Rav Herschel Schachter states that the very idea of ordaining women being “yehareg ve’al ya’avor (die rather than violate)” is based on an innovative understanding of the law in the Talmud of “arkesa d’mesana” – “laces (?) of the shoes”. Rav Schachter explained this Talmudic concept that even the smallest infraction can become “yehareg ve’al ya’avor” – even how you tie your shoe – if it is in the context of “she’as hashmad” – a time when Jews are being persecuted for keeping Judaism, even down to the smallest detail like how Jews tie their shoes.
The innovative read on this Talmudic concept was pioneered by Rav Schachter’s teacher, Rav Soloveitchik, in taking on what the Rav saw as the “she’as hashmad” in the 1950’s and ‘60’s, when the Conservative and Reform movements’ popularity in Jewish circles created an atmosphere of pressure on Orthodox Jews to compromise their halacha and conform to Reform and Conservative styles of Jewish worship. Thus, even davening in a Reform or Conservative synagogue, with mixed seating and other infractions of halacha, while not normally seen as a central violation meriting “yehareg ve’al ya’avor”, in the context of the social pressures and climate of the 1950’s and ‘60’s were classified by the Rav as “yehareg ve’al ya’avor”.
This is certainly an innovative and revolutionary way of viewing a two thousand year old halacha from the Talmud. Rav Schachter continues in Rav Soloveitchik’s innovative interpretation, by seeing the act of ordaining women rabbis as Orthodox Jews knuckling under pressure from a climate of feminism in society and amongst the other movements of Judaism and thus, forbidden by halacha and subject to “yehareg ve’al ya’avor.”