New Article: Women Wearing Sisit: Rabbi Eli Mansour is at it Again!
David Shasha
Women Wearing Sisit: Rabbi Eli Mansour is at it Again!
A couple of years ago I presented a discussion of the Syrian-Haredi Rabbi Eli Mansour and his harshly negative view of teaching girls Mishna:
In my comments to his post I presented a brief history of Sephardim and Feminism.
Rabbi Mansour has now provided us with his position on women wearing the ritual fringes known in Hebrew as Sisit.
Here is the complete post:
The Shulhan Aruch in
Siman 17:2 rules that women are exempt from the Misva of Sisit. Since there is
no Misva to wear Sisit at night, it is considered "Misvat Aseh SheHazman
Gerama" (a time bound positive commandment," from which women are
exempt. Nevertheless, Maran states that a woman may wear a Tallit if she wants,
but should not say a Beracha, as is the Sepharadic tradition. The Rama adds
that today it is considered arrogance for any woman to wear a Sisit. The Aruch
Ha’shulhan (Rav Yechiel Michel Epstein of Nevarduk, 1829-1908) explains the
reason why wearing Sisit is more arrogant than performing other Misvot from
which a woman is also exempt. He says that if a woman sits in a Sukkah or
shakes a Lulav, there is no issue because a man is categorically obligated in
those Misvot. However, regarding Sisit, even a man is only obligated if he has
a four-cornered garment. Therefore, for a woman to go out of her way to get a
four-cornered garment in order to perform the Misva is arrogant.
Moreover, according to the Targum Yonatan, a woman wearing a Tallit constitutes
a violation of the prohibition for a woman to wear men's clothing. The most
severe problem with a woman wearing a Tallit is because in contemporary society
it is a symbol which promotes practices and values originating in the Reform
and Conservative movements, which are antithetical to the Torah. We must do
everything in our power to avoid affiliation with them in order to clearly
delineate authentic Judaism. It goes without saying that according to Rabbenu
HaAri (Rav Yishak Luria of Safed, 1534-1572), there is no spiritual value in a
woman wearing a Tallit. In light of all this, the consensus of the Poskim,
including Hacham Ovadia is that a women should refrain from wearing Sisit.
SUMMARY
A woman should refrain from wearing Sisit.
It is of course worthwhile to note the complex PILPUL that Mansour spins which combines and confuses the Ashkenazi and Sephardi positions.
Mansour knows that although women are exempt from performing the Time-Bound commandments, that in the Sephardic tradition they are not prohibited from performing them. This is a tradition that is found in Maimonides and the major Sephardi legal decisors.
The matter only becomes controversial when the Ashkenazi Orthodox rabbis take over the Sephardic community, as Mansour clearly indicates:
The Rama adds that
today it is considered arrogance for any woman to wear a Sisit. The Aruch
Ha’shulhan (Rav Yechiel Michel Epstein of Nevarduk, 1829-1908) explains the
reason why wearing Sisit is more arrogant than performing other Misvot from
which a woman is also exempt. He says that if a woman sits in a Sukkah or
shakes a Lulav, there is no issue because a man is categorically obligated in
those Misvot. However, regarding Sisit, even a man is only obligated if he has
a four-cornered garment. Therefore, for a woman to go out of her way to get a
four-cornered garment in order to perform the Misva is arrogant.
Mansour first presents the classic position of Rabbi Joseph Qaro in the Shulhan ‘Arukh, which permits women to wear Sisit. But he then goes straight to his Ashkenazi mentors to get the necessary condemnation of the practice. The ruling of Maimonides, of course, is not presented, nor is there any mention of the innovative ruling of the Aleppan Rabbi Yom Tob Algazi which I discuss in my post on the teaching of Mishna to girls.
Mansour goes well beyond prohibiting the wearing of Sisit by women and approvingly cites the Targum Yonatan that women wearing Sisit violates the prohibition of women wearing men’s clothing.
He then calls the practice “arrogance”!
But the real kicker comes in the following portion of his argument:
The most severe problem with a woman wearing a Tallit is because in contemporary society it is a symbol which promotes practices and values originating in the Reform and Conservative movements, which are antithetical to the Torah. We must do everything in our power to avoid affiliation with them in order to clearly delineate authentic Judaism.
He presents no evidence that women in the Sephardic tradition did not wear Sisit, and has determined, as he did in the case of riding a bike on Shabbat, that we must be acutely aware of and sensitive to the practices of the various Ashkenazi Jewish denominations.
In the case of bike-riding on Shabbat Mansour refused to accept the ruling of the Ben Ish Hai, Rabbi Yosef Hayyim of Baghdad, because the practice is prohibited by Ashkenazi authorities who now control the Orthodox Jewish world. We must not ride bikes on Shabbat, Mansour asserts, because it would be an affront to the Ashkenazi Haredim who now rule over us.
In the case of women wearing Sisit we must also defer to the Ashkenazim, as the practice is considered to be an innovation of the Conservative and Reform movements.
It is also worthwhile to note that in his summation he uses the words “should refrain” rather than “must not wear.”
In other words, his final ruling does not fully prohibit the practice but makes a recommendation against it. After all is said and done, he does not present a definitively absolute position in the matter, and does not tell us what happens if a woman does wear Sisit. There is no final legal determination presented in the discussion.
Rabbi Mansour thus ignores the actual legal tradition of the Sephardic rabbis, but more than this he demands Sephardim cower before the absolute power and authority of the Ashkenazim.
We have seen the way that many self-hating Sephardim have capitulated to the values of Modern Orthodox Ashkenazi tradition as formulated in the Yeshiva University/Soloveitchik system.
In the case of Mansour and his Syrian Haredim we have an analogous situation that sees Lakewood and Bnei Brak as their masters. These Sephardic Haredim do not care one whit about the integrity of our religious heritage as they manipulate it in order to make it conform to the Lithuanian Yeshiva tradition.
David Shasha