Family comes first

Once again, a few seconds of an hour-long talk are being bashed as being “anti-woman” (“Senior National Religious rabbi: Educated women are ‘crippled,’” March 15). The talk was nothing of the sort.

I refer to the criticism of Rabbi Eli Sadan. Your incendiary headline leads one to conclude that he thinks women should be barefoot and in the kitchen. What nonsense! What a total twisting of his words!

I listened to the entire talk, and what I heard is someone who truly appreciates what women have to offer but bemoans the message in today’s society – and, by the way, not only in the Jewish world – that career comes before anything else, and the family suffers. Marriage and birth rates have fallen in the western world. He by no means says women shouldn’t be educated or work outside the home, but he does say the priorities should be set correctly. And family should be first.

The Torah states that mankind was created “male and female,” each with its own unique characteristics and traits. The union of a man and a woman in marriage completes the creation, so to speak, and each side has its role. This does not imply rigidity, that one can’t “cross over” – for example, the man doing dishes or changing a dirty diaper, or the wife being the keeper of the checkbook. But the notion that “I and my job (or my fun)” is ascendant instead of “ours” and “what’s good for the family” is indeed crippling family unity.

Rabbi Sadan speaks about Torah values, not politically correct whatevers, and while one might not agree, there is no place for belittling him. BATYA BERLINGER Jerusalem