RE: A few postscripts ...

[music <music...>]

Friends, I haven't contributed to this year's Kol Isha discussion
because  a) I haven't really had the time to keep up with it, 
though I've tried to read many of the posts tonight; and b) I've
already contributed my fairly lengthy piece (or peace?), fwiwasw.
Though I realize that many participants this time around weren't
present for previous rounds.

(I shared various personal reflections, including my own impression
and judgment that women are far more sexually excitable by men's
voices than men by women's -- and I would add, this time around,
please don't confuse immodest dress on the part of the singer [the
Britney Spears (sp?) problem] with kol isha!.  But probably my most 
important contribution was bringing to the list's attention Rabbi
Saul Berman's superb essay on kol isha, which Bob Wiener 
kindly reminded us of last time around, and Judy Pinnolis did this
time, adding an immensely helpful [and not then available] web link.)

I wanted to comment now on a perhaps seemingly peripheral issue
of, I believe, no small importance.  This is the objection raised by
some that kol isha is "man-made", as opposed to G*d-given, law.
Whatever one thinks of kol isha (and both Rabbi Berman and I, no
doubt in different ways, are skeptics), this, I would argue, is a
specious distinction.

It's specious because a great deal of Jewish law -- ***specifically
including things that are probably observed by those who raise this
argument*** -- is "man-made" -- that is, rabbinically enacted, or
at least rabbinically derived, and not G*d-given, other than in the 
stipulative sense (i.e., that considers rabbinic law as by definition 
G*d-given).

Four examples (one more, apparently, than people can easily remember
and stay focused on -- Woops):

1) mezuzah:  The Torah says we should "write [these words] on the door-
posts of your house."  Which means what?  Which words?  Write them
with what -- a black marker?  On which doorposts?

Answer:  The mitzvah of mezuzah was rabbinically codified to mean,
Place a sofer-written scroll, containing certain particular text, on *all*
the major doorposts (no need to go into exceptions/qualifications here)
of your house.  (It doesn't mean to put a [barren of text] mezuzah case, 
however beautiful, on the front door -- though that's what some well-meaning 
beautiful Jews do ...).  Mezuzah (the Hebrew word that translates, usually, 
as "doorpost") is in the Torah; but without rabbinic exegesis how would we 
know how to fulfill it in a traditional Jewish manner?

2) Passover seder -- one of the two most commonly observed rituals of
Jewish life in America.  Is the seder "G*d-given"?  It's nowhere in the Torah --
Seek and you *won't* find.  The basics of the Passover seder -- which I'll
guess almost everyone using the G*d-given, not man-made argument
attends -- are set forth in the Mishnah; they're -- and therefore the seder
itself is -- "man-made," if one is making that distinction.

3) Lighting Chanukah candles -- the *other* most commonly observed
ritual of American Jewish life.  Entirely "man-made," by this distinction --
obviously, since it commemorates post-Biblical events.

and finally, and perhaps most tellingly,

4) Rosh Hodesh as a women's holiday.  I wonder how many Jewish women
who invoke this argument vis-a-vis kol isha have participated in the revival
of observance of Rosh Hodesh as a women's holiday -- a lovely custom, I
think.  Only:  Woops!  "[T]he halakhic basis for observance of  Rosh Hodesh
by women," according to Arlene Agus in her invaluable article on the subject,
"is a passage in the Babylonian Talmud [citing, that is, the teachings of
particular ... men] discussing the laws of work on Rosh Hodesh."  Arlene
goes on to cite other midrashic sources bearing on the subject.  "Man-made,"
all of them -- as is this "feminist" observance, in its entirety.  Not 
"G*d-given,"
*if* one accepts that distinction.  Therefore invalid?

>From a traditional halachic perspective, by the way (i.e., without even 
>considering
social/economic/who's really turned on by whose voices issues), the *real* 
problem 
with kol isha is that, very, very peculiarly for non post-Biblical halacha, it 
is grounded
(some would say very loosely, but see Rabbi Berman's essay and, if you can, the
tape by Reuven Kimelman that I've also recommended) in a verse from the 
*Talmud* --
whereas most halacha is based on or derived from one or more verses in the Torah
itself.  But there's nothing in the Torah (a verse from Shir Hashirim is often 
cited,
not very convincingly imho) that provides a basis for kol isha.

Now, I suppose that, full-circle-wise, that's a way of saying man-made vs. 
G*d-given --
but, I humbly suggest, on a far more sophisticated basis -- and one that is 
really,
or should really be, problematic from a halachic standpoint.  But *without* that
context, I think the "man-made" vs. G*d-given distinction is a very, very 
wobbly one.

But then again ...

-- Robert Cohen, who personally finds the singing voices of women, if anything,
something close to purifying

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