There is an organization that run various -yomi programs that recently did a huge PR blitz with pages and pages of ads and articles (i.e. ads in disguise) in all the various Jewish newspapers about their own grand siyum (separate from the one done at Met Life Stadium) and all the programs they run. One piece that caught my eye was entitled “[Program Ploni] Women Tell Their Story.” It consisted of a selection of letters. One of the women writes as follows: “You want to know how [Program Ploni] has impacted our lives? Just as an example: my four-year-old daughter recently exclaimed that she wants to be born again [as a boy**] so that she too can learn the heilege Torah!"
**brackets were in the original letter
Is it worth my hoping that this four-year-old will one day grow up and maybe realize that you don’t have to be born again as a boy to learn the heilege Torah -- you can even do so as a girl?
"you can even do so as a girl"
ReplyDeletebut beware the hidden frown of Bruriah from the next world, for any failure to exert all 4* uniquely feminine limbs
*Bechoros 45a. the girl/woman needn't exert the 248 limbs that she shares with a boy/man, not being obligated as he to retain her [added] learning. but she must apply her own feminine makeup, for it is by her added tzirim that Bruriah** could teach hinges (at Tosefta Keilim Metsia 1:3)...
**Bruriah speaks a verse on Berachos 10a that speaks here too-- 'sing! barren woman who has not given birth (Yeshayahu 54:1), who hear not this [(forgivable) ingratitude] from a ["four-year-old"] child of your womb'...