Women's Tefillin - R Shlomo Brody Responds to R Ethan Tucker

«According to approach #3, women are exempt but may be allowed to wear tefillin. The sources that use this model report conflicting traditions about the response of the Sages to Michal's actions. The Mekhilta states that the Sages did not protest, while the Yerushalmi and the Pesikta record that position as well as an Amoraic position that the Sages in fact reproved Michal.

I stress the importance of this schematization because contrary to the impression given in the essay of Rabbi Tucker, the dominant position within the Talmudic literature – and particularly within the Babylonian Talmud, the accepted authoritative legal text of the halakhic community for well over a millennium – is that women can indeed don tefillin, either out of obligation (model #1) or out of choice (model #2). Even in model #3, the fact that both positions are recorded suggests that they were reached for reasons independent of the Talmud Torah – Tefillin connection.»

Women and tefillin: A reply to Rabbi Ethan Tucker | Shlomo Brody | Ops & Blogs | The Times of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/gender-and-tefillin-a-reply-to-rabbi-ethan-tucker-2/


Kol Tuv,
RRW