A problem with the language of chiyuv (obligation)

As promised, I'm continuing the conversation regarding kids, careers, and Jewish observance started last week.

In the comments to my Conflicts of principle post, Al [frequent comment Miami Al?] said, " . . . we're . . . reducing the obligations of men to increase them for women. . . . Further, taking on the obligations by women doesn't relieve the men of there obligations, so you haven't solved a problem."  In the comments to the linked post from last week, JDub said, "In Orthodoxy -- even modern orthodoxy -- men are obligated to daven, women aren't. So when men are in shul, they are supposed to be "in shul" and not running childcare groups. No amount of saying "oh, everyone can fill these roles" will change that."

But that's exactly what I think needs to be changed--not to reduce the obligations of men, but to increase the obligations of men in other areas.

And here's where the language of chiyuv (halachic obligation) becomes an issue.

By way of illustration, I present two examples:

• P'ru u-r'vu (Be fruitful and multiply)

The Torah sheh-bi-Ch'tav/Written Torah (Bible) commands us to have children, and to circumcize a son on the eighth day of his life (barring a health-caused delay).  The rabbis add the obligation to teach them (at least the boys) Torah, teach them a trade, teach them to swim (according to some), and help them get married.  (In the old days, and among the more traditional, that means match-making; among the more modern, that means paying for the wedding.  :). )

But what happens before, after, and in between?

There's no chiyuv to tell Bible stories to your kid (one of my favorite forms of entertainment during long subway rides home with our son), no chiyuv to read your kid bedtime stories (my husband's specialty), no chiyuv to take your kid for a dental check-up, no chiyuv to make sure your kid wears his/her glasses to school everyday . . .

Yet no child is going to growing up healthy and properly-educated without these efforts.

• Seudat Mitzah (a "commanded" meal)

Every Jew is required to eat a meal on certain particular occasions.  We're specifically required to eat three meals on Shabbat/Sabbath.  (In the old days, one usually ate only two meals on other days.)  We're required to eat festive meals on the Pilgrimage Festivals (Shalosh R'galim) of Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot, as well as on Rosh HaShanah/Jewish New Year and Purim.  We're required to eat a festive meal upon the completion of a mitzvah/commandment, such as a brit milah/ritual circumcision, a wedding, or when we've concluded the study of a tractate of Talmud.

Every Jew has a chiyuv to eat a Seudat Mitzvah.

But no one has a chiyuv to make a Seudat Mitzvah.

Does dinner get cooked by itself?!

I'm truly convinced that some of the laws of chiyuv are going to have to be adjusted to acknowledge the fact that not only can't one have a structure without an infrastructure, but, that, in this day and age, not every women is going to be willing always to be the construction crew and never to be the architect.  As Rejewvenator commented here, "there's nothing non-egal about the idea that each family has one primary 'prayer representative' at any given prayer. In other words, if young kids means only one spouse can make it to shul for the bulk of the service, so be it, but I know lots of couples that switch off who that person is each week."  [Before anyone complains that the obvious halachic solution is to have one of the parents go to an earlier minyan to enable the other to attend a later minyan, I'd like to point out that there are plenty of  communities (such as mine) in which there's only one service, which means that only one person gets to go to shul, unless the kid(s),  no matter how young, go too.]  But this idea won't function unless and until the definitions are changed.  Only if child-rearing becomes as much as a chiyuv as child-making, and preparing a seudat mitzvah becomes as much as a chiyuv as eating a seudat mitzvah, will there be true equality of men and women among traditional Jews.  We can't blame a guy for walking out the door and leaving his wife to make a special Yom Tov lunch for the invited guests as long as his obligation to davven/pray at specific times, preferably with a minyan, is written into halachah/Jewish religious law, but his obligation to prepare a Yom Tov meal is not.  Only if the chiyuvim (chiyuvot?) are equal will men and women be free to chose.

The floor is open.