Resistance to Change October 1, 2024 Excerpted and adapted from a shiur by HaRav Nissan…
Novel Gazing: May Women Stare at Men?
Adapted from the writings of Dayan Yitzhak Grossman
September 19, 2024
AP News reports:
Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have issued a ban on women’s voices and bare faces in public under new laws approved by the supreme leader in efforts to combat vice and promote virtue…
Article 13 relates to women. It says it is mandatory for a woman to veil her body at all times in public, and that a face covering is essential to avoid temptation and tempting others. Clothing should not be thin, tight or short.
Women should veil themselves in front of all male strangers, including Muslims, and in front of all non-Muslims to avoid being corrupted. A woman’s voice is deemed intimate and so should not be heard singing, reciting, or reading aloud in public. It is forbidden for women to look at men they are not related to by blood or marriage and vice versa.
Article 17 bans the publication of images of living beings, threatening an already fragile Afghan media landscape.
Article 19 bans the playing of music, the transportation of solo female travelers, and the mixing of men and women who are not related to each other. The law also obliges passengers and drivers to perform prayers at designated times.
According to the ministry website, the promotion of virtue includes prayer, aligning the character and behavior of Muslims with Islamic law, encouraging women to wear hijab, and inviting people to comply with the five pillars of Islam. It also says the elimination of vice involves prohibiting people from doing things forbidden by Islamic law.[1]
This article considers the question of whether halacha forbids “women to look at men they are not related to by blood or marriage.”
Sefer Shmuel relates:
As they (Sha’ul and his attendant) were climbing the ascent to the city, they encountered some maidens going out to draw water, and they said to them, “Is this where the seer is?” They answered them saying, “It is. Behold, he is just ahead of you. Hurry now, for he came to the city today, for the people are bringing a feast-offering today at the High Place. As you enter the city you will find him before he ascends to the High Place to eat, for the people will not eat before he comes, because he blesses the offering; only afterward do the invited guests eat. Now go up, for you will find him, as surely as it is day.”[2]
The Gemara comments on this exchange:
And why did the maidens speak so much in response to Sha’ul’s simple question? Because women are talkers.
But Shmuel said: They delayed in order to gaze upon Sha’ul’s handsomeness. As it is written about Sha’ul: “…From his shoulders up, he was taller than any of the people.”[3]
But R’ Yochanan said: Hashem caused them to delay because the reign of one king does not encroach upon the reign of another, even by the breadth of a hair.[4]
The Midrash, after citing these three opinions of Amora’im on the reason for the maidens’ delay, proceeds to record an alternate version of the discussion in which Tana’im disagreed about the plausibility of the idea of Jewish girls ogling a handsome man:
What is the reason for all this lengthiness? They were gazing at the beauty of Sha’ul and could not get enough of him; these are the words of R’ Yehudah. R’ Yosi said to him: If so, you have characterized bnos Yisrael as similar to whores, for is it not the case that just as it is impossible (i.e., absolutely prohibited) for a man to feast his eyes upon a woman who is not suitable for him, so, too, is it impossible for a woman to feast her eyes upon a man who is not hers?…[5]
R’ Shlomo Yehudah Tabak (author of Tshuras Shai and Erech Shai) argues that even if R’ Yehudah disagrees with R’ Yosi and considers it acceptable for women to gaze at men, the halacha follows R’ Yosi, in accordance with the general principle that “R’ Yosi’s reasoning is with him.”[6] Moreover, R’ Yosi’s “if so” implies that it is impossible for anyone to disagree with the premise that such behavior is wrong, so R’ Yehudah must mean only that although doing so was indeed wrong, it is nevertheless entirely plausible to accuse the maidens of ogling Sha’ul, because many people are not meticulous about this.
Rav Tabak therefore rules that a shul’s ezras nashim should be built in such a manner that the women should not “feast their eyes upon the men.” He acknowledges that earlier generations were not particular about this, but he nevertheless asserts a prerogative to introduce a novel halachic practice, as per the Gemara’s famous discussion of Chizkiyah melech Yehudah:
“And he crumbled the copper serpent that Moshe had made, for until those days the Bnei Yisrael had burned incense to it; and he called it Nechushtan.”[7] Is it possible that Chizkiyah’s forefather Asa came to power and did not destroy it? And is it possible that Asa’s son Yehoshaphat came to power and did not destroy it? Asa and Yehoshaphat destroyed all the idols in the world! Why did they leave the copper serpent intact? Perforce, [Chizkiyah’s] forefathers left him a place in which to distinguish himself.[8],[9]
Rav Tabak was a lifelong resident of Sighet, Romania, and its rav for fifty years; a sharp rejection of this teshuvah appears in that of another famous son of Sighet, R’ Yoel Teitelbaum, the Satmar Rav.[10]
R’ Moshe Feinstein had written that although men and women must be separated in shul, it is not required that the men be unable to view the women, so a shoulder-height mechitzah is sufficient.[11] The Satmar Rav, in the course of a lengthy rebuttal of R’ Moshe’s leniency about creating a situation where men would be able to look at women, stoutly rejects Rav Tabak’s stringency about women gazing at men. He argues at length that we cannot derive halacha from sources outside the Gemara; that the Gemara in various places actually implies that there is no prohibition whatsoever for women to gaze at men; and that it is unacceptable to assert that the practice of “the geonim and kedoshim of the generations that preceded us” was erroneous. (His response to Rav Tabak’s citing the Gemara in Chulin in support of his halachic novelty, as well as the other details of his arguments, are beyond the scope of this article.)[12]
The Satmar Rav’s slightly younger contemporary, R’ Yekusiel Yehudah Halberstam, the Sanz-Klausenberger Rebbe, agrees with the stringent view of Rav Tabak,[13] as does R’ Menashe Klein,[14] but R’ Ovadia Yosef firmly rejects it as not normative and sides with the view of the Satmar Rebbe (which he notes that Rav Klein neglected to acknowledge). R’ Ovadia acknowledges that the Sefer Chasidim does indeed declare that just as a man must avoid hearing the voice of a woman (kol ishah), so must a woman avoid hearing the voice of a man,[15] but he dismisses this as against “the widespread minhag that the women in the ezras nashim hear the cry and the prayer[16] from sweet-voiced chazanim and singers, and no one is concerned about this statement of the Sefer Chasidim
[1]The Taliban publish vice laws that ban women’s voices and bare faces in public. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/afghanistan-taliban-vice-virtue-laws-women-9626c24d8d5450d52d36356ebff20c83.
[3]Ibid. pasuk 2.
[5]Yalkut Shimoni (Shmuel) perek 9 siman 108, cited in Maharsha (Chidushei Agados) to Brachos ibid.
[6]Eiruvin 14b and 51a, Gittin 67a.
[9]Shu”t Tshuras Shai (second edition) kama siman 125. Cf. Ben Yehoyada ibid., who apparently also assumes that the view of R’ Yosi is normative and goes so far as to explain that even Shmuel, who explains that the girls were gazing “upon Sha’ul’s handsomeness,” does not mean that that they were gazing at his face and figure, which can arouse lust, but merely at his unusual height, which is not an issue, because “a woman does not experience greater desire for a very tall man than for an average man who is not tall.” Cf. R’ Menasheh Yisrael, Histaklus Al Banim, Hidabroot.
[10]Shu”t Divrei Yo’el O.C. siman 10.
[11]Shu”t Igros Moshe O.C. cheilek 1 siman 39.
[12]Divrei Yo’el ibid. osios 8-9. We discussed the passage in Chulin, as well as the debate between Rav Tabak and the Satmar Rav about its application in our context, in a lecture available here.
[13]Shu”t Divrei Yatziv E.H. siman 35.
[14]Shu”t Mishneh Halachos cheilek 5 siman 222, and cf. ibid. simanim 223 and 132.
[16]From Melachim I 8:28.
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