Reasons why Jewish feminism may not be a good idea

I know that some of you are going to call me a sexist for saying some of the following, but I think it has to be said. Avi Weiss and the new school maskilim have infiltrated our tranquil male centric orthodox community that has been this way for thousands of years and has flipped it upside down like Soddom and Gomora. He has brought these heretical ideas in a slick package of feminism claiming that women are now ready to handle the rigors of the religious practices given to men. He even let one of his subjects lead a Kabalas Shabbos service a few weeks ago and there is no telling what’s next. Soon they may demand to marry cows.

Why some may opposed to the idea of women participating in ritual and tradition devoted to men:

Shofar Blowing: It is well known that feminism deem the idea of blowing to be below them, but when it comes down to it they simply don’t have the strength to blow the shofar and stay quiet during the whole 100 blows. Can you imagine a woman staying quiet for that long, a frum one at that – wait a second, these women aren’t really frum.

Lulav Shaking: Where on earth are the women going to do hoshanos? There is no bimah in the ezras nashim to walk around and a woman holding a wobbly lulav is downright untznius, not to mention the fact it will cost a whole lot more if each girl in the family has to have their own arbah minim. Do you think women would be able to clop hoshanos and get any of the leaves to come off?

Lecha Dodi: I spoke about this already, but women know far fewer tunes than men since they only started coming to shul in the last 5 years in order to find a mate during the shidduch crisis sweeping the nation. What if they sing an obscure tune and no one sings along? That’s straight up kol isha and it may turn on a man or woman in shul and may lead to mixed dancing.

Erev Shabbos Toilet Paper Ripping: If the women are out in the streets feminizing, who will cut the toilet paper for Shabbos?

Havdalah: Haven’t you heard that if the woman drinks the havdalah wine she will grow a beard? I understand that many feminists like keeping their legs hairy but I can’t imagine they’d be cool with the whole messy Chabad look. By holding the candle they could choose how tall their husband will be.

Hagabah: Do they have the strength to do it? Women are weak and don’t have the muscle strength of men – if they do begin to do hagabah, will they do it on their side of the mechitza? Will the pesicha folks also have to be women because of the Torah pass off? Seems too complicated to let women do hagabah.

Afikomen: Again, it takes a lot of strength to break a matzo in half, especially shatzer matzo. I doubt women could handle the matzo.

Hakafos: I have heard of some shuls that allow women to dance with the torahs – totally assur – they aren’t even Jewish. But let’s say women do have their own hakafos, which they shouldn’t because even though they received the torah, they aren’t chayiv in half of it and therefore hakafos would be hiddur mitzvah, but hiddur mitzvah doesn’t apply to women because they are on a higher spiritual level so we would doubt they would need to added levels of hakafos. But let’s say they did it anyway. This would definitely lead to mixed dancing as most shuls with two bimahs don’t have enough room for two simultaneous circles – but if we split up the dancing with a mechitza it would be separate but equal and that’s not fair.

Talis: It may be tzniustic in theory, but when women put on the talis they are likely to cause their shirts to lift up causing all types of tznius issues. Talis Katan wouldn’t be a problem.

Tefilin: Some may argue that since tefillin are black it wouldn’t create tznius issues, but this would mean women would have to show their elbows – clearly assur because they never showed their elbows in the shtetl and the muffin tops created on the arm would remind many men of untznius women who wear skinny jeans and that’s clearly assur. Besides, wearing tefillin while changing diapers is not allowed.

Things that Jewish women may in fact do better than the men:

Challah Cutting: Here in the Bay Area many of the women say hamotzi and they are darned good at it, their hand eye coordination seems to be superb and they can take the challah cutting skill to a new level, who would have thought they could transition so smoothly into one of the toughest mitzvahs incumbent on males – they are also very good at distribution of the pieces as well.

Havdalah Candle Extinguishing: While I expressed my doubts about having women do havdalah above, I do think that they would be pretty good at putting out the candle, they hold the thing anyway, so why not have them put it out as well – I am sure we may even be able to slip that male dominated tradition past the ultra orthodox fear monger censors and get them to say that havdala candle extinguishing is not a mitzvah b’zman grama and allow a heter for them to do it.

Lulav Tying: I am pretty certian that those ties used to hold the lulav in place could be made by women if given the chance, it would allow them to be part of the arbah minim process while keeping the actual arbah minim in the hands of the men – because the only long wobbly thing women belong holding should belong to their husbands and frequently the husband lends the lulav to the woman for the first day. I just wonder if those little sephardi boys in Flatbush succah stores would be willing to give their jobs to raging feminists.

Mezuzah Placement: I know that in many communities women are told not to kiss the mezuzah because it’s untznius, but what if they would be allowed to position the mezuzah on the doorpost? They were the one’s who smeared the blood on the doorpost in the first place, right? I’m just not sure about women and nails, do they have the power?

Candy Throwing: I am sure we could get shuls that don’t traditionally allow women to participate in any aspect of davening unless they are behind a barbed wire fence to allow them to throw candy over the Berlin Wall if their own son is celebrating a bar mitzvah — is that too much to ask? I understand that many people are opposed to this because it leads to men touching the candies that the women are throwing and that could lead to after shul improprieties.