According to the Gemara, women are both “chayavot bemikra megillah,” obligated to read the megillah, and “kesherim likrot et hamegilah,” valid megillah readers.1 However, some later halakhic authorities bar women from reading megillah for men.2 Some maintain that women’s obligation is on a lower level than that of men, a position that remains a controversy even among contemporary poskim.3 Other rishonim, and acharonim after them, maintain that there are reasons other than lesser obligation that prevent women from reading megillah for men, or even for other women. One of these concerns is expressed in the term zila milta, literally, “the thing is degrading.” This term is introduced by the Tosafot (12th century France), adopted and expanded by the Korban Netanel (17th century Germany), and then quoted by the author of the Mishna Berurah (19th century Poland). Since the Mishna Berurah is a central work in contemporary psak, it is worth examining this term to determine its meaning and its halakhic implications.
The term zila milta seems to have two different but related meanings in classical halakhic literature. Zila milta appears in fifteen contexts in the gemara. All but one of those contexts refer to cases where an individual’s dignity is injured or threatened. For example, a man who is supporting his father is not allowed to feed him the tithe reserved for poor people – even though his father could qualify as a poor person – because it is zila milta; it is beneath the father’s dignity for his son to treat him as a charity case.4
Although in that case zila milta is treated as a serious concern, rabbinic texts do not always treat this type of zila milta, concern for individual dignity, as a valid consideration. In Bava Batra, Rav instructs recently impoverished people to take a demeaning job in order to be able to support themselves, “ve-al tomar zila bi milta” – “and do not say, ‘it is beneath my dignity!’”5 One is expected to waive zila milta for the positive value of supporting oneself. In Masechet Shevuot, a scholar who knows testimony is told not to go to court if it will be undignified, zila milta, since the judge knows less than he does.6 Poskim comment on this that if the scholar is willing to go despite the indignity involved, it is permitted and praiseworthy for him to go.7 Here too, the positive value of bringing justice overrides zila milta.
In one place in the gemara, zila milta does not refer to something that offends personal dignity, but to something that is an affront to ritual. The gemara says that sanctifying a blemished sacrifice, something which is biblically prohibited, is zila milta. 8 This use of zila milta appears in a few other contexts in the literature of the Rishonim. For example, Rashi calls appointing a king of impure lineage (also a biblical prohibition) zila milta, and a geonic work calls improper treatment of tefillin zila milta. 9 This type of zila milta is a more serious matter – it is not an injury to the pride of an individual, which the individual can be encouraged to tolerate, but an offense to Jewish ritual. However, this use of zila milta refers to something which is already halakhically problematic, and zila milta is just an additional problem, or perhaps a justification of why those things are forbidden by halakha.
When someone says that women reading megillah is zila milta, what does he mean? Is it the first definition, insulting the dignity of an individual, which can be waived or overridden, or is it the second definition, an improper treatment of Jewish ritual that cannot be altered or waived?
Although the Korban Netanel gets the concept of zila milta from Tosafot, they use the term in completely different ways. The Tosafot introduces the concept of zila milta in the context of mixed Zimmun.10 Tosafot says that although men and women are equally obligated in Grace after meals, women cannot lead a mixed zimmun, perhaps because of zila milta, which he states is similar to the case of megillah. Here it is clear that Tosafot sees zila milta as a concern that exists when there is nothing ritually wrong with the act. Also, the language in the Tosafot Rosh makes it even clearer that this zila milta refers to individual dignity: “zila beho milta baanashim sheyotzioom nashim” – it is degrading for men to have their obligation performed by women. So here zila milta is only an issue of personal dignity.
The Korban Netanel starts with a completely different assumption, which is that women’s obligation is on a lower level than men’s. He then proceeds to use zila milta as a reason why women cannot read for a group of women (the position quoted by the author of the Mishna Berurah).11 Here there is no problem of dignity – presumably it is not beneath a woman’s dignity to have another woman read for her. Korban Netanel is referring to the second definition of zila milta: disrespect for ritual. Having a public megillah reading where the reader is someone who is less ritually fit, someone whose obligation, according to him, is only to hear and not to read the megillah, is an affront to ritual – zila milta.
In conclusion, our understanding of zila milta depends upon our understanding of women’s obligation to read megillah. If we follow the poskim who say that women have a lesser obligation to read megillah, than zila milta is a serious concern; it may be disrespectful to the mitzvah of megillah reading to have it performed by someone whose obligation is incomplete. However, if we follow the poskim who say that women are obligated on the same level as men, then zila milta is a non- ritual concern about individual men’s dignity, a concern which could potentially be outweighed by more important values, such as the value of building a more inclusive and equal society.