The Seridey Esh, in discussing the minhag of having mixed singing of zemirot at shabbat meals in Germany, says: “It is song which causes lustful thought, not the sound of speech. We must therefore conclude that with religious songs, men will not have the intent of deriving sexual pleasure from the women’s voices. Such songs arouse a holy feeling, not erotic thought. Ritva wrote that one’s being permitted to look at and speak to women forbidden to him depends on the degree to which he sees his sexual drive as being in control...where it is not a question of an outright prohibition, but of the modesty practiced by pious people, we may rely on the concept of “When it is time to act for the Lord, violate the Torah!” (Tehillim 119:126) Better that one letter be uprooted from the Torah than that the entire Torah be forgotten by the Jewish people...I therefore instructed the leaders of Yeshurun that they may rely upon the great rabbis from Germany. Those men, experts in education, were familiar with the spirit of the contemporary young woman, who, having been educated in the state schools and having learned languages and science, has a sense of self-respect. Because they view the prohibition against their participation in religious singing as a form of ostracism, they have been permitted to participate in singing Sabbath melodies. We know the great rabbis in Germany were more successful in educating their women than rabbis in any other country. In Germany we have seen highly educated, scholarly women who are at the same time God-fearing and enthusiastically observant. For this reason, I do not dare forbid what those rabbis permitted. In these countries, these women will feel they have been insulted and their rights have been denied them if we forbid them to participate in Sabbath melodies. Anyone familiar with the nature of the women in these countries will understand this. Prohibiting them may cause them to be estranged from religion, God forbid. Of such it is said, “When it is time to act for the Lord, violate the Torah!” (Tehillim 119:126).
I would like to emphasize a few things from the words of the Seridey Esh:
“Where it is not a question of an outright prohibition, but of the modesty practiced by pious people”: The concept of Et laasot laHashem can not be used to do away with black and white halachic issurs. What constitutes such an issur, however, is debatable. An issur deoraita is clearly beyond violation. Nevertheless, within the realm of rabbinic halacha, there is much more of a grey area. If the Gemarah says that something would be allowed were it not for kavod hatzibur, is that black and white or may we advocate for a change in halacha based on changing conceptions of kavod hatzibur, since that seems to be the Gemarah’s only reservation? If there is one minority opinion from the Middle Ages that is lenient, may we rely on that view? How far back can we go? Can we abnegate the words of a well-accepted achron in favor of a respected rishon whose view was nevertheless in the minority and not codified in the later halachik cannon, or mentioned in the Shulchan Aruch? In short, how do we define halacha and the accompanying phrase “outright prohibition”? It is no coincidence that the Seridey Esh uses the words “outright prohibition”, words which emphasize the limits of what can not be abrogated in order to institute the principle of Et lassot, as opposed to a different phrase that would emphasize what can be abrogated. The implication of the language is that Et laasot is an extremely important principle, so important that all but the most obviously objective issurs may be violated. This is emphasized later on, when the Seridey Esh says, “Better that one letter be uprooted from the Torah than that the entire Torah be forgotten by the Jewish people” - an extremely strong statement given that every letter in the Torah is important and even one missing letter can make an entire sefer Torah pasul.
Intent matters - not only the intent of the woman (holy songs are different than lustful songs or secular songs) but also the intent of the man. The man must not intend to derive sexual pleasure from the woman. This can also be seen from the Ritva, who held that a man’s interactions with women depend on how he judges his self-control when it comes to his sexual desires. This concept seems to have been lost to much of Orthodox society today. Women are often asked if they keep kol ishah, when it is in fact a man’s issur to keep. The Gemarah does not say that a woman may not sing, but that a man should not listen to a woman sing during the time he is saying keriat shma. The implication is, that in order to help men not violate the issur, women should not sing in front of them. In Orthodox society women are often told to cover up in order not to tempt men. One does not hear lectures that men should not gaze inappropriately at women to the same degree. I have heard both Jewish educators and educated, modern Orthodox women say that if one dresses immodestly and then receives unwanted attention, it is the fault of the woman. “If you dress a certain way, you have to accept that men will look at you a certain way.” In Judaism however, just because a woman dresses immodestly, does not mean the man has the right to look at a woman inappropriately. Just as a woman has an obligation to be modest, so too a man has an obligation to not give in to the temptation to look when faced with immodesty - and for that matter, men have an obligation to be modest as well, though modesty for men is defined differently than modesty for women.
The “contemporary young woman” of Germany at the time the Seridey Esh was writing bears an uncanny similarity to the contemporary young woman in America today. Most women receive adequate secular educations, and often receive college educations. Women have “self-respect”, and indeed, many Jewish women today do feel that their exclusion from the public Orthodox ritual leadership roles is insulting. This feeling of alienation can prove catastrophic for Orthodox Judaism. Many women are turning away from Orthodoxy, or Judaism, or both, or staying Orthodox, but feeling resentful in a way that prevents them from having a truly productive and meaningful relationship with God, the Orthodox community, and themselves. As feminist and American values encroach more and more on American Jewish society, this alienation and resentment threatens to grow. It may indeed be a time when Et laasot calls for doing away with certain minhagim that do not violate outright issurs. For example, in communities where lay leaders give dvar torahs during davening, it may be constructive to alternate and have women give the dvar one week, men the next. Furthermore, women can recite the hamotzi blessing for men. Additionally, there is a growing movement to have minyans with mechitzahs where women lead pesukey dezimrah, which do not require a minyan. There may be a kol ishah issue with this (which may arguably be overcome by trey kaley lo mishtamey ley, if you have two women lead, in conjunction with the kadosh nature of leading pesukey dezimrah, since this is part of the justification for mixed zemirot singing, keeping in mind that when it comes to zman keriat shma, a man would be leading, since pesukey dezimrah would be over.) The point is, that the nature of women’s general position in society today calls for creative halachic solutions in which et laasot is employed, though as noted above, “outright prohibitions”, however we choose to define them, may not be tampered with.
The key words are “laHashem”. Reforms must be instituted to the extent that Orthodoxy today is alienating to Jewish women and prevents their being properly shomrey mitzvot. It must not be an attempt to impose feminism upon halacha, but rather an attempt to allow women to connect to God in meaningful ways. We must not make the mistake of Nadav and Avihu. who sacrificed an “esh zarah laHashem”. Their desire was to serve God, but they decided to take the law into their own hands and serve Him in opposition to the ways He had set out, and were duly punished. All reforms must be within the halachic framework, incorporating halachik modes of jurisprudence and respecting the halachic process. There is leeway and grey area, but black and whites must be respected, and deoraitas can in no way be tampered with. Once one stops respecting halacha, the desire is no longer to serve God, but to empower ourselves and imposes secular feminist values on Judaism. On the grounds of “laHashem”, women are often told, “Why take on something optional until you have already fulfilled all your obligations?”. The desire to take on optional things is often viewed as improperly motivated. In many halachas not related to gender however, people will often be machmir or take on optional things, and they are not told, “Why be machmir and take on the optional if you’re not fulfilling all of your obligations?’. No one can ever fulfill all of their obligations - if you say one word of lashon harah, even if you learn all day and daven in minyan three times a day and give tzedakah, etc., you violated your obligation to not say lashon harah. Also, that statement rests on the assumption that the energy expounded to fulfill the optional things will take away from the effort to fulfill the obligations. In reality, the optional of wearing a tallit will not take away from the obligation to say brachot. If a woman feels that taking on an optional will strengthen her relationship with God, it may even help motivate her to keep all of her obligations to a greater degree than she is currently doing. On motivation issues: Men are not obligated to be shaliach tziburs, but I have yet to hear that a man who volunteers for the job is doing so merely to stoke his ego. Yet I often hear this accusation leveled at women who seek a more active role in public ritual. I would like to be dan kol adam likaf zechut, and think both women and men seek religious communal involvement for the right reasons. To quote the Chafetz Chayim, in Shemirat Halashon, “And really, every single Jew wants to keep the Torah in its entirety, and not to detract from it at all, as it says (Yeshayahu, samech kaf-alef) “And your nation is all tzadikim”.”
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