Men in Halachah—Shirking their responsibilities, part 2

Here’s my thesis #2: According to halachah/Jewish law, all men have weak egos.

You want proof? You’ve got it.

Centuries ago, when universal education was not so readily available even in the Jewish community, the rabbanim/rabbis established several practices in order to prevent the less-educated from being embarrassed in public. Speaking of the less-educated, I’m not learnèd enough to list these practices in the order in which they were established, so please bear with me if my list is not in chronological order.

Practice #1(?): Every groom, even the greatest scholar, was to be required to recite the central statement of the marriage ceremony, “Harei at . . . . ,“ word by word after the m’sader k’dushin (whoever’s “performing the ceremony”). In this way, a groom who was not educated enough to recite the words by himself would not be humiliated in front of the gantze mishpocheh/entire family.

Practice #2(?): In an era in which universal education was not a given, but the requirement for a man, but not necessarily a woman, to study Torah was already established, the rabbis ruled that a woman, though technically permitted to have an aliyah, should not have one “l’ma-an kavod ha-tzibbur” (for the sake of the honor of the congregation). At that time, a person called for an aliyah had to read from the sefer Torah/Torah scroll by him/herself. Therefore, only a literate person could be called up for an aliyah. The reasoning of the rabbis was that a congregation whose women were educated enough to read from the scroll, but whose men were not sufficiently educated, would be embarrassed, since men were required to study Torah but women were exempt.

Practice #3(?): The rabbis established the practice of having a baal koreh (master of the reading)/leiner/pre-assigned Torah reader, in order to enable any man to have an aliyah, whether he were learnèd enough to read from the sefer Torah for himself or not.

Whoa, Nellie! Wait a minute! Rewind that tape! Play back the previous song on that CD! Let’s go to the videotape! Let's see the instant replay!

Women were banned from having aliyot lest their ability to read from a sefer Torah put men to shame. Then, the rabbis established the practice of having a “designated reader.” Therefore, even if you assume (which, obviously, I don’t) that having some women in the community who are better educated than some of the men is an embarrassment to the community, the reason for continuing to prohibit women from being called up for an aliyah no longer exists! Now that every minyan has a baal koreh, no one has to be capable of reading from the scroll in order to have an aliyah!

Why, then, does the prohibition against giving women aliyot persist? Why, indeed, was the prohibition established in the first place? The only reason I can see is that the rabbis were convinced that men have weak egos, and were so concerned about protecting a man’s fragile self-image that they were perfectly willing to ban half the Jewish people from reading from the scroll of the Law that we all received at Sinai.

Why should every Jewish woman be forced to pay the price for protecting Jewish men’s weak egos? Is not every Jew responsible for believing that all humans are made b’tzelem kelokim, in G-d’s image (however one wishes to interpret that)—and for acting accordingly?