Ashrei--please explain
One of the comments made on another blog during the recent discussions about a woman leading the Kabbbalat Shabbat (Welcoming the Sabbath) service in an Orthodox synagogue was that no one seems to be concerned that women leading English prayers on Shabbat morning might slip and accidentally lead Ashrei. I don't get it. What would be the big deal if a woman led Ashrei? It's just a psalm, like the ones in Kabbalat Shabbat. Does Ashrei have some special status? Kindly enlighten me.
posted by Shira Salamone at 5:46 PM
9 Comments:
I have no idea what the problem might be, maybe because Ashrei is responsive?
I think it's kind of funny, because we almost always let kids who are just under b'nai mitzvah age lead the Ashrei during the Torah service. I would be surprised if that's a problem.
Just because someone wrote something on a blog, doesn't mean it's real.
Just because someone writes something filled with Yiddish expressions, doesn't make them right.
So I'm right that there's no good reason why a woman couldn't lead Ashrei? Thanks for the information.
I have no clue, pretty sure Ashrei isn't that significant either way.
Ask a knowledgable Rabbi, that's pretty esoteric an issue.
Considering the fact that our congregation can no longer afford even a part-time rabbi, that may be easier said than done. :(
Chava, sorry I missed your comment. I think it depends on whether you mean "kids" or "boys." Some of my recent reading seems to indicate that, in halachah/Jewish religious law, boys may have a higher status than adult women because they'll grow up to be "obligated," which is considered a privilege, whereas we females are, fundamentally, assigned the status of perpetual children. So letting boys lead certain prayers is a form of on-the-job training, preparing them for their future role as service-leaders.
Shira,
That's irrelevant to your question, and your statement is obviously factually incorrect. Women are not perpetually children, as male children grow up to become men and female children grow up to be women.
Two issues. Is the prayer an obligation of men in the minyan, if so, it needs to be led by someone obligated, a man having obtained his majority.
If the prayer is not obligated, there is flexibility in the issue.
To suggest that boys have "higher status" than women is just a meaningless statement, there isn't a status involved. Boys will grow up to be men, and therefore have the obligations. So certain parts of the service get used as an opportunity to teach the boys to be used to communal prayer.
Nothing magically happens on one's 13th birthday. Using the time before that to train is not treating women as children, it's accepting that we as a community have an obligation to teach the next generation.
While Partnership Minyanim can do all the adult self indulgence they want within the bounds of Halacha, there is a reason that they appeal to the single and DINK families in NYC only, they simply aren't of practical interest to families with children.
Or, bluntly, for completely practical reasons, it is more important for the Jewish world to cultivate an interest in a 10 year old boy wanting to be an active involved Jewish adult than there is in appeasing your interest in filling your empty nestor days with an interest in learning this stuff.
Impractical Halachot have a short lifespan, practical ones last a long time. Practical/Impractical in this case is based on it's ability to transmit itself, so people have to get enough out of it to maintain it AND it can't interfere in retention rates or birth rates.
Miami Al, when I said that "we females are, fundamentally, assigned the status of perpetual children," I meant from a *halachic* perspective, in that boys will grow up to be obligated to observe time-bound mitzvot, whereas women will not. You may disagree with that statement, as well.
"To suggest that boys have "higher status" than women is just a meaningless statement, there isn't a status involved." For the record, I didn't "invent" this idea, I read it elsewhere. Whoever said may have been mistaken.
My clarification of your statement:
"Nothing magically happens on one's 13th birthday. Using the time before that to train is not treating women as children, it's accepting that we as a community have an obligation to teach the next generation" *of prayer-leaders.*
"While Partnership Minyanim can do all the adult self indulgence they want within the bounds of Halacha, there is a reason that they appeal to the single and DINK [dual-income, no-kids] families in NYC only, they simply aren't of practical interest to families with children."
That's a lot more diplomatic than your next paragraph. :(
"Impractical Halachot have a short lifespan, practical ones last a long time. Practical/Impractical in this case is based on it's ability to transmit itself, so people have to get enough out of it to maintain it AND it can't interfere in retention rates or birth rates."
Okay, I get it. You can put down the sledgehammer now. :)
Shira,
Stop rewriting my statements into what you want them to be.
It's not about cultivating boys as prayer leaders, it's about getting them to become part of the communal prayer service.
When a boy is brought up to lead a prayer, it's 1-2 boys out of dozens in that age range. However, by seeing their peer up their, they are integrated in the process. Large Ashkenazi congregations have multiple minyanim, including young/teen/older teen/young guys minyanim. So this involvement is used to get the attention of the guys wandering around the social hall since the youth minyan ended, pull people from the teen minyan in to see their younger sibling/friend's younger sibling, etc.
Again, the service uses its opportunities to get boys ready to leave the confines of their segregated service and into the main one.
Letting a 10-12 year old boy lead the prayer serves a purpose for the community.
Letting a woman do so simply draws attention to the gender separation and de facto challenges it.
The former helps the community, the latter does not.
Most of Orthodox Jewish life does NOT take place in the Synagogue. Your obsession with the behavior of people in synagogues you don't attend is really really strange.
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