On a more serious note, I want to make one other point about this whole (in)equality argument. Taken in context, halacha does not say much more about women than the fact that they are bound by different mitzvah obligations than men. Not content with a minimalist approach that says “ain lecha bo elah chidusho”, some use this as an excuse to justify all kinds of gender stereotypes. An example is this paragraph from Heshelis’ article:
The sin changed the nature of most women from that of an abstract type to that of a concrete type. Concrete types are not intellectuals, nor are they interested in metaphysical contemplation. They understand things on a more external level. Concrete types have capabilities and interests in concrete physically related activities, such as cooking, sewing, carpentry, gardening, organizing the physical world, etc. Abstract types, although they may also do well in concrete activities, possess an added dimension of understanding of, and interest in, abstract ideas: they understand underlying principles behind the ideas, are often interested in philosophy, the metaphysical, and the hidden working of the human psyche. Unlike concrete types, who are interested only in the practical application of knowledge, abstract types want knowledge for its own sake.Women’s role: cooking and sewing. Men’s role: philosophy and abstract ideas. To really get the full flavor of this approach try reading Catherine Beecher’s (the sister of Harriet Beecher of Uncle Tom's Cabin fame) The American Woman’s Home (not the emphasis on "woman’s" home- sorry men, but you are just guests in your castle). “To man is appointed the out-door labor – to till the earth, work the mines, toil in the foundaries, traverse the oceans, transport merchandise…” etc. On the other hand, to women belong, “the many difficult and sacred duties of the family state”. The only problem is you may not find the book in print: these home economics tracts from the 1800s don’t quite sell as well as they used to. I don’t know if Heshelis read John Stuart Mill’s On the Subjugation of Women, but it’s been close to 150 years since he noted, “As I have already said more than once, I consider it presumption in anyone to pretend to decide what women are or are not, can or cannot be, by natural constitution.” Apparently, the lesson still has not seeped in.
Since these type easy bifurcations like “men are abstract, women are concrete” are far more popular and easier to sell than the complex idea that “men are people, women are too”, I have in mind to write the definitive guide to frum gender relationships: The Lomdishe Guide to Marriage: Men are Gavras, Women are Cheftzas. You heard about it here first!
Taken in context, halacha does not say any more about women than the fact that they are bound by different mitzvah obligations than men.
ReplyDeleteBut there are explict reasons in Chazal for those Halachos. Some of the different obligations are just the result of a Gezeiros HaKasuv, but some are policy/legal arguments predicated on a specific understanding of women's nature. Chazal assumes women would rather live with anyone than live alone. Rebbi Eliezur also believed that anyone who teaches his daughter Torah it is as though he teaches her frivolity. There are other Halachos that depend on a certain world-view as well.
So there clearly was a world-view that underpinned those Halachos. It is insufficient to just pretend they are legal presumptions without a real background.
You are right. In fact, as I commented on Dixie Yid, one of the problems of Heshelis' approach is that she assumes this entire worldview will change and is in the process of changing in our times. So what happens to halacha? If tav l'meisav is no longer true, halacha is juist formal rules with no real meaning. I don't like that conclusion.
ReplyDeleteTwo points: 1) On your example: Chazal recognized that "kol hamelameid es bito torah k'ilu melamda tifuls" is a generalization with exceptions. The heter for women to learn gemara was not invented in the modern era - we have no power to be mechadesh. All people like RYBS are doing is employing old heteirim on a broader scale. 2) I still think there is room to say 'ain lecha bo elah chidusho'. There is a very big jump from the narrow point of tav l'meisav to the broad sweeping generalizations of women being concerete thinkers while men or not, etc.
Isn't it interesting that RYBS was took a strong stand in offering high level gemara to women despite the tiflus halacha, but took an equally strong stand that tav l'meisav is an eternal law?
The 19th century saw a lot of debate on the "Woman Question" and the idea of separate spheres. Rationality and feminine were considered two irreconcilable qualities. Women who argued for rational dress, in the days when many women burned to death as a result of their voluminous skirts and flared sleeves catching fire from the open hearths, were ridiculed. There were even "scientific" arguments advanced for women's inability to pursue intellectual studies without suffering detrimental effects. For those who argued that brain size indicated intelligence, the argument was man's larger brain proves he is more intelligent than woman with her smaller brain. This argument was turned on its head by a woman who said, proportionally speaking, women's brains were, in fact, larger.
ReplyDeleteWomen have questioned the status assigned to them by society for far longer than some RW Jewish instructors would have their audiences believe. It is patently false that all women were happy until the 1960's came along, and women's liberation ruined it for all of us. The thoughts on women's place in western society has roots going back over 2 centuries.
Halacha, of course, goes back much further than that.
The halacha stands even if the reason one ascribed to it does not seem to fit. If I am not mistaken, I believe that certain halachos instituted based on the assumption of spontaneous generation still stand, though some may choose to be machmir. The halachic determination of reality is not the same as ontological [I did that purposely] reality. For example, there are food products that carry a warning that they may carry traces of milk, for those with severe allergies. Yet, they are certifiably and halachically parve. A chemical analysis would probably reveal the traces of milk in the food, but that halacically the milk has no presence.
Therefore, in my view, it is better to simply accept the halachic system as is without trying to force it to conform with the physical world. Otherwise, one finds oneself forcing a square peg into a round hole instead of fitting the peg in where it should go.
The philosophical problem with that approach is it robs halacha of inherent meaning: What value does a legal system have which describes a false reality? Is it just an abstract set of rules, completly unrelated to the concrete here-and-now world in which we live? Reminds me of the joke of the talmid who sits for months on a sugya and plans to build his sukkah exactly as the gemara explains. He follows the plan perfectly and the whole thing collapses. So he comes to his rebbe, relearns the sugya with him, and explains what happens. The Rebbe explains - "Oh, that's Tosfos' kashe". The assumption behind the joke is we expect halacha to work, to relate to the real world.
ReplyDeletePareve and milchig are legal constructs, not physical descriptions. How can the same be said about "tav l'meisav"? It is description of a desire, not an entity.
I don't see the bog kashe from tav l'meisav. Who says it's not true? A quick google search finds statements like this from academics cited in the liberal NY Times - "In Dr. Waite's view, a strong marriage is a nondenominational wonder drug.... There's something about being married that makes people work better," Dr. Waite said. "We're group-living animals, and we're hard-wired to bond." (http://www.nytimes.com/specials/women/nyt98/21angi.html) Is this recognition that we are "hard wired to bond" not exactly what "tav l'meisav" means?
The social sciences are by definition more nebulous, so I think one would be really hard pressed to empirically demonstrate that "tav l'meisav" is false in the same way we know spontaneous generation is false. Until then, why should we dismiss it as a poor generalization? I'm stubborn and need more evidence.
That being said, I throw in the same caveat as before. Tav l'meisav is just one limited halacha. How many others like it are there?
It's not a false reality just not a physical reality. It's a legal system. A corporation is a legal entity, though it is not a tangible one.
ReplyDeleteOn the marriage thing, probably rov women, which coule be as little as 51% or as much as 99% prefer to be married. But would you extend it so far as to say that a woman is better off marrying anybody at all, even if she cannot stand him. That was the machlokes Elizabeth Bennet and her friend Charlotte Lucas in Pride and Prejudice. What it really boiled down to, though, was that Elizabeth was 20 and attractive, whiles her friends was 27 and plain. That is why the latter thought it better to marry Mr. Collins and have a home of her own than to remain a spinster. But if one has options, the story changes. The author of the novel never married herself, having retracted her acceptance of a marriage proposal. So an exception?
On the reality of marriage today: studies indicate marriage benefits men more than it benefits women. However, the way Chazal expressed it does not cover that fact. Yet I don't see this as constituting a crisis of faith.
If nothing else, I'm glad that the guest post on "the Moon's Lost Light" has elicited so much discussion and thought even days after publication. :-)
ReplyDelete-Dixie Yid
Sorry for not responding earlier.
ReplyDeleteTwo points: 1) On your example: Chazal recognized that "kol hamelameid es bito torah k'ilu melamda tifuls" is a generalization with exceptions. The heter for women to learn gemara was not invented in the modern era - we have no power to be mechadesh. All people like RYBS are doing is employing old heteirim on a broader scale.
I agree. The Rav's argument was that society changed and women need to learn Gemara to stay religious, not that women changed.
2) I still think there is room to say 'ain lecha bo elah chidusho'. There is a very big jump from the narrow point of tav l'meisav to the broad sweeping generalizations of women being concerete thinkers while men or not, etc.
I agree, but it's not just Tav L'meisav. Noshim daatan kalos is certainly a better basis for the distinction. We can't just pretend these statements don't, to some extent, underpin the Halachos we are talking about.
There were even "scientific" arguments advanced for women's inability to pursue intellectual studies without suffering detrimental effects.
This reminds me of a classic case from the 19th century, Bradwell v. Illinois. The Court ruled that Illinois wasn't required to allow women to join the Bar. They based on their argument partly on the idea that "[t]he paramount destiny and mission of woman are to fulfil the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator." Statements like that led former Supreme Court justice William Brennan to claim that these policies "put women, not on a pedestal, but in a cage."
We need to be mindful of when Halacha is doing the same thing.
Isn't it interesting that RYBS was took a strong stand in offering high level gemara to women despite the tiflus halacha, but took an equally strong stand that tav l'meisav is an eternal law?
ReplyDeleteFrumteens actually asks the same question. I don't think the two are really analogous. The Rav was a serious Brisker, and in Halakhic Man and Halakhic Mind he makes it very clear that Halacha is conceptually independent of reality. Reality is just a means of implementing Halacha in this world. So the presumptions of Chazal were not based on their understanding of reality (based on empirical studies), but is reality itself. Any changes we see aren't real changes, but either a problem with our sense perception or how we understood the words of Chazal.
The Rav's allowance of teaching women Gemara was based on chiddush of the Chofez Chaim, that schooling is necessary to counteract the society in which women find themselves. From what I understand, the Rav felt Gemara was the same antidote. It doesn't say anything about his views on "tiflus."
I have to agree with Chaim about Halacha being stripped of meaning if it doesn't correspond with ontological reality. I don't think the corporation analogy holds. Corporations are a legal construct. Their existence does not conflict with reality, just merely explains it given how we wish to relate to those entities.
Women are either intellectually capable of learning Gemara to the same extent as men or they aren't. There's no middle ground.
"Women are either intellectually capable of learning Gemara to the same extent as men or they aren't. There's no middle ground."
ReplyDeleteTiflus does not mean intellectual capability. Even the rambam translates tiflus as znus in pirush hamishna. He equates it with intelligence because of his general philosophical approach that equates cognitive failure with sin, but the gemaras statement is a character assessment
Chaim B - she doesnt get this concept of women being concret from what she supposes underpins the halacha. Its a kabbalistic concept.
Why should it bother anyone if chazakas become less true as we approach yemos hamashiach? Virtually all the halachos applying to women that get batted about in these discussions rest on drashos; there are alternative ones. How do you know what a sanhedrin would change?
>>>Chaim B - she doesnt get this concept of women being concret from what she supposes underpins the halacha
ReplyDeleteI believe your comment is directed at Nephtuli, who spoke about the underpinnings of halacha.
>>>How do you know what a sanhedrin would change?
Exactly! You misinterpret my critique - for Heshelis' thesis to work a future Sanehedrin MUST overturn derashos and halachos. I am asking the same question you are - it is certainly possible, but who says it is guaranteed to happen or a necessary condition of the geulah process?
Tiflus does not mean intellectual capability. Even the rambam translates tiflus as znus in pirush hamishna. He equates it with intelligence because of his general philosophical approach that equates cognitive failure with sin, but the gemaras statement is a character assessment
ReplyDeleteOk, call it whatever you want. Women either have the "character" to learn and use Gemara properly, or they don't. Chazal couldn't be working within some other model of reality here.
Why should it bother anyone if chazakas become less true as we approach yemos hamashiach?
Some people believe Chazakos are immutable, so they can't understand how they could change.
I don't agree with Heshelis' thesis because it is based on the same nishtane hateva that claims lice no longer spontaneously generate (I owe the link between Heshelis' view and nishtane hateva to my wife). It's just unlikely that women's cognitive abilities (whether intelligence or character) changed over the generations. Education could make women more learned and capable of study, but they aren't objectively smarter.
>>>because it is based on the same nishtane hateva that claims lice no longer spontaneously generate (I owe the link between Heshelis' view and nishtane hateva to my wife).
ReplyDeleteIn my wife's earlier comments (Ariella is my wife) she brought up the lice issue as well. Interesting that both of our wives are thinking of nishtaneh hateva and lice and we are not - maybe Heshelis' is on to something after all! : ) LOL
"So what happens to halacha? If tav l'meisav is no longer true, halacha is juist formal rules with no real meaning. I don't like that conclusion."
ReplyDeleteI dont know if tav lemeisiv has all that much to do with it, and just about all the rest is based on drashas. In any case, there is little difference between saying that in the past, it was mutar to teach some women and now there are more such women, and that there are always exceptions to chazakas and now there are more exceptions.
"I believe your comment is directed at Nephtuli, who spoke about the underpinnings of halacha."
sorry
"Exactly! You misinterpret my critique - for Heshelis' thesis to work a future Sanehedrin MUST overturn derashos and halachos. I am asking the same question you are - it is certainly possible, but who says it is guaranteed to happen or a necessary condition of the geulah process?"
you also wrote "(Just for the record, I am aware of no sources that promises that a future Sanhedrin will overturn established halachos)."
there are sources that l'osid lavo we will follow beis shammai and not beis hillel.
in any case, there are certainly sources for nekeva tesovev gever etc.
This is where R Twersky's article is off the mark. She brings an explicitly kabbalistic approach. Even if the sources in nigleh are contradictory (and I think at least some may be lav davka) the kabbalistic sources do say what she claims. I think R Twersky's real issue is that RYBS made that statement about tav lemeisiv. RYBS says that this specific chazaka of tav lemeisav is based on chava's klala (I'm unaware of any source for that) and therefore immutable (I'm unaware that klalas are immutable - is bezeas apecha tochal lechem immutable so that there are not more white collar jobs than in the past? we cant relieve the pain of childbirth?) Her approach challenges this. However, she does not say that the chazaka does not stand, she says there are more exceptions generally to statements of chazal about women than in the past.
I believe I was the person who, some time back on this blog, first quoted RYBS' statement about chazakas reflecting ontological reality, and you said you had not heard of it previously and that you reject the statement! Yet now you are insisting that the chazaka must be permanent. What gives? Have you decided that this one specific chazaka is based on ontological reality and unchangeable and others not (RHS' explanataion of RYBS' position?) and if so why?
You seem to think she created this whole thing out of thin air. It's not a novel approach; what she does, based on what I see in her article, is pull together the sources and present them comprehensively and join themes together. The basic themes, the levana being diminished due to chava's sin etc are mainstream and brought in halacha. Above, there was some discussion of women being concrete. This too is primarily kabbalistic. (Other than chachmas noshim beplach there is not much negative on women's intelligence in chazal that I can think of either.) In an article I read a while ago R Rabinovich of maale adumim says that changes like abolition of slavery were meant to come from Jews but came from goyim b/c we did not merit it - which is somewhat similar. There is a whole trend of thought that changes will happen in the prelude to yemos hamashiach, that they may be subverted in negative ways etc Her article is, I imagine, printed on Orot b/c it fits well with R kook's approach.
You write:
"Since these type easy bifurcations like “men are abstract, women are concrete” are far more popular and easier to sell than the complex idea that “men are people, women are too"
So it's not her saying you must follow kabbalistic approaches, but you saying that one shouldn't!
The question you ask from bar kochba is a non-issue in this approach. If the geula came earlier, the changes could happen after moshiach's coming. The idea is that b'ita, changes begin earlier. So when you ask this (on dixie yid):
"Whether it is "b'ita" or "achishena" is a matter of WHEN the geulah will occur, not a question of WHAT will occur. If feminism, or "nekeiva tesoveiv gvar" is part of WHAT the process of geulah entails, i.e the restoration of the feminine to its equal place, then why should this aspect of the CONTENT of the geulah be limit to a geulah which gradually unfolds?"
the content can happen after moshiach comes too. Because the geula is later, and ikvasa demeshicha a gradual process, it begins before.
You also appear to have missed a main point, despite citing both her article and R Twersky's review. You wrote on dixie yid:
>>The idea that Chava’s sin caused her lower position in the hierarchy is based on the Zohar and other Kabbalistic sources.
I don’t know why the writer must resort to such esoteric sources when it is a pasuk in chumash – “v’el iseiech teshukaseiach v’hu yimshol bach”."
Yet Ariella objected that the pshat of breishis makes it sound like chava's role was different from the start. The idea that chava was existentially affected as a function of her sin is from kabbala. In nigle, there are rishonim who assume she had a secondary role from the start. (As above, R Twersky quotes some, and it forms a big part of his analysis - your missing this when you and your wife both cite R Twersky for support is odd.) In fact, I've seen the baalei tosfos cited as saying women were not even created btzelem elokim (also contra RYBS). So pointing to the klala is not helpful, because the question is what effect the sin had and whether it caused a larger change in women's status as per the kaballistic approach.
WRT the issue of sin and punishment - first, the story of adam and chava is not punishment akin to an event that happens later in history or to an individual. It explains the nature of our world as we have it today. Obviously, there is punishment for this sin. Acc to the gemara that lists curses of chava, eg that she covers her hair as though in mourning and is bound to the house like a prison, the results of the klala are quite far ranging too! You can say this type of tsnius and kol kvuda of staying indoors is innate to women, but the gemara says these things are a result of chava's sin. The nature of the effect of the sin is acc. to kabala a large change in status.
Second, the concept of something being a gezera, shtok kach alsa bemachshava etc does not preclude something being generally a punishment! It may not be a punishment of those individuals directly and it may be necessary for larger historical reasons, but punishment is not per se precluded.
You wrote:
"you speak of women damned by an original sin of Chavah to spend their lives as second fiddle until some future redemption. The way I have understood the concept based on on sifrei chassidus is that sin is always spoken of as a means to greater height - yeridah l'tzoreh aliya - and redepmption is in mankinds hand to being about."
First of all, this is a MUCH more radical view than anything she wrote! You do understand, this is quasi Sabbatean?! I dont mean c"v to accuse anyone of sabbateanism, or to say this is not a valid approach, but my point is that this theme has a strong antinomian undercurrent and is much further from the mainstream than anything she writes!
I mean, there are softer and harder versions of this, and the softer version is just "dont fall into despair," and is the mainstream approach, but what you actually write here about the utility of chet is hardly mainstream.
I do not think the approach "this is not comforting to women" is an appropriate way to judge the validity of a thesis. Nor does what strikes a particular husband and wife define what "works" The main issue is not that women are punished due to chava's sin, but that if people feel dissonance between what the torah seems to say and what they experience that this is real, a function of golus and the way we are approaching yemos hamashiach. Why you chastise her for not providing solutions is beyond me. She is not looking to provide solutions for any practical problems. She is providing an explanation for dissonance. I think its a weakness of MO thought that so many say so glibly the halacha is the "Best mechanism." Our practice and study is crippled, we do not observe torah as we are meant to, we are not able to adjust to new situations we are meant to - this is the very meaning of golus. I dont know where you get the idea that the halacha has to be based on something that is true to our experience. It is very much the opposite, that the longer we are in golus, the more dissonance there will be, whether due to the fact that we have lost traditions or due to inability to adjust etc.
A criticism I have of her article is that she appears at times to take largely kabbalistic concepts, like women being more concrete, etc and impute them to chazal. The philosophical rishonim had a negative view of the average woman's intelligence, but they were operating from a different framework, and the rest of the "Women are concrete" seems mostly to come from kabbala not gemara (unless you understand these maamarei chazal from a kabbalistic framework). The other issue is:
"I don't agree with Heshelis' thesis because it is based on the same nishtane hateva that claims lice no longer spontaneously generate (I owe the link between Heshelis' view and nishtane hateva to my wife). It's just unlikely that women's cognitive abilities (whether intelligence or character) changed over the generations. Education could make women more learned and capable of study, but they aren't objectively smarter." (naphtuli)
I don't think so either, I think she talks as though women's "Essence" changed b/c that is the language and model. At some point, when environment changes, it impacts people's personality/intelligence etc. So even though you can argue that conditions changed and women did not, you can also say that women today are different, which is the language of the model she is working with. In practical terms, it's a distinction without that much of a difference.
Here's a quote from her article:
"The Vilna Gaon, in Even Shleima, explains the change in the charachteristics of different generations as follows: “In every generation a different attiribute rules (from the attributes by which G-d runs the world), and it is because of this that natures change, and all the doings of that generation, their behaviour and their livelihoods, are all according to the nature of that attribute, and it is dependent on their free will choice, whether for good, or evil, and so also the way the Holy One Blessed is He deals with them, and all (this) is included in the Torah.”176"
IOW it is an external influence that causes nature to change.
"Ok, call it whatever you want. Women either have the "character" to learn and use Gemara properly, or they don't. Chazal couldn't be working within some other model of reality here."
The concept is not that they can't learn or cant use it, but that they (and arguably from the gemara there, men too) will abuse it. I'm not at all sure this has changed; it's an assessment of character.
I will accuse our host and his wife both of taking the approach that "it's not comforting" so it's wrong - is that not the definiton of tiflus? It "blames women" (I don't think it does, but if?). That is an emotionally driven response, not sober criticism.
This is a quote from ariella on dixie yid:
"While I understand that we feel better about negative things when we can argue that they were deserved, this is really no more valid than pinning the Holocause on particular sins or misdirections of that particular generation."
What does this even mean. The notion that women were changed after the sin is in zohar. Whereas the zohar to the best of my knowledge doesnt give a clear reason for the Holocaust. Besides, she is not explaining suffering. She is not explaining why an event occured; she is explaining why the torah legislates as it does and a place to look for what the torah means might be the torah. Yes, what sparks this search is that she feels dissonance in contemporary circumstances, but her question is on how and why the torah relates to her experience/circumstance, not on the experience/circumstance itself. The idea that there's an equation between saying women are like this or that because of chava's chet and things change as we approach yemos hamashiach and saying that you know what caused the holocaust is bizarre.
I don't know what led to all that hostility I see on dixie Yid's blog - and consider this my little mechaa against what I thought was an over the top reaction to her post - but it seems almost completely agenda driven.
Sorry I don't have time to take up all of your points - why don't you just get your own blog? A few points that stand out:
ReplyDelete1) Underpinning Heshelis' approach is an assumption that a future Sanhedrin will DEFINITELY overturn halachos that relate to women. I asked for a source which you fail to provide in your many pararaphs. See also Koveitz Shiurim Baba Basra #499 regarding klalei hora'ah in the future. I guess it bothers some of us more than others that a crucial claim in a thesis has not one shred of evidence behind it.
2) You write: "She brings an explicitly kabbalistic approach....the kabbalistic sources do say what she claims." Wrong. The kabbalaistsic sources do not speak of feminism, of our historical period, etc. All these are her interpretations of sources. The question is (as I have repeatedly stated) whether that interpretation is correct.
3) The issue I raised re: Bar Kochva (why do you assume that was "achishena" and not R' Akiva's view of "b'ita"?) can be posed for any of the many, many predicted dates of Moshiach's arrival which have been made in Jewish history. All predictions of "b'ita", all not associated with a rise in feminism.
4) You write: "Second, the concept of something being a gezera, shtok kach alsa bemachshava etc does not preclude something being generally a punishment!" You seem to take great pains to quote my comments, but are quite neglectful when reading Heshelis'. Here was her statement - "The author of the comment is assuming that it is invalid to pin the holocaust on various sins of the generation. Why?" The context was Holocaust theodicy, not Chavah's sin. Heshelis' view is, "The writings of the prophets stress over and over again that the suffering of the Jewish People is because of their sins. Anyone who disagrees with this is disagreeing with the prophets and with the Torah itself." Are we then to dismiss the views of Gedolim u'Tzadikim who refused to accept that the Holocaust was simply an onesh as kefira created in ignorance of Torah and Prophets?
5) I think I can lay to rest the remainder with one observation. Heshelis' view is one possible interpretation of the sources, but it remains for us to decide whether this interpretation is valid. One can either assume Chazal are in dissonace with reality, that women for years have been second class citizens (and still have elements of that lower status) because they by nature are inferior to men, that halachic is a stagnant empty system to formal rules that is devoid of true meaning until some point of Redemption is reached. For me this is a reductio ad absurdum. Interpretations of the Bible from the 1850's which read the text as supporting the enslavement of Africans may be textually defensible, but are rightly taken as morally outrageous in our times. I don't know how one can even listen to a simple Shabbos derasha with such an attitude. Why listen to a Rabbi preach moral lessons from Chazal when one believes that their worldview is at odds with our reality? The alternative view is to find a way to interpret Chazal in ways that correspond with our reality, to view the halachic system as flexible and vibrant and still inbued with meaning despite our pains of galus, and certainly not to emphasize interpretations which make claims about women and their nature which have been discredited for over 150 years. The bifurcation of duchra-nukva itself need not be read as referring to man and woman in the physical sense, but as paradigms and typologies. You choose to take the former road, I the latter. The danger of any reduction ad absurdum is that one man's absurdity is another man's truth. Ok, you were yotzei making your macha'ah.