Monday, July 13, 2009

Why Parshas Pinchas Always Makes me Think of Women Tefilla Groups

Here's an excerpt from mini-essay that appears in the Gutnik translation under the title "The Motives of a Critic":

The tribes appeared to have convincing proof that Pinchas' motives were not pure (see Rashi) but they were mistaken. This teaches us an important lesson whenever [sic] we are tempted to find fault with another person's good deeds and questions their motives: One can never know another's true intentions.

Can you read these words without wanting to shove them down the throat of every anti-WTG Rabbi you've ever met? When a woman wants to daven with other women, every Rabbi to the right of Avi Weiss screams feminism, or makes insulting guesses about her ulterior motives. This doesn't happen to men. Our motives aren't ever subjected to the same degree of scrutiny. When a man takes on something new, no one questions his intentions. No one says, "Hey I bet he's only doing that to secure a better match for his daughter, or to make people forget about the target vomiting last year during Hakafot."

But let a women try to improve herself, and she goes right under the microscope.

Why the double standard?

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