Torah and Jewish Idea > Torah and Jewish Idea

Woman as Rabbis(or preists for the Gentiles)

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androbot2084:
This debate reminds me of reading about Deborah in the book of Judges who was a woman who led the armies of Israel to victory.  Obviously the Torah does not command or force women to enter military service nor does the Torah allow women to be drafted. Nevertheless the written Torah does not expressely forbid women from volunteering for  military service and since no man wanted to accept the responsibility of a leadership role Deborah became the leader.  I am sure that the traditions of that day made it forbidden for a women to enter military service simply because up until then there was no provision in Torah nor was there any historical evidence of women in military service.  But I do not think that the Torah prohibits the establishement of a precedent as there very well is a first time for everything as long at it is does not violate the law. Deborah simply found a loophole in Torah and she took advantage of the opportunity. If anyone had a problem with it they would have to blame Moses for not writing in Torah expressely forbidding women from entering military service which I doubt would ever have been included in Torah because women naturally have the right to defend themselves.

adam613:
Actually, while I agree that women should learn self defense (although to be fair I have never learned any self defense due to my upbringing) I think the Torah clearly does say that women should not be in combat.

In Deuteronomy 20 1-10 it discusses what we should do before engaging an enemy. It also discusses MEN who should not fight. The whole chapter uses the hebrew word Ish which means man in the gender way unlike the hebrew word Adom which just means man in the generic form. The hebrew word for women is Isha. The whole chapter is discussing what the men should do which obviously that there were only men who were in the army. Otherwise, the Torah wouldn't use the term. It discusses a man who just got married to a women in their first year or a man that is building a home or a man that is scared they should not fight. The whole topic is to the men.

Also, to be honest, in America Readers Digest had an article about how in order to get women in the military they dumbed down the requirements and women who did 10 pushups was equal to a man that did 30. Furthermore, certain jobs that used to take 2 men would now take 4 people in order to make up for the fact that the women were less physically strong. Also, certain equipment they would exempt the women from carrying. This would demoralize the men who don't appreciate the double standard here.  These are not good for an army. On top of this the feminists would train men with video's of women being raped or beaten to understand that they may happen and they shouldn't overreact to this because you shouldn't show favoritism to anybody or put one person above anybody else. It is a normal male instinct to protect a women but in the army that normal instinct could be used by the enemy to take advandage of this.

Finally, I used the example of Lot's daughters having relations with him their father because they did not hear the prophecy and really thought the world was destroyed with Sodom and Gomorrah and they were the only survivors. Obviously, this does not mean that in normal circumstances this is OK as under normal circumstances it is a very serious sin. Clearly, the Torah states that only men should be in the army regardless of women want to fight or not. (and I think generally even women in their own unit without their being mixed fighting units would do more harm then good). If g-d forbid it must be done having women in the military I still think it is an abomination and that would mean that most of the men have been killed and murdered so we should never be in a situation like that.

The Torah does say a women shouldn't wear male clothing and a man shouldn't wear women's clothing and it is an abomination. I don't think this was JUST referring to clothing. Women should not assume a mostly male type role and a man shouldn't assume a mostly female type role. That is what I think and Torah is not about loopholes. There is a spirit behind laws and one of the reason why the Jews were sent into exile was because while they may have technically fullfilled certain Mitzvahs deep down it was all a game and they treated other Jews very badly. G-d did not approve of this. Check out Issiah 58 about what g-d thought of insincere fasting.

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