty methodology based on a Haredi paradigm that manipulates Sephardic sources in PILPUL fashion to arrive at incorrect conclusions.  The general problem is that he refuses to look at the Sephardic rabbinical material that undermines his point of view and is dependent on Ashkenazi Haredi views in order to set out a rabbinical fundamentalism meant to uphold deeply-held reactionary values alien to our community.  He is in the end a rebel against the Sephardic tradition and is deeply ignorant of our religious heritage, preferring instead to adopt Ashkenazi stringencies based on the Daas Torah methodology.

 

Note: When I sent the first draft of these comments out to a number of SHU readers for review, I received a very illuminating response to Rabbi Mansour’s discussion of the Ben Ish Hai, Rabbi Yosef Hayyim of Baghdad.

 

The reader provided the following reference to the Hebrew text being discussed by Rabbi Mansour and a number of corrections that I have printed in bold type:

 

http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=41237&st=&pgnum=36  

 

1. It was the Ben Ish Hai's grandmother, not his mother.

 

2. He says that she used to study ("lilmod") mishnayot.  He does not say read ("likro").

 

3. More importantly, note the context of the discussion.  The story of his grandmother is cited as an example of common practice.  He is discussing whether women should recite Tikkun Hasot [the nightly vigil based on Kabbalistic practice].  For technical reasons he feels that they should not but those technical reasons do not apply to Torah she-be-‘al Peh (Not just Mishnayot - all Torah she-be-‘al Peh!).  He then cites common practice of the righteous women in his time who awake before dawn not to say Tikkun Hasot but rather to study other things.  It is in that context that he cites his grandmother learning Mishnayot.  The story is a proof text for choosing one set of studies over the "superficial" recitation of Tikkun Hasot.

 

As always, it is always worthwhile to read such articles about Sephardic rabbis very carefully because the Ashkenazified Sephardim do like to take liberties with the texts.  It is something we have seen in the case of Rabbi David Sutton’s ArtScroll book Aleppo, City of Scholars:

 

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/davidshasha/NON7CA5cAoE/t1M4QkRiLCoJ

 

Sadly, this is what Sephardic Judaism has degenerated into as we continue to adopt the ways of the Ashkenazim and relinquish our noble heritage.

DS

 

Recently, a group of girls wanted to form a study group, and they requested that they be taught Mishnayot, giving rise to the question regarding the permissibility of teaching Mishna to girls. 

The Rambam, in Hilchot Talmud Torah (1:13), sets certain restrictions on what areas of Torah may be taught to girls and women, and Rav Moshe Feinstein (Russia-New York, 1895-1986), in his Iggerot Moshe (Y.DA. 3:87), maintains that Mishna is included in the category of restricted material. Rav Moshe permitted Bet Yaakov school systems to teach their students the Mishnayot of Pirkeh Abot, which deal with broader religious values and proper behavior, but not other Mishnayot. 

Interestingly enough, the Ben Ish Hai (Rav Yosef Haim of Baghdad, 1833-1909), in his work Od Yosef Hai (Parashat Vayishlah), relates that while his father recited Tikkun Hasot at night, his mother would learn eighteen chapters of Mishna. It is hard to imagine that the Ben Ish Hai’s father – who was a towering Torah scholar and Sadik – would have allowed his wife to study Mishna if he thought this was forbidden. It seems likely that the Ben Ish Hai’s mother simply read the Mishnayot, without studying them in depth, and thus this account can easily be reconciled with Rav Moshe Feinstein’s ruling. Accordingly, Rabbi Shayo, in his Mehkereh Eretz (4:22), rules that girls and women may superficially read Mishna, but should not engage in the in-depth study of Mishna. 

Summary: Girls and women may superficially read Mishna, but should not study it in depth. 

 

From Daily Halacha, August 10, 2014