Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 62, No. 37, Ed. 1 Thursday, September 11, 2008 Page: 20 of 28
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20 I September 11,2008
TEXAS JEWISH POST & SINCE 1947
D'var Torah
Women in the public arena ... and sexual harassment
"If two men get into a fight with
each other and the wife of one comes
out to save her husband from his an-
tagonist and puts out her hand and
seizes the other by the genitals, you
shall cut off her hand; show no pity."
So records the Torah in this
week's portion, Parashat Kee Tatza.
Shocking indeed! But what can we
do? — the Torah says what it says.
The language seems clear, and so
does the rationale. A small number
of us may embrace this value system
wholeheartedly, others will reluc-
tantly accept it, and still others —
perhaps the majority of us — will
throw up our hands in despair and
wonder how the Torah can be so
primitive and misogynous. But all of
us would probably agree that the an-
cient Jewish sage of 2,000 years ago,
Philo of Alexandria, was properly
reading the intention of the text and
its worldview when he wrote:
"Marketplaces and council
chambers and courts of justice and
large companies and assemblies of
numerous crowds, and life in the
open air full of arguments and ac-
tions relating to war and peace, are
suited to men, but taking care of the
house and remaining at home are
the proper duties of women ... and
let her not be seen going about like a
woman who walks the streets in the
sight of other men ... but when men
are abusing one another or fighting,
for women to venture to run out un-
der pretense of assisting or defending
them, is a blameworthy action and
one of no slight shamefulness.... It
is a shocking thing if a women were
to proceed to such a degree of bold-
ness as to seize hold of the genitals
one of the men quarreling.... And let
her punishment be the cutting off of
the hand which has touched what it
ought not to have touched."
But believe it or not, Philo got it all
wrong, at least according to our sag-
es. They completely ignored his view.
A number of the church fathers fol-
lowed in his footsteps, but Jewish tra-
dition would hear nothing of it. With
absolutely no exceptions, the rabbis
of the Talmud and Midrash bent over
backwards to
give the vers-
es from Deu-
teronomy a
completely
different in-
terpretation.
Philo might
have been
Jewish, but
in this case
as in many,
many oth-
ers, his read-
ings of Torah
were more
Greek than Jewish, and while the
echoes of his wisdom reverberate
in the halls of Christendom, in the
PARASHAT
KEE TATZA
By Rav Hanan
Schlesinger
In 2001 I opened Houston Jewish Funerals with ◦ few simple ideas:
• Provide compassionate,
personalized service
• Operate from a facility that allows me
to offer significant savings from
the traditional funeral home
that services the community
Treat each family as if
they were my own
Offer a full selection of funer> ill
srvices an J merchandi se
Jeffrey Friedman
Funeral Director - Owner
Since this time, my business has grown to the point where
we are now the primary Jewish Funeral service provider selected
in Houston,
In 2006, I brought this concept to Dallas, the city
I grew up in. Dallas Jewish Funerals is the only
independently owned funeral business in the Dallas
area owned and operated by a Jewish funeral director.
We provide services, at graveside, synagogues,, our ehapel
if suitable pO-seat^ and also da alternative services. Additionally,
we offer a full selection of funeral merchandise. What surprises
many is that we do this more personally and for far less than our
competitors charge. We believe you will find our charge for a
traditional funeral will be thousands leSs than our eorporately
on nod competitor who has been serving the Jewish community
for decades. We invite you to compare prices and visit
our facility.
h
v\
V
Dallas Jewish
Funerals
1611 N. Central Expressway
Piano, TX 75075
972.424.1141
www.DallasJewishFunerals.com
Services provided by
Paradigm Funerals/Dallas Jewish Funerals Inc.
heit midrash of Jewish tradition they
have never been heard.
So how do our rabbis interpret this
law? They maintain that the verses
are only talking about a case in which
the woman wielded undue force and
unnecessarily endangered the life of
her victim! Under such circumstanc-
es a good Samaritan — according
to one opinion — may do anything
to loosen her grip, even going so far
as to sever her hand as it is in the act
of grasping the man's genitals or —
according to another opinion — if
nothing was done to stop her, then
after the fact the court may assess her
a fine equal to the value of her hand.
But the Talmud says explicitly that
if her act constitutes the only means
available to save her husband, then
she is totally within her rights and is
beyond reproach. A woman — just
like a man — can use whatever force
and whatever means necessary to
save herself and others from attack.
According to our tradition, the
verses quoted speak about a woman,
but only because it would usually be a
woman whose only recourse to inter-
vening on the side of one of the com-
batants would be to grab the genitals
of the adversary. The law, however, is
not specific to women. If a man were
to do the same thing, the same direc-
tive would apply. Despite Philo, this
case has nothing to do with defining
a woman's place in society.
Is the rabbinic interpretation
forced? Perhaps. But the rabbis were
willing to go well out of their way
to distance themselves from any
thought that women have anything
but equal rights to defend themselves
and their families. Her status in the
public domain vis-a-vis tort law is in-
distinguishable from that of a man.
Yes indeed, this whole matter
makes us wonder — but not because
of the putative discrimination against
women. Rather, we are amazed by
the insight of our sages, and we won-
der how their enlightened and egali-
tarian wisdom managed to take root
and flourish in the Hellenistic world
to whose conventional worldview it
was so diametrically opposed.
Rav Hanan Schlesinger is director of com-
munity education and community rabbinic
scholar of the Community Kollel of Dallas,
located on the Schultz-Rosenberg Campus. He
can be reached at 214-789-7241.
Obituary
Joanne Laves
Joanne Laves, a longtime Dallas resident, died June 28,2008. She is survived
by her hu sband Lee; son Stuart Laves and wife Susan and daughter Leslie Win-
kler and her hu sband, Gary. A graveside service at Hillcrest Memorial Park was
held on June 29. Arrangements by John P. Brooks and family, North Dallas Fu-
neral Home.
Charges spark O.U. threat
By Ben Harris
(JTA) Following the filing of criminal
charges against owners of the kosher
meat producer Agriprocessors, the Or-
thodox Union says it will withdraw its
kosher certification of the company
within two weeks unless new manage-
ment is hired.
"Within the coming days, or lets say a
week or two, we will suspend our super-
vision unless there's new management in
place," said Rabbi Menachem Genack,
the O.U.'s head of kosher supervision.
Genack's comments came just hours
after Iowa's attorney general filed crimi-
nal charges against Agriprocessors and
its owner, Aaron Rubasbkin, for child-
labor violations.
On Tuesday, the attorney general's of-
fice charged Rubashkin, his son Sholom,
and three human resources employees
with more than 9,000 violations of Iowa's
Child Labor law, according to a statement
from the attorney general's office.
Former workers had alleged child la-
bor violations at Agriprocessors almost
immediately after a massive immigra-
tion raid at the plant in Postville, Iowa,
the country's largest kosher meatpacking
plant. The company has denied having
knowingly hired underage workers.
"All of the named indi vidual defen-
dants possessed shared knowledge
that Agriprocessors employed un-
documented aliens," said the affidavit
filed Tuesday in Allamakee County
District Court. "It was likewise shared
knowledge among the defendants
that many of those workers were mi-
nors. The company's hiring practices
encouraged job applicants to submit
identification documents which were
forgeries, and known to contain false
information as to resident alien status,
age and identity."
The alleged violations, which date
back to September 2007, are each pun-
ishable by up to 30 days in jail and a fine
of between $65 and $625, the attorney
general's office said. An initial court ap-
pearance is scheduled for Sept. 17.
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Wisch, Rene. Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 62, No. 37, Ed. 1 Thursday, September 11, 2008, newspaper, September 11, 2008; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth188206/m1/20/: accessed May 3, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .