It had always seemed to me that, for most of us, many of the Torah’s laws restricting relations between the sexes are a sort of collective punishment for the sins of a few. But recently my perspective has changed . . .
13 Comments Posted
What an eloquent essay on a heartbreaking topic.
|
Thank you for such a thoughtful and respectful treatment of a topic that can be very confusing. These insights are worth more than a mountain of moralizing.
|
A moving and relevant essay. The lessons in Torah unfortunately are not spread where needed, or else come too late. Keep up your invaluable teachings.
|
Beautifully stated. I was once having my car repaired, and I politely declined to shake the mechanic's hand, explaining that Jewish law does not permit this. I assumed he would be taken aback. To the contrary, he looked at me, sighed, and said wishfully, "I wish my wife would follow that law." What a lesson that was for me! While some may view our lives as old-fashioned, Jewish family life remains the envy of the world.
|
I had a similar situation; my ex wife cheated with her university professor...very sad.
|
I usually find the men are not offended. But when a man refuses to shake hands with a woman, I often hear her complain afterwards. The man backs off, a look of disgust or horror on his face. The visual message is "Yuk, slimeball." Naturally she is insulted, and concludes that observant Jews regard women as inherently disgusting. If she has any respect for her own femaleness, she will not want to join a community where she is regarded as inherently offensive.
Observant men need to learn a more courteous way of avoiding being touched.
|
I think a man and a woman may ride on an elevator together, because it may stop on any floor, and the duration is not long enough to be forbidden.
|
While I can agree with Jay Litvin’s argument that extreme separation helps avoid temptation, I think he over states the situation. The vast majority of my non Jewish, and non Orthodox, (and even Orthodox) peers manage to work professionally with women, shake their hands, and even share elevators with them and apparently do not succumb to adulterous activities.
My experience is that, particularly among the younger generation of frum men, divorce is more likely to be a result of a refusal to respect their wives as equal partners rather than of male adultery. These young men see their wives as stupid because they have not had the opportunity to study Talmud, have no advanced education, and still want some level of freedom. Since these young men had never developed positive friendly relations with girls as teenagers in the Yeshiva world, they expect their wives to be satisfied with a life of cooking and childbearin
|
Every day I see people violate shomer nagiya and then make fun of the fences, the restrictions. They're not secular by any means, but they don't take it seriously. Today's society simply doesn't discourage things like that. It's considered normal to sleep with your boyfriend, and you hear about dozens and dozens of affairs or accidental pregnancies every time you open a magazine. The lack of fences in the modern world has ruined many lives, and we - the children - are growing up with too few fences to protect it. The press has bulldozed these boundaries, dared people to leave the only place they should ever be in things like that.
|
The social fences stated to try to keep a marriage together, can also hinder when a marriage may need to end in situations of domestic violence. People don't talk about it, and ortodox married women in this situation do not have tradition and culture on their side to facility their safety, hear their voice. In these situations, one size fits all should not be the case and individual situations need to be assessed and addressed.
|
If people always aviod being in a situation where they are tempted to give way to their annimal nature, they will never learn to not be dominated by it.
|
Sadly the Torah would not have protected your friend. According to Torah it is only adultery because the woman was married. Had she been single, it would have been permissible for him to be intimate with her since Torah permits men everything. It might be he wanted a second wife, his right according to Torah.
|
1 -True that adultry is with a married woman but it is forbidden for him to be intimate with a single girl and also a second wife is forbidden, acording to the cherem of Rabeinu Gershon. 2- As far as learning
not to be dominated by temtation is concerned, just take a look at the outside world (outside of religious Judiasm, that is)and see the difference in devorce rates and broken lives and wrecked marriages even if they don't end in devorce and then you will understand the great wisdom of Chazal and the fences they made. Now you or others will write that you once heard of a case with a religious person, etc. but they ara an almost non-existant drop in the bucket compared to the non-religious population. And it is a known fact that Jewish marriages have always been and continue to be the most stable. 3-Orthodox woman have plenty of rabbanim to turn to who facilitate their safety and hear their voice. and know very well how to help in each individual situation.
|
|
LOGIN
ASK THE RABBI
Read this article
