If you want to be a religious Jew today, you have to have money — a lot of it. There’s no way around it, and it’s especially obvious at this time of year.Perhaps it was different way back when, but in Orthodoxy Version 2010, you need two of everything in the kitchen, including two sinks, two dishwashers, two ovens and two refrigerators; a deep freezer is even better. It’s rare, but people even have two kitchens, an extra one for Pesach, which also needs to contain two of everything — causing some young married couples to request four of everything in their registries. Actually, if you’re going to do it right, you might as well get the fifth and sixth of everything because pareve really comes in handy. I can’t help but wonder how the Israelites would have lugged all their stuff through the desert had they needed six of everything.Then there are the clothes. Sometimes it seems like the cost of typical Orthodox woman’s Shabbat wardrobe — finished with accessories and sheitels — could feed a needy family for a year.There’s more.Real estate, for example In order to be part of the religious community, you have to live in walking distance of the shul. In cities around the world where religious Jews live, I’ve noticed that housing prices consistently go up in price in direct proportion to proximity to the synagogue. Plus, you need rooms not only for lots of children, but also for lots of guests. No respectable young couple, it seems, can consider living in an apartment that does not have a guest room and respectable accoutrements. It’s, like, not Jewish. With so much to keep up with, how can people be reasonably expected to have any money left over for day school tuition?Still, there is no time of year that so emphatically highlights the role of wealth in creating Orthodox social convention as Pesach.It’s not just the constantly expanding Pesach product line that ranges from the merely exorbitant (Kosher for Passover Seltzer at double the price — $0.89 instead of $0.49 — for example) to the completely outrageous (see Debra Nussbaum Cohen’s post. Pesach definitively divides the Jewish community along the lines of social class.It goes like this: The more disposable income one has, the easier one’s life is. It runs from the simple hiring of help (as one frantic mother said to me, “I have to hurry home to watch my cleaner do the oven!”) to the avoidance of chores altogether with an escape on, say, a Pesach cruise. Money simply makes the difference between those who toil more and those who toil less. If social class is about the unequal ways in which our labor is measured and evaluated, then Pesach is the time when those whose labor is worth more can completely free themselves up from the work by hiring people whose labor is worth far less. Put differently, the more money you have, the more liberated you can be from the pre-Pesach toil...
Jewfem Blog
A morning conference on the future of modern Orthodoxy will be held next Thurs in Jerusalem, sponsored by Rabbi Marc Angel's "Ideas" along with Neemanei Torah Va'avodah. I will be conducting a joint panel with my friend Susan Weiss of the Center for Women's Justice on the subject of agunot and women in Judaism. Should be provocative....More info here
If you want to be a religious Jew today, you have to have money — a lot of it. There’s no way around it, and it’s especially obvious at this time of year.
I spent too much time the other day talking to my children about death and suicide. My oldest daughter went to the funeral of her former youth group counselor, an 18-year-old recent high school graduate who took her own life. A seemingly bubbly, optimistic and activist young woman who became clinically depressed over the past year, the girl left a strong impression on my daughter and her death left many in the youth movement grappling for answers.
The Israeli police announced yesterday that they are closing the case against Rabbi Motti Elon for sexual misconduct with his students, and that they will not be criminally charging him. [Hat Tip: Joel Katz]. According to news reports, no underage boys were involved, and all the cases of young men who stepped forward were reported to be "consensual." While this undoubtedly comes as a relief to Elon and his followers, it is hardly vindicating. The absence of a legally binding case does not indicate that Elon has not done anything of questionable ethics but rather that according to the current law, there is not enough evidence to support the idea that he committed illegal acts.
Yediot Aharonot released its thirteenth annual "mivhan shel hamedina" today -- the "Test of the Nation." Not, it does not examine Israel's social structure, political transparency, or poverty rates. That's not what is being tested. This is about consumerism. This test rates the best Israeli companies and products in areas such as electronics, food, cosmetics, household, and the like. Yediot then produces a 16-page newspaper supplement and widely promotes it. And then, all the leading companies spend fortunes on advertising to let all of Israel know that they won in the test. The CEO's of all the companies are interviewed and profiled and get a lot of positive publicity in print, television and Internet media. The results? Not a single woman leads any of the companies. Not one. A full two page spread with bios of all the leading CEOs and their grand philosophies on life could have been produced in the 1960s Mad Men era of business. No women. And it's 2010.... Astounding.... Interestingly, there are several women on the staff of the Mivhan. How these women did not notice what they are part of is beyond my comprehension....
There was an exciting energy at the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance conference. Speakers in both the plenary and individual sessions, such as emerging star Lisa Schlaff, made far-reaching statements and bold suggestions about issues ranging from marriage and sexuality to halachic ingenuity. Participants responded in kind with creativity and courage, revealing what seems to be a powerful consensus that Orthodoxy is in the midst of a major overhaul from the ground up. The fact that conference participants expressed full and enthusiastic support for Orthodox women rabbis offers some sense of the disconnect between this grassroots community and the formal leadership of Modern Orthodoxy.
Unpious.com, A blog site for Chassidic refugees — that is, people who grew up chassidic and left — explores some of the darker sides of Jewish life. This week, a woman writes about her husband’s rape and bondage sex fettish, and recalls the way her kallah teacher encouraged her to take it. Sure, he can stick a cucumber in her until it hurts, but make sure you don’t mispronounce the bracha on the chanuka candles… Shocking, shocking post. Even for me, and I thought I had heard it all…. Right now, I am tied to the coffee table in the living room… My wrists and ankles are bound to the table legs with some sort of rope…I remember a different coffee table, a different living room. It was a long time ago, and I was sitting at a class for newly married ladies. I wasn’t married yet, just engaged. But already I was important. I was part of the in-crowd… A plump, cheery lady was in charge of the speech and she was almost yelling at us, her rapt, awed audience. …We must be flexible in pleasing our husbands, she said. We should try to move beyond what we are comfortable with. Sometimes men will ask for things that we find strange or unpleasant and we should try to go along as best we can. Or sometimes they will ask at the wrong time, like when her husband asked for intimacy after a close friend had a tragedy. She raised her voice and lowered it; there was a sing-song quality to the way she spoke. I remember being mortified and fascinated at the same time. Why was she telling us about her personal sex life? Will she tell us more? What else did her husband ask for? What could our husbands ask for that is strange or unpleasant? We should try to acquiesce, she went on, because sholom bayis means understanding how hard it is to be a man. Never do anything against halacha, of course, chas v’sholom. But a good wife will try to please her husband and accommodate him, even if the requests seem odd or unusual. ….He stands over me, panting in my ear. You want this bitch, sluts like you like it this way. Am I supposed to smile? Will that make him happy? I smile. I turn my eyes away from him. I look at the candles, there are so many of them and all different colors too. He likes each of our sons to light his own menorah. He’s pushing something into me, some sort of object, maybe a bottle or a cucumber. It feels more like a cucumber. It would be funny if it didn’t hurt so much. Rape by produce. I try to close my legs tighter but it just hurts more. I have to learn to relax and not fight it. …Yesterday he got upset because I accidentally said “shel Chanukah” when our nusach is to leave out the “shel” part. Why...
Unpious.com, A blog site for Chassidic refugees -- that is, people who grew up chassidic and left -- explores some of the darker sides of Jewish life. This week, a woman writes about her husband's rape and bondage sex fettish, and recalls the way her kallah teacher encouraged her to take it. Sure, he can stick a cucumber in her until it hurts, but make sure you don't mispronounce the bracha on the chanuka candles... Shocking, shocking post. Even for me, and I thought I had heard it all.... Read more
Gabrielle Birkner, web-editor of The Forward, and creator of the Sisterhood, interviewed me before the JOFA conference to hear about some of the issues. I talked about "Torah Im Shivyon", a vision for equality in Orthodox day school education, and about my forthcoming book about Orthodox men, to be published by Hadassah Brandeis in early 2011, entitled, "On the cusp: Jewish men in transition." Listen here. Let me know what you think!
