re: #667 mikhailtheplumber

To respond to your two points:

First, respectfully, I really do not think that you know what a Talit is. I mean I am sure you have seen them, but they do not confer any special significance to a man that a woman does not already posses. In fact, if you read the tradition it is considered by many that men being less holy then women need extra reminders during prayer to stay focussed. If anything it is biased against men. The same is certainly true for a minyan. The reason that it takes ten Jewish men to pray and say certain prayers is an atonement for the ten spies sent to scout the land. Women are exempt from that. This is not a discrimination, but rather something that differentiates them positively from men.

Whenever I hear some semi educated about the Tradition Jewish woman rant about that, I suppress laughing at her.

OK? It is nothing like blacks in the South. You are projecting a bunch of nonsense into the equation that is simply not there. As to “separate but equal, the reason that it is such a charged thing in America as a phrase is that it was separate” but very far from equal. It is frankly ignorant and insulting to hear you equate the two. As already stated, the women’s section is just as holy as the men’s section and their prayers are just as good as ours. The reason for the separation has nothing to do with class or status, but everything to do with having people being able to focus on prayer without sexual distraction. And you know what, it is true. If you are a single guy in a mixed service, you tend to notice the women more than your prayers. That is just the way it works.

As to the Kotel belonging to Reform Jews as much as any other Jew, of course it does, but that does not mean they get to disrespect the rules.

One of the things that Sephardim do much better than Ashkenazim is that there is really only one way to be Sephardi. The Tradition is the Tradition and either you are observant or you are not. Everyone gets it. You are still a Jew if you are not into it, but if you aren’t you don’t have the chutzpah to say whatever half assed thing you do or just made up on your own is somehow the Tradition or just as valid. It took German, English and American Jews to assume that they needed manifestos to redefine the Tradition to their own tastes as if they were a Sanhedrin and as if that were legitimate. It was not and is not.

It is not a matter of it being the house of the Orthodox as you put it. It is a matter of being a holy place that is ages older than any of the various isms that plague Judaism today. The rules are age old. They have always been that way, and you know what, there is one place on Earth where they have the right to stay that way.

I am sorry that you despise the Tradition so much that you think respecting it at the Kotel is somehow backwards. I frankly find that offensive. If the Tradition is not kept there of all places then where should it be kept?

The place was not built by Reform Jews. The place was not built by non-observant Jews. The place is a holy place built by people who cared for the Tradition. That should still be respected. It means something.