Is the Torah Fair to Women?

I hate to mention the beliefs of apiqorsim, since there is a general prohibition of even mentioning their words even in jest. However, some points just need to be addressed directly.

There is a huge wave of heresy that has attacked the Jewish people, and we see more real (spiritual) casualties from this than from anything else.
This heresy and doubt about the Torah is from `Amaleq, directly. This is the main war against `Amaleq.

Some people believe this heretical lie because they are influenced by western culture which now associates men and women as exact equals. They embrace this folly, and think that anything that seems Muslim in nature is misogynistic (even thought the left wing who supports so-called feminism is very forgiving of anything Islamic). Well, both Christianity and Islam are cheap, watered-down rip-offs of Torah - and each go in their own direction.

Islam, in religious observance, is much more like Judaism than Christianity is, since Christianity states that the Torah is no longer relevant for anyone. Islam has real laws and rules, unlike Christianity, but their laws are not the Torah's laws, instead they mimic them closely since Islam sought to pass itself off as the 'old' or 'corrected' Judaism, since they hold (much like the Christians, Karaites, and sola-scriptura 'Messianics' believe) that the Jewish people 'changed' the Torah, or failed to the point that God chose another people.

So many of the people afflicted with the new modern, western, secular religion that is focused on gender equality, will downplay the simple facts of Torah law, citing them as being 'outdated' or even worse as 'barbarian', God forbid. Nothing could be further from the truth. All of the Torah's laws are relevant whenever they are possible to be fulfilled; and secular norms, western norms, modern Edomic ideals do not in any way change the Torah's relevancy. To believe such a thing is heresy, and you'll have no place in the world to come if you believe such. The Torah was not left to laymen to interpret for themselves, based on errors and follies of their hearts.

Let's take a look at some facts about the Torah. I'll start with the laws of marrying a woman and the laws of nida.

Women were often married off during the time of na`aruth, which is when a woman is between the ages of 12 and 12-and-a-half. If not then, they were married off shortly thereafter. The men marrying them could be 13 or even 60 year old. And guess what? A 60 year old man marrying a young teenage girl is a-okay in the Torah's eyes (I'm not recommending, at all in any way, to break the laws of the government you live under when it comes to any of these points). Why? Because the woman has the choice of who she marries and cannot be married against her will. If she wants to, she may. And it would not be uncommon for a 30, 40, 50, or 60 year-old Torah scholar to get married to a very young woman. Women, then, didn't have a problem with such a thing like how many people do today. As long as they did not find the man repulsive - in which case if the marriage was already consummated, the woman could be divorced with her kathuba paid to her in full, meaning she could not be held at any fault for the necessity of divorce.

Secondly, a man can marry more than one woman. In fact, the Sages suggested that a man should marry a woman in his youth, have children with her, obviously, and then marry again in old age - to a woman of child-bearing age, likely even a woman in her teens - since, the Sages state, the man may now know of what stock his first children will turn out to be. Therefore, to have children with a second woman later in his life, he is reinforcing the likelihood he will have righteous children who will be devoted to Torah.

Nowhere in the Torah are any of these things forbidden. In fact, even among Ashkenazi Jews as little as 200 years ago, it wasn't very uncommon for both men and women to marry in their teens. Today, this might not be as applicable since youth are not raised well, at all, and are not really raised to be responsible adults by the age of 12-13, for female and male respectively.

In no way do these laws reflect what Muslims do, since Islam allows men marrying minors (women under 12 years old). While strictly according to the Torah there is no specific prohibition, the Sages had a rule to give makath marduth (Rabbinically instituted lashes) to any man who did do that. Also, when a woman was betrothed by her father to a man before coming of age at 12 years old and one day (note, the purpose of this betrothal was for the woman to only consummate the marriage after coming of age), the girl had the right to mi'un, meaning refusal, rendering the mere betrothal (not yet a consummated marriage) null and void. She had a choice to accept becoming fully married to this man after coming of age, or to refuse him entirely. As far as I know, no such thing exists in Islam. Women don't seem to be given any choice.

Now let's turn the tables on these evil, wicked heretics who say the Torah is misogynistic. `Ezra and his Beith Din (Rabbinic High Court, Sanhedrin) enacted that a man who is a ba`al qeri (one who had a seminal emission) could not read Torah or pray. The reason for this decree was so that Torah scholars would not frequent their wives. Rather, a Torah scholar is ideally only to have relations with his wife once a week, on the night of the Sabbath. This decree never spread among Israel and was annulled by later Courts, because it was too difficult for people to abide by. Is this against men? Is this suppressing the freedom of men? Absolutely not, but if the heretics don't have a double standard, this should be viewed by them as sexist against men - should it not?

Now what about the laws of nida? They are complex in calculating her days of nida as opposed to her days of ziva, as well as a multitude of other issues in determining where the blood originates, what we assume if there is no wound in the outer 'chamber', etc. There are many, many, details, albeit they're of extreme importance, because a man who has relations with his wife who is in nida gets kareth (a spiritual cutting off of his soul, losing his place in the world to come), and the woman does as well if she knows about it. You don't want to risk it, so it's necessary to be absolutely sure whether the woman is either in nida or is a zava jadhola or zava qatana, which determines how many days she counts before immersing in the miqwa, and even what time of day she does so.

"Rabi Zera said: the daughters of Israel took a stringency upon themselves, that if they even see a drop of blood as [tiny as the size of] a mustard seed, they sit seven clean days over it."

What did the women of Israel do about the complexity of these laws? As we repeat daily ever morning, "Rabi Zera said: the daughters of Israel took a stringency upon themselves, that if they even see a drop of blood as [tiny as the size of] a mustard seed, they sit seven clean days over it", meaning they waited until any and all blood ceased, and counted seven clean days before immersing - assuming it was the blood of ziva, wherein, unlike the blood of nida, they wouldn't have to count seven clean days. The very women themselves decided to make extra sure in any instance of sighting blood that they wouldn't make a mistake. If they collectively did this back then, and this practice still exists today, how could that be misogynistic? Again: the women themselves took this stringency upon themselves. Can I make the point any clearer? Not only that, they didn't because they were God-fearing and not a bunch of sore complainers like the heretics who believe in making women into men and vice-versa are today.

The Torah treats men and women according to their particular differences that God created each of them with. This is obvious to anyone with a brain, but we see that it is a growing trend to throw the brain away. Men and women were not created to do the same things, act the same way, or to be treated in the same way. They are different, and because they are counterparts it is necessary that they are different.

Why do these heretics complain about the blessing that a man says every day: "Blessed are You...who has not made me a woman"? It should be obvious. Men are the initiators, they are the ones who acquire a woman, or women, for themselves. They are the ones who are obligated to learn Torah and be the spiritual leaders over their wives and children (unlike how many people, even religious Jews, do not have it). The man has the potential to bring his family up or down. He has more potential and more say in this world than women or minors. Because of this, it is a blessing, if he is with HaShem. If not, it is to his detriment because he'll be bringing a lot down with him. This is why we say this blessing. It is preferable to be a man than a woman, since he is the more active part of the man-woman counterpart unit. If you think it's sexist to say that, then you think the way God created the universe is sexist.

Men have a tremendous responsibility, and the man of Israel is above and beyond the angels in stature, if he does HaShem's will, since he has an evil inclination to rule over which the angels do not. His service of HaShem is most dear. The seed of a man of Israel is able to create and perpetuate a holy nation of priests, or to create demons through spilling it in vain. For this reason, the Jewish man has many rules about his brith, the organ by which he entered a covenant with HaShem. He cannot misuse it.

The man, however, is not a complete man without a woman, or women. Marriage is often a necessary way for the man of Israel to reach his full potential. Unfortunately, in our days, men do not usually live up to their part, as women don't, either. All of this boils down to tiqun habrith, and without it, it is fitting that a man will be ruled by women, either his own wife, or women in general. This is definitely the root of the problem, of Edom's problem, the problem of secular, western culture. Blemishing the brith was the sin of the generation of the flood, and it is especially bad if Jews begin acting that way. Unfortunately, many have, and the root of this heresy and all the heresies of western societal norms are rooted in a blemish in sexuality, pagham habrith.

Extremely fortunate are those, in this day, who achieve, attain, and hold on to tiqun habrith to the highest standard possible. These people are the only true men and women that exist in the world, anymore, since everyone else has been reduced to nothing more than complete animals. The civilization of the world depends on human beings, not animals.

In brief summary, I'll list some of the facts presented above:

1. Minor girls can be betrothed (not consummated) before reaching maturity at 12 years old and one day. They can cancel this betrothal via mi'un, meaning refusal.
2. A na`ara (between 12 and 12-and-a-half) and a fully adult woman (over 12-and-a-half) also have full choice in whether to accept or reject a man for marriage.
3. A man who fully marries a minor girl gets makath marduth, that is, lashes for transgressing a Rabbinic decree.
4. A man who is a Torah scholar should ideally only have sex with his wife once a week on the night of the Sabbath, as well as the night his wife immerses in the miqwa after having been unclean.
5. A man may marry more than one woman, and in fact the Sages suggested that he marry one woman in his youth and another when he is older.
6. Any of the above that are considered misogynistic by heretics are only a result of them being heretics, having a massive problem in their heads, and this is because they are perverts and disregard the sanctity of the holy brith, and seek hedonistic pleasure. They are the same as the generation of the flood, for which the flood came, since they wasted seed, aborted fetuses, among other sexual sins.
7. Islam has some laws with some similarities, but their laws are evil, wicked, do not give freedom to an adult woman to choose who she marries or to a minor to perform mi'un, refusal of a man. In fact, Islam permits marriage and sex with minors, which the Sages, lehavdil, forbade. Polygamy itself is permitted to Jews and non-Jews throughout time, as it always has been, so Islam is not wrong to permit it. Christianity, which has no set of laws, forbade polygamy perhaps because it originated as a law in the Roman empire for an entirely non-religious purpose.

Now you may see how this ties into my last post, very well, where the generation of the flood are mentioned in a bit more detail, and how everything I wrote there all ties into tiqun habrith, which is tiqun haklalli, which if carried out, will result in the full redemption of the entire world, returning our state to that of Jan `Edhan, before Adham and Hawwa sinned. That is our goal, as Jews, as Breslovers (same thing), as body parts of Adham's soul, and that is the specific drive and thrust of all the teachings of R' Nahman. May we see this redemption soon in our days.