Reading Miriaim's latest on WPGs and getting hagbah, I found myself wondering only if the hostess put out a good cholent afterwards. And if there was kishke.
Then it occured to me that a really outstanding WPG probably isn't followed with traditional guy food like kugel cum grease. The ladies (I can call them ladies, right?) probably perfer something with more estorgen in it, something like quiche, am I right?
My official view on WPGs, since you asked, is complicated. I know it isn't "traditional" but if you look at our history you'll see that Jews have always dropped and added customs. Ritually, "traditional" doesn't mean much, not when such prized traditions as shtreimal-wearing are themselves younger that the US Constitution.
The fact that many of the woman who participate in WPGs are alleaged to be libbers (Horrors! In George Bush's America?!) doesn't distrub me either. Motivations don't matter in Judaism, not so long as "Mitoch shelo lishma ba lishma" is still operative. Anyway, who inquires into the motivation of a man who decides to accept new obligations upon himself? Case in point: The man who sits down the row from me showed up last week in a shtreimal for the first time. We were all much too polite to point out the real reason. Rather than insult him with remarks like, "You think that rat hat is going to get your daughter married?" we all congratulated him with the traditional, "Hey man, nice beaver!"
I don't think it's unreasonable to extend the same courtesy to women who wish to daven together. They're hurting no one, so why isn't the benfit of the doubt in order?
