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Why I became UO |
In terms of the circumstances I was born into, you could pretty much say I won the lottery. My parents are wealthy and really good, generous, wholesome people. They are not religious by any means but are very dedicated to Jewish charities that help all people from any religion. Aside from money and a good family, I was blessed with an above average intellect and way above average good looks.
Unfortunately, money, looks, and opportunity got me into a lot of trouble as a teenager growing up in L.A.
It was in college that I first met Orthodox people through an on campus outreach organization. I thought they were brainwashed and actually started hanging out with them out of curiosity. But what happened was that I was completely taken by the wholesomeness of their world. It was such a breath of fresh air. When they talked about the emptiness of secular life, it really resonated with me. I, however, did not have the maturity to see that the whole secular world wasn't empty and seedy, it was just that the specific group that I spent my time with was. I guess my parents should have been proof of that, but I figured they were from a different generation and that they were just a rare exception to the rule.
I agreed to go on a summer trip to Israel
I eventually dropped out of college and went to a BT seminary in Israel
I did have some resistance to things I didn't understand, like not wearing denim because it was "goyish," but I wanted so badly to fit in and I soon realized that the more extreme and subservient one became, the more praise one received from rabbis, the more one got set up on dates with better guys, and the more people wanted to be around you. Eventually, I gave in completely to the point that I was good enough for my husband, an FFB guy from a big family in Brooklyn , to marry.
This was my exit out of the "bubble." What I learned during the next 9 years was that there was no more goodness and wholesomeness than in the secular world. It was exactly the same, just hidden. But I kept repeating my the rabbis' words in my head, " Don't judge Judaism by the Jews."
I also realized that the utopian vision wasn't real. Niddah didn't make your marriage more exiting and women didn't work hard all week to have a day of rest. Rather, they worked all week to prepare for the hardest and most draining day of the week. Also, the FFB world didn't respect my reconciliation of Torah and science that I learned at Aish Hatorah. In fact, most FFB people considered it heresy! But I just chalked all this up to challenges I had to overcome.
It wasn't until my husband's affair and the revelation about adultery from my friend that it occurred to me that maybe everything had been spun in a way to sell Orthodoxy to me. How many marriage classes did I sit in in which I was told that Niddah creates marital bliss, I can't even count. But it wasn't the personal experiences of mine and of my friends that proved this wrong for me. After all, we could have just been doing it wrong or maybe our marriages were sub-par. What shattered my world was finding out that during the time of the temple, otherwise known to be the real way Judaism should be, women were banished from their homes while husbands went with other wives or concubines. Throw in all the other Halachas that are nearly endless about women, like this one that only men are generally aware of, and disillusionment is an extreme understatement.
So here I am, with all this knowlege. Knowlege that in a way I wish I wouldn't have had come my way. That's why I generally don't share anything with Orthodox Jews. Ignorance is bliss. I get it. If they are happy, who am I to suck the joy out of their faith, even if what I have to say is 100% true?
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QUESTIONS:
These were exchanged over a few e-mails.
CL: What is sexist about halachic adultery law?
Quickly, the sixth of the ten commandments only applies to married women and their lovers. For example, if a married woman is abused by her husband for years, can't leave for whatever reason, and has an
affair, halachically, she deserves death. But if a married man who has a wonderful wife has an affair with a single woman, it's considered a minor offense and a violation of rabbinical decree only.
CL: Did you remain with your husband?
Yes. I didn't want the pain of losing my kids half the time on top of the pain I already had and my husband was willing to do whatever it took to rebuild trust, go to therapy, etc. It's been 1 year and it's going better than I ever would have thought. Although, I still have PTSD, still need anti-depressants, and still have emotional pain on a daily basis, but it's usually only for a few minutes. If he ever did it again after seeing how much pain he's caused me and our children for life, I'd be done.
CL: Are Orthodox girls not taught these halachot in school?
The answer to this is no way. Everything in Orthodox schools is censored. Girls are usually not even taught Halacha at all. Tanach is censored too. Even for boys. For example, my husband grew up in Brooklyn , went to the best black hat yeshivas his whole life, and never knew that King David committed adultery and murder. When I first confronted him about the Gemara where the rabbis contemplate whether the hymen of a girl under three can regenerate after intercourse, he yelled at me for lying about the great rabbis of the Talmud. I showed him the page, he apologized, and even himself started to realize that a lot in the Talmud could not have been taught by God to Moses and that maybe the interpretations of those rabbis were good for their time and place but should not be binding forever.
CL: You said you are Orthoprax. Why do you remain Orthoprax? Why not go OTD completely?
My husband could never not be Orthodox. So, to keep peace in the home we have compromised and become modern Orthodox. Basically, I've agreed to keep shabbos and kosher but that's it. Even that feels like a lot when you don't believe in it.
CL: Do the other Orthodox women around you have similar concerns re: halacha and its positioning of women, or does the discussion of women's role with regards to halacha only surface in extreme instances
like abuse, adultery or when trying to obtain get?
I wouldn't say it even comes out in extreme cases. In those cases, usually the perpetrator is blamed, not Halacha. Orthodox Jews don't even realize they like to have it both ways. For example, when Orthodox Jews act immorally, rabbis say, "Don't judge Judaism by the Jews. After all, people are flawed." But if you point to an immoral Halacha, they will say, "Its not the Halacha's fault, it's the fault of the person who did the immoral act." I have to shamefully admit, I was guilty of this myself for many years.
CL: I'm assuming your family was Ultra Orthodox - were you at a typical
Lol. Totally not. I grew up Reform. . . Women with pink kipas and talits, gay rabbis who brought their boyfriends to prom, the whole Reform thing all the way. Having said that, I was lucky to go to a very academic Jewish school and I learned Hebrew, how to read Gemara, Mishnah, and Rashi script. This has been invaluable to me which I will explain in the next answer.
. . . I was recruited by orthodox outreach when I was a student at UCLA 11 years ago. But I did spend two years in a seminary after that and married into a big well known black hat Brooklyn family so I know both sides in and out.
CL: The context really changes how your story reads. Do you think girls who go through the system from the start of their education (i.e. FFB) are similarly censored from the halachas that a secular person would view as unfavorable for women?
Absolutely! I have four sisters-in-law that went to various FFB Brooklyn schools and they don't even know non-controversial Halacha. This is because Orthodox schools for girls do not teach Halacha at all! Shocking, I know. When I met my husband and left the BT bubble I couldn't believe it. This is because different families follow different laws, levels of stringency, and customs. In the FFB system, it's the family's responsibility to teach necessary laws, like kashrut, at home. If a girl has a halachic question, she asks her father or brother, not a teacher at the school. So what do they teach? They teach the stories in the Tanach, in a very censored way of course.
My background as non-observant top private school student, my ability to read and understand primary texts, my spending two years in seminary, marrying into the main-stream FFB world, and the Internet, which gives me access to documents to almost an unlimited degree, has put me in a rather unique position. Rabbis can no longer put troubling Gemaras about women in whatever nice context they can think up. I know the ugly context because I can read it myself. This is a very unusual skill for an Orthodox woman. I also have a very good memory which allows me to see the bigger picture.
As someone who was also blessed with "way above average good looks", I hear ya Cali Girl!
ReplyDelete> But what happened was that I was completely taken by the wholesomeness of their world.
ReplyDeleteWould it be fair to say that your reason for becoming Orthodox was more the appeal of the wholesome lifestyle than conviction that its tenets are true, and when your husband had an affair – and you found out that religiously he had done nothing wrong - that destroyed the wholesome image of Orthodoxy, and with it, your reason for being frum?
I ask because it seems, from admittedly anecdotal evidence, that the canard that people go OTD only for emotional reasons could be applied just as well to people going in the other direction. (I suspect that the real reasons for a major life change, whether into religion or out of it, are too complex to be pegged by a single cause. But it’s interesting that both BTs and OTDs seem to go through a very similar process. Of course, as an Orthopraxer, I’m above all that, and my conclusions are purely rational ;-) )
> That's why I generally don't share anything with Orthodox Jews. Ignorance is bliss. I get it. If they are happy, who am I to suck the joy out of their faith, even if what I have to say is 100% true?
I know what you mean. And yet, sometimes, when someone has said something particularly inane, I just can’t help myself. You shouldn’t worry about ruining it for others. In my experience, in any argument you eventually hit a wall where the other person just stops listening to you and the debate devolves into them repeating assertions and using special pleading.
> I have four sisters-in-law that went to various FFB Brooklyn schools and they don't even know non-controversial Halacha.
It’s incredible what they don’t teach you in yeshiva. You don’t learn controversial ANYTHING. For instance, Jewish history is bowdlerized to conform to the part line. There are people who genuinely believe that a Jew from any period in history would comfortably fit in in today’s Orthodox community. The gedolim were all perfect saints and geniuses from birth. All of torah, from the Chumahs through the rishonim at least, is treated as a single canon, all of which is expected to fit together seamlessly. And on and on and on.
> I know the ugly context because I can read it myself. This is a very unusual skill for an Orthodox woman.
In the yeshivish and Chassidish worlds, yes. MO girls though are taught gemara, halacha, etc. By and large, they don’t seem to have problems with misogynist halachos, perhaps because those halachos are largely ignored by MO communities.
The two Cali Girl posts are excellent. It often takes a traumatic event or life situation to make a person question the veracity of OJ. Then the trauma is blamed for sending the person "off the derech", even thought the trauma is really just a catalyst.
ReplyDeleteJust because the trauma is real, doesn't mean OJ is "true".
Would it be fair to say that your reason for becoming Orthodox was more the appeal of the wholesome lifestyle than conviction that its tenets are true
ReplyDeleteDefinitely true for me (in addition to the fact that my parents raised me in a Conservadox way that left me betwixt and between with regard to the Jewish and secular worlds).
http://www.jewishjournal.com/dennis_prager/article/can_halachah_ever_be_wrong_20120111/
ReplyDelete>What shattered my world was finding out that during the time of the temple, otherwise known to be the real way Judaism should be, women were banished from their homes while husbands went with other wives or concubines
ReplyDeletewait....what??????
G*3
ReplyDeleteRe:Would it be fair to say that your reason for becoming Orthodox was more the appeal of the wholesome lifestyle than conviction that its tenets are true, and when your husband had an affair – and you found out that religiously he had done nothing wrong - that destroyed the wholesome image of Orthodoxy, and with it, your reason for being frum?
No. I liked hanging around Orthodox people, but I never considered actually becoming Orthodox until Aish HaTorah Discovery. Likewise, I didn't go off because I was hurt. But being hurt opened the door for me to question intellectually the divinity of such things.
I finally went off 100% in my head when I realized that Aish's proofs were just a bunch of manipulated peices of information. When someone who's faith was based on scientific evidence finds out that many things in the Talmud and some things even in the Torah are scientifically wrong, that's the beginning of the end. At least for people who are willing to follow truth wherever it may lead them without a predetermined agenda.
This is why I am so bitter. I feel like I was tricked into it.
Holy Hyrax:
Thank you for proving my point. Lol. I brought up this point in a marriage class for Orthodox women (I couldn't help it) and the Rabbi looked like he was going to faint after he saw the horrified looks of the women in the room.
It's true, and even worse than that. But it's too much to write in a comment. The Talmud also says that if a woman in Niddah walks between two men, it will cause them to quarrel or one will die, depending on how far along she is in her period.
And if two women are sitting on opposite sides of the street facing eachother, watch out and dont walk between them! It's surely whichcraft!
Did you know that Adam had a wife before Eve? Her name was Lilith. Do you know her story? She was turned into a demoness for refusing to be subservient to Adam and demanding an equal partnership. She is the reason why superstious Jews in the Middle Ages started to grow their little boy's hair out. She's also the spiritual reason why spilling seed is so awful. Apparently, all the sperm turns into Lilith's demon children.
>Did you know that Adam had a wife before Eve? Her name was Lilith. Do you know her story?
ReplyDeleteYes, I know her story. The rabbis did not make this story up. Other nations around in the ancient world had stories of Lilith. They most likely were exposed to that.
Regarding other things that you quote, I am aware of that, but I am also aware that the Talmudic rabbis were often QUITE extreme to try to prove some halachic point. I think they were serious at times, but I am sceptic of how literal they were other times.
Regardless..... I want to go back to what you said. What is the source of what you initially said. That husbands banished their wives to go with other wives and conccubines
Holy Hyrax,
ReplyDeleteThe husbands did not banish their wives themselves. During the temple, all women, married or not, went to go stay in special houses. This is because the men didn't want impurity spreading to the chairs, for example, since if they were contaminated, they would not be able to go to the temple for a night. And there was the concern of causing fights and death as I noted above.
My point about the other wives was that Niddah has nothing to do with increasing emotional or sexual closeness as is often claimed. It has to due with impurity plain and simple.
I wanted to check the source because I have so many floating in my head but I don't have time right now. I'm sure you could find it. The house of isolation is in a mishnah, Niddah 7:?, I believe.
Oh, ok. So what you are saying is that if a husband had multiple wives, when one wife was in niddah, he would be with another of his wives. I misunderstood what you said. Ok. I don't think there is anything morally wrong with that. What would you have them do? When a wife (A) would be niddah for a week, he is not allowed to be with wife (B)? And you are right. All in the ancient world, a woman would have her own tent (even when she was not niddah) and she would go there. Ok. But even a man that is contanimated by impurity can make other things impure. So in the same way that you said "Niddah has nothing to do with increasing emotional or sexual closeness," I believe I can rightfully claim Impurity IN GENERAL, has nothing to do with females, since men can aquire impurity themselves by their own actions.
ReplyDelete>It has to due with impurity plain and simple.
Sure, but since today, we don't have multiple wives, what is wrong with finding another aspect to Niddah that can actually HELP a couple?
Holy Hyrax,
ReplyDeleteRe: Sure, but since today, we don't have multiple wives, what is wrong with finding another aspect to Niddah that can actually HELP a couple?
Nothing. Unless it's dishonest.
For the vast majority of couples Niddah is a huge challenge to the relationship, even very healthy ones. I don't think that for the few couples who find it works in their favor, Niddah should be presented by kiruv organizations as something that makes a marriage better as a general rule.
The general way it works is: Distance creates distance and closeness creates closeness.
That analogy of getting sick of too much chocolate cake to illustrate too much intimacy between spouses that Kiruv teachers love, seems logical in theory, but anyone who has been married for a significant period of time, especially with children, knows it's a ridiculous and inaccurate comparison.
All my friends who have managed to avoid Niddah (while not expecting of course) for long periods of time through the use of certain forms of birth control have reported that their marriages, physically and emotionally, have improved immensly.
This is why the two main functions of the Yoetzet program are to provide advice on how to deal with the challenges that Niddah brings to a marriage and to make women aware of halachic leniencies so that they won't be in Niddah longer than is absolutely necessary.
I personally, don't care that much. I am almost never in Niddah and when I am my husband is very understanding and gives me lots of hugs and kisses so we still feel close. And yes, he also hugged and kissed me a lot when our kids were born.
I just have to take issue with the spin people put on Orthodoxy to make it look utopian. I think it's dishonest and misleading.
>For the vast majority of couples Niddah is a huge challenge to the relationship, even very healthy ones.
ReplyDeleteI disagree. I think in your experience, sure. But in many people I know, it absolutely is helpful. So I disagree with you saying the "vast majority"
You may be right about how they sell it. They should first start that it may in fact be difficult on a relationship but that it can have great potential.
> I finally went off 100% in my head when I realized that Aish's proofs were just a bunch of manipulated peices of information.
ReplyDeleteScore one for the intellectuals!
> And yes, he also hugged and kissed me a lot when our kids were born.
I think that’s the worst part of taharas hamishpacha. There you are, having a child, a time when you should be close to each other, when a woman is in pain and needs comforting, and her husband is supposed to just stand there and watch her suffer because he’s not allowed to even hold her hand. And why? Becoming taamei doesn’t’ really matter. And it’s not like childbirth is sexy or romantic, so the usually reasons for not touching during niddah don’t apply. It’s a legal technicality observed for it’s own sake.
Holy Hyrax,
ReplyDeleteRe: I disagree. I think in your experience, sure. But in many people I know, it absolutely is helpful. So I disagree with you saying the "vast majority."
OK. Agree to disagree :) But the Yoetzets, who's shiurs I recently went to, and Dennis Prager, who I talked to on the air about this recently, completely agree with me. So it's not just in my experience.
Also, how do you know it helps? Most people won't admit it doesn't, just like most Orthodox women say "Thank God it's shabbos tomorrow, I'm so tired." Yet, they know very well that they will be working their butts off more on shabbos than during the week.
I recently saw a Rabbi from Aish in L.A. on a Saturday night and he said, not knowing I'm secretly no longer frum, that he was so tired from hosting on Shabbos that he was practically crying because he felt too tired to go to this event he was at. Do you think he told the college students at the event how he was really feeling? Do these young girls know that one seventh of their lives will be this way if they become Orthodox? More if you include the holidays! All they see is the utopian facade and nothing behind the scenes.
CG, the secret to not totally working your butt off on Shabbos is not having company (I don't mind my kids inviting friends, but no families or couples - in the last 8 years I have had company for meals exactly twice).
ReplyDeleteBut then it's like jail and so isolating :(
Delete>and Dennis Prager, who I talked to on the air about this recently, completely agree with me. So it's not just in my experience.
ReplyDeleteHAHAHA!. That was you??? I told my wife someone called about this
G*3
ReplyDelete>It’s incredible what they don’t teach you in yeshiva. You don’t learn controversial ANYTHING. For instance, Jewish history is bowdlerized to conform to the part line.
This just blows me away. Is it true for both MO and UO yeshivas?
HH:
>Sure, but . . .what is wrong with finding an aspect to Niddah that can actually HELP a couple?
To reiterate CG's point: It may help some couples, but it certainly wouldn't help all, and possibly not most. Let's not pretend it's more than a relic of an ancient culture. If you really want to market this as bringing couples closer - fine, but do it in the context of its historical roots so that people can make an informed choice.
G3:
>and her husband is supposed to just stand there and watch her suffer because he’s not allowed to even hold her hand.
Wow! I had no idea! I get the warped halachic logic, but that's awful!!
CG: I meant to one more snoopy question . . . (of course feel free to decline answering) . .. How has your relationship with your parents been through this?
ReplyDelete>No. I liked hanging around Orthodox people, but I never considered actually becoming Orthodox until Aish HaTorah Discovery.
ReplyDeleteI also was "Aish-ed" this way, exactly because I'm something of a rationalist. Yes, something in me *wanted to be convinced, but it was also a *convincing presentation...I'm not so smart that I didn't need someone else to come along and help me debunk Aish's logic.
Also, re: whether niddah helps brings closeness, my own anecdotal evidence would conclude: Not really. When my husband and I are "in niddah" we tend to argue more, and even though we talk "across the divide" as it were, I often feel a strange emotional distance that completely turns around once I'm back from the mikveh. Then again, that "back from the mikveh" moment is significant, and worth some sacrifice... The whole "program" actually did work really well for me when I had a reliable six-week cycle. Oy, IUDs! Suck!
I would also think that niddah imposes pressure to take advantage of the non-niddah times (Is there a term for that?) that may have a counterproductive/ romance distilling effect for some couples.
ReplyDeleteCurious how niddah laws impact couples' vacation planning.
That's impressive that you thought of this. Yes, it does put pressure on the allowed times, especially on the woman, since she knows her husband is already curbing his sexual nature by being married, can't even be with his own wife half the time, and isn't allowed to go it alone.
DeleteAlso, of course you plan vacations around Niddah if it's just a trip for you to spend time with your spouse. It ruins the whole thing otherwise.
>Also, how do you know it helps? Most people won't admit it doesn't
ReplyDeleteThen if they aren't really talking, how do you know it's hurting? ;)
Holy Hyrax,
ReplyDeleteIf you sat in on the Q & A part of a Yoetzet shiur with women who were Orthodox, but just left enough to speak honestly and openly, you would see that for most, Niddah poses a challenge, not a help, to a marriage.
One day I was out to lunch with my friends and two admitted that there are times that they are tempted to lie about being in Niddah because there husbands get into a bad mood for twelve days!
Then again, I'm on the women's side. Maybe the men find that it improves marriage?
G*3: taamei . . . what's the definition?
ReplyDelete>>It’s incredible what they don’t teach you in yeshiva. You don’t learn controversial ANYTHING. For instance, Jewish history is bowdlerized to conform to the part line.
ReplyDelete>This just blows me away. Is it true for both MO and UO yeshivas?
More for UO than MO, but to some extent in both. To be fair, part of this is the general watering down that happens whenever complex subjects are taught to children. Washington didn’t really chop down a cherry tree, and the Founding Fathers weren’t all starry-eyed freedom fighters. In the frum world, though, the books written for adults must also conform to the party line. There are no biographies, only hagiographies – and real biographies are literally banned, with dozens of rabbinical signatories on the bans.
> G*3: taamei . . . what's the definition?
It’s usually translated as “ritually impure,” but I think that “spiritually unclean” batter captures the spirit of the term. There is a sizable body of work that discusses how tumah (tumah = spiritual dirt, taamei = spiritually dirty) is created and spread, different levels of tumah, how one contracts it and how one gets rid of it.
>and real biographies are literally banned, with dozens of rabbinical signatories on the bans.
ReplyDeleteWhy is this? This level of intentional censorship of historical facts seems extreme when directed at one's own heroes . . .
Thank you for the definition. I've added it to the Glossary.
> Why is this? This level of intentional censorship of historical facts seems extreme when directed at one's own heroes . . .
ReplyDeleteNot at all. Look at the recent death of Kim Jong Il, and the impossible stories circulated about him in North Korea. I’m sure that a factually accurate biography would be banned in North Korea, because it would portray him as merely a man, complete with flaws, instead of the god that North Korean propaganda made him.
For much the same reasons, factually accurate biographies of leading rabbis are banned. Rabbinical hagiographies don’t go nearly as far the North Koreans. There aren’t many outright impossible stories. It’s more that they’re whitewashed, made out to be perfect saints whose every action is completely pious and in line with current Orthodox beliefs and values, and actual events may be exaggerated.
The reason may be that as a society, OJ, particularly UOJ publishing companies which put out these biographies and histories, aren’t concerned nearly so much with accurately portraying historical fact as they are with providing example s from the gloried past on which the current generation can model their own behavior. That is, learning history I not valuable for its own sake, but only for the lessons we can glean from the lives and events of our pious forbears. Therefore someone who is so engrossed in studying torah that he loses track of time and forgets to eat, or even refuses to leave the room as bullets chew up the furniture around him and has to be dragged to the bomb shelter by his family and students is an example to be emulated (even if its an exaggeration), while recording that a prominent rabbi enjoyed reading the (secular) newspaper every morning is a superfluous fact that might God forbid lead people to think that reading secular papers is okay.