Breishis 6:3: מאה ועשרים שנה

When I turned sixty, I thought about Reb Yosef in Moed Kattan 28a.  Reb Yosef used to give expression to his happiness by making parties for the Bnei Torah.  When he turned sixty, he made a party to celebrate having passed the years during which his death might have implied the punishment of Kareis. (For examples of Reb Yosef's minhag, see Kiddushin 31 and BK 87a re: the obligation of the blind to do mitzvos and his talmid Abaye in Shabbos 118b re: a siyum, and, of course, our Gemara in Moed Kattan.)  According to this Gemara, Kareis causes death before the end of the sixtieth year- in other words, before the sixtieth birthday, which is the first day of the sixty first year.  The Gemara brings a passuk in Iyov (5:26)  תבוא בכלח אלי קבר כעלות גדיש בעיתו, "You shall come to the grave at a ripe old age, as the grain stack is taken away in its time." The gematria of בכלח is sixty, so the Gemara darshens that death after the sixtieth year is not necessarily unnatural, and is therefore not evidence of some capital sin. 

Reb Dovid Kohen of Gevul Yaavetz offers another source for this number.  In parshas Breishis 6:3, it says "ויאמר ה' לא ידון רוחי באדם לעלם בשגם הוא בשר והיו ימיו מאה ועשרים שנה."  Chazal tell us that this means that mankind had one hundred twenty years from that moment to do teshuva, and if they didn't, the mabul would come.   However, some mefarshim understand that passuk as telling us that from that moment and on, humankind's years would diminish, until the natural lifespan would not exceed 120 years.  (This is explicit in the Pirush HaRosh on the Chumash and the Ibn Ezra, and it can be read into the Chizkuni, and it can be seen in the newspapers every day.)

The passuk in Tehillim (55:24) says;"ואתה אלהים תורדם לבאר שחת אנשי דמים ומרמה לא יחצו ימיהם ואני אבטח בך"  But You, O God, shall lower them to the Pit of Destruction; men of blood and deceit shall not live half their days, but I will trust in You., and Chazal (see Sanhedrin 69b and mefarshim on Bilaam in Pirkei Avos 5:19) understand this to mean that the wicked do not reach half their years.

If the maximum lifespan is 120, then reaching the sixty first year shows that the person is not a man of דמים ומרמה, and conversely, if he is  a man of דמים ומרמה, he will not reach that age.

There is more to say about this.  I just wanted to post it before it I put it away and forgot about it.

Is Light קבוע or פריש?

This is a question that came up in Brachos 53a.  When you make a bracha on light, that is, the Bracha of בורא מאורי האש on מוצאי שבת, are you making the bracha on the burning torch, or on the light that reaches you.

The issue arose because of the following question: The Gemara says that you cannot make the bracha on a fire that was lit on Shabbos, so it must be made on a fire in the home or the hands of a Jew, someone who observes the halachos of Shabbos.  If you are passing a town and see a fire, if half the residents are Jews, you are allowed to assume it was lit by a Jew and you may make the bracha.  If the majority of residents are Gentiles, you cannot make the bracha.  The problem is that this is a classic example of  קבוע, a case where the objects in the mixture are stationary.  The halacha is that כל קבוע כמחצה על מחצה דמי, a קבוע mixture is legally viewed as fifty fifty, no matter what the actual numbers are.  A fire in an oven is a perfect case of קבוע, and the ratio of Jew to Gentile should be irrelevant.  Even if the majority are Gentiles, it should have the legal status of fifty fifty and it should be muttar to make a bracha on the light.

The Magen Avraham asks this question in 298 SK 13.  He anticipates and refutes a possible answer by saying that the Gemara does not appear to be discussing a case of a torch in a walking person's hand, but rather a fire within a home.  So he answers that light, and the fragrance of besamim, is considered Piresh, something that has left its place of origin.  (I don't know the history of the scientific concept, but for the Magen Avraham to assume that light travels is interesting.)

I find this answer difficult.  (The next section was edited in response to a comment from Chaim B.)

First, I think that the light and its source should be viewed, in halacha, as one thing, as if the light is an an expansion of the source rather than something being propelled from the source. So if the source is kavua, the light has a din kavua too.

 Second, we're not paskening on the light, we're deciding whether the source is ra'ui to make a bracha on it. Even if we're making the bracha on the light that reaches us, it's only on the basis of what we decide is the nature of the source. It doesn't make sense to take off the rule of kavua from the source that we're paskening on because the light that came to us is piresh.(In other words, the basic din of Kavua applies to the case of זורק אבן לגו (Kesuvos 15a). I think that it applies equally to a case of אחד מן הגו שזרק את האבן, but the Magen Avraham obviously holds that it does not.)

 Third, I don't believe we're making the bracha on the light that is reaching us. We're making the bracha on the source itself. Yes, you know that the torch is there on the basis of the light that reaches your eyes.  But the bracha is on the torch, not on the light that reaches you. In the case of Besamim, I understand the Magen Avraham.  Besamim is a birkas hanehenin; you are making the bracha on your enjoyment of the fragrance.  That certainly is on the smell that comes to you.  True, you do not make a bracha on a smell that has no tangible source, but that's only a matter of chashivus, and the bracha is on the fragrance that reaches you.  But the bracha on fire is birkas שבח והודאה, it is a bracha of praise and appreciation.  We are expressing appreciation for the fire itself, not the light that reaches us.

The person that asked the question suggested a slight modification of the answer the Magen Avraham rejected.  This might be a case where we are not sure what the source of the light is, whether it stationary or being carried in the street.  If it is stationary, it is קבוע; if it is moving, it is פרוש.  If it is פרוש, we would follow the majority and assume it is of a gentile.  If it is קבוע, it would be viewed as fifty fifty.  In such a case, the logical result is that you still have a majority: If קבוע, then fifty fifty; if פרוש, then sixty forty.  So the total is still fifty five forty five.

This happens to be a machlokes in Kiddushin 73, between the Rashba/Ritva, who view ספק קבוע as a רוב, and the Pnei Yehoshua there, who views it as no different than a regular קבוע.  At least according to the Rashba and Ritva we can suggest this pshat in the Gemara.

My son in law pointed out that the Magen Avraham is not the only one to say this svara- it is also well known from the Mordechai, quoting his Rebbi, Rabbeinu Yakar, in Chulin 11, where he asks, how can we learn the din of rov by certain cases of Rov from Sanhedrin, when Sanhedrin is a classic example of kavua.  He says two answers, and the second is דאין עושין בגופן אלא בדיבור הנבדל והנפרש מפיהם והוי כבשר הנמצא דאמרי' בי' כל דפריש מרובא פריש , which means that when we pasken like the majority of Sanhedrin, we're not paskening on the bodies of the dayanim, we're paskening on their oral expressions of opinion, and that oral expression is not kavua, it's parush.  This is exactly like the Magen Avraham, and is equally incomprehensible, as Reb Naftali Trop hints in his comment on the Reb Chaim in the stencils number 229, because, as my brother put it, according the Rabbeinu Yakar's approach, if you have a kavua of nineteen goyim and one Jew, you can say Kadish because you have a minyan.

Here's the entire Mordechai:

'מנא הא מילתא דאמור רבנן שיל בתר רובא, שנאמר אחרי רבים להטות.

והקשה לי מורי רבינו יקר, הא עיקר האי קרא בסנהדרין הוא, וסנהדרין קבועין הן בלישכת הגזית וכן בכ'מ שהן יושבין, ודמיא לט' ישראל ואחד עכו'ם עומד בניהם שאם זרק לתוכו פטור דכתיב וארב לו, דמינה ילפינן דכל קבוע כמחצה על מחצה דמי.

ותירץ...ועוד, דאין עושין מעשה בגופן אלא הדיבור הנבדל והנפרש מפיהם, והוי כבשר הנמצא דאמרינן ביה כל דפריש מרובא פריש'.

I later found that the connection of the Magen Avraham to the Mordchai is brought in the Maharitz Chiyos/Chajes in the sugya of Me'orei Ha'eish in Brachos 53a.  Eli pointed out that it is also noted in the Machatzis Hashekel and the Reb Akiva Eiger in Shulchan Aruch there.

Haazinu 32:3 and the Nusach of Kedusha. כי שם ה' אקרא

The minhag of Ashkenaz is to begin Kedusha most of the time with the word נקדש, while minhag Sfard is to say נקדישך. Since I mentioned a teshuva from the Rogatchover the other day, I want to point out something else that he says.  In the Tzofnas Pa'anei'ach on this week's parsha, Haazinu, he says that it depends on the Tosefta in Brachos 1:11 and the Sifri in Haazinu.  It can be found here.  It was taken from here, with only trivial differences.  Good luck.  With some (a lot) siyata dishmaya, I will, bl'n, try to put down an intelligible precis here before Shabbos.  If anyone wants to volunteer, you are more than welcome.

********************************

I just realized how funny the idea of writing a precis of the Rogatchover's remarks is.  When we finish that, we're going to write an concise overview of Reb Meshulam Igra's top ten maarachos.

*********************************

Here's the way I understand it.  In a nutshell:  He says that "נקדש... כשם שמקדישים means that we are just quoting the Malachim, but we ourselves are not saying their Kedusha.    נקדישך...כסוד שרפי קודש, on the other hand, means that we ourselves are saying the Kedusha of the Malachim.  During the week, our kedusha is limited to the one sentence of ימלוך.  On Shabbos, we incorporate the Kedusha of the Malachim into our Kedusha by using the words they use.

Now to explain it as well as I can:  I'll start with the essential Marei Mekomos.

Tosefta in Brachos 1:11

אלו ברכות ששוחין בהן? ברכה ראשונה - תחלה וסוף ובמודים - תחלה וסוף והשוחה בכל ברכה וברכה - מלמדין אותו שלא ישחה.

אין עונים עם המברך.רבי יהודה היה עונה עם המברך:"קדוש קדוש קדוש ה' צבאות מלא כל [הארץ כבודו]ו"ברוך כבוד ה' ממקומו" כל אלו היה ר' יהודה אומר עם המברך.

Sifrei Haazinu on Passuk 32:3. 

 כי שם ה' אקרא • נמצינו למדים שלא הזכיר משה שמו של מקום אלא לאחר כ״א דבור ממי למד ממלאכי השרת שאין מלאכי השרת מזכירים אח השם אלא לאחר ג׳ קדושות שנאמר וקרא זה אל זה ואמר קדוש קדוש קדוש ה׳ צבאות אמר משה דיי שאהיה בפחות משבעה כמלאכי השרת

Tosfos in Sanhedrin 37b:

 מכנף הארץ זמירות שמענו. כתוב בתשובת הגאונים שאין בני א"י אומרים קדושה אלא בשבת דכתיב (ישעיה ו) גבי חיות שש כנפים לאחד וכל כנף הוא אומר שירה אחת ביום בששת ימי החול וכשיגיע שבת אומרים החיות לפני המקום רבש"ע אין לנו עוד כנף והקב"ה משיב להם יש לי עוד כנף אחד שאומר לפני שירה שנאמר מכנף הארץ זמירות שמענו:

The Tosefta says that Rav Yehuda said Kadosh and Baruch with the Shli'ach Tzibur.  The Rogatchover learned that to mean that the Rabanan argue with Rav Yehuda; the Rabbanan didn't say either Kadosh or Baruch; all they said was Yimloch, which is the kedusha that is specific to Klal Yisrael. Rav Yehuda, on the other hand, holds that the tzibbur does say the entire kedusha.  The basis of the machlokes is this: when you quote someone else's words, does it have the legal effect of your having said the words yourself.  For example, if you were a witness to someone's blasphemy, and you testify against him in Beis Din, and you repeat his words verbatim, are you guilty of blasphemy?  This, he says, is a machlokes between our girsa in the Gemara in Sanhedrin 56 and 60, which says that nobody is allowed to quote the blasphemer verbatim, against the Rambam in 2 Avoda Zara 8, who says אזהרה של מגדף מנין שנאמר אלהים לא תקלל. בכל יום ויום בודקין את העדים בכינוים יכה יוסי את יוסי. נגמר הדין מוציאין את כל אדם לחוץ ושואלים את הגדול שבעדים ואומרים לו אמור מה ששמעת בפירוש והוא אומר והדיינים עומדים על רגליהם וקורעין ולא מאחין.  

Relevant to Kedusha, the Rabanan hold that what we say from the malachim is just a סיפור דברים בעלמא and doesn't carry to weight of a real kedusha, and that's why we say נקדש... כשם שמקדישים  the whole week.  Only on Shabbos does our kedusha acquire the significance of a real kedusha (and this is why we insert Shma- because Shma is our specific Kedusha-) and that is why we change the nusach to  נקדישך...כסוד שרפי קודש , which means we're doing the kedusha ourselves, not merely quoting the Malachim.

(This, by the way (not from the Rogatchover), is the reason that we use the נקדישך language for all the tefillos of Yom Kippur.  The special status that is usually reserved for Shabbos, when we say Shma, which is our specific Kedusha, also applies to the entire day of Yom Kippur.)

This is reflected in the Tosfos in Sanhedrin, which said from the Teshuvas Hageonim that in Eretz Yisrael, they only said Kedusha on Shabbos.  This means that the Shliach Tzibur's kedusha the whole week was just  סיפור דברים בעלמא.  Only on Shabbos is it really the kind of Kedusha that the Malachim say the whole week.  We also see it in the Sifri in Haazinu- that only after twenty one words could Moshe say Kedusha.  We, too, only say our own kedusha after six days of repeating the words of the Malachim and then doing it once ourselves- a total of twenty one repetitions of the word קדוש before we use Hashem's name in our own Kedusha.

Eli sent us a mareh makom to the Orchos Chaim (not the Rosh: he was a talmid of the Rosh and his Sefer was the predecessor to the Kolbo) here, an amazing tzushtell to the Rogatchover, exactly on point and using the Tosfos in Sanhedrin:

 וכתב הר׳ יוסף ז״ל ומה שאנו אומרי׳ בכל  התפלו׳ נקדש את שמך או נקדישך ונעריצך שאנו עושים המלאכי׳ עיקר ובקדושת מוסף אנו אומרים המוני מעלה עם עמך ישראל הרי אנו עושים ישראל עיקר על פי המדרש נתקן שש כנפים לאחד על כנף אומרים שירה ביומיה ובשבת אומר׳ החיה אין לי עוד כנף והקב״ה אומר יש לי כנף בארץ שאומר לי שירה אלו ישראל שנא׳ מכנף הארץ זמירות שמענו.  ושלא לחלק בתפלת יוצר לא תקנו כך אלא במוסף

This is also discussed in the Pachad Yitzchak (Lampronti) on Kedusha.

******************************

I found that the Medrash brought down in Tosfos is also mentioned in the אור זרוע.  The Ohr Zarua here (at the end of the first column, in Hilchos Motzei Shabbos) applies the Medrash to the Tzidkascha that we say at Mincha on Shabbos, not to Kedusha like Tosfos.  Please note the the Or Zarua was an early contemporary of the Baalei HaTosfos- he didn't get the Medrash from them.

******************************

Here's another interesting idea based on the Tosfos in Sanhedrin, from Rav Hirshprung of Montreal, a famous illui who knew Shas like I know Ashrei.  He notes that the Shaarei Teshuva in 268 brings from the Mor U'Ketzi'ah that although Maariv is a "Reshus," that's not true on Friday night.  (For a more thorough treatment, see Pnei Meivin #43, here.)  He says this also appears in the Zohar and the Tikkunim, I think here.  Why should this be true?  

The Gemara in Chagiga 12b says that the Malachim sing at night but are silent during the day in honor of the tefilla of Klal Yisrael.  The Mahrsha there explains that our main tefillos are those of the daytime, which are obligatory.  Since Maariv is voluntary, our saying maariv doesn't preclude the Malachim from saying their own shira.

Rav Hirshprung points out that:
Rav Hirshprung points out that:
a. the Teshuvas HaGeonim  in Tosfos in Sanhedrin shows that the shira of the Malachim does not take place on Shabbos.  
b. The Teshuvas HaGeonim says that Klal Yisrael has a shira on Shabbos that takes the place of what the Malachim do during weekdays, 
c. According to the Gemara in Chagiga and the Mahrsha, a whole week the Malachim are silent during the day in deference to Klal Yisrael and their Shira is only at night, 
d. therefore, the only change that occurs on Shabbos must be at night- Maariv.  
e. Since, as the Mahrsha says, the Malachim are silent only during our tefillos chova, then 
f. the change in our Maariv must be from Reshus to Chova.
QED, Maariv is a reshus on weekdays but a chova on Shabbos.

(Please note an irony that arises from saying that Maariv is a Reshus during the week and a Chova on Shabbos: Tosfos in Brachos 4b and 27b says בסדר רב עמרם פי' מה שאנו אומרים קדיש בין גאולה לתפלת ערבית לאשמעינן דלא בעינן מסמך גאולה דערבית לתפלה משום דתפלת ערבית רשות.  Combining the shitah of Rav Amram Gaon with the Zohar, the result would be that davka on Shabbos, you have to be masmich geula to tefilla during maariv, because on Shabbos it's a chova, so Shabbos would be  more chamur in the smichas geula le'tefila department.  Which is kind of ironic, because on the other hand, you have the opinion (brought in the Mishna Berura 111 SK 9) that you don't have to be masmich geula to tefilla on Shabbos at all, not even at Shachris, because it doesn't have a din of eis tzara, and Shabbos is more kal in the din of smicha.

לדעת הגהות אשר"י ומהרי"ל, בשבת אינו צריך כ"כ לסמוך גאולה לתפילה, מפני שלפי הלימוד מהפסוק, החיוב לסומכן הוא רק ביום צרה, אבל בשבת שאינו יום צרה, אין צריך לסמוך. וכתב הב"י שדבריהם נראים. אולם כתב הרמ"א קיא, א, שלכתחילה טוב להחמיר ולסמוך גם בשבת, ובשעת הצורך אין צריך לסומכן. ובכה"ח קיא, ט, כתב שדין שבת כחול. אבל במ"ב ט, ובאו"ה שם, וילקוט יוסף קיא, ה, כתבו שאם שמע בשבת בין גאולה לתפילה קדיש וקדושה – יענה. אמנם אם איחר, לא יתפלל עם הציבור ואח"כ יאמר ק"ש ברכותיה כפי שנוהגים בערבית, אלא יתפלל כסדר כדי לסמוך גאולה לתפילה.)

*********************************

And finally, to bring everything together, let me tell you how I feel after going through these two Rogatchovers.  When I was in Ner Israel, I heard that Rav Hirshprung said that he knows the entire Reb Chaim al HaRambam by heart, milah b'milah, and he doesn't understand one paragraph.  Like Rav Hirshprung felt about Reb Chaim, I feel about the Rogatchover.  I have a pretty good head for lomdus and analysis of Gemara; at least I understand it if someone explains it to me.  I should, after all, considering all the time I've spent in and around Yeshiva limudim.  But reading the Rogatchover is like Gemara refracted, like reading in a different language.  He points to things and says "See?" and I look and look and have no idea of how he sees anything of the sort there.

Yom Kippur

I was told that Reb Yehuda Leib Chasman said this from the Chofetz Chaim, before his last Yom Kippur, which was in 1936.

The Czar decided to make a tour of Russia, and he expected every city he visited to express its loyalty and to joyously celebrate his visit.  He visited the cosmopolitan St. Petersburg, and they feted him in an exuberant and amazing fashion.  In Moscow, too, there was tremendous celebration, and while it didn't match St. Petersberg, it was in keeping with what they could imagine and do, and he was pleased. As he visited the smaller provincial towns, they, too, did the best they could, and he was satisfied.  He decided he was going to visit some far off village in the hinterlands, but he knew the simple people just had enough to barely survive, and they barely knew who he was, and he couldn't expect much from them at all.

There was someone in the town that did, however, know what was about to happen- he had lived in the big city, and he knew who the Czar was, and worse, he knew the local custom.  The local custom was that whenever a stranger would come to town, they would throw stones at him.  So this man begged the townspeople, look, you have no idea who it is that is coming, and you can't even imagine the honor that he is due.  All I ask you is, please don't throw stones at the Czar.

The Chafetz Chaim said that on our madreiga, it's hard for us to have any inkling of what it means to come before Hashem on the Yamim Nora'im.  At least let's try to not thrown stones.

I once said a similar thought, here.  The idea was that the Mishna in Pirkei Avos 5

כל מי שיש בו שלושה דברים הללו, הרי זה מתלמידיו של אברהם; וכל מי שאין בו שלושה דברים הללו, הרי זה מתלמידיו של בלעם:  תלמידיו של אברהם--עין טובה, ונפש שפלה, ורוח נמוכה; אבל תלמידיו של בלעם--עין רעה, ונפש רחבה, ורוח גבוהה.  מה בין תלמידיו של אברהם לתלמידיו של בלעם:  תלמידיו של בלעם יורדין לגיהינם, ונוחלין באר שחת--שנאמר "ואתה אלוהים, תורידם לבאר שחת--אנשי דמים ומרמה . . ." (תהילים נה,כד); אבל תלמידיו של אברהם יורשין גן עדן, שנאמר "להנחיל אוהביי, יש; ואוצרותיהם אמלא" (משלי ח,כא).

contrasts the disciples of Moshe Rabbeinu with the disciples of Bilaam.  Unfortunately, it is beyond us to even have a glimmer of an idea of what Moshe Rabbeinu was, but I find it pretty easy to understand who Bilam was.  So even if it's hard to try to emulate Moshe Rabbeinu, the least we can do it try to Not be a talmid of Bilam.

The Rogatchover on Eishes Ish

I've heard about this, but never saw it inside.  This is where he says that an Eishes Ish is b'etzem assurah to her husband, too, but there's a hetter where he's legitimately fulfilling the purpose of the marriage.  The teshuva also has another tremendous chiddush that would render useless all the gramma switches and Shabbos stoves, which, by the way, is what the Feinsteins hold.

It's not OCR'ed, so I can't copy it, and you'll have to read it inside.  You shouldn't believe me anyway unless you saw it in situ.  It's in the Warsaw edition of his Teshuvos, Teshuva 18.

http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=15094&st=&pgnum=173

I do have a shorter version from the TzP on Vayikra 4, where he says

שם ברייתא יב: "וכשהוא אומר מכל מצות ה' לרבות אשת איש והנדה אלא שש באשת איש מה שאין בנדה ובנדה מה שאין באשת איש אשת איש מותרת לבעלה והנדה אסורה לכל אדם"

מבואר בגיטין דף פ"ג  uבתו"כ פ' ויקרא דגם אשת איש לבעלה הוי גדר אשת איש רק דהותר וכל היכי דעושה שלא כדין תורה אז י"ל גם בזה גדר איסור אשת איש וכן מוכח משיטת רש"י ז"ל הובא בס' הישר לר"ת דכתב שם בבא על אשתו נדה דהוי בניה ממזרים ותמה עליו ר"ת ז"ל אך בזה א"ש ואכמ"ל וכן מוכח מסנהדרין נ"ה ע"ב וכן מסיק בירושלמי פ"א דקידושין בב"נ שבא על אשתו שלא כדרכה חייב מיתה ואינו מובן דבפנויה ודאי פטור ב"נ רק בזה א"ש ואכמ"ל 

At least he says hutrah, not dechuyah. Probably because of the nusach of birkas eirusin.

Vayeilech, Devarim 31:3-13. The Schenirer-Scherman Unintended Consequence Rule

In the Mitzva of Hakhel, we are told to gather all of Klal Yisrael during Sukkos of the year that follows Shemittah to hear the reading of a large part of Sefer Devarim.  The Torah specifies that men and women and converts and children attend.   הקהל את העם האנשים והנשים והטף וגרך אשר בשעריך למען ישמעו ולמען ילמדו ויראו את יהוה אלהיכם ושמרו לעשות את כל דברי התורה הזאת The purpose of the gathering is so that all that attend will hear and learn and so that they will fear Hashem and do His mitzvos. 

I'm not going to discuss the issue of women learning Gemara, but it's obvious that the women had to be there to hear the Torah, both at Hakhel and at Mattan Torah.  The raya that they were essential to Kabbalas Hatorah is that the three day delay was in order that the women should be in a state of ritual purity, such that they would be receptive to hearing the words of Torah.

It's also obvious that Chazal were not sanguine about women learning Gemara in the same way as men.  Witness Rav Nachman's statement in Megillah 14b regarding Chulda and Devorah, and, of course, Rebbi Eliezer's words in Sotah 20a.  I realize that both can be interpreted differently, but if you're not seeing the subtext of those Chazals, then we're not sharing a lexicon and we're not really having a conversation.  Also, if you think that Chazal did disapprove of women learning Gemara, but they were not enlightened, there is a gap between us I'm not interested in bridging.   I don't need an audience of or a conversation with kofrim b'divrei Chazal and azei panim.

Finally, it's also obvious that the times, they are a-changin'.  The current Yoatzot and Rabbaniot have worked hard to attain what they've achieved, and while no doubt equal to their cohort, they are not worthy of comparison to the poskim that learned in traditional yeshivos.  But there might come a time when some female outlier will publish halachic opinions that stand up to criticism and which will be shown to be of a caliber equal or superior to accepted male poskim.   The Yeshiva world will never accept this: we have plenty of examples of geonim in Torah and Yir'ah who were rejected by the right wing because of some theological or political problem.  But this will not matter to the Modern wing of Orthodoxy.  On the contrary, they will celebrate and embrace this phenomenon.  At that point, Modern Orthodox Judaism will experience an irreversible change of trajectory.  

This beginning of this sea change is all around us, and the movement is inexorable.  Most of us know a woman who is learning the daf, or giving a shiur on Gemara, or writing articles on Halacha.  The extent and degree of this phenomenon is totally unprecedented.  For all I know, it will lead to improvement.  I can't say that men have done such an excellent job, but certainly the female perspective will not be the same.  As I said before, Chazal's words are not encouraging.

Whose fault is it?  Rebbetzin Sarah Schenirer and Rabbi Nosson Scherman, that's whose fault it is, Beis Yaakov and Artscroll.  It's not really a "fault."  What they did was no different than what Rabbeinu Hakadosh did, and it saved tens of thousands of Jews for Yiddishkeit.  But there are unintended consequences, and this is a big one, and it's gonna shake your windows and rattle your walls.

Note:
From the comments, it has become clear to me that I need to explain what I perceive to be the problem.  To me, the biggest problem is the feminization of Torah.  Torah, as it exists now, is the product of a male approach.  We learn by arguing, we fight each other over every word, and we build complex structures that define our view of Torah as a gestalt.  I believe that a woman's perspective would be very different, and that after a few generations, the Torah that stems from a gender neutral learning would be unrecognizable to us.  This would have two terrible results: The Chareidi world (such as Lakewood, Telz, Mir, and their offshoots) would utterly reject the legitimacy of those groups that exhibit these characteristics, to the extent of refusing to join them on rabbinical action committees; and, concomitantly, this would generate an unbridgeable gap that would start out based on theological differences but would ultimately express itself in enormous halachic differences and would be as wide as today exists between the Orthodox and the Conservative.

The immediate response of the modern crowd is, "do you have any empirical data that support your assertion."  No, I don't.  So consider yourself to have won this argument, and have a good day.

Vayeilech, Devarim 31:12. The False Dichotomy of Tzibur/Yachid

The Mitzva of Hakhel is stated thus:
הקהל את העם האנשים והנשים והטף וגרך אשר בשעריך למען ישמעו 
Gather the nation, men and women and children and converts that live among you so that they will hear....

To whom was Moshe speaking?  Who was commanded to fulfill the mitzva of Hakhel?  The answer to this question is not clear to me.  In pesukim 1 through 6, Moshe is speaking to all of Klal Yisrael.  In pesukim 7 and 8, he is speaking to Yehoshua.  In passuk 9, he is dealing with the members of his shevet and Sanhedrin.  So when passuk 10 begins, and it says ויצו משה אותם לאמר מקץ שבע שנים במעד שנת השמטה בחג הסכות.  בבוא כל ישראל לראות את פני יהוה אלהיך במקום אשר יבחר תקרא את התורה הזאת נגד כל ישראל באזניהם. הקהל את העם, when it says ויצו משה אותם, who is the the  אותם?  Who is he instructing?  If  אותם is Klal Yisrael, then it shouldn't say בבוא כל ישראל, when Klal Yisrael will come.  It should say בבואכם, when you will come.  If, on the other hand, it is directed to Yehoshua and the Zkainim and Shevet Levi, then the pesukim flow more naturally.

Anyway, I can't see in the words הקהל את העם any commandment to individuals.  It seems like a mitzva that the people should be gathered, not a mitzva for the individuals to gather.  By Aliya Laregel, on the other hand, the words are שלוש פעמים בשנה יראה כל זכורך.  The various terms used in that context are יראה, תחוג, and ושמחת.  These are not at all like הקהל את העם.  

In fact, the Rambam's words (3 Chagiga 1) are מצות עשה להקהיל כל ישראל.  In the next halacha, he says כל הפטור מן הראייה פטור ממצות הקהל, which might be read to mean that there is an individual obligation, but I don't believe that's true.  It just defines who is to be gathered.

The Malbim here says הצווי על הב"ד שבידם להקהיל כולם, so there clearly is a mitzva on Beis Din.  But his next words are ועל כל איש מישראל על מה שבידו לבא בעצמו ולזרז הנשים ולהביא את הטף, that there is also a mitzva on each individual.

Where do we get the mitzva for individuals out of this passuk?  The אותם in ויצו משה אותם can only have one meaning; either it means Beis Din or it means each individual.  How can we say it means both? 

The assumption of my question is that the tzibur is not the yachid and the yachid is not the tzibur.  I think that the dichotomy between the individual and the tzibur is false.  Our perception of ourselves as individuals is illusory.  The isolation of consciousness is an artifact that bespeaks a limitation of perception, not a reality.  For all I know, white blood cells might have some kind of awareness, like that of an amoeba, and act as if they're independent.  But they're not; they're component units in an organism which have no significance as individuals.  I think the same is true of Klal Yisrael.

Even if one were to postulate some kind of collective moral sensorium, that our experiences and actions influence others without our or their realizing it (as Reb Yisrael Salanter said- "If someone says Lashon Hara in the Beis Medrash in Vilna, there will be more chillul Shabbos in Paris", or as the Ibn Ezra says by Egla Arufa in Devarim 21,) that would only make sense for contemporaries.  Avraham Avinu's words resulted in the suffering of Shibud Mitzrayim, and his merits benefit his descendants through zechus avos, even though we are not responsible for what he did and not control him.  The Tzibur affects the yachid and the behavior of a yachid has an effect on the tzibbur, as Rav Freidlander discusses in his Sifsei Chaim in the section Ein Mazal LeYisrael, as does Rav Meir Berman in his Sifsei Daas II on Haazinu.  (Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb, writing as Dale Gottlieb, wrote an article on this question many years ago in Tradition.  I found the article stimulating but far from comprehensive.  If you want to pay for it, it is available here, but you're not allowed to share it.)  Famously, the Rambam in Teshuva says that one individual's behavior can tip the balance of the entire world and create consequences for all the members of the tzibur.  Even if the mitzva is to Beis Din, that only means that it 's a mitzva on the tzibur.  Tzibur and individual are identical.  The covenants, and the renewal of covenant, was with כולכם- the people as a whole- Mattan Torah, Nitzavim, and Hakhel.  The deeper truth is only the כולכם.  I also believe that the כולכם usually applies only to Klal Yisrael, but might to some extent apply to mankind as a whole.

I realize that this extreme postulate would mean that there is no schar or onesh for individuals.  That is absurd, but I don't know where to draw the line.  If individuals suffer for the behavior of the tzibur as a whole, and vice versa, then the idea of pure personal self-determination is not correct.  Maybe individualism and national organicism, or holistic collectivism, are not mutually exclusive; maybe each reality is fully functional, but I can't figure out how that would work.  It seems to me that the former contradicts the latter.