Women & Bringing the Geulah
Question:
What is the source that the Geulah (Redemption) will be in the merit of the women? And, in what will way will women bring the Redemption?
Answer:
The personifying trait of women is malchus (royalty), which is also the trait of Dovid HaMelech. Mashiach ben Dovid (the Mashiach who will descend from Dovid HaMelech) is rooted in Rus – the “mother” of royalty (malchus).
A Woman’s Extra Understanding
Question:
The Rav has explained that it is not a woman’s task to serve Hashem through in-depth Torah study. But don’t Chazal say that women have “binah yesairah” (understanding)? And although Chazal also say that “Women are light-minded”, to a certain degree women will still have this extra amount of understanding. Also, the Rav explains in the book “Getting To Know Your Feelings” that a woman’s avodas Hashem does not involve knowing something on an intellectual level before internalizing it on the heart, because women have the avodah to begin from their heart, not from intellect. But how can a woman begin internalizing any knowledge in her heart, without first knowing of it intellectually? In other words, how can a woman build her own inner world correctly if she doesn’t have the daas (intellectual awareness) which is supposed to eventually become internalized in the heart? And in general, is the book “Getting To Know Your Feelings” an appropriate avodah for women?
Answer:
This is a lengthy concept explained in the works of Kaballah. The following is a brief and simple outline.
There are two kinds of knowing: mochin d’gadlus, a more mature level of understanding, which is to study knowledge for the sake of the knowledge itself. This is the root ability that is needed when learning Torah, and it continues when a person is in Gan Eden and it will also be the case in the future after the Redemption. Women lack the complete level of this kind of knowledge (mochin d’gadlus). The lower level of understanding is called mochin d’katnus, and it is about thinking in order to do something. Women are better at this kind of thinking [because women are naturally more action-oriented].
Getting more specific, women are better at grasping and understanding certain details (prat), but they are less gifted at seeing a more encompassing view of the information (klal).
Furthermore, there is binah (understanding) in both the intellect and the heart. Women do not have the quality of intellectual understanding, but they will have more “heart understanding”, which is about palpably recognizing and feeling their knowledge. This is the meaning of the statement in Chazal that women have a better understanding of a guest, more than their husband’s understanding.
Women feel the truth of a situation not by deeply analyzing the reality in front of them, but by using their feelings directly. In that way, women skip over the stage of “knowing”, which is the intellect, and they begin from the heart, by having a conversation in their own heart about their feelings, which in turn sharpens their feelings towards a matter.
This is the main ability which women need in order to learn about anything and it is the main ability which women need in their avodah in general. And, more specifically, it is needed in order to understand the book “Getting To Know Your Feelings”.
