Women and Kaddish by Rabbi Anthony Manning

good morning everybody it should be a month of Yeshua for cl Israel um I'd like to ask you to please turn off your phones um and also would like to thank our sponsors for today uh we have a special sponsor for today as we have every year pretty much at this time uh Miriam Marcus has sponsored the year in memory of her beloved mother liba pabas nakum who was nes 7 years ago on the 7th of a and also uh in memory of her grandfather nak Ben mosha whose your side is onav um and who passed away 69 years ago and I was privileged to know uh um Miriam's mother just a little bit and really benefited a lot from every one of those meetings with her uh and please God uh our learning today should be an alyah for the nas um and yesu for as well I'd like to thank our general sponsor for the whole of 2024 to the Academic Year the sh sponsor branas brandid um and zeli benman Alem hasham uh so we have a share next week please God um the I'm not sure there's no share next week okay well that's good to know because uh I I will be here talking to myself no doubt uh okay fine so I'll take your word for it that there's no share next week I'm quite happy to give a share so if you want to come to alanwood that's no problem but please uh do whatever it says in the book and then in L we will reconvene be hasem um in our new Shinu mum uh and hopefully move on from there now please do I'm going to be speaking on a Wednesday Rabbi Adler is going to speaking on a Wednesday as well so and I I don't know exactly the rest of the lineup for the week but I'm going to be in besset Hani but on these things I just doing what I'm told basically and I'll go where I go and hopefully other people will come there too on Wednesday on Wednesday I will be on that's for sure because Monday is now I'm doing something else next year at the same time at the same time 10:15 now please do not despair at the width and the thickness of this sheet we really will be starting from page five I I did debate with myself whether to include pages one to four or not really we should have had two more Shir on that but I decided I couldn't uh put you through another share on this topic next week as well without even knowing that we don't even have a share next week so my cavana was obviously good the first four pages which I will summarize very quickly are here because they are raised by many of the Chas and the analyses of this issue do go into these questions that come up in the first four pages of sources and as I say it really is another sheer and that Shear is on the Mitzvah of and on women's involvement in the congregation in the cbor which is part of this question of women saying Kadesh so I will very Briefly summarize what I've put on the first four pages I will not go into any of the sources uh in depth um but it's important that we know about it and then we can jump in from page number five there is a Mitzvah to pray to turn to God to talk to explain to ask uh in our lives for things for God there is a famous debate between the rambam and those who are with him and the ran and those who are with him as to whether this Mitzvah is essentially a Torah Mitzvah or not the rambam understands based on the that there is a Mitzvah in the Torah one of the 613 of when it says the rambam understands that this is us turning to God to praise God to request our needs from God Etc and he understands understands that to be a Torah Mitzvah the ran responds quite famously and says no I understand that to be an as that is a rinic Mitzvah there is a Torah Mitzvah to turn to God in times of tar in times of trouble that's a separate Mitzvah maybe the rambam understood that every day for the Jews was a time of tar which is an interesting debate and there is another Mitzvah this Mitzvah of is the Mitzvah to have meaning when we turn to God In Prayer we must do so with a focus and a cavana but the actual obligation to pray he says is rinic to pray every day so there is that starting debate in terms of women's obligation to pray so the rambam pascin that since this is a Torah Mitzvah which has no fixed time there is a general Mitzvah to pray whenever wherever so women are of course obligated in that Mitzvah because it's a Mitzvah a SHRM is not a positive time bound Mitzvah women are obligated but they're not obligated in anything very specific it's any prayer any time anywhere and the goes in that mode and says women are in essence obligated to pray the mag brings down quite famously that there was a Minag of Jewish Women for centuries that they wouldn't necessarily pray all the fixed amid dos they would say and and different prayers that's based on that sh however the ramban who said there's a rinic Mitzvah to pray so he said in theory women should be exempt from that because it's a positive time bound Rabin Mitzvah he says but since women are in need of ra no than men are in need ofal said women are also obligated to pray they're included unusually in that Mitzvah so according to the ran which the Miss breur mentions and brings down many people go like that women are not able to just pray anytime any place anywhere they're included in the general Mitzvah of they have to pray anid in the morning an in not Mar because Mar even for men technically isra short it was adopted later but there you have the debate on prayer and the debate on women in prayer and I've brought you there there's a lot more to say on this but it's a starter on the issue and this is more Central to what we're looking at of women in the community so there are many sources that say that that uh prayer in the rabim prayer in theor is much more powerful than just individual prayer and the question is what is it sior RAF solic quite famously made a distinction I mean he bases it on very clear sources between praying together with the tior which is basically when we pray our individual sh prayer we go take three steps forward and we pray together with everybody else that is and he distinguished that from which is when the when the the sh stands up and does a prayer and leads a prayer of all of us together he says that's a different kind of prayer that's not just the being saying something and I'm listening and and and being y technically fulfilling my obligation he is leading a different kind of prayer which is and there's a lot we could say about that distinction which is again not really on our Focus the way that women fit into that is actually very interesting because women form part of the Tibor there's no question about that women are if a woman takes three steps forward and prays together her silent together with theor that is for her as well whether she's obligated to come to sh to have is a different question how much men are obligated to do in a minion is another question which I'm not getting into now but she is clearly fulfilling and she's also part of when the leads the minion and leads the Sha she is part of that sha and in fact when we're talking about the the role of a rabim often use the word far something public women are often included in that uh and I brought on the sheet you don't need to look at it now there are five or six areas which are not technically anything to do with minan for example the requirement of aor of 10 in order for the Mitzvah of kashem God forbid someone has to Die Al kashem it's it's Mitzvah to do that barab him so it could be that a woman the women add up to make up that Quorum of 10 it's not necessarily minion based um the Mitzvah to read the m in aor it could be that women also make up that Quorum and and the nafin are one of the the implications is do you make the Haru Haru which we say the end of the m is only done if Milla is done in public not in private so if you have a woman's McGill reading do you read that broa or not I'm not getting into all the details for beatl also could you have 10 women I'm not getting inak here on woman making the BR of ha the Mitzvah to do bris in a if you can does that include women as well haneka Lighting in a tior and I brought you on and again I'm I'm just teasing you with all of this because this is not really what we're talking about no no the the idea of doing bris Miller in public not in private what makes up a public in order to be a public expression of the mits of a briser that's the question and if you're interested in this Rabbi Arie fmer wrote a very important article on this in the '90s um actually I think it was a bit later than the no ' 89 excuse me it was earlier I'm losing track of time called women and minan and I brought you a reference to that on the sheet he goes through all of those brings all the akronim and all the rishonim that talk about whether women do make up a quorum yes no on these however it is Absolut yes sir well don't use the word minion because minion we're going to come up to a quorum let's use the quorum to be one yes there has to be a baby there for sure um and and and whe and whether and whether women are uh able to be uh m is a good question we get into tpur but that's not for today correct he doesn't for sure doesn't make up the minion the baby um however it is absolutely clear and there is no debate on the question that when you're talking about a minion a technical minion to make prayer for a d kadus women are not part of that minion women do not count towards the minion there is no debates on that and I brought you on the sheets a number of reasons why that could be uh it could either be because of more technical derivations the gamorra derives the need for 10 adult males to read a d kadus which we think of as Kadesh andu and repetition laning Etc the gamorra derives it from the 10 spies through a series of derivations the 10 spies leaving aside calan Yeshua the 10 bad guys were definitely men and they were definitely over Bar Mitzvah the Yami divides it derives it from the son the sons of Yakov the 10 sons of Yakov that went down to Egypt to find ysf they were also male a little bit more positive than the spies maybe little they were also male they were over mitvah you could there are other ways of deriving that only men may be part of a minion when it says maybe it's B Israel or not but nice isra and there are other ways as well and that brings us to our conundrum which is that women and Kadesh you have these conflicting polls and this is where I really want to start on the one hand women are part of the Tibor on the other hand women do not count for the minion to make up what it takes in order to say kades everybody agrees on that there's no debate on that and there are again technical reasons and maybe more fundamental reasons why that is we didn't go through it all this is not a sheer on women and minion on the other hand how many hands are there quite a lot here with the Mitzvah of Kadesh is and women are obligated in that Mitzvah so women do connect with that Mitzvah not quite the same way as men but not in a in a totally different way and kades of a mner as a Mitzvah of so a woman's obligation in kav aim for her parents is no different for a man's obligation of kav aim for his parents in principle there are slight differences for the woman is married but not for our purposes so what are we going to do with kades because we have a problem we saw last time that mour as kades evolved through the time of the Rishon and it was designed specifically for those people who were unable to lead the daving as the either because they were unable the mission Brewer brings down they just didn't have their skill or because they were children that's why we call it Kadesh yam and yat doesn't just mean in in the language of you know kazal it doesn't just oh here there is show name it doesn't just mean an orphan we're not talking about we're looking at a 75y old man whose parents are no longer alive I don't think we're talking about him as a yat a yam usually means a young child exactly what age let's say below Bar Mitzvah so a child is able to say one of these kadim in order to act as it were as the even though he's not able to formerly lead the prayers now what's interesting is the one kades at least for ashim which was designated for the aim is the kades after alenu and that is one of the seven kadish is which the community has to say every day again at least we talked about that last week fim so you have this interesting conundrum that you have a child let's say leading this Kadesh after alenu when it's one of the kades that we have to have in the Tibor and he wouldn't have been allowed to do it in front of the tior but there's a special dispensation so how does this relate to women because women seem to fit that category they're not able to lead it from the front for all the technical reasons that we didn't go into in great detail but they do form part of this Mitzvah and that cadish may be appropriate for them for many reasons so let's have a look now go to page five that was an introduction um a tad longer than I wanted it to be but we have so much to go through today we're going to be looking into to uh to U minhagim An accounts of minhagim I'm glad Rabbi AR is here covered that he stayed for the sh I'm sure he's going to have um you know things that I didn't put on the sheet uh murus from the RAV and from other people so uh I'd love it if he is able to jump in if I say anything wrong or if there's anything to add which is uh which is needed this starts and there's a lot of very fascinating Chas mostly from ashkenazim we'll see we'll see theim chime in on this and say well if this is a Minag it's an ashkanazi Minag it's not our minhag and we'll see if that goes through to the modern period as well but the starting point on this is number 24 so let's turn to number 24 before the um the we'll talk about him in a second before the there is no real mention of Kadesh for women and of course Kadesh for MERS was was developing through the period of the rishonim there is a Remar that deals with the question of if somebody's parents died and they didn't realize they were dead do you have to tell them them that their parents died or is that your obligation to tell them so they can do public mourning and things that they need to do and the sh says you don't need to tell them and the RAR chimes in and says if it's a man you do need to tell them because they have to know to say kadish but if it's a woman whose parents died you don't have to tell them because she's not going to be saying kadish so there you see an indicator early days that according to the Rai in in kakow in the 16th century women were not saying cadish in his uh orbit anyway but let's look at number 24 this is a famous Rak is very interesting person he wrote a CH ver called was named after his grandmother K which is very interesting you know a trivial question Al how trivial it is it's it's very special that he named it after his grandmother uh he lived in the 1600s in the late 1600s in Germany and he says there a Shila 24 ddam and that's a great way to start there was a strange thing that happened in Amsterdam now I don't exactly know when this happened I assume in the late 1600s and I don't know and I tried to do a bit of research I didn't get far enough in you'll see I did a lot of research but this far I didn't get to know which sh it was in Amsterdam the main sh in Amsterdam with the esog sh which was the sari sh in Amsterdam but I have a feeling that this was the ashkanazi community in Amsterdam which was which was kept you know to the side by the sarim but I I suspect it was them a because they're talking about the cadish issue which the were not dealing with and because they went to the kavar for as opposed to to thei but I can't know that for sure it was very well known this strange thing a man passed away without a son and before he died he gave a command he gave an instruction that he would pay he would leave money for 10 men to learn Torah in his house for 12 months after his death after the learning the daughter would say Kadesh and nobody in the Amsterdam Community objected to this the and by the way the the the as it were theim in the Amsterdam Community really ran the show there the rabbis kind of often did what the paranas Sim instructed them to do when Spinosa was put into it was the parim that were signing on the bottom of theim for Spinosa just before this but and also the but anyway the and the had no problems and I have no reason to say this is completely wrong because a woman is commanded in the midst of K why is woman not commanded in kades like a man it's the mid of and there is a minion of men meaning no one suggests that you can make a minion of women for this we'll see maybe a strange outlining case a bit later on [Music] and this is called you've got a minion it's finees and even though the midrash we saw last week of RAB AKA where he the man remember the the ghost who was SCH shlepping wood and and RAB AA said what's your sin and he said I you know I need someone to say kadish for me even though it says that was a son that saides and Al you would say that what's the difference if it's a son or if it's a daughter do the child will give a merit to the parents and why do I care if it's a son or why do I care if it's a daughter now you could argue with that and we'll see soon the farim argue with that and we say no no no no the cabalistic idea here is it was a boy and it's dka a boy and it's not a girl and actually there's even a support from the story do you remember the story The Man Came we talked to rabika and he said I left my wife pregnant when I died and I don't know if she had a boy or a girl now according to the why do you care it sounded from that story at least if we can be m in midash which we probably can't but if we could then maybe he has to be a boy but the says no I don't know why he has to be a boy maybe he could be a girl however so far he sounds as though he's going to be okay with the Kadesh I don't like this idea idea of this woman saying kades this young girl because it it's going to weaken the minhagim of the Jewish people sh andhim Torah and the mar actually says that the minhagim of Kadesh take on a of a I brought you a reference later for this Mar in the yamomo so now when a man says you know oh I don't really want to say Kadesh for my parents it's only a Min and I don't really feel like it I'm sorry that's M Israel you have to say Kadesh and he says therefore I'm minhag don't play fast and loose with their Torah if we allow this to go this woman saying Kadesh everyone's going to build their own B meaning you're not going to have public minhagim everyone's going to go off and do their own thing everyone's gonna have their own and the the Rabin system theic system it's going to look like a joke means going to look like a a mockery everyone's going to be doing their own thing for zil by and there'll be total breakdown it will lead there's a slippery slope in the bad Direction we'll talk about the slippery slope later now in this very public case where they're making this breaker minion I'm not going to allow it you have to stop it now what was he so upset about was he upset that it was a woman saying cadish maybe although he did say that in principle I don't have an issue with women saying cadish although I'm not going to allow this or was he upset because he was a breakaway minion meaning there is a point here that if don't forget back in those days when kades was very carefully appointed according to a hierarchy and you go to sha you're competing with all the other guys as to who's going to say Kadesh if you make your break away minion and then you get seven kishes a day 365 days of the year you're basically jumping the queue you're saying I don't want to you know compete with all these other guys in schul for cadish I'm going to make my own Minion do my own cadish so there isn't element maybe that he's unhappy about that as well and everyone's doing their own thing and it's going to be a mockery and rabbis tend to be unhappy about Breakaway minion him Co kind of made this more of a something they couldn't resist as it were but but there seems to be no question that he's also concerned about the women's angle as well although in principle he didn't have a problem so how you read this Chua is very interesting do you read it to women aren't allowed to say kades or do you read it the women are allowed to say kades but in his community in his context in the late 17th century in Germany in Europe whatever in Amsterdam he felt it was a bad idea it's bad for the community it's bad for the it's like a policy decision which way are you going to read it you could read it in both ways yeah yes differentes I it's a good question I also had that thought uh is is there a context here in Amsterdam is this part of the post spinozan uh TL that's going on I I I don't know whether it's he's in Germany I I think he's unhappy in Germany but it's interesting in Amsterdam or whoever he's talking about didn't seem to mind okay so that's one Chua go fast forward about 50 or so years look at number 25 maybe 100 years the Yakov Yakov yakova in Germany in the early 1700s now this is quoted as a very famous juver he says as follows there's a man that passed away the he had two small daughters the he B Arab and the older of these two daughters was only four years old it's two very small daughters and when he was sick Eli this is the rav writing to rava the rav of the community is writing a question to the senior PO says the rav says the man asked me he told me I should give him aades that his that the older of the two little girls the four-year-old should say Kadesh the Li says CL but not in sh but in a private minion and now the father of the man who died the grandfather of the little girl ladesh he wants to come and say Kadesh Al for his son with the other and how do I know that this father has a right to say Kadesh for the son we saw that the son has this special power to get the parents out of geham or to let's be more positive to to push them up through ganaden who says the father has a power for the son so what's really going on in this Shila is a two-fold Shila there's a little girl who wants to say cadish in a well she doesn't want to do anything she's being told to say cadish in a private minion and there's a grandfather who says okay they're doing their migas in the minion but I'm going to come to schul and I want to say I want to have one of the kishes and sha now most of the Chua of the of Raa is about the grandfather if you I cut out most of the Sha he's mostly dealing with can we give the grandfather a to join in Kish or not and then he says at the end here look at number 25 when it says cha and again I've skipped all the stuff about the grandfather Kadesh he's already left the little girl saying Kadesh it's a done deal by it's in the house in the private minion minion and and by the way he says in there's no way that this girl would have been allowed to say kades but in the minion it's already a and I think the grandfather should go with the home minion orades with his granddaughter who Sayes he says the grandfather can't muscle in on the cish is in the shaw he they having a minion already let him DAV with the granddaughter let him DAV in the private minion let him say cadish together with his granddaughter okay end of Chua what does that tell you about women in Kadesh anything something there are different ways to read this CH as well some of the we'll see the ra of T Aviv Chief Riv he reads this Chua that um rraa didn't deal with the issue of the granddaughter because he doesn't have a problem with that obviously it's fine as long as she doesn't say it in schul one second I've got a lot to do and and we'll see we'll see why he has a problem saying it in schul so he reads it and says he it's it's absolutely fine it's not even controversial that the granddaughter says cadish in a private min not even a question his real question was the grandfather other people read this Tu and say look rraa was just presented with the granddaughter as a fet comp he wasn't even asked to Shila he was told she's saying kadish now what about the grandfather yes or no so maybe if you'd have asked about the granddaughter he would have said you know something I'm not into this whole private menu with the granddaughter either so again it's always a problem when you're learning chers they're talking about a very specific scenario how do you learn out to other scenarios which are not quite the same I just need to go on a little bit cuz you'll see there will be time for questions please God although I can't promise that but I hope I hope they will okay fine so that's a second cha a third Chua the Mata Ephraim I'm giving you the pre 20th century picture the Mata Ephraim who margolus living in Poland late 1700s early 1800s is often a saer which is used around lot of of so he goes he says as follows someone who has no Sons R and this is by the way this is not chuva this is this is his someone only has a daughter and He commands that they should have a minion in the house and again we'll see why it's always the house and they'll pay for a minion in the house and after the learning the daughter will say I don't think it's allowed at all don't listen to the father Kan and you should object to it and stop it well mik Shan and then he has a hierarchy of gradually worse and worse scenarios if it's a little girl in the house don't let it happen she should start start saying she certainly shouldn't start saying kades as part of ailla service because don't forget all the cases so far well certainly the kavasar and this one have been learning in the house so what's the little girl saying she's saying C Ron which is actually quite impressive that four-year-old is going to say kadish Ranon CU I know plenty grown men who have enough problem with saying kadish ran but she's going to teach her to te so it's not a service it's a it's it's a learning it's a bet me drash he says all the more so I don't want it to be part of T that's absolutely not okay even if she's single all the more so if she's married I don't want married women saying Kadesh certainly not a part of and the worst case of all is if she's a woman a grown woman a married woman in SCH and you can hear her kades that he says is absolutely not acceptable I don't care whether that's in SCH or whether that's at home that is absolutely not allowed we'll see in a minute what his problem is if she wants to if she wants to give a merit for her father Kad why she need to say Kadesh he said what's more important saying Kadesh or answering a we should know that from the last twoim answering is the whole point that is the Mitzvah public kesem if she wants to give a merits to the parent let her answer kadish in how many men and women but certainly women many many women in SCH do not answer to Kadesh maybe they don't know exactly what to say maybe they don't think it's for them to say but they should and they must they need to what's that call that's not why they're answering okay and and therefore he says she should be very careful to answer to okay even though the father told her to say Kadesh he'll be okay in sh she's doing the right thing she's listening to Kadesh saying so you see here the matter e is pretty negative he won't let it happen and there's a sliding scale of this is worse than this and this is worse than this and the worst of all is for a a woman to have a voice heard in shul saying kadish in the SH now why just for a second why is it worse to say kadish in shul all of these cases have been saying sh for sure not but a minion we can talk about and it might not be necessarily what you think there are two issues with saying kadish in the shaw that you may or may not have thought about issue number one is that back in those days only one person said kades so if you're talking about a woman saying kades in sh she is going to be the one who has allocated that kades they didn't have a situation where everybody said cadish together so you could already say well whatever they said about that today that's not the case the woman is saying cadish together with a group of men we'll talk about what if there's no men saying kades but there for sure she was saying kades on her own that's number one whereas in the minion in the house she's still saying Kish on their own on her own but it's it's a more private setting but number two and and don't forget this was a very important point which many of the chers go into most schuls in those days in Europe did not have an ezis nashim and if they did it was not like the ezis nashim we have today they either had no ezis nashim at all so the women would walk into the back of the shaw of the men's section there was only one section and say cadish there or they had an ezos nashim which is a completely separate room with a window either in the wall or over the top with a little Skylight that would look down and according to many hkim there is no minion in that room it is not considered part of the minion because it's an entirely separate R it's an entirely separate domain and I brought you in the footnotes the that if there's an eim which is like that then the woman is not in the minion and therefore she can't say Kadesh because there's no minion there now today the the mats is very different almost every sh in North America ra henin ra Yuda hin talks about this a lot in his CH inim says shs today are constructed in a way that there is one roof that goes over the ezis nashim and the EZ the ezis orim or whatever you want to call it and there is a uh there is a connection between the two therefore the women even if there's a curtain even if there's a solid Mak the women are in the minion and therefore this is not the same so just be aware that that is an issue which was a main concern which may be less so today okay so what have we had so far kav said yes in theory no in practice the shakov said yes in practice in the private minion the mat Ephraim said no never and certainly not here and even worse there and even even even worse there okay I I brought you on top of page six I'm not going into it in detail but the AL Lata which is the ra mag's notes on the bottom he brings the reasons why he so against um the women saying kades in sh and he says his real issue is and look at what he says I'm just going to read two two lines of this number 27 LEF there's so much PR there's so much lack of in the world today now again I don't know whether that was a specific problem in Poland in the late 18th century or whether this is something that all rabbis always say when they get up and talk about these issues maybe and maybe that's not bad maybe that's not right I'm not sure but I never heard a RV and stand up and talk about sne and say we don't have an issue with sne anymore but like I want to talk about everyone always starts that we have a major problem but maybe there was a problem and by the way in Poland you should know with the frankists there really were major problems problems that would make your HA stand on end if you knew what they were they make everything that happens today Fade Into almost insignificance but that's a separate issue I can't prove that that's what he's talking about but he says there's so much prees today we can't have this woman saying Kadesh kades I feel Bas Even in our house even after learning and not a prayer service is and don't get me wrong I'm not talking about K is meaning he's very clear that if he has a problem of it's not called Isa why is it not called Isa number one who says she has to sing it number two even if she sings it or chant it who says that chanting Kadesh is a problem of Kisha and there a lot of sources which I didn't bring on this for example kazal when they talk about women count being called up for a analia say that in theory women a part of the inar mill part of the seven aliad which those days they would be called up and would read from the Torah but we do not call women up to the Torah now in because of kav I'm I'm not getting into now what of K but it's no worther that it doesn't say we don't call wi men wom up because of Kisha meaning if it wasn't for the issue of K hator it sounds like there wouldn't be a problem of the woman chanting because of Kisha unless you say the Kisha is the Kor which doesn't sound like it's that way in the sugya he said it's not Kia so what's its problem he says the problem is that you got a woman singing or saying and all the men are listening and all the men are focused on that woman and he says and I don't think the women should be raising their voices I don't think it's appropriate and the men are going to have hurm the men are going to start focusing on the woman especially if it's unusual that the men are going to start uh getting into the wrong mode of thinking in the shore now you might turn around and say well why should women not be allowed to do things just because men can't keep their you know head together that's a good question and I can recommend a book on Snus that you might be interested in reading that talks about those issues uh you and it's a good question and and definitely the approach maybe was a bit different then you might also turn around and say yeah but that was in the 1800s or 1700s today if a woman start saying cish and SCH the men are not going to think it's strange well I've got news for you they really are in most places most sches in the world if women stand up and say kadish the men are going to be very uh perturbed by it and usually behave quite badly which which is very unfortunate because that's not how they should be behaving um and that's a separate question but you should know his his issue here is one of s that's the main question okay fine V Raza FAS Raza FAS was was a student of the of the noish beuda in Prague and he says some interesting things look at 29 let's go to 29 first of all he says again he's faced with the question of woman saying Kadesh the reason that you say is and he quotes from the ancient and it says if you do the we promised long life and then he says do men need long life but women don't need long life meaning if this is a something that's a merit that will give you long life and your parents and Aliyah so why why shouldn't the women be included in that in theory is it enough the women just wear their jewelry they can just look pretty that's not enough what are they going to have they need as well and the is going to be Mitzvah oriented but again he says but not in sh not in sh but in theory I have a problem he says with a KES in the following scenario and look at number 13 I brought you this in the old Wiggly squiggly bad old print just to make you appre appreciate how good things are these days uh and also because I didn't get the chance to uh to copy it out from a better Source but let's read it together because he says a fascinating thing AAL he says raus at the end of the 1800s 1700s in Prague prag I've seen in Prague a very good Min an an cler in the CL and sh the cloud and Sh is a sh in Prague you can go and visit it okay I've seen in the courtyard what happens there sham Yash a Canan was theas men and women together no because it's not sh it's outside the men and the women sit the blind the lame from morning till noon call and they say every day B him and someone who didn't leave Sons but daughters afterwards BOS small daughters young daughters under Bas Mitzvah five or six years old these little girls say kades or one of them says kades maybe they have a ro but in the which is specifically for I've never seen such a thing that a woman would Sayes and it's not correct that a woman should be in the shw at all I don't care if she's a little girl or a grown woman according to the cabalists I would necessarily quote this widely but you bring a woman into the men again not talking about the EZ nashim they didn't have an EZ nashim and by the way the the AL no in Prague which is not this sh as far as I'm aware also didn't have an esim now there's an but they made it later so you bring a girl into the main base of Med into the base of Kes it's it's terrible why do I care if it's a 5-year-old or a 12y old it's not acceptable and those men who bring their little granddaughters or children little girls into the sh you know it's they're not doing the right thing but he says what can I do they won't listen to me you know they bring them anyway so I'm not going to give them USA they're just going to ignore me but certainly not Kadesh now again do we have that attitude to kids in the sh maybe some places yes some places no uh I know certainly in what's that depends how they behave oh I'm English it depends entirely on how they behave and and and I I I have mastered my highly disapproving look when these children run up to the uh to the to the Aron kodesh and they're and they're you know running around and they're looking in this I mean look it's my englishness nowadays people in the middle of shore I've seen this in the middle of the rav's dra the rav's standing there in SCH and someone takes his baby and they walk up behind the rav open the AR Kish to kiss you know this beautiful very very nice but like okay in London there was a sh in London where the iron cage was roped off it said no entry okay so so so like I I understand and the Gabby had to unclick you know the Rope that's already a little bit too much but but uh but you know I I say to my grandchildren if they listen to me or they do now let's see when they're older you can't run up there cuz it's a Mak Kadesh and you can't just run to a Mak kades and you could always tell them the story of nadav Anu and see if that puts them off I haven't I haven't got to that yet but uh but uh but children in SCH he's not happy with but interestingly there was this ancient Min for little girls to say cadish girls girls but nice he said girls I mean I mean boys is okay the boys the boys is not a kidish the boy could say it in SCH but that even the little girls five six years old because this was a mixed area there was no there was no etc etc the go on to page number seven we've got loads to do the number 31 let's go says the he is sa he is in Turkey he was a Rini he was a ra in Turkey in the otoman Empire and he says as follows um first line first he quotes and then he says I've recently been asked okay Chim one of the CRI Chim I had to look at what that was that means Jews from Crimea one of the gr from Jews from crime wanted to know she Kadesh a little girl wanted to say kades for I don't it's a little girl he says a daughter wanted to say Kadesh for her father she made Bel had no children and the and the the rav who is putting this question to me he wouldn't give an answer until he consulted with me and I gave my answer you can't start these new Minh even though and this is fascinating he says I know the ashim do this now that's interesting he thinks this is an askanazi Minag which he's not going to bring into turkey was it an ashkanazi Minag so I brought you in the footnote um a number of um accounts I'm not going to read through all of them that there seems to been a Minag uh certainly by the the late 1800s maybe in his time he was in the early 1800s that there were people saying women saying kades in Lithuania and in Russia um I actually had a conversation with my great-grandmother Alam she lived nearly 100 years old she was sharp to the end and she grew up in a little village called rver uh in uh in in Lithuania and I said what do you remember about your early days she says I remember going to SCH to say Kadesh her father died when she was little and I said I remember I was with my wife I said you mean Bobby call Bobby how we pronounced it then you mean Yar you mean Yar she goes no I don't mean Yar I know what Yar is I mean Kadesh which is I said okay so my wife and I thought look maybe she's taker not as sharp as she used to be whatever and then I started working with r Yak shurin who is my very good friend and colleague in M Rael and he said his father raelin who many people may have met from ephrat when he was in ephrat he also grew up in riter which is a bit coincidental because RIT was a small village there were about 13400 people there what we talking about and his father said he remembers distinctly from the 1920s that three sisters came into the back of the shul and rer and said kades for their father because they were no Sons so it seems like this was something which was done I brought you in at least in those places Rabbi Morris lamb I brought you in the footnotes quotes R solich is reporting that when he was in VNA when Ra solich was in VNA in the Clos of the vagon there were women saying cadish now I don't know if they said that when the vagor was there in the 1780s I can't tell you that but when the rav was there in the 193s uh 20s late 20s early 30s then that was going on and there are many other examples um RAV jelski has a an interesting article on this women and cadish which he then put into his book um where he checks in with RAV bik RAV ezrack from now gion in in in in the Yeshiva Rik says he checked around and many people said that they did hear the women said kades in Europe his grandfather SCH in me there were women who said kades there and I brought you many other examples of Kinski allowed a woman to say kades the Apparently allowed a woman to say kades in and again these are all obviously anecdotal but the the these accounts have been collected quite carefully r henin r yosf henin said when he was growing up in Russia he remembers women saying kadish in his so it's s there were too many people saying this for it to be uh you know Bubba MERS even though it was my bubba that gave me the MSA okay okay so so there there are the word Bubba misers by the way has nothing to do with bbba it's about a man called bbba in Ukraine who used to tell tall tales and it's nothing to do with your grandmother but that's not for now um there are enough accounts that women used to say kadish that this and the state says yes this was indeed an ashkanazi minhag again I'm not saying it was widespread in Gala and in Hungary um although we'll see in a second we'll see the kids in Hungary look in 32 and 33 the the appears on the page of the Mish bre the Mish bre where gave strict instructions when they printed the mishna breu they insisted that he had not only his Parish the mishna the sh and the Baka but also thetive and the Shan they he insisted that he had those as well um and uh and the uh and therefore you read in thetive as follows number 32 he brings from the Kess who was also in Germany in the 1700s Kasen and he's talking not about a woman but who who says the kades is it the son's son or is it the daughter's son what if I want to say a Kadesh for a grandparent but it's my mother's father he says no no has Kadesh kades doesn't have Kadesh aades women have noes in said the and then the be says but if she wants to make a private minion she can do that now the never said that if you look in the he says no way no how nowh not just SCH but the be says I don't have a problem with with a minion rather with a private minion he said that is based on the and now look at the the is Hungarian he's not inclined to unusual leniencies okay the hungarians had a lot ofas look what he says number 33 a girl cannot say a woman cannot say a daughter canot say in the if she wants to make a minion in her house she can do that if she wants and other people say she shouldn't do this even in the house he brings you two opinions he doesn't passing on it he says there are people who do this and there are people that do that and honestly if the says that this was something that he's okay with if that's your minhag then clearly I think this was something that was happening uh across ashkanazi Eastern Europe in different places okay ad can the pre-20th century post game there are other people as well uh I brought you just a reference here to someone called Alam and greski I I I didn't hadn't heard of him before he wrote a saer on kades which has a has come from a salant in the old city um and he says there that women not just daughters can say kades in even in schul um you can look at that you can look at the sources there um but let's look at the 20th century and I'm not going to read every single word on this page but there's some very interesting things going on let's start with two post him and I'm going to summarize page eight for you number 34 is the is Ravel raav benion uzziel the chief rabai he wrote a Chua in 1942 on the question of women and kades and he says uh women cannot say kades basically he says I have no issue that women give a to parents he says women give us to all of Isel look at the we only got out of Egypt because of the he says it's not an issue of women he says however I don't want to miss mess around with cabalistic minhagim the whole origin of mourus kadish is the story of Reika and and The Ghost and he got him out of geham he said you can't start with soras and say well if it it works for a son M it works for a daughter says I mean who says you can do that they said a son they mean a son maybe maybe there's something terrible about a daughter say Kadesh cabalistic and mystically I don't know I'm not going to get involved and he says and if you wanted to ask me to suggest maybe why it could only be a son it's because the sons make up the minion and maybe that feeds into the cabalistic ideas but I'm not going to allow women to say kades which is very interesting I mean this is not the same issue but but uh on the question of women's voting nothing to do with this at all um when women when there was a Shila asked in the new Yeshua in the 1920s when they had their first election for the new and raon was organizing Etc they asked all the pkim are women allowed to vote in that election and all the Pim RAV cook the old everyone said no except Ravel and ruzel was the one that said yes and again it's completely different lomus as to why women he said could vote but can't say cish so you can't just say well he didn't like women doing things I know it's amarat thing to say but on kadish he said no other places different faras but then later on of David also safarin Chief RAB Aviv I think he was Saar no yeah and he turns around he says um in principle I don't see why it's such a big question and he says I don't think and you can read this yourself I brought lots of lots of homework for you he says I don't think it's going to lead the rabbi system into disrepute now I don't think it's going to be a joke I don't think people are going to start uh flying off and and joining the reform movement just because woman says cish sh and he says and the yov who said that this little girl can say it in the minion he wasn't just a lone opinion there are people want to say if you look in the more on this they say but he's the only one who said that he says no he's not the only one who said it number one we just saw the says a similar thing as om and he says and the reason he had no problem with the daughter is because there was no problem with the daughter the question was on the grandfather remember does he can he say cadish so he says I don't think it's a problem of president there's enough president to say it but again he said my problem is s I have a major issue with women standing up in a sh or even he says women standing up at a funeral is a woman at a funeral allowed to say Kadesh and this is obviously very emotive very emotional issue let's say there are no Sons there's only daughters and they go to the funeral now maybe they're not even at the funeral because they don't let the children go but okay that's a separate issue but there are women who want to say kades and and many depends on yourish you have to pick your kadish as to whether sometimes you couldn't get a choice as to which is the kadisha but suddenly I've been to funerals where women do say Kadesh here in Isel and also where women don't in London this was a major issue even where the women could come into the basic forest and this there was a lot of a lot of issues there but he says I don't want the women to say uh kades at a at a funeral either because it's just too public and there are men focusing in on her and he says it's posit I think it's the wrong thing to do um and he's he's unhappy with that but not with the issue of the kishan principle and therefore he says at the last line he said I don't even want the woman to say kadish at a shiver house cuz a shiver house is open to the public but if there's a family minion close friends and family he says then I don't have a problem with her saying kadish but not in the shaw there was an account by the way I'll say this in parenthesis I didn't put it on the sheet there was a woman in in America who wanted to say kadish I assum she was in Cincinnati and there was no it was at a funeral and there was no minion and they said you can't say Kish the minion and Raba Sila who was a POC major PC in Cincinnati told her that they could make a minion quotes unques of women to enable her to say cadish at the funeral and and uh and I would have said like I can't quote that because like you know it's just a story except the Raa quotes it to say that he disagrees with it okay so I don't have any doubt that it happened but it was that was really a very uh like a fringe opinion uh but it's out there Etc but if you look in many postum you'll see I brought here at the bottom of page eight um he's not happy with say kades largely because of the the women there iski ra MOS is unhappy although I found people that said that his son R AR allowed women to say Kadesh RL interestingly now if you'd have asked me in a very kind of amorti way to guess what would ravl say about women saying Kadesh I don't know I might have said well ravl is's very broad-minded R allow no kades he feels that it will strengthen the reform movement significantly and now I'm going to do something a little bit cheeky go to the top of page nine and we've got five or six minutes left therefore I brought you if you you know I bought many many years ago in the 1990s a big black black book that was the only book out there then um and I quote three lines from it it's an art scroll book it I'm I'm not surprised that it says that women shouldn't say cadish okay he quotes there if the deceased left only daughters although some if deceased left only daughters although some have permitted a daughter to recite cish at a press service in her home comma virtually all other poim disagree and rulle that a daughter should not not reside kadish even in her home and even if her father commanded her to do so now the word that I find most interesting in that three lines those three lines is virtually because I looked it up in the original Hebrew morning in ALA is a an English adaptation of the saer and in the P he doesn't say virtually he says kalim is not virtually why did the English editors of the alc morning in ALA feel they couldn't get away with this adaptation without putting in the word virtually who is in the not virtually and the answer is some of the most significant American pisem of the 20th century and that's I think why the word virtually appears there who are they so RAV henin um and again we're going to have to summarize some of this RAV henin was the first to come out clearly at least his grandson says he was the first clearly in writing to say that he permits a woman to say Kadesh from the women's from the ezrat nashim he came out with aback in 1946 which was quite permissive and he said even if she were to come into the main sh I would allow it and he got a lot of push back and in 1963 he came out with a with a SL with a less uh a less expansive heter he says basically if a woman wants to say kades in the EZ and he says and just look at the first line beginning here she's a woman meaning she's a woman who is observing in other areas not just in this area she wants AFA to come she calls she wants to Sayes in the group not on her own in the group of men they're saying in the sh that's not a very strong header but he says I'm not sure there's a problem with that but then he says if she comes dressed belush America if she comes dressed in Lush America he said no way no way if she comes dressed Lush America in 1963 that's I mean 1963 you look at look at the way people were dressed at ked's assassination whatever you think this is very tanu by by comparison with 2024 L America but uh but anyway he says not if she's not Sanu etc etc so he definitely gives a heta but he did take back a little bit of his initial uh enthusiasm but he permits it in the women's gallery together with the men R mosha Fein never spoke explicitly about this but he has a throwaway line which is very interesting look what he says 38 he's talking about the issue of um the issue of M do you need a m if you're daving outside a fixed and there's only one or two women there nothing to do with women in Kadesh he says sh and then he goes on to say it was always the case women always used to walk into the to collect or a Kadesh or to say Kadesh and he just goes on he doesn't he doesn't give a headset to women to say kades but he says women always said Kadesh in the B midash which fits with what we said before about Lithuania which is interesting so I can't say rosi F is one of the mat but he certainly accepts that this was the case rinsky in the chinski is is is the very much the kind of last word in many ways on a he brings down minhagim I'm not going to read it now he says some people allow it only in the house some people allow it in the sh he brings down the different minhagim the only one he doesn't bring down is some people don't allow it at all that's the only one he doesn't quote which is interesting so rachinski says you know you follow your minhag um RAV solic um is very clearly on record by many many different people are saying that a woman could say Kadesh from the women's section from the Ezra Nim together with men saying Kadesh and even if men weren't saying Kadesh because they asked even if a woman woman's not going kades he said no it's okay in myo in the school in Boston there are a couns of women saying kades um but this is a tested by by many many of the talum of of RA Sal I don't think there's any doubt about it the Lai was asked about women saying Kadesh he said and I brought you actually footnote 39 it's interesting to note that in 19 1959 the renowned braan from passed away leaving four young unmarried daughters and no Sons his father-in-law YF Rasin asked the rebba what should be done regarding kades whether the daughter should recite Kadesh or someone else the rebba responded that he should consult with Rabon Anu and I brought you the quote from the letter of the rebi in the bottom number 39 who said that the daughters should say Kish and they said Kadesh so the rebi didn't specifically say but he allowed that to happen Aron solic has a more famous piece where he comes out and says you know something I'm worried about the slippery slope but there's a slippery slope in both directions he said there is a slippery slope that if we allow new minhagim then that could weaken Minag Israel and strengthen reform and conservative however he said there's another side he doesn't put it exactly this way but he said there's another side of the slippery slope which is if we keep saying no to women when they ask us for things that are actually permitted then eventually they're going to stop asking and they're going to just say you know something if you prohibit that's which is really permitted then I'm going to permit that which is really prohibited so he says there's a slippery slope the other way and you need to be careful about that and therefore he said this is not something we should be arguing about if the woman says kades in theim he says she should not be stopped from doing it and I brought you on the top of page 11 you can read the rest of the the the uh the sheet for yourself R shinberg is on record as permitting this R henin the grandson ra yud hin has an extensive cha on it ra rules in the name of the r that follows the men of the sh the Bri Chief rabbi's office has a whole pamphlet on women saying kadish they say only when the men are also saying it ra inot it's very interesting there are women who say Kadesh however he permits it only when there are other men saying kades so we had a problem in the sh because you know sometimes there was a woman wants to say kades and there's no men saying kades so what are we going to do and it was it was it was a tumble it was a balagan the woman starts saying it all of a sudden man jumps in and starts saying it and so now we have a like a 21st century solution we have a button in the ezis nashim okay and when there's a woman there that wants to say kadish she presses the button and a little light comes on on the Amud downstairs on the on the don't ask me how it works it's all smok and mirrors but it works um and it says kades and then the knows he has to say kades which is interesting I spoke to Ravon about it he said he didn't really like the whole thing but he did it because that's what people wanted and he said it's okay and I brought you there of liin and mcdal O and and etc etc etc so look what's the bottom line please ask your local po um but uh there's there's a lot of precedent uh behind this uh and I brought you at the end some of the considerations some of the policy considerations backwards and forwards some of the ideas you can really hear it both ways so I leave you with those thoughts um and and for families you know my parents-in-law should live i' may have es sh but they have three daughters no sons and uh the three daughters are very Magid on the kib ad May esam this is something that they take very seriously and many obviously many other women do as well so uh happy to hear your thoughts and I'm sorry for going a minut over but given that it seems that we won't meet next week uh people should have a uh a meaningful fast it should be a month of yeshua's Nissim and good things for cloud Israel and we'll see you in LoL please God was that hopefully and if it should it should go fast okay