guage assents to the program of settlements that has placed women in a vulnerable position in the first place. He also mentions that he permits the gun because of the mortal danger,* not mentioning that normally if one can avoid putting oneself in danger, one should do so. He also insists that this does not permit a woman to become a soldier. He concludes by saying that women should learn to use the pistol and to carry it in a place where it is easy to draw. Rabbi Ovadiah Yossef addresses a similar question: Are female teachers of kindergartens and schools to train in using arms and to carry them to protect themselves and their children? Emphasizing the danger of terrorists, he permits it to help avert the danger, provided that the women are careful to keep the rules of modesty when they are training.® Rabbi Yossef also concerns himself with a question that has only a tangential relationship to our verse but a direct connection to gender issues and the mood of our time: Are women obligated to come to the synagogue on Shabbat Zakhor to hear the reading of Parshat Zakhor? He has written two responsa on the subject. He investigates the nature of the mitzvah; is hearing remembering mentally or actively speaking? What are the actual limitations of the fact that women are not obligated to perform positive commandments limited by time, and how does this affect their attendance at the Sabbath morning service and their listening to the Torah reading? What does it mean“to wipe out” the memory of Amalek or to“conquer the land”? If it calls for an obligatory war, what are women’s roles in such a war? Rabbi Eliezer ’s reading of our verse prohibits women from bearing arms. This is seen as forbidding them to serve as soldiers. Rabbi Yossef as always writes very fully on the subject. Nowhere does he mention the Holocaust or Israel 's continuing struggle for the land of Israel , but his conclusion must have been deeply influenced by them: “Even though many of the Aharonim explain that women are not
obligated to go to the synagogue to hear Parshat Zakhor, nevertheless it is right and proper for women who are able to go to the women’s section of the synagogue on Shabbat Zakhor to hear Parshat Zakhor to strive to do so to discharge their obligation according to all decisors and the Eternal will bless them.”
But the more general attitude toward women can be seen in a responsum of Rabbi Feinstein.” He is asked by a Boston rabbi