Author Topic: Women wearing Phylacteries  (Read 8063 times)

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Offline wonga66

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Women wearing Phylacteries
« on: January 26, 2011, 06:36:05 PM »
A few exceptional women in history wore Tefillin eg Rashi's daughters, the Maid of Lublin





Is it a major or minor scandal for Orthodox Jewesses to put them on today? Or worse: is it an actually an abomination?

(I believe the women in these photos are Reform or Conservative trainee women "rabbis"!)

Offline Lisa

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Re: Women wearing Phylacteries
« Reply #1 on: January 26, 2011, 07:09:21 PM »
I'm against it.  Women are women and men are men.  We're not the same, and so we have different responsibilities and strengths.

Offline Kahane-Was-Right BT

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Re: Women wearing Phylacteries
« Reply #2 on: January 26, 2011, 09:21:55 PM »
This picture is an atrocity.   

Odds are not one of these women observes the laws of Shabbath.  And yet they put on tefillin and KIPPAS (No women wore kippas) because they want the cavod and they think it makes them "official" and "religious" looking.    It sickens me.

Offline muman613

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Re: Women wearing Phylacteries
« Reply #3 on: January 27, 2011, 12:23:19 AM »
I too am against women wearing mens apparel.
You shall make yourself the Festival of Sukkoth for seven days, when you gather in [the produce] from your threshing floor and your vat.And you shall rejoice in your Festival-you, and your son, and your daughter, and your manservant, and your maidservant, and the Levite, and the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow, who are within your cities
Duet 16:13-14

Offline edu

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Re: Women wearing Phylacteries
« Reply #4 on: January 27, 2011, 01:51:29 AM »
The Tefillin on the head of the woman in the second picture 2nd one to the left has the Tefillin too low.
Tefillin must not be lower than the hairline, that is to say the place where the roots of the hair start to grow out from the skull.
I was told that people who have become bald, should put the tefillin above that spot that once had hair roots, even though now they are gone.

I don't know what Rabbi Moshe Feinstein says about women and tefillin, because there are rabbis based on one version of the text of the gemara, who are more strict about tefillin than other commandments but at least on the tekhelet.com site at http://tekhelet.com/mois/TekWeb2002_files/frame.htm
I saw an interesting psak halacha of Rabbi Feinstein.
Quote
Women & Tzitzit:
The Mitzvah•The permission is granted to every women who wishes to fulfill even those mitzvot which the Torah did not obligate; and they indeed fulfill a mitzvah and receive the reward for the fulfillment of the commandment - and according to the custom of the Tosafot they may also say the associated blessing - for shofar, lulav.  And also tzitzit are applicable for a woman who desires to wear a four cornered garment - it should be different than a man’s garment - and by putting on it tzitzit, she fulfills this mitzvah (R. Moshe Feinstein, Iggeret Moshe, Orech Hayim 4:49, s.v. ibra d’ika).
There are others who argue against the position of Rabbi Feinstein on Tzitzit.
I also heard that Rabbi Feinstein in theory said having a minyan entirely made up women and only for the benefit of other women might be permissible. But it is also stated that this is true only if they are doing it for the sake of heaven and not for the sake of ideologies that are contrary to Judaism.
Again, even if what I heard is correct, other Rabbis have more stricter opinions and I don't take responsibility to tell anyone who is right or wrong.

Offline White Israelite

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Re: Women wearing Phylacteries
« Reply #5 on: January 27, 2011, 02:03:50 AM »
I'm not even going to attempt to pick apart another silly thread like this, Wonga is a troll, that's all I have to say, i'm going to sleep, goodnight.

Offline Kahane-Was-Right BT

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Re: Women wearing Phylacteries
« Reply #6 on: January 27, 2011, 06:21:19 AM »
The Tefillin on the head of the woman in the second picture 2nd one to the left has the Tefillin too low.
Tefillin must not be lower than the hairline, that is to say the place where the roots of the hair start to grow out from the skull.
I was told that people who have become bald, should put the tefillin above that spot that once had hair roots, even though now they are gone.

I don't know what Rabbi Moshe Feinstein says about women and tefillin, because there are rabbis based on one version of the text of the gemara, who are more strict about tefillin than other commandments but at least on the tekhelet.com site at http://tekhelet.com/mois/TekWeb2002_files/frame.htm
I saw an interesting psak halacha of Rabbi Feinstein.There are others who argue against the position of Rabbi Feinstein on Tzitzit.
I also heard that Rabbi Feinstein in theory said having a minyan entirely made up women and only for the benefit of other women might be permissible. But it is also stated that this is true only if they are doing it for the sake of heaven and not for the sake of ideologies that are contrary to Judaism.
Again, even if what I heard is correct, other Rabbis have more stricter opinions and I don't take responsibility to tell anyone who is right or wrong.

I'm quite sure that that psak of Rabbi Feinstein does NOT apply to women who do not keep the other mitzvot because in such a case it is most certainly for the sake of foreign ideologies and for cavod that they are doing it, rather than for tzidkuth.   

Offline Zelhar

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Re: Women wearing Phylacteries
« Reply #7 on: January 27, 2011, 07:01:46 AM »
Why would anyone wear teffilin unless he/she has too, what's the point ? And the abomination is not that a woman wears it, but that she pretends that she has to wear it, which is like rewriting the Torah.

Offline Ari Ben-Canaan

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Re: Women wearing Phylacteries
« Reply #8 on: February 01, 2011, 03:27:32 AM »
About a month ago I was in a Conservative Shul for a "Bat Mitzvah".  Many of the women there had kippot and tallit on.  It was disturbing, and it gave me anxiety and vexation [as did the TWO women "rabbis"]. -- Thank goodness the reception afterward had an open bar!

The things I get myself into...

:P

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