Sex

There are all kinds of kinky things going on in Orthodox bedrooms (see Calm Kallahs and the Frumsex messageboards for proof) but no one is having sex through a hole in the sheet.
Talit Katan: not lingerie

This rumor seems to have come from people looking at Orthodox Jews and their hardcore commitment to modesty and assuming that even during sex they’d insist on keeping everything covered up. But in fact, according to halacha you’re not allowed to have sex wearing any clothes at all, or anything that serves as a barrier between you and your partner (condoms are out).

Specifically, the hole-in-the-sheet things may have come from people seeing Jews in religious neighborhoods hanging their "talitot katan" out to dry. This poncho-like garment is about two feet by four feet, has a fringe on each corner, and a hole in the center for the wearer's head, and it looks somewhat like a small sheet with a hole. So, if you have a dirty mind, you might look at it and assume it’s some kind of uber-modest lingerie. But it’s not.

Actually, the rabbis have a pretty laissez fair attitude about what we do in bed, with the basic rule being that ejaculation has to happen inside the vagina (though some rabbis are even lenient about that).

Check out Snopes, and WorldNetDaily for more on this myth.

Previously: Blood Libel

It’s always easier to argue that we should limit someone’s choices than to argue that we should let someone decide for themself, simply because we all know tons of people making incredibly bad choices every day. The rise of leggings alone could stand as an example of why people should not be allowed to do so much as dress themselves without consulting a panel of experts. But making decisions is a part of being an adult, and the more we blanket our lives with across-the-board restrictions the less responsible we become.
Shomer Negiah Panties: the last reserve
As a result of it being easier to tell people not to do something than to tell them to do it carefully, it’s really hard to talk about not being shomer negiah without sounding like you’re just trying to come up with an excuse to have sex. I know because I’ve had this conversation about five hundred times in the last five years, and though I’m confident that being shomer negiah would not be the right decision for me, my reasons don’t sounds as sexy as the shomer negiah advocates’. But I’m okay with that, because my reasons, though perhaps lacking in sex appeal, are legit. Allow me to explain...

The first reason to question the whole shomer negiah movement is the lack of halacha backing it up. 'Shomer negiah' (a term that occurs nowhere in rabbinic literature) is a technical prohibition against lustful touch (Rambam & Shach on Shulchan Aruch) between a guy and a girl who is considered ritually impure as a result of menstruation, or with a guy and any other forbidden relation. That’s it. Contemporary teachers and overreachers have been teaching that shomer negiah is actually a prohibition against touching someone of the opposite sex at all, but as far as I know, there’s absolutely no halachic basis for that. Presumably, if I got myself to a mikvah, there would be no halachic problem with me kissing my date.

Now, that’s good enough of a reason for me, but not for almost anyone who has read The Magic Touch or I Kissed Dating Goodbye, so let’s look at some more ideological concerns.
Hammer Says: Can't touch this!
One of the things that appalls me about a lot of the shomer negiah rhetoric is that it belittles how important the physical aspect of a marriage can be. Example: I recently went on a couple of dates with a really great guy. He was nice, cute, smart, funny and generally excellent marriage material. But there were no sparks. And neither of us wanted to be in a relationship that was purely cerebral. I want my husband to be nice, cute, smart, funny, and also incredibly sexy. He has to have some quality that makes me anxious to spend every night in his bed for the rest of my life. That’s not a minor thing, and though I might have an okay sense of whether a guy has that without running my fingers through his hair at some point, I’d really rather check before I sign up forever and ever amen.

Sometimes what I hear from people pushing shomer negiah sounds like a fancy way of advocating delayed gratification. Essentially, if you wait until you get married then it will be so so amazing when you finally do get to touch/sleep with that person. But the obvious problem with that is that it might not be that great. I mean, the holding hands part might be awesome, but as soon as you have a slimy tongue in your mouth for the first time and you don’t know what to do with it, I imagine the charm is somewhat less potent. And yes, of course you’ll learn and adjust to what you and your partner want, but the beginning is unlikely to be all violins swelling in the background and fireworks sparkling over the bed. So the delayed gratification argument is, as far as I can tell, ridiculous.

But the real reason I touch the men I date is because I’m an adult, and I deserve to have a physical relationship with whoever it is I’m in a relationship with. I really don’t believe that kissing someone has a detrimental effect on that relationship if we’re not married, nor do I think that having kissed someone else will mean that whatever relationship I have with my future husband is somehow less special.

Sex is a different issue. Being shomer negiah today doesn’t mean being a virgin, it means not touching anyone of the opposite sex, which is a much bigger thing than just waiting to get laid until you get married.

I have a lot of respect for people who decide to wait for sex until marriage, but at the end of the day I’m a lot more concerned that my husband and I share views on how to raise the kids, or how we’re going to observe Shabbat than that we’re both virgins on our wedding night.

Sex is a serious thing, and anyone who tells you otherwise is kidding himself (or herself). But it’s not the only serious thing, and I worry about the amount of emphasis that being shomer negiah puts on sexuality. I’m all for encouraging people to be really careful about the decisions they make in relationships, but being a virgin when you get married doesn’t trump everything else. If you marry the wrong person, it’s still the wrong person no matter how little experience you have in the sack.
Here I Am: not being shomer negiah. Scandal!

Which brings me back to my original point. Being shomer negiah treats the symptoms, not the problem. Preaching a hands off/all-virginity-all-the-time policy isn’t the way to make sure that people think before they jump into bed with someone. And it doesn’t teach anyone to be particularly good at recognizing good and bad relationships when they see them.

 

It’s important to guard your touch, and the touch of those in your life. But that’s not the only thing that goes into a successful relationship, and claiming anything to the contrary is dishonest.

It was the summer I left San Francisco. I’d gotten a book deal, gotten hardcore about this whole Orthodox thing, and hitched a ride with my best friend’s ex-girlfriend and her dog to New York City. Suddenly I lived in a city of gorgeous, untouchable Orthodox girls who knew more about Judaism than I even suspected there was to know, who never looked me in the eye, who lived in lavish penthouse apartments in neighborhoods where I couldn’t even afford to eat.

Over the course of the summer, I followed Yirmi and Benji, my Jewish socialite friends, to one-dollar drink nights and concerts where they seemed to know everyone and everyone seemed to be Orthodox. Every time I turned around, I caught sight of a guy in a yarmulke. It was like the dream in Being John Malkovitch where everyone has John Malkovitch’s face, even the grandmothers and the hot girls in tight dresses. In my case, though, it wasn’t the grandmothers and the girls, but jocks and investment bankers in casual Friday khakis. It was half brilliant fantasy—I’m not the only one!—and half nightmare, because even if we had Orthodox Judaism in common, that didn’t necessarily mean they were cool people, or even that they had anything interesting to say. In fact, most of them liked to talk about their day jobs. Wasn’t this what I moved to San Francisco to get away from?

But I needed to go to these lame parties with lame buffets and even lamer MC’s. I needed to give up the too-cool game, the too-hip game, the I-don’t-need-a-salary-and-health-care-cause-I’m-a-professional-poet game. I needed to do these things because I’d decided that I was Ready To Date.

Hey party people: Finding love at the Matzah Ball Admitting to yourself that you are Ready To Date is a pretty big deal among Orthodox Jews because dating is a short step away from getting married, settling down, and pumping out 27,000 babies. It’s also a big deal because it means deciding whether or nor you’re shomer negiah.

Shomer negiah is one of those things that define us as Orthodox Jews, and as human beings. Literally, the words shomer negiah mean “a guard of your touch.” If you are a boy, you don’t touch girls; and if you’re a girl, you don’t touch boys. I had just spent the last three years living in San Francisco and not being shomer. To be in New York—with its miles of kosher restaurants and Hasidim who not only knew how to play this game, but actually played it—felt like my ultimate calling. You can play Orthodox Judaism in your backyard, but this was the major league.

Being so out of contact with the mainstream Orthodox world, I didn’t realize that there were Orthodox people who followed every law except for that one. Yet my first night in New York, I heard my roommate having his way—loudly, pronouncedly, and at great length—with one (if not two) Hasidic girls in the next room over. I covered my head with a pillow, squeezed my eyes shut, and started humming to myself the Minor Threat song “Straight Edge,” which had been my anthem ever since I learned that being a virgin could be a political choice, and that there was a whole punk movement to back me up. But…it was out there. And I could have it.

One night, Yirmi and Benji and I were out at another nightclub or meeting or salon of Young Jewish Professionals and my eyes were glued to the doors, hoping for some big-bearded rabbi to walk in, his coat the color of penguin wings and his eyes like stars, and teach me the real secrets of the universe, why the world rotates east to west and how even shit was part of G-d’s creation.

Instead, prerecorded hip-hop samples blasted over a PA system and this short, balding Jewish dude in a gold chain walked in. “What’s up, Upper West Side,” he crooned into a mic. “Are you ready to parrrrtay?”

We went home that night as an entourage, seven of us to the two-room flat where they lived: me, Yirmi, Benji, and four girls who we’d managed to pick up on the way. At first I pegged them for being recently Orthodox, just like me, because they wore street clothes and didn’t talk in Torah talk, but someone said something in Yiddish, and everyone laughed but me. Then I thought they were underage, but someone said that they had their own apartment.

And, like a flash, Benji’s arm was around one of the girls and then Yirmi’s arms was around two more of the girls and I retreated into my own head, asking myself where I was going and what kind of life was I sinking myself into, and if these were the people I was trying to be like, well then, what were they trying to be like?

Kosher tongue: Not just something you'd find in the deli I was in my head for barely five minutes, we were less than a block down the street, and already Yirmi was brushing his nose up against one girl’s nose, physically parting her lips with his fingers, getting them loose and open and ready to stick his tongue in. A plane soared low overhead. Benji broke free of his girl, threw his arms in the air and spun around and crooned, spontaneously, in the style of that M.C. from that night: “Are you ready to parrrrtay?”

They were so not ready to party. They were ready to explode, loaded with liquor and energy, and, upon reaching home, they were ready to collapse. Yirmi and Benji and their Hasidic-but-with-a-sex-drive girl-space-friends fell asleep all over the room—on the couches, on the floor, and in their beds. Yirmi, the last one standing, did not seem to mind. He excused himself, slipped under his cover between two girls, one of whom grunted, already half-asleep. The other girl licked his ear.

From his mountain of pillows, eyes half-lidded, he grinned at me. He looked straight at me as the girl licked his ear, as her impossibly long Hasidic tongue slithered around his weirdly straight earlobe, as if it was a private joke between he and I, a joke that I, by virtue of having lived in San Francisco, would immediately understand and appreciate. A look that, if it had been any more loaded, would have been an invitation to an orgy, as if he was asking: Are you down?

And I would have totally gotten down with it, too, back in the old days, between when I decided to be Orthodox and when I decided to take being Orthodox seriously. Now that I was following the rules, what did it mean if the people around me were ignoring them? Was I down? I didn’t know.

Makes the heart grow fonder: Abstinence There was a paradox involved in being openly shomer negiah. If you were shomer, you could date everyone, whether they were shomer negiah or not (although, if one person was and one wasn’t, chances were, you were either going to get married or break up pretty fast.) But if you weren’t, and you did hook up with girls, then you were off-limits to anyone on the other side of the fence. Untouchable. Dirty. It was like you weren’t even Orthodox. Playing the odds, it was better to be shomer negiah. That way, you could date everyone.

It wasn’t like I hadn’t tried to date when I was in New York. One night, I answered an Internet ad. My friend Jerrica was going over Craigslist, reading the girls-who-like-boys personal ads, which he felt totally giddy and guilt-free about reading, since he was gay. There was one that reminded him of me—Did You Say Modeh Ani Every Morning, And Do You Miss It?—and he double-dared me to answer it.

So I did. And we made plans. We met up at a subway station, jumped on at Times Square, rode to the last stop before Brooklyn. We walked over the bridge, looked down over the water like we were walking directly on it, and followed its spidery descent until we were on a narrow path in the middle of cross-town traffic. She told me her story: she’d grown up Orthodox, the daughter of a rabbi. She’d learned everything forwards and backwards, could speak Yiddish fluently and read a Gemara better than I ever wished I could; but she could never believe any of it. She majored in science, because she said the Torah couldn’t agree with science. She moved to this city to get away from her family.

“New York?” I said. “You moved to New York to get away from Jews?”

She laughed. She liked the idea that I replied to her ad, an ad that she was originally afraid would sound too much like a fetish-hunter. I asked her, “What makes you think this isn’t a fetish?” She smiled at me like I’d just given her permission for something.

We kept walking. It got late, and we’d managed to walk halfway down the side of Brooklyn, to the front door of her apartment. She hesitated there, and so did I, watching her fidget with the bottom hem of her skirt, which was a few dangerous inches above her knee.

And then her mouth opened, and the question that—like Can I hold that for you? or Want some pizza?—was so rhetorical as to not need an answer, to not even need to be asked, she said to me: “Do you want to come upstairs?”

And, before I knew what the words lined up in my head were, before I could even sort the words in order or realize what they meant, my reply came tumbling out:

“No.”

And that was it. We deflated, both of us, into little shriveled-up shards of balloons. We wisped, now no more than stretched-out rubber, having fulfilled our purpose, our usefulness in each other’s lives having been outlived, and felt the wind picking up, felt ourselves being blown in opposite directions down the street.

There’s this website where you can look at Mormon missionaries posted around the world, and then if you click on their pictures you can see a short bio, and a picture of the missionary in question without his shirt on.

Is this, like, Mormon porn?

He's Hot, But: I'm not interested in being his third wife

When I was in Atlanta over the weekend I had a number of pretty bizarre conversations with various cousins and other relatives about sex, relationships and the Orthodox community. There were a lot of questions about delayed gratification and sexual compatibility that, while very amusing, have some pretty serious dilemmas at their base.

On the one hand, I think that sexual compatibility is incredibly important, and not to be taken lightly. But as my great aunt pointed out (and yeah, it was very awkward to hear my great aunt talk about this) couples have been marrying without having sex first for centuries, and for the most part staying together. Doesn’t mean their sex lives have all been fantastic and exciting and fun, but clearly it’s possible to sustain a relationship even if a couple doesn’t share the exact same wants and needs in the bedroom. People work this shit out.
I Don't Care How Nice The Beach Is: it's not as fun as spending the morning in bed.

Then on Tuesday night I went to a girls night in chanukkah party, and again we spent most of the night talking about sex and relationships. I was the only single person there, and there was all kinds of talk about how important it is to limit intimacy to marriage, and how the people who are having meaningless sex are just denying their true emotions and so on. At one point someone else suggested that people who want to have meaningless sex should go for a run instead, because it’s the same feeling. I was like, “No. It’s. Not.” (The whole time I was like, I cannot wait to blog this shit).

As I was thinking about all of this, it occurred to me that pretty much my biggest objection to the stock Orthodox approaches to relationships, sex and intimacy have to do with how immature and out of control it assumes people are. I can see how the rules might be really effective in keeping a sixteen year old from making mistakes, but at 23 I don’t need a halachic ruling to tell me not to sleep with some guy from the casual encounters section of craigslist. I don’t need some rabbi to tell me that it makes the most sense to wait to have sex until I’m in a serious relationship. And even more importantly, at 23, if I was to sleep with some random guy, or with someone I had just begun dating, I should be able to deal with it without losing a sense of self-worth. Certainly if I was 35 or 45 I would expect that if I made such a bad decision it wouldn’t have a devastating effect on my psyche. As we mature we’re able to accept our own mistakes and deal with them in a way that is a lot less traumatizing.

The problem is, the rules were set up with very young couples in mind. Single post-graduates are not something that the Shulchan Aruch anticipated. And somehow, young married people are the only ones lecturing about intimacy and relationships in the observant community, so the whole outlook is incredibly skewed.

I think halacha is important, but I don’t know what to do with a situation where my existence is so unprecedented that there aren’t really rules set up to adequately govern my life.

Israeli Sex Trade: Hooters, teachers for brides-to-be, lesbian parents and, uh, vaginoplasty. Discuss.What about news of a Hooters in Israel? (I can't help but to wonder if there has ever been a battle of altering the uniform to conform to religious modesty mandates? I mean, if a woman is a qualified applicant, or say she is an employee who then decides to become more.. covered... wouldn't the company legally have to give her wiggle room? I wonder if that's ever come up for them? Sure, working at hooters probably wouldn't be on your list of things to do if you were concerned with such matters, but again, what if someone was already working at such a place and then decided...? yes, yes, modestly is more than just attire, it's situational and behavioral, too, but I just wonder. Anyway: Hooters. Covering. Discuss.) What are our thoughts on JOFA's class teaching teachers of brides-to-be about sex? Of course, you caught Knesset Committee for Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs chairman Michael Nudelman being called upon to do something for immigrants pushed into the sex trade, too. A lesbian couple is getting recognized as co-mama and co-mama, while the IDF Rabbi is pissed about women in combat. Uh, and some Israeli physicians are interested in bringing the labiaplasty and vaginoplasty to Eretz Yisroel. Ew, ouch and ew.

 

When I stumbled across a copy of Erotica Judaica: A Sexual History of the Jews in a used bookstore, I don't think I knew what I was getting myself into. I opened the font cover and read: "Erotica Judaica, A Sexual History of the Jews, views the remarkable role that sex has played in the development and destiny of the most vital, viable, and influential culture in the history of humanity." Hmm. Pretty lofty claim, I thought, but it sounded intriguing, so I picked it up.

Cue Slow Jams: Wanna step into my tent? Aww, yeah. So, you want to discuss sexuality with Talmudic references and with many footnotes? Yeah, I thought so.Bearing in mind that it was written in 1967, and uses a style that is part clinical/academic, part Victorian, and  part giggling envelope-pushing; I was anticipating Jewcy-erotic tales, but what I got instead was, admittedly way better. I say "way better" not to knock a good schtup-tale, of course, but because this book is a buffet of cited sources and of references Talmidic and literary, a hint of intellectual WTF-ism with a similar feel to Codex Seraphinianus' genius-absurdist vibe, with a good dose of bleh, bleh, bleh thrown in for good measure. For example:

"And Y-hweh said to Joshua, 'This day I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you' (Yahuahu; Midrash Rabbah. The verb galal, to roll away, refers to the removal of that reproachful ring of flesh encircling the glans penis.) 'When Joshuah circumcised the children of Israel,' states Midrashic Rabbi Levi, 'he made a heap of their foreskins. And the sun shone on them and they bred worms, and the odor arose to the Holy One like the odor of incense from the fire offerings..."

That's all well and good, but just because we're talking about a sex organ does not erotic history make. Fortunately, keep reading and you get your fill of lit-schtup in the very next chapter, a chapter called "Sexual Hospitality":

"...the ancient Arabian traditions of hospitality. Jeal, Heber's comely wife, gave Sisera to drink of the milk of refuge, she invited him to share her carpet bed in physical rest and restorative emotional release. Talmidic Rabbi Johanan deduced, from the text of Judges 5:27, that Sisera had seven sexual connections with Jael: Between her legs he squat, he lay he spurted; between her legs he squat, he lay; where he squat, there he lay stiff."

(Original Shoftim reads something like: bayn ragliyeh kara' nafal shakab, bayn ragliyeh kara' nafal, b'ashr kara' sam nafal shadud.) And with footnotes like:

"The verb kara' (to squat) expresses a coital posture common to Easterners... the pregnant verb nafal (to fall, to lie prostrate) is used in the sense of a man allowing a woman to mount and ride him, which in the patriarchal East is indicative of feminine domination.... Shakab (to lie with a woman) is literally the Arabic sakab (to pour out, to ejaculate... Bayn ragliyeh, consistently mistranslated as at her feet, is too clear for comment."

...it's not, you know, hot-and-bothered, but it's a fascinating, geekin'-on-the-freakin' read.

A friend and fellow blogger (I realize I have no shame linking to her like that) has decided it's time to find Mr. Menschy Right and over numerous gmail chat sessions, we have been digging through dating sites and profiles and such and found some things you might have overlooked. I can't say I can personally vouch for any of these, but let's assume that by my listing them I have not personally heard anyone say a date from any of these sites resulted in calling the cops, getting matched with a relative or otherwise grossed-out and a couple of these sites even resulted in some hot bashert-y action for a few people I know.

Shabbat Shalommmm!: Got plans Friday night?

1.Frumster. You've probably heard of it. Maybe you've been intimidated to use it because you don't call yourself frum? Puhleeze. It's not all frum, give it a whirl.

 2. Jewish Quality Singles. So what if only three people I know heard of this site prior to my asking about it? There were some decent-looking menschy types on the pages I clicked around on, so ya nevah know.

3. A Jewish Dating Site. So what if the first couple you see when you click over is dressed in circa-1985 finery? Old is new, bitches. 80s revival is in for autumn '07.

4. Jewish Singles Cafe. Yeah the page banner looks like a Sweet & Low advertisement. Big deal. Saccharin schmaccharin!

5. Jewish Matchmaker. Eh, it's free. Give a little try. 

6. Jmerica. Okay, slight bias here. I am sort of kind of BFFs with (and rumored to be related to) the or one of the masterminds behind this one. But, I can at least vouch for it's non-suckitude in that way, eh? Eh?

7. Saw You At Sinai. Well, with a catchy little name like that, what's bad? Look for their cute "You had me a Shalom" bookmarks at all the MOT get-togethers. Or I'll give you one sometime. I have like eight, for reals.  

8. J Singles. What giant smiles on the front page! Look how happy those two are! They are so peas and carrots. 

9. J Love. So you meet the love of your life on a website that sounds like a funk band. Big deal.  

10. Jewish Friend Finder. Something about this title reminds me of how little old ladies introduce same-sex couples when they're trying really, really hard to be cool. "Esther, this is my grandson and is... uh, friend.." with "friend" all in air-quotes. (Speaking of oddly-used quotes, this is a great blog sent unto me today. Hilar squared.)

11. Executive Jewish Dating. Hey, if that's your bag, you might as wel.

12. J Soul Mate. Nice website, friendly-looking people, eh, why not? (I'm not positive you can be terribly successful if you are anything other than straight here, fyi.)

13. J Retro Match. I enjoy the retro trivia.

14. Someone Jewish. Find, schmooze, meet. 

15. Let My People Go. The title alone should get you clicking. 

16. Sephardic Date. The bears on the site creep me out, but otherwise, yeah, seems swell. 

17. Craigslist RSS. Here's what you do. Go into your group (m4w, w4m, m4m, w4w, whatever), set your age range and then scroll down after you do the search and there is an RSS feed option. What the fuck does that mean? It means you'll get any new ads that fit your criteria in the form of an update in your RSS reader (bloglines, etc.). Not too shabby.

18. Koolanoo.  Seems to be one of those sites people either really like or really don't like, but it's a site, it's social and it's Jewy. 

Yesterday night I was talking online with a friend of mine and conversation got pretty awesome. I've redacted his name, but mine is still here. This is what happens when day school graduates grow up ...

You're So Frum: it's so hot

X says: you're so fucking frum
X says: it makes me sick
Tamar says: you are the first person ever to say that to me
Tamar says: thank you!
X says: just talking all day about toire toire toire
Tamar says: what else is there to talk about?
Tamar says: actually, it goes something like toire sex toire sex toire sex
X says: well, everything is actually toire
X says: sex is toire
Tamar says: depends if it's good sex or not
Tamar says: bad sex is not toire
X says: bad sex is i'm afraid
Tamar says: nuh uh
Tamar says: it's like midrash or something
Tamar says: not Torah mamish
X says: i'll accept that
X says: it's definitely misinai though
Tamar says:i'm not so sure
Tamar says: I’ll have to think about it

And then later:
Tamar says: good sex=pshita
Tamar says: bad sex=remez
Tamar says: or is it the other way around?
X says: peshita la lerabbanit tamar
X says: ipcha mistabra
X says: pshat is just sex
X says: remez is good sex
X says: sod is simultaneous orgasms
Tamar says: what's drash?
X says:blowjob?
Tamar says: you're amazing
Tamar says: will you be my rabbi?
X says: yeah baby
X says: i should write a book
X says: The orchard of sex
Tamar says:i'd buy it
Tamar says: there would be commentary and stuff on the sides
Tamar says: and diagrams
X says:you could talk down to your audience
X says:just like other artscroll books
X says: you'd love it
Tamar says: bend at the knees and then bow until you see the labia
X says: remember that with frum girls, the more you mumble during sex the better. she'll know you're talking to god
Tamar says:When you reach simultaneous orgasm say, "Oh Gee dash dee!"
Tamar says: or maybe, "Amen!"
X says: awesome
X says: the act of sex can be consider one long bracha
Tamar says: when do you say barchu u baruch shmo?
Tamar says: initial penetration?
X says: you don't
X says: it would be a hefsek
X says: the girl is yoitse on the guy's bracha

As Borat Would Say: "Very Nice. How Much?"There have been quite a few recent posts here about issues regarding ketubot. In April, the lovely Laurel posted about problems of aesthetics and wound up discovering some pretty awesome options. Earlier this month, titillating Tamar took it a tad further with a conversation about the actual language in a traditional ketubah, and how the document mainly functions as an outdated legal and financial contract. A commenter on that post noted the "lack of a woman's voice in the traditional ketubah."

As a woman, a writer, and a Jew, I am deeply affected by words and symbols. When I first heard that the wedding tradition of breaking a glass might have been meant to symbolize the anticipated breaking of the bride's hymen, I was more than a little distressed. Likewise, when I learned that the traditional Jewish wedding is a legal ceremony in which the man purchases the woman I found myself looking for more evolved alternatives that might still satisfy my taste for tradition. The incredibly inspired and creative Rabbi Jamie S. Korngold led me to a book by brilliant author and professor, Rachel Adler, titled Engendering Judaism: An Inclusive Theology and Ethics.

Engendering Judaism considers how women's full participation can transform Jewish law, prayer, sexuality, and marriage. Chapter 5, "B'rit Ahuvim: A Marriage Between Subjects," concerns itself entirely with the "unresolved tensions between woman as possession and woman as partner [that] are embedded in the classical liturgy upon which all modern Jewish wedding ceremonies draw." Adler calls the traditional legal language for Jewish marriage "fundamentally incompatible with egalitarian relationships," and demonstrates how we may "engender a truly covenantal marriage" with "a lovers' covenant, b'rit ahuvim."

These texts depict the marriage of a young virgin as a private commercial transaction in which rights over the woman are transferred from the father to the husband. This commercial origin is reflected in the relational terminology. The word for husband is ba'al, the general term for an owner, master, possessor of property, bearer of responsibility, or practitioner of a skill. No specialized relationship term exists for wife; she is simply isha, woman. The owner of a house is ba'al ha-bayit, the man responsible for an open pit is ba'al ha-bor, the owner of an ox is ba'al hashor, the owner of a slave is ba'al ha-eved, and the husband of a woman is ba'al isha. The sole signifier for marital relationship is the grammatical form of the construct (semikhut), which binds man and woman as subject and object of an implied preposition: ba'al isha, the master of a woman; eshet ish, the woman of a man.

Rabbinic espousal -- kiddushin -- bridges the girl's passage from her father's hands to her husband's. This transfer procedure is designed to prevent the anarchic and world-disordering expression of autonomous female sexuality that could occur during the dangerous hiatus between these two statuses of daughter and wife, when a girl might consider herself in her own independent domain.

In the Mishna, there is only one approved method for appropriating a wife: monetary acquisition.

At the same time, the rabbis etherealize the commercial transaction of biblical bride purchase into a symbolic act in which, at the ceremony at least, only a token sum of money changes hands. This sum, as little as a penny (peruta) according to the academy of Hillel, represents the biblical bride price, now transformed into a marriage settlement, written into the ketubbah document and paid not to the father but to the woman herself in the event of divorce or widowhood. It is as if the woman were purchased with an annuity due to mature at a future time. As for the token sum used for kiddushin, Ze'ev Falk explains, "the amount was then returned to the husband together with the other items of the wife's property, so that the 'purchase' had become a mere formality."

Adler says that "some apologists argue that marital acquisition is merely a figure of speech and bears no relation to its literal meaning." Of course, modern brides know that they're not actually being purchased, even if that is what the ancient text implies. Why, then, with this intellectual knowledge, can it prove to be so emotionally and spiritually troublesome? I decided to ask my friend, Dr. Jennifer Kaplan, a Jew, a woman, and a practicing psychologist.

"You wouldn’t sign a contract for a house with terms that you didn’t agree to. Seeing is believing. When we see what’s in the contract, it has an affect on us. There’s a part of us that’s offended, and there’s another part of us that says, “Yeah, it’s okay, it’s not literal.” But there’s still that part of you that signs your name to something you don’t subscribe to, and that doesn’t feel good."

Adler argues that women have good reason not to "feel good" about the ketubah, and the ritual of kiddushin. She explains that while "the purchase of the bride may have dwindled to a mere formality in the rabbinic transformation of marriage, her acquisition is no formality. The language of acquisition still accurately reflects a relationship in which the woman has been subsumed and possessed."

So, how do we reconcile our love of tradition with our desire for evolution? Adler has been kind enough to conceive of an alternative ceremony and contract, all the while working to ensure that as many elements as possible from the traditional ceremony were preserved. Here's a description and outline:

The b'rit ahuvim section that replaces the elements of kiddushin (the erusin blessing, declaration of acquisition, giving of the ring, and reading of the ketubbah) is both preceded and followed by traditional words and traditional melodies -- and, of course, the ceremony is performed under a huppah. The order of the service reflects this "frame" of traditional elements:

1. Mi adir 'al ha-kol (traditional invocation of blessing for the couple).
2. Officiant's speech (traditional). Following the invocation is a traditional time for the officiant to speak briefly, outlining and explaining the ceremony and its meaning and speaking personally about the couple. The officiant should take this opportunity to explain what a b'rit ahuvim is and to distinguish it from kiddushin.
3. Blessing over wine (analogous to the tradition, but distinct from it). In the kiddushin ceremony, this blessing would be followed by the erusin blessing, and only the couple would drink from the cup. Here, the officiant should explain that a blessing over a cup of wine is a way to begin a holy celebration. To distinguish this cup from the erusin cup, it may be passed to all those around the huppah.
4. Reading of the b'rit document in Hebrew and in English (analogous to the reading of the ketubbah but clearly distinguished from it by its contents).
5. Kinyan, acquisition of the partnership by placing symbols of pooled resources in the bag and lifting. This will be the most unfamiliar part of the ceremony, but it may also be powerful precisely because it is new. If the partners have put in distinctive personal objects and intend to talk about their significance for the partnership, they should do so before lifting the bag. Wedding rings can be placed in the bag at this time. The partners then lift the bag together and recite the blessing. They could then put on their rings.
6. The Sheva Berakhot, Seven Blessings (traditional).
7. Shattering the glass (traditional).
8. Yihud (traditional). Immediately after the ceremony, the partners go into a room to be alone together.

Adler's approach is deeply respectful and truly inspired. You can check out an example of a b'rit covenant in PDF form, courtesy of Rabbi Korngold, who chose a b'rit ahuvim for her own wedding.

B'rit or no B'rit, women ill at ease with the idea of being symbolically purchased can take this dilemma even further, turning it into an act of Tikkun Olam. The way I see it, we are the lucky ones. We get to question and debate the symbolic meanings of ancient rituals, then we get to choose what we want, dance the Horah and eat wedding cake. Our concerns are linguistic and theoretical. Not so for the thousands of women and children who are sold into slavery around the world each year. According to the Not For Sale Campaign, an estimated 27 million people around the globe are the victims of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation from which they cannot free themselves. Perhaps the best thing that those of us who are uncomfortable with the idea of being commodified can do, whether we choose a ketubah or b'rit or neither, is take that passion and emotion, and funnel it into working on behalf of those who truly have been sold.

A while back I saw a snippet on the Forward’s website about a big porn debate. The snippet claimed that Ron Jeremy would face off with an anti-porn pastor named Craig Gross. I didn’t believe it (for one thing, the links brought me to websites that were two years old), but apparently Jeremy and Gross have done this a few times before and are touring the country for the next few days. You can see them tonight in Indianapolis, tomorrow in Pittsburgh, Friday in Boston and Saturday in New York. For tickets head to the Great Porn Debate website.

You may recall that I have strong feelings about porn. I stand by the things I wrote in that post. I’m still not a fan of porn, if only because the production of porn means there’s a porn industry out there, and I think the porn industry is incredibly destructive (porn stars agree with me, by the way).

That said, I don’t see the point of this debate. It’s hard to believe that by Sunday Jeremy will be a reformed crusader for women’s rights and will refuse to screw another woman on camera. And something tells me that Pastor Gross (such an unfortunate name) won’t be stripping and jumping enthusiastically into a gang-bang while a camera crew catches it all, either.

So, what’s the point of this kind of event? I assume that for Gross it’s publicity/an avenue for him to preach the Word, and for Jeremy it’s just fun/publicity. But at least on Jeremy’s end it seems like a really irritating week. I agree with Gross and I don’t think I’d want to listen to him preach five nights in a row.

You can actually watch videos of the debates on YouTube. Though Gross makes some good points, it’s clear that Jeremy is the star. He’s not trying to convince anyone of anything, really, he’s just rolling his eyes and probably thinking that Gross would be much cooler if he got laid more often. It’s not that hard to sell porn. It’s a lot harder to sell Jesus.

Public religious debates (and that’s what this is, even if Gross won’t directly bring the Jesus-talk to the debate) are, I think, a generally bad idea. You might think you’re a shoo-in for victory, but if the Muslims bring their top game you’ll be humiliated and so will every Jew in the crowd. Same goes for other religions who lose to Judaism. Isn’t there way too much risk that there will be someone edgier on some other team who will make a better point and garner the crowd’s support? Shouldn’t converts be a little more deeply committed than they are at the end of a round in a debate? Religion isn’t about talking points, sound bites, or finding a suit that looks great on camera. Standing at a podium and pontificating for ninety seconds on the shema is a waste of everyone’s time. Real faith and spirituality are about seriously wrestling with issues over a considerable period of time. Instead of heading for a quick fix at the porn debates, may I suggest that you pick up a copy of The Kuzari? You get religious debate, but you don’t have to look at Ron Jeremy, and answers go more in depth than a minute and a half might allow.

I spend a lot of time thinking about how one can make being Jewish look good. Because the thing is, I’m always Jewish, and I’d like to be considered a cool girl, a woman with intellect, style and sex appeal.  But balancing that with halacha, fashion and contemporary life is hard. For some girls the hardest part is choosing what to wear—skirts only, or sometimes pants, elbows covered or not, collarbone covered or not, etc—since so much of how we’re perceived is based on how we look. But for others it’s more than that. Is it intimidating or awesome to know that the person you’re dating prays three times a day and only eats kosher food? Is it cool to be friends with someone who feels a really strong connection and commitment to his community, so much so that he will follow rules he doesn’t even agree with because the community says so? Does it get you all hot and bothered that your partner can read and translate a page of dense Aramaic text written by a bunch of rabbis more than a thousand years ago?
It's more than just T and A: a lot more
I actually think there is something sexy about an Orthodox lifestyle. It seems to be full of secrets and curtains, and even marriage has a kind of illicit feel to it when you’re forbidden from touching each other for weeks at a time.

But while I find it to be a huge turn on if a guy can read Torah well, I’m not interested in partnering up with a man who wants to settle down in Scarsdale, buy me a wig and get me pregnant once a year for a decade. There are things about the frum lifestyle that I find attractive, but being obligated to it is a whole different ballgame.

I guess the question is: Is it possible to be sexy and committed to Judaism at the same time? If sexiness is about more than just the accessories of clothing and setting and community, what is it, and how do we get it?

Obviously the answer is going to be different for different people, but I think one of the ways where Orthodoxy goes wrong, and where a lot of people get frustrated with religious life, is in its insistence on ignoring or quelling desire. Time and time again the rabbis warn against dangerous desires, and each time I come across that lesson I wish there was a little footnote on how to accept the desire without acting on it. It might be inappropriate to do something, it might be a bad idea, or a poor decision, or just plain wrong. But denying the desire for it isn’t helpful.

For a long time I had a crush on a guy who was (and pretty much still is) much too frum for me. I spent a lot of time thinking about how irritated I was at halacha, and generally feeling uninspired and angry at God. I had this daydream where he had a major crisis of faith, and left the observant community, at which point I would finally get to make out with him. But one day I was talking to the guy in question, and he told me he was really interested in me, but he knew he wasn’t ready for the kind of relationship I’d want, so he didn’t think we should be together. That comment was simultaneously incredibly sexy, and comforting and strong. I didn’t feel any more urges to break him away from his community or lifestyle. I had a much greater respect for him afterwards, and certainly an even greater desire.
I know that for some people this could only be even more frustrating, but I think it’s actually a really constructive and good idea, and I wish it was something the frum community could embrace, instead of just slamming us over the head with rules about skirt length and shomer negiah every forty-five seconds.

Today is the fifteenth day of Av, a day with very little significance. There aren’t any miracles that are supposed to have happened on this day, it’s not mentioned in the Torah, or anywhere else in the Bible. The first mention of Tu B’Av comes in the Mishna, where it’s written in the fourth chapter of Taanit:

Rabban Shimon Ben Gamliel said: There are no better days for Israel than the fifteenth of Av and Yom Kippur, because on those day the daughters of Jerusalem went out in white garments…and danced in the vineyards. What did they say? They said, “Young man, raise your eyes and look at what is clear to you. Don’t look at her form, look at her family [i.e. her family’s good standing in the community].”

This Painting Is Called the Loss of Virginity: maybe she left it on one of those mountains. Or maybe the lion cub stole it.
Maybe this doesn’t turn you on, but the fifteenth of Av has been appropriated as a kind of Israeli Valentine’s Day with the giving of flowers, chocolates, and probably lingerie, too. Here’s myjewishlearning.com:

In recent decades Israeli civil culture promotes festivals of singing and dancing on the night of Tu B'Av. The entertainment and beauty industries work overtime on this date. It has no formal legal status as a holiday-- it is a regular workday--nor has the Israeli rabbinate initiated any addition to the liturgy or called for the introduction of any ancient religious practices. The cultural gap between Israeli secular society and the Orthodox rabbinate makes it unlikely that these two will find a common denominator in the celebration of this ancient/modern holiday in the foreseeable future.

Continue reading...

A couple of people have requested that I blog more about my sex life, which, frankly, is not going to happen, what with my parents, Bubbe, grade school teachers, and ex boyfriends all reading my posts every once in a while. Also, none of my romantic ventures of late have been anything even approaching spiritual (I did have an unfortunate revelation involving a man in Queens a few weeks ago, but it was something along the lines of God reminding me that I am incapable of being fully entertained by a Princeton man, so I should stop kidding myself and move on to Yalies already). Anyway, I can’t legitimately blog about dating on the Upper West Side on FaithHacker.
Birds Do It, Bees Do It: But I have to go to the mikvah to do it?
What I can blog about is the discussion I have with almost all of my observant friends at one time or another involving our decisions about sex. By the time we’ve graduated college, many of us have been in one or more serious relationships, and we’ve struggled with the conflicts that halacha places on our sex lives. There is, sadly, not a huge amount of wiggle room for those who want to have sex with their significant others. Theoretically, if one is in a monogamous long-term relationship, and if the woman goes to the mikvah and the couple observes the period of nidah, there’s no problem. Only a few of my friends have even considered this, because though it seems simple, it pretty much necessitates lying to the mikvah lady, which makes lots of women uncomfortable. One of my friends said simply, “It seems like cheating.”

The vast majority of my friends who have struggled with this issue have decided ultimately to just have sex outside of marriage. The one notable exception is an Australian guy I knew in Israel who, in a discussion of this issue with me one night at a Shabbat dinner table, slammed his hand down on the table and said, “Halacha says a man who sleeps with a woman who’s in nidah is issur koret, [or violating a commandment that requires the death penalty as punishment.] He’s the only one who has ever it stated it that way, but the general concern about the wrath of God has certainly scared the pants back onto a few of my friends who oscillate between observant and less-observant lifestyles.

My general policy has never been to look for outs within halacha. I’m sure that if I did enough digging and finagling of texts I could come up with something that would satisfy me ideologically, but it simply does not keep me up at night. As I’ve mentioned before, the Bible is full of Biblical characters struggling with sexuality, fidelity, trust, commitment and honesty, and more often than not, it’s these struggles that lead to real change and improvement in their characters. Ultimately, I look for role models in Tanach and not in the Talmud because the Talmud’s understanding and treatment of women is both problematic, and completely unrealistic/unhelpful in regards to making serious choices about how I conduct relationships. If I won’t go to a mikvah and lie to a mikvah lady about being married, then halachically I can’t justify touching any Jewish man who isn’t related to me. But if I open up my Tanach I see that Rachel and Jacob kiss upon meeting. Which do you think I’m going to find more instructive to my life?

The struggle for me, and I think for many of my friends, has been how much we let our spiritual selves govern our love lives. And how sure are we that by focusing on one we largely abandon the other? There’s little discussion outside of the kiruv-y Orthodox world about how to have a spiritual dating experience, or what spiritually conscious intimacy would involve, but more and more often I find myself wondering about how all this could/should work.

You might have heard about a big legal battle happening in England now about whether a “purity ring” signifying a commitment to chastity before marriage can be worn in violation of school uniform rules. The case involves a 16-year-old girl named Lydia Playfoot (I swear I'm not making that name up) who doesn't want to take off her "purity ring" while she’s in school. Here’s a brief from the NY Times:

The case offered a counterpoint to a broader discussion concerning Muslim women who wear the full-face veil known as the niqab. But it also revealed stirrings of resentment among some members of Britain’s Christian majority, who say they are the victims of discrimination over how they display their faith.

Keep Sweet: For Jesus

The young woman, Lydia Playfoot, said her school, at Horsham, south of London, had told her that the ring broke the school’s rules on uniforms and jewelry.

But Ms. Playfoot argued that the prohibition breached her right to express a religious belief. Not only that, she said in a statement to the court, Sikh and Muslim pupils were permitted distinctive dress to show their religious identity.

Ms. Playfoot belongs to a British branch of an American-based evangelical movement known as Silver Ring Thing. Both her parents work for the branch, according to its Web site, www.silverringthing.com.

Two Guys At A Silver Ring Thing: should they have to take off their rings to take the SATs?

“The real reason for the extreme hostility to the wearing of the S.R.T. purity ring is the dislike of the message of sexual restraint, which is ‘countercultural’ and contrary to societal and governmental policy,” Ms. Playfoot said in a written statement to Britain’s High Court.

“It is this message from the Judeo-Christian position that is suppressed: exemptions are allowed or permitted for other messages,” she said, arguing that her school “doesn’t offer equal rights to Christians.”

Her remarks showed another aspect of a tangled debate here that has largely centered on concern among British leaders that the Muslim full-face veil has become what Prime Minister Tony Blair called a “mark of separation.” That led some Muslims to say they were the object of discrimination.

But Ms. Playfoot’s remarks suggested that Christians like her see themselves as being treated unfairly.

Much of the debate hinges on whether the purity ring is a religious requirement.

In a statement to the court, Leon Nettley, principal of the school, Millais, said, “It is not a Christian symbol, and is not required to be worn by any branch within Christianity.”

Full Story

Now, I think we all know how I feel about sex. I mean, I think it’s important to have an understanding of the consequences of sex, and I really hope people think seriously about all kinds of things before they jump into bed with someone else, but I cannot in good conscience endorse chastity. The only situation in which chastity seems to make any sense to me is when someone is getting married incredibly young. If you marry your high school sweetheart the day after your high school graduation, then waiting is not such a big deal. But in a world where people are marrying later and later, asking people to wait for physical affection is, in my opinion, ridiculous.

That said, let the girl wear her fucking (or, not fucking, I guess) ring! No, it’s not an obligatory religious garment or piece of jewelry, but it’s a big deal to her, and it’s not like chastity is an offensive or otherwise problematic virtue. A girl who says she doesn’t want to have sex in high school—isn’t that a great thing? Shouldn’t we applaud this girl for being ballsy enough to walk around wearing something that probably makes her pretty unpopular with the gentlemen of the senior class?

I don’t know anything about British law, so I have no sense of how likely it is that this girl will win the case, but regardless, I’m appalled by the whole thing, not least because it’s giving the Silver Ring Thing people more exposure than I’m comfortable with.