I am not trying to beat a dead horse with a stick here- but one of my uh…advertisers needed me to write about something which kind of went along with the post on women wearing pants. So without further ado…
While in yeshiva in Israel I learned several things, besides how to ride my bike through the Arab shuk in the middle of the night without getting stabbed. I learned that breast milk and humans were parve and why women don’t learn gemara, in fact these are the only things I can positively remember learning in Israel- shows you how much I showed up at classes.
The latter was taught to me by the famed Rabbi Orlofsky known for his famous speech to the Niveh girls program about how “all men are horny pigs” Well according to him all women are kind and compassionate and don’t learn gemara because they are too peaceful to do so.
In fact he said it something like this- when men learn gemara they get all riled up, start yelling and thumb dipping (thumb dipping is not tznius in some circles anyway) and slamming of fists goes on as well as other violent gestures, when all is said and done the men will take a coffee break and just move on to the next issue at hand.
Then he says, can you imagine women just moving on? First of all they would have a peaceful gemara session-
“oh Suzy, let me show you something in this mishna”
Wow Sharon thats great, take a look at this.
“So nice Suzy- what about this.”
Sharing is caring doesn’t flow with gemara he said during a rant one day- when one of the newly minted BT’s around the table asked why women learn tanach and not gemara- I personally wish it were the other way around. Tanach to me is like Braveheart Torah- wars, sex, bloodshed, betrayal and kick ass miracles- and we men are stuck with learning about oxen falling into pits and whether the courtyard is public property- sometimes I wish it were the other way around.
On a side note the only sect of the frum community I know that encourages the women to learn gemara is Chabad- any others?
On that note- for all those ladies that want to learn for a few weeks in Israel this summer- Nishmat is offering a 3 week summer study program for women of all ages and back rounds- it doesn’t appear to offer gemara classes so if you are morally opposed (that sounds retarded actually) but if you are opposed for some reason to women learning Talmud you are in luck. Oh its mad cheap- $750 for the entire program which runs from July 1-22.