Rejewvenate!

A few weeks ago, after a well-received sermon at a Westchester synagogue, I was approached by one Dr. Solomon Dinkevich, a professor of mechanics and applied mathematics who has also written on Jewish topics, including perhaps most famously, a calculation of how Noah could have possible fit all those animals in the Ark.

Dr. Dinkevich pressed into my hands a different article that Shabbat, about the demographic trends within Jewish denominations. By now we’ve all seen these articles, often accompanied by charts, that show that the more kugel you eat, the more Jewish grandkids you’ll have. Ok, not really. They show what the Orthodox keep saying: that Orthodoxy has the highest birth- and retention-rates of the Jewish denominations (and the more to the right you go the better), that the Conservatives are barely replacing their own, and that Reform Jews are a-dwindling away.

It feeds into that Orthodox fantasy that one day, many years from now, they will wake up and find that ‘heterodox’ Jews ahve simply disappeared, vanished into a puff of smoke in the shape of themselves.

It’s also horseshi- ehem. The only thing that this study shows is the the setbacks suffered by Jewish movements, not the Jewish community itself. In other words, it’s true that fewer and fewer Jews are identifying themselves as Reform, or Conservative. On the other hand, more are identifying as Reconstructionist or Renewal, denominations not presented in the study, or in many studies. Even more identify themselves as nondenominational. Some see this as a negative, a sign of lack of ‘affiliation’, lack of true membership in Jewish life. Surprising then that minyanim like Hadar and Kol Zimrah, rising stars in the Jewish institutional community, take these labels for themselves, as do many other innovative new Jewish organizations, from JDub to Reboot to the granddaddy of them all, Birthright Israel.

But beyond the fact that Jews today are less likely to identify with a denomination (unless they’re Orthodox, in which case they most certainly choose not only a denomination, but a prefix, like Modern, or Centrist, or Ultra, or Hassidic, etc.), even within the denominations there is a shift. The institutions that brought us to this dismal place are changing, and the leaders who shepherded the process are being replaced. Every day we hear about nwe Jewish leaders, bright ideas, innovative projects and a rebirth of zeal, energy and light in the Jewish world. Demographers love to use the caveat “assuming current trends hold” - which, of course, they never do (Falling Rock Zone? Shouldn’t that sign say “Road Closed”?) Demographic studies can offer a snapshot of what’s happening today, but they are notoriously poor at predicting the future. And really, aren’t such studies used more often not to deal with the problem they ostensibly point to, but to delegitimize  opposing groups?

As the Jewish community variously gears up to prevent, ‘inreach’ fret, strategize, or otherwise just plain deal with intermarriage, I think an important point is being overlooked.

The intermarriage of today is not the intermarriage of the past. A good analogy is how America assimilates people today versus in the past. The model of past assimilation was the melting pot. A diverse immigrant population would come to America and busy itself with the task of becoming indistinguishably American. People sought to abandon the individual trappings of their cultural in favor of American homogeneousness, and with it, American prosperity.

Today’s assimilation is different, as is today’s intermarriage. Sociologists now refer to the “salad bowl” rather than the melting pot. Individuals do not melt into a single type, but rather, retain much more of their individuality and identity evena s they are accepted into the whole. One no longer need shave a mustache, discard a head scarf, or unwind a turban to achieve acceptance and success in what has gone from a repressed culture in the 1950s to an exuberant, expressive and polyglot one today.

Intermarriage today is not about erasing a Jewish identity in order to melt into a Gentile society. Though marrying a person of another faith will certainly blunt certain kinds of religious expression and later others, in relationships observed today, it does not, nor does it even seek to, eliminate expression of one faith or the other.

The point in this, as in all discussion of intermarriage, is the next generation. Put aside for a moment the question of which children from what types of unions are ‘actually’ Jewish, as vexing a question as this may be for some, and as consuming as it is when we engage it. Children from mixed unions are often encouraged to explore both faiths. Many wish to choose only one, and many wish to commit to one in a more complete manner than perhaps their parents did. Maybe this is in response to the fractured upbringing they experienced. Who can say for sure? But these children will resurface in our Jewish communities. And some children will embrace all the fragments of their religious identity, and try to stitch a whole fabric out of this patchwork. They too will resurface in oru Jewish community.

And so will many others, undescribed here. But that puts the point on this whole discourse. Intermarriage today is different than intermarriage in the past because the children WILL EMERGE in our communities. That’s a hopeful thought.

In response to a halachic question submitted to him, Rabbi Yuval Cherlow of the Hesder Yeshiva of Petach Tikva (an Israeli Orthodox institution) has permitted women who are unmarried to become pregnant and raise children out of wedlock. There are a few restrictions:

• Women must be at least 37 years of age
• Women must have exhausted all conceivable options for getting married
• Efforts to marry must not cease after conception or birth
• Pregnancy should be achieved through artificial insemination
• Preferably, a contractual arrangement should be reached with a Jewish sperm donor of certain identity. The parameters of the relationship can raneg from no further involvement to invovlement in the lfie of the child similar to that of divorced parents
• If the above cannot be achieved, anonymous donation may only be accepted from a non-Jewish donor. Under no circumstances should anonymous Jewish donation be used for this purpose (there are some issues with anonymous Jewish donors regarding future marriageability).

Here’s the link, for those of you proficient in reading Hebrew.

ישיבת ההסדר פתח תקוה - לידה ללא נישואין

I plan to write about this, but for now, I’d just like to provide some links about this issue. If you haven’t heard about it yet, here’s the summary. Dr. Noah Feldman, a law professor at Harvard University, wrote at length in the New York Times Magazine from this past Sunday, about his experiences at the Modern Orthodox Maimonides School in Brookline, which he attended for twelve years. Dr. Feldman has since married a non-Jewish woman and has two children. Entitled “Orthodox Paradox”, the article explores the contradictions and challenges of living at the crossroads of modernity and tradition, as written by someone who still seems himself at that crossroads.

NY Times Article

Shmuly Boteach, who had a close relationship with Dr. Feldman during the latter’s two years at Oxford University, responded thoughtfully.

A response from R. Ozer Glickman, a Rosh Yeshiva at Yeshiva University affiliate the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, is available on request. Send email to rejewvenator[at]gmail.com

Gil Student added some resentful comments.

To see what other bloggers are saying, click here.

Update: Jewcy editor Joey Kurtzman interviews Noah Feldman about his article, “Orthodox Paradox.”

I’m writing now to put forth my position on the topic of mikvah immersion for unmarried women. I’m certainly not the first to speak about this topic. I’ve heard that Rabbi Irving (Yitz) Greenberg suggested, as early as forty years ago, that unmarried women be permitted to go to the mikvah, so as to avoid incurring the penalty of karet (lit. cutting off - the meaning is not entirely certain, but is usually understood as being spiritually eviscerated from the Jewish people) when engaging in premarital sex. Rabbi Greenberg’s position was not welcomed, to say the least.I think Rabbi Greenberg’s position simply didn’t go far enough. It is my belief that all Jewish women, from Bat Mitzvah until menopause, should immerse in the mikvah monthly. From a purely halachic perspective there is no true ban on unmarried women going to the mikvah, and unmarried women did go to the mikvah in the past, prior to participating in the Paschal sacrifice, or prior to touching consecrated goods, priestly tithes and so forth. However, given that premarital sex is forbidden (even if only rabbinically), over the last two thousand years there has been no reason to allow unmarried women to go to the mikvah.

Until today. Based on various studies of American sexuality, Jewish women remain abstinent longer and have fewer sexual partners than their non-Jewish counterparts. However, it is clear that most Jewish women do not come to their marriage beds in virgin white. Interestingly, no Jewish denomination supports or condones premarital sex. The Conservative movement has crept towards an acceptance of premarital sex in monogamous, committed relationships, but I haven’t found any official responsa permitting it. In other words, Jewish denominations have taken the Nancy Reagan approach to premarital sex - just say no.

That approach has proven as ineffectual for premarital sex as it was for drugs. Just as today, US citizens regularly flout inane and draconian drug laws and pay no regard to the dictates of their own legal system, Jews have premarital sex, not even paying lip service to the rabbis and teachers who preach against it. Today, rabbis of every denomination have simply been cut out of the conversation. I personally know of quite a few non-Orthodox parents who have urged their adult children to have premarital sex. Many of them would consider it a mistake to marry while still a virgin, and advise their children to ‘get to know’ their bodies and their sexuality prior to marriage. With the age of marriage climbing in every Jewish denomination, it becomes unreasonable and in some ways even perverse to insist on virginity for the first thirty years of life.

We need to find a way for religious teachings about sex to be heard again. It is true and immutable that Jewish history and halacha speaks out against premarital sex, but it is also true that the Jewish community of today lives in times never before lived, and in societies never before imagined. As other rituals fade or lose their hold over the Jewish imagination, the ritual of Mikvah has found new life. Non-traditional mikvah ceremonies to mark life transitions have become increasingly popular, and even traditional mikvah observance has gained new adherents outside of the Orthodox community. Aside from the pressing halachic concern of the need to prevent issurei karet, there is a more desperate need to bring sexuality back into the religious domain. We need something better than ‘just say no’.

I believe that Jewish women would serve well, and be well-served by, the monthly purification ritual. The cyclical separation from sex would grant couples space and freedom from the throbbing claims of the sexual instinct, and give them new insights into their relationships. I believe it will reduce the instances of premarital sex, and certainly of casual sex outside the framework of a committed relationship. I believe that it will provide another door into Jewish observance and relevance, and that it will strengthen the commitment of Jewish women to express their Judaism in concrete ways. And of course, a woman who goes to the mikvah before she weds will almost surely go after she weds.

First off, my apologies for the long hiatus. I hope to continue posting regularly, at least until Mrs. rejewvenator has our first child, God willing, this autumn. After that, all bets are off!

I think I’ve made my position on the “shidduch crisis” clear in the past: I’m not so sure it even exists. As a good friend of mine pointed out, nobody has actually quantified the problem. If I wanted to know some basic statistics, like what percentage of Jews are married within a given age cohort, or what percentage of unmarried Jews are trying to get married, or how long it takes, on average, from the time a person starts looking for a spouse until they actually find one, or how Jewish marriage stats compare with marriage stats in other cultures, religions, or ethnic group, there is nowhere to turn. When asking these questions, you’re lucky to be met with a blank stare - more likely, you will face outright hostility for your callousness towards the poor, miserable, unmarried yidden.

While we may not have any firm idea of what the problem is, how big it is, or whom it affects, we do have a wealth of answers. From the hi-tech Jewish dating web sites to the decidedly low-tech matchmaker clubs, there is a dizzying panoply of companies, organizations, foundations, shuls, and individuals offering solutions to the crisis (and maybe trying to make a little bit of money too, why not?) Recently, while browsing Shadchan Magazine, I was struck by the fact that there were no pictures or physical descriptions of any kind, save for one - height!

Harry Maryles, with whom I’ve disagreed in the past on various hashkafic (philosophical/theological) issues, recently wrote about physical characteristics in shidduchim:

The desire to marry the prototypically western ideal size woman who wears a dress size of 2 or less… is all too alive and well in the Charedi world. That’s right. Young men seeking marriage partners seem to require one common thing of their potential mates: They must be “super-model” thin. That’s what they point out to their Shadchanim. Talk about shallow! Can there be anything shallower than specifying a dress size?!

I’ve heard this particular argument before, and I find it, like beauty, to be only skin-deep. First off, while everyone love to quote the Eshet Chayil (Woman of Valor) and its conclusion that “Sheker Ha-chen Ve-hevel Hayofi, Isha Yirat Hashem Hi Titahallal” (The lie of grace and vanity of beauty - a woman who fears God, she will be praised!), it’s telling that Sarah, Rivka and Rachel are described by the Torah as being exceedingly beautiful. In general, the Tanach views physical beauty in a woman to be a positive and desirable characteristic. While beauty can certainly be deceiving, it is also desirable, and a relevant consideration in choosing a spouse.

Whether the attitude described by Rabbi Maryles is in fact endemic to the broader Jewish religious world is uncertain, but it would not be surprising if it was. Most of us would argue that it is rather predictable. A young man looking for a wife within the shidduch process is an extremely dependent man, even as he is on the threshold of starting a family and leaving his parents’ house. He is dependent on the shadchan for appropriate matches, on his family’s money and good name in attracting the right kind of girls, and is extremely restricted even in the actual dating. It really goes down to the details - I’ve learned that it is not appropriate to order two alcoholic drinks on a date! (My personal practice was to down two shot before I went on any first date!)

The problem is not that the single Chareidi man doesn’t have the correct priorities, and their desire for the current cultural mode of beauty is not wrong or anti-Jewish. These men have nothing else! Chareidi dress is both not revealing (a good thing) and not flattering to a woman’s figure (a bad thing). It’s not realistic to expect men to stop caring about how women look, and it’s perverse to assume that being very frum means that you no longer need to be attracted your wife, or that you no longer fantasize about attractive women. From an economics perspective, if ‘good boys’ are a scarce resource relative to the women, it is natural that the boys will raise their price, so to speak.

I could go into a whole harrangue about whether it’s more menschlich to worry about a women’s waist or her father’s wallet, but it’s not worth it. Every adult understands that factors which may strike us as unromantic, or even vulgar, may nevertheless have a considerable impact on the ultimate success of a relationship. No, my concern is for something else.

The religious world has done a pretty good job of selling its women on the value of inequality. Orthodox Judaism to the right of the MO has convinced its women that their less-than-enviable position within Judaism is a part of the Divine plan, and that dignity, meaningfulness, and fulfillment can be found in an embrace of the traditional maternal role (as well as the not-so-traditional role of primary breadwinner and supporter of a torah scholar of even marginal quality - but that’s kollel, and a different post). My guess is that we may have fooled the women, but we haven’t fooled the men. The disrespect shown to women by insisting on a certain dress size is no small matter. I know many people who are happily married to women of somewhat greater proportions than what is in vogue in the Chareidi world, or in Vogue, because they met a person whom they knew how to relate to from a position of respect and appreciation rather than demands and expectations. It is simply not healthy to raise men like that.

But let me ask this question before we go: Let’s say we crunched all the number and discovered that being an overweight woman was highly correlated with being a single woman? How would we respond to that? Would we encourage our boys to marry fat girls, or would we encourage our girls to slim down? And let’s say that the expectations of the boys are actually unrealistic and unattainable? How would we lower their physical expectations? Put another way, if weight gain is connected to being single, do we shut down the shadchan and open a gym? Or do we force the boys to marry fat?

(NB - please do not pillory me for my insensitivity, which is itself the result of a mental disorder. I hope that you will be sensitive to my condition.)

Some interesting links I’ve stumbled across recently:

Should you set up a not-so-observant-but-Orthodox guy with a really frum Conservative girl? As much as I enjoyed the question, I think the best part was the disconnect between admitting that the Conservative girl was more religious than the Orthodox guy and this paragraph:

That there are so many Conservative Jews who are serious about their observance should be seen as a challenge to us. It is all too easy to say that our Kiruv efforts should be geared to those whose knowledge of Torah Judaism is negligible. That’s what the NCSYs and Aish HaTorahs do. But what about this young woman and others like her? Can we afford to just leave them alone? Should we perhaps be interacting more with them? Can we entice them away from the heresy that is the Conservative movement into the Emes of an Orthodox one? Is there Kiruv for them? And how would we do it? Is there anyone or any group doing it?

I fully agree that the existence of frum Conservatives challenges Orthodox assumptions and positions. But what’s funny is that Harry Marlyes (the author) completely misses that the person needing kiruv is not the frum Conservative, but the disaffected Orthodox!

[From Emes V'emunah]

Best Fatwah Ever!

Reconstructive hymen surgery for women who lost their virginity before marriage is halal (religiously permissible), said to Aly Gomaa, the Grand Mufti of Egypt.

Gomaa, the highest authority with the power to issue a fatwa (religious edict), appeared the popular terrestrial Channel Two’s talk show El Beit Beitek, where he condoned the controversial fatwa, released by Soad Saleh, the ex-dean of the faculty of Islamic studies at Al-Azhar University and noted scholar.

Shiekh Khaled El Gindy, an Al-Azhar scholar and member of the Higher Council of Islamic Studies told The Daily Star Egypt that he agrees with the new fatwa.

“Islam never differentiates between men and women, so it is not rational for us to think that God has placed a sign to indicate the virginity of women without having a similar sign to indicate the virginity of men,” El Gindy said.

“Any man who is concerned about his prospective wife’s hymen should first provide a proof that he himself is virgin,” he added.

[From the Daily Star Egypt]

The Rebbe’s partying with Elvis, but 770 lives on - check out this exhibit of various 770-clones around the world. There was an exhibit of many of these photos at the Jewish Museum a year or two ago, but it’s gone now. [Hat tip - Kottke.org]

Supposedly, there’s a native Jew who is blogging from Mogadishu, Somalia. I hate to sound cynical, but I have my doubts as to whether it’s the real deal or not. In some places the writing sounds juvenile, while in others it is strangely fluent. Dunno. I leave it to you to to judge.

—

A question to ponder: The Torah tells us, and the Haggadah repeats for us, that the Jews made matzah on their way out of Egypt because they had no time to allow their bread to rise:

Exod. 12:39

However, a few verses prior, in the very same chapter, God tells Moshe that the Jewish people should select a lamb for slaughter on the 10th of Nisan, and that they will eat it five days later with Matzah! If there was enough time to prepare a lamb barbecue with matzah and marror, surely there was enough time to bake some bread for the journey out of Egypt! What gives?