dating and marriage « Rejewvenate!

Back to the Future with Jonathan Sarna

August 13, 2009 at 6:41 pm | In beliefs, culture, dating and marriage, economics, education, israel, orthodox, politics | Leave a Comment

The more I read of Jonathan Sarna, the more impressed I am with him personally, but the more I fear for institutional Judaism. Sarna is intelligent, considered, insightful and articulate, but he’s also an historian, and my feeling is that movements led by historians and sociologists rather than activists and entrepreneurs are already moving into their exhibit space at the museum.

I bring this up to comment on Sarna’s recent article in Reform Judaism Online, published by the URJ. Sarna has some thoughts to share looking backwards, and a few predictions for the future Judaism, inlcuding:

In the past, economic crises have caused American Judaism to turn inward and away from Israel and its troubles. It has also gutted educational spending, with terrible consequence.
Jewish institutional life tends to benefit from expansions in government services and social safety nets, as these free up significant funds and manpower for Jewish charities and social service organizations.
Expect to see lots of Jewish organizations go under, particularly in the hard-hit Orthodox sector, as we finally learn whose been swimming naked as the tide goes out. Mergers between Jewish instutions will increase, as will mergers between Jewish and non-Jewish institutions.

He’s got quite a few others, but I particularly want to focus on Dr. Sarna’s prediction that, as in the 1930s, American Judaism will turn inwards, and disengage to some extent with Israel. As evidence, Sarna cites the fact that fewer Jews are attending summer-long or semester-long programs in Israel.

My main objection to that piece of evidence is that it discounts Birthright Israel, which has sent over 200,000 Jews to Israel over the last decade. Much of the decline in summer and semester programs in Israel can be attributed to the fact that participants in those trips are ineligible for a Birthright tour, and many high-school students in particular have declined to go to Israel with their youth movements, synagogues, or schools precisely because they prefer to go on Birthright for free.

In any case, Sarna also points out that entirely endogamous Jewish couples are outnumbered nearly 2-to-1 by intermarried couples. If roughly 50 out of 100 Jews marry other Jews, you get 25 endogamous couples. That leaves another 50 Jews marrying 50 non-Jews, and thus you get that 2-to-1 ratio that is simply astonishing. Judaism in America has already been redefined on the ground, and we’re still left sorting out exactly what that might mean.

Conversions in Controversy: The Orthodox Patrilineal Descent

June 28, 2009 at 9:51 pm | In beliefs, dating and marriage, halacha, jewish denominations, orthodox | 6 Comments

By now you’ve all heard about Hareidi Rabbi Avraham Sherman, who heads Israel’s High Rabbinical court, and his ongoing retroactive nullifications of conversions to Judaism. This story has been building for some time, as the Hareidi establishment in Israel, which has long controlled the rabbinic arm of the government, has sought to monopolize power over the definition of who is a Jew.

There are excellent political and religious reasons for them to do so, of course. The question of who is a Jew defines who may claim the right to citizenship in Israel through the Law of Return, and with that citizenship, the basket of Aliyah benefits. From the Hareidi perspective, limiting aliyah only to Hareidi Jews, or at least Orthodox Jews, means that all the money flows to them, and that no money is spent on Russian immigrants, South American converts, or people converted by non-Orthodox clergy.

Many are rightfully tearing their hair out over the potential confusion that retroactive nullification of conversion creates. The Wolf, for example, wonders if uncertainty over conversions will lead to converts being unreliable for any kind of religious obligation, from testimony to minyan. He further speculates in a later post:

And how about things that have long-reaching consequences? What if you use a convert as a witness to your wedding? Or even worse, what if a convert serves on a bais din (or is a witness) to a divorce? Can you imagine the halachic nightmare that would result from a witness (or judge) on a divorce case (or multiple cases) being found to be not Jewish retroactively, throwing all those divorcees, their new spouses and children (and grandchildren) into some halachic purgatory from which they and their descendants may never escape? What about a convert who sits on a bais din for other conversions — you could have multiple “generations” of invalidated conversions, each wreaking havoc on countless individuals and society as a whole. And, don’t forget, this doesn’t go just for the convert, but for any descendant of a female convert as well!

I believe that this path leads to both a cleavage between Hareidi Judaism and the rest of us, but also to the complete abandonment of Judaism as a hereditary status. By performing these retroactive nullifications, Hareidi Judaism is casting into doubt conversions done by otherwise-respected institutions of MOdern Orthodoxy, like the RCA. As such, the RCA will eventually be forced to reject Hareidi hegemony over them, and will have to work against Hareidi authority over the Israeli Rabbinate. They already are in alliance with the Religious Zionists on this issue, but they will need to work with the Masroti movement and even the Reform movement to rewrite the rules. For all that, they may not even be successful.

What will be true is that between intermarriage, patrilineal descent, and Hareidi conversion nullification, the question of who is a Jew and who is not will have many answers and no clarity of any kind. For many, the only pragmatic way of dealing with this reality is to rely on people and their self-identifications. Sure, when it comes to weddings some people might ask for a bit more background on a person’s Jewish provenance, but for the gabbai at a shul, the question of Kohen, Levi, or Yisrael will remain the standard by which Judaism is defined in the day-to-day. Whether this is good for Judaism or not I don’t know, but it does represent another stage in our evolution away from a tribal religion and towards something much greater, but also more diffuse.

One Day, They’ll ALL Be Orthodox

September 2, 2008 at 9:15 pm | In culture, dating and marriage, jewish denominations, orthodox | 5 Comments

That’s what an Orthodox rabbi once told me when I asked him what the Orthodox Jewish plan was for dealing with the majority of Jews who are not Orthodox, and, in my mind, are unlikely to ever be Orthodox. Like many others, he had written off the other denominations as having no staying power and being unable to pass on their rite and ritual to their children. Eventually, all those other denominations, all those other Jews would die out, and the swarming, fertile, and ever-multiplying Orthodox would inherit the earth.

That approached bugged the hell out of me, mostly because I couldn’t imagine being smugly content at the thought of so many Jews fading from the world. Turns out, there’s a better reason to reject the approach – it doesn’t appear to be true. If you only read one blog post on Jewish denominational demographics this week, let it be this one. If you read more than one… well, let’s just say that you better be a sociologist.

Aguna Matata

August 13, 2008 at 9:19 pm | In dating and marriage, halacha, orthodox | 2 Comments

A soon-to-be-married friend asked me for some guidance on the Agunah Prenup, a prenuptial agreement meant to deter husbands from denying their wives a get (Jewish writ of divorce). In short, the agreement provides that the husband must pay the wife $150 per day for every day that they no longer live together but remain married. The agreement is enforceable in US courts.

I signed this agreement, and I know that some rabbis will refuse to marry a couple unless they sign an agreement of this kind. Many in the Orthodox movement welcomed the development, as I did. Today though, I just didn’t feel as good about it.

Women should have the right to leave a marriage, and this agreement does not grant them that right within the halachic system. It punishes the husband so that he will exercise his exclusive right to end the marriage. Worse, it does not engage any halachic powers against the husband, it instead turns to the government and its ability to enforce contracts. It’s a ruse – the structural halachic problem is side-stepped entirely.

On the one hand it’s very neat, and is even in keeping with the halachic tradition that says that a Bet Din would force a recalcitrant husband to give a get even through corporeal punishment (i.e. beating him until he relents). On the other hand, neither beating a man until he consents to follow a religious ritual nor binding a woman to a marriage against her will are particularly progressive ideas. In the end, the prenup is a non-halachic solution to a halachic problem, and as such it does nothing for injecting life and relevance into the halachic system.

Denominationalism and Demographics

December 18, 2007 at 3:43 pm | In dating and marriage, jewish denominations, orthodox | 10 Comments

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?

Intermarriage – It’s Just Not The Same

December 17, 2007 at 4:50 pm | In culture, dating and marriage, other faiths, sexuality | 4 Comments

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.

Pregnancy Out of Wedlock

August 21, 2007 at 8:30 pm | In dating and marriage, israel, orthodox, sexuality | 3 Comments

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 range from no further involvement to involvement in the life of the child to arrangements 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

Noah Feldman and the New York Times

July 23, 2007 at 12:37 pm | In beliefs, dating and marriage, education, jewish denominations, orthodox | 6 Comments

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.”

Wet and Wild? Single Women and the Mikvah

June 18, 2007 at 8:58 pm | In beliefs, dating and marriage, halacha, sexuality | 11 Comments

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.

Marry Rich, or Marry Thin?

April 25, 2007 at 5:50 pm | In dating and marriage, orthodox, sexuality | Leave a Comment

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.)