From: holmes@opal.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes)
Subject: Re: sexism
Organization: Boise State University
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 22:32:15 GMT

In article <1992Oct13.144028.14689@tc.cornell.edu> bai@msiadmin.cit.cornell.edu (Dov Bai-MSI Visitor) writes:
>In article <1992Oct12.191539.26528@guinness.idbsu.edu> holmes@opal.idbsu.edu
>(Randall Holmes) writes:
>
>>It isn't clear to me that Melanie is merely "expressing her feelings".
>>It seems to me that her argument can be expressed (at least
>>approximately) via syllogisms:
>>
>>	Sexism is bad.
>>	The Torah is sexist.
>>	 therefore, the Torah is bad.
>>
>>	All works of God (if IT exists) are good.
>>		(pronoun altered in deference to Melanie)
>>	The Torah is bad (taken from conclusion of above syllogism).
>>	therefore, the Torah cannot be the work of God.
>>
>>	Some of this reconstruction is conjectural, of course.	Now it
>>is clear from the premiss "Sexism is bad" that she takes as primary
>>certain modern Western values.  If the premiss "The Torah is sexist"
>>is correct, then, at least in my conjectural reconstruction of her
>>argument, she has no choice but to reject the Divine origin of the
>>Torah.  Clearly she does NOT accept as a primary premiss that the
>>Torah is the word of God, or this argument would have ended up
>>as a _reductio ad absurdum_ of one or another of the premisses of the
>>argument outlined above.  I would ask the first respondent why he
>>thought that it was at all likely that Melanie would accept as a
>>primary premiss that the Torah is the word of God.  I would ask the
>>second respondent where Melanie's _feelings_ necessarily enter into
>>the matter.
>
>
>I was looking for the missing link between Melanie's past and present.

Melanie herself is certainly invited to comment.

>
>
>Since Melanie indicated that she was brought up in an Orthodox
>environment I assumed ( note the IF in my first posting ) that at
>an EARLY PERIOD in her life she believed that the Tora is devine.

No, I suspect that at an early period of her life she would have said
if you asked her that the Torah was divine, because that was what she
had been told was the case.  I would conjecture that when Melanie came
to sort out everything she had been told for herself, she found that
she herself did not believe it (and, on my analysis, never had
believed it).  This was my experience with my original (non-Jewish)
nominal religious beliefs.  This is, of course, only a conjecture.
But it makes a general point: you cannot decide what anyone else
_believes_ (especially your children). They will _always_ decide for
themselves (even if the decision is simple assent to what they have
been told).  You can train a child to answer questions in any way you
like, especially before they know what the answers mean...


>
>TODAY, however, it is clear that Melanie does not believe in the Jewish
>law being given by God, and she is probably an atheist.

How do you know?

>
>So, my question was how did the transition between her past and present
>value-systems occur. She did say that the reason for the transition
>was the recognition that the Bible is sexist. But that by itself could
>not be a sufficient reason without (a) Assuming the modern definiton for
>sexism 

Sexism is a modern concept -- it has no other definition.

- many Orthodox people claim that the Jewish Law is not sexist,

A valiant attempt, but misguided; the alien concept should be
repudiated if one is to take a consistent Orthodox position.

>and more importantly (b) Taking for granted that what we perceive in
>out society to be bad, has a validity above the commandments of a God.
>Why did Melanie make that assumption ?
>

It seems like a fairly natural assumption that the local notions of
goodness and badness are adequate.  Recall that my analysis indicates
that even with the Orthodox upbringing, there is no reason to believe
that Melanie ever really believed in the divine origin of the Torah;
she may have rejected it the first time she ever really thought about
what it meant.  Thus, she never viewed the alternatives in this way.


>
>Dov

Warning: an upbringing does not neutralize thought.

Some ability to defend an Orthodox viewpoint intellectually against
likely alternate positions should perhaps be part of an Orthodox
upbringing?







-- 
The opinions expressed		|     --Sincerely,
above are not the "official"	|     M. Randall Holmes
opinions of any person		|     Math. Dept., Boise State Univ.
or institution.			|     holmes@opal.idbsu.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish,soc.culture.polish