Why do we make a seudas mitzvah for a boy when he becomes bar mitzvah and not for a girl when she becomes bat mitzvah?
ANSWER:
When a boy becomes bar mitzvah, he is chayov in all the mitzvos; a girl doesn't get all the mitzvos. There's another reason however, and this is an important reason.
The derech haTorah is to keep women under the cover. Women should come out in public, even a girl, is not the derech haTorah; it can't be helped, that's human nature. There's a blanket between us and between the other gender. L'hisracheik min hanoshim, keep away from women, not because - chas v'shalom, women can be even better than you are, but you have to keep away from men and men keep away from women.
At a boy's bar mitzvah, he comes into shul, everybody listens to him, looks at him. It's not good for a girl to be looked at too much, the less they see her the better off we are; it can't be helped. Men have a drive that women don't have, men are more easily excited than women are, that's why men have to be more careful not to have women around them that they can't look at.
Any woman who walks in the street with her body exposed, she's going to pay a very big price; she's going to be punished terribly for what she did to men. She walks in the street, exposing her body to men, a tremendous punishment is going to be upon her. She doesn't realize how expensive it's going to be, because men are sensitive. It can't be helped, that's their nature.
Therefore Hakadosh Baruch Hu said, that there should be a great mechitzah between man and women forever and ever, and that's the kedusha of the Am Yisroel, we're separate. It doesn't mean chas veshalom any reflection; the Jewish women are kodesh kodoshim just like the men are kodesh kodoshim. In a certain sense, the gemara says that women are more fortunate because when they stay home and don't look for kavod, don't fight who gets shishi, it's easy for them to avoid many things that men have nisyonos.
Therefore the Jewish woman is just as kadosh and in Gan Eden they'll be no less than men, no less than men, only in this world we have to separate them, that's the derech haTorah, that's the holy nation.
Good Shabbos and A Freilichen Purim To All
This email is transcribed from questions that were posed to Harav Miller by the audience at the Thursday night lectures. To listen to the audio of this Q & A please dial: 201-676-3210
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