What did I sign up for--Abuse and divorce

So, it looks like I'm taking a little break from everything wrong with American politics to discuss--everything wrong with Israeli politics.  Specifically, this cute little story out of Jerusalem.
A woman sues for divorce on the grounds of domestic violence.  Naturally, the Beit Din cannot force the man to give a get, but they have the power to sanction in case of refusal.  In this case, they did not use that power because--the husband only assaulted his wife after she left him.
Wow.  Just--wow. 
"When a man takes a wife and is intimate with her, and it happens that she does not find favor in his eyes because he discovers in her an unseemly [moral] matter, and he writes for her a bill of divorce and places it into her hand, and sends her away from his house," (Devarim 24:1).
"She does not find favor in his eyes" are the grounds for a get, according to Torah text.  I'd say assaulting her was evidence that he found her "unfavorable."
The rabbis argue that if she hadn't left, he would never have assaulted her.  However, I would argue that, based on everything I've read about DV, physical assault was the escalation of a situation that has gone very, very bad.  Usually, the wife leaving is a catalyst for escalation of abuse, and this can range from physical assault to murder.  (I actually know someone this happened to.  The wife was a victim of emotional abuse for years.  She left her husband, and he physically assaulted her.)  Moreover, the rabbis' statement sounds a lot like victim-blaming.
To me, there should be no discussion.  The man assaulted his wife.  We have it on the record.  This is grounds not only for divorce, but a restraining order.  The Torah is about compassion.  Where is the compassion for the abuse survivor?  Why do we have none for this poor woman?

Kiruv above the neck

I have said this many times before--I rarely buy services magazines published under Orthodox auspices unless there's an article of interest to me.  Kiruv articles qualify, and so I actually plunked down some coin on a copy of last week's Mishpacha Magazine.  Not only was there an article on the roaring success of the Shabbos Project, but there was also a roundtable discussion on the success of kiruv.  According to the article, more Jews than ever were learning about the wonder and beauty of Torah observance through lectures, open Shabboses, and of course, the campus Chabad.  (In my day, the campus Chabad was a home for ex-frat boys who wanted cheap rent and plenty of booze.  Slap on a kippah, grow a beard, change your name to Menachem and you're good to go.)  There are plenty of people with a need, and it's easy to believe that Orthodoxy will fill that need.
However, booze, cholent and divrei Torah will only take you so far.  Getting people in the door is relatively easy.  Keeping them in the fold, however, is far more difficult.  As the article stated outright, about 150,000 Orthodox Jews are baalei teshuvah.  However, there are about 330,000 adults who were born into Orthodox families but are no longer observant.  In other words, for every person you bring in, two have left.  And that doesn't include the former BTs who bail.
So what's the problem?  If the Torah is so profound, why do our own children bail?  As Pirkei Avos states, "Any love dependent on a specific cause dies with the cause."  Let's face it--being Torah observant is capital-H HARD!  The lifestyle is expensive, the dress code both restrictive and conspicuous, and there are rules about everything from light switches on Saturday to music in the summer.  Once the bloom is off the rose, what keeps someone from saying, "See ya"?  You have to get above the neck.  And there's more to that than Midrash and Gematria.
Remember those "needs" I mentioned?  Well, if our community doesn't meet them, then the motivation to stay wears a bit thin.  Someone sold on those beautiful families around the Shabbos table may grow discouraged after years of sitting single (or being trapped with an abuser who lays tefillin every morning before coming home to scream at his wife).  If you want to emphasize community, then genuine inclusion is a necessity.  There can be no talk of "bad influences" as the BT and his or her children are rejected from schools and excluded from playdates.  For me, it was hearing that Torah study makes you a more moral person.  If we want to say that and mean it, then we have to let the Torah get above our own necks.  It must be more than skirt lengths, velvet kippot, and four hechsherim on your cookies.  We cannot condone any act of abuse, theft, or dishonesty, ever.
(To be continued...)

Getting back to the basic text

There is nothing more interesting than watching people argue about the meaning of a three-thousand-year-old text.
I started thinking about this when Thing 1 told the parsha over Shabbos.  Of course, she repeated what she had been taught by Morah (whose critical thinking skills are suppressed by dogma), so Esav became EEEEEVVIIIIILLLL.  This of course, was Mommy's little introduction to the difference between commentary and text.  Unfortunately, we often confuse one for the other.
Was Esav really evil?  Rashi says so, but there is nothing in the actual story that would lend itself to that interpretation.  After all, Yaakov, the "embodiment of truth," screwed his brother out of his birthright AND his blessing.  Yeah, Esav was mad enough to kill, but when they were reunited years later, all he wanted to do was literally kiss and make up.
It seems that we know more about Rashi's interpretation of the text than we do about the text itself.  I had once mentioned to Chavie (she dropped me like a hot rock after I left Builder, which is why you don't hear from her anymore) that Yaakov kissed Rachel.  Her response?  "No, he didn't!"  I made her pull out a Chumash and look it up.  Oops.  Guess they never covered that verse in Bais Yaakov.  ("And Jacob kissed Rachel and lifted up his voice and wept." Bereshis 29.11  It's in this week's parsha if you want to look it up.)
Of course, arguing over Bereshis is just family history.  The real fun is Vayikra, or Leviticus, a book that spurs heated debates even among non-Jews.  Or at least one particular verse does.  "And with man, you shall not lie as with woman; it is an abomination." (Vayikra 18.22)  This verse comes from the parsha Acharei Mos.  This parsha also contains a DETAILED description of the Yom Kippur service that G-d demands.  Now, I have not been to every shul in the world, the US or even Brooklyn, but I have never seen the kohanim of a shul push a goat off a cliff.  What?  You didn't know about that?  Yeah, see, we're kind of supposed to do that on Yom Kippur.  In Yerushalayim.  In other parts of Leviticus, tattoos, pork, and shellfish are banned.  When those who protest gay marriage expend even a tenth of the energy they spend on gay marriage attempting to shut down Red Lobster, I might, (might) take them a little more seriously. Until then, I'd like to remind you that the Torah is not up for cherry-picking. 
In fact the Tanach is not up for cherry-picking.  Instead of worrying about the meaning of the exact punctuation of the third verse in the second chapter of Masechtas Shabbos, I think it would be beneficial to study the Nevi'im.  I mean REALLY study them.  They have some pretty harsh words for those who think that having four hecchsherim on your potato chips exempts you from not being judgmental and cruel to others.  That you can be as racist as you want as long as you only use the right kind of pre-torn toilet paper on Shabbos.  That the right yeshiva matters more than the ethics being taught therein.  Let's get our heads out of the commentaries and back to the actual text.

Another New Square tragedy

Ahh, New Square.  A place where tolerance reigns supreme.  Sadly, there has been another casualty of this attitude.  A young woman going through a horrific custody battle, who just recently lost her children to her ex-husband, committed suicide.
Sure, one could argue that she may have had a history of depression.  But depression is sometimes a response to circumstance.  In this case, she lost only lost her children, but everyone she knew.  Even her own father testified against her at the custody hearing.  After she lost custody, her children were then turned against her. Her crime?  Leaving the frum world and going OTD. 
Being in the midst of a rather hellish divorce myself, I can sympathize.  I'm not running out on Judaism, but stories like this give me serious pause. 
I thought that Torah made us better people.  Whatever happened to empathy or at least simple compassion?  Whatever happened to supporting your children no matter what?  Whatever happened to understanding the bond between a mother and the children she carried under her heart, and nurtured at great sacrifice?  Hell, whatever happened to honoring your mother and father?  That last one was written in stone by the Hand of G-d, so I'd say it's pretty important.
Deb Tambor, know that your life was not lost in vain.   Rest with G-d.  And know that there are those who loved and supported you.

Justice, truth and peace

In this week's perek of Pirkei Avos, we read that the world exists because of three things--justice, truth and peace.
Well, two out of three ain't bad.
Justice is a no-brainer.  Without justice, we ride roughshod over each other.  But truth and peace?  Can those two ever co-exist?
As I've said before, the cardinal sin an any friendship is a completely honest answer.  Sometimes the truth is ugly.  Sometimes it hurts.  Sometimes being honest can even cause rifts that end a friendship.
But is peace the better alternative?  Sometimes those ugly truths need to be spoken.  Sometimes the fight is worth it for the sake of a better outcome.
And I think that's where the justice comes in.  Without justice, truth and peace cannot coexist.  Justice helps us balance out these two opposites.  If one is a just person, with a good moral code, one will know the correct time for truth, and the correct time for peace.

Divorce in the looking-glass

This is the story of my very dear friend Alicia*.  Alicia and her husband Charlie found Orthodoxy together.  They had two beautiful boys, which they raised in the faith.

And then everything fell down the rabbit hole.

Unbeknownst to Alicia, Charlie was not faithful.  Charlie was abusive.  Alicia had enough and filed for divorce.

And now Alicia wants to leave Orthodoxy, taking her two sons with her.  While she is devoted to Yiddishkeit, and will remain within some bounds of Torah practice (the exact nature of which is still undetermined), she is through with the community.  As she put it, “Had I known that by becoming Orthodox I might someday lose my kids, I would have walked right out again.”  Unfortunately, in the looking-glass world of the community, she is extremely close to the mark.  In a divorce mediated by a din Torah, boys over six often go to the father.  Even if the father is abusive.  Even if the father is unfaithful.  Even if the father breaks Shabbos.  To complicate matters, Alicia is a giyoret, while Charlie is merely a BT.  Charlie would be favored for reasons completely unrelated to his parenting.  This has made Alicia so desperate that she wants to possul her own conversion, thus declaring both herself and her children not Jewish.

And that is a great loss.

As Jews, we are all one.  If one of us cries, we should all cry out.  But we care more about some bizarre, 14^th-century interpretation of the law than we do about the well-being of a family.  We would rather curse the darkness than light a candle.  We would rather put our own Torah through the looking-glass until it is distorted beyond recognition. And in doing so, we affect real lives.  People like Alicia, who is a great contributor to any community.  People like her children, who could have become the sort of husbands and fathers we need more of.   Instead, we have turned them into a korban.  And we will be the ultimate losers.

Now, the Torah makes provisions for divorce.  But, in the text itself, it only says that if a man wants to send his wife away, he has to give her a get.  Nowhere does the Torah (and I’m referring only to the first five books here) state any laws about custody.  It is only our sages, great but still fallible men, who have made this policy.  And it is the passage of time that has calcified this rule into an unbreakable part of our mesorah.  The rightness or justice in the eyes of Hashem is never the issue.  Only holding on to a past that may never have existed.

*As per my blog policy, all names are changed to protect the guilty.

Tznius vs loshon hara--which is more important?

Last night, Chavie and I started learning the laws of loshon hara.  We begin by stating that the best prevention for loshon hara, or evil talk, is being dan l'kaf zchus.  Loosely translated, don't judge people.  Sounds fair.  It's an idea that has a lot of merit.  And it does come straight from the Torah.  So, no arguments from me.
But then, Chavie had to continue.
She goes on about the depravity of this generation. Specifically, how a friend's daughter is wearing a skirt above the knee.  Oh no!
Um, Chavie, didn't we just finish discussing the importance of NOT JUDGING PEOPLE!?
Over and over again, our Torah discusses the importance of proper speech.  Don't judge, don't slander, don't gossip.  I think there are at least twenty separate mitzvos (if not more) related solely to speech.  However, the Torah has four--count 'em, four!--mitzvos related to dress for those of us who are not the Kohen Gadol.  And one of those is by implication only.

1. Men don't wear women's clothes
2. Women don't wear men's clothes
3. Don't blend linen and wool.
4. (this is the one that's implied) married women must cover their hair.

 Nowhere does it mention skirt length.  When I mention this to Chavie she sputters about Rabbi Falk's sefer.  I've read it.  Now, unless Hashem has changed his name to Rabbi Falk, I'm going to pay more attention to a person's words and deeds, and less to their skirt length. 

Bais Yaakov of Sheker

Recently, Builder brought home an application for Giant Bais Yaakov.  The biggest one on Brooklyn, if not the US and/or the world.  And, true to form, I balked.  Then I read the application.  And I balked again.
First problem is what I call the "BT screen."  The application asks for information about where the parents attended elementary school, high school, and yeshiva or seminary.  The purpose, of course, is to weed out evil BTs like me who went to the dread public school.  And of course, none of the nine schools I attended were Jewish schools at all.  Builder wanted me to fudge my answers and list cities only.  I don't think so.
Then came the bottom of the application. "Do you have any of the following: VCR?  TV?  Internet?"  In the most technical sense, we're two for three, since the VCR has gone the way of the manual typewriter.  However, we do have the other two, and the Things have limited access to both. 
The solution, in the mind of Builder?  Lie.  All the other parents do it. 
Excuse me while I run out of the room screaming.
OK, back now.
So, let me get this straight.  In order to send one's children to an institution of Torah learning, you're going to lie.  You're going to violate the Torah so your kids can learn it.  That makes no bloody sense.  Either you believe in the Torah, and live it by example, and prioritize your children's Torah education, or you don't.  If you would violate a commandment etched in stone by the hand of G-d, why bother with the yeshiva?  The Torah your children learn will be an empty shell.

What did I sign up for--Thoughts on abuse

When I was still in San Diego and grappling with my Jewish identity, I read the book Shanda.  It's the story of a self-hating Jewish journalist who rediscovers his connection to Yiddishkeit with the help of the prominent Chabad rabbi Manis Friedman.  After reading the book, I thought that Manis Friedman would be an interesting person to know.
Now I'm not so sure.
Recently, Rabbi Manis Friedman released a video on YouTube where he basically blasted those who were abused for being victims and not getting on with their lives.  While the original has been taken down due to the widespread backlash (bloggers such as BrooklynWolf, FailedMessiah, and Rabbi Harry Maryles all condemned the video in the strongest possible terms), nothing ever really disappears from the Internet.   Despite the apologetic video posted the next day, Friedman's words will live on.  And they should serve as a warning to all those who seek to enter this community.  There is a poison here.  And it won't go away anytime soon.

I doubt he'll survive his sentence

Today, a NY state judge sentenced Nechemya Weberman, an unlicensed therapist convicted to 59 counts of sexual abuse against a girl who came to him for counseling when she was twelve, to 103 years in prison.  The abuse lasted three years and included a four-hour trip upstate.
This should be fun. 
First of all, Weberman is 54 years old.  If he begins his sentence today, he won't get out until he's 157.
Secondly, word travels fast in prison.  Child molesters are the lowest of the low in prison, hated by guards and inmates alike.  Sure, the system will keep Weberman in isolation--but he has to get out sometime.  And, if does end up in isolation, it means 23 hours a day in lockdown, with one hour outside.  No minyan.  No Daf Yomi.  Probably only supervised use of tefillin (the straps could be considered a weapon.).  Fear of reprisals from inmates who see him raping their little girls.
Finally, the judge also sentenced seven people of trying to intimidate the witness.  This case has blown the lock of a secretive community.  Hopefully the fresh air will get rid of the festering rot inside.

Stormtroopers or cleaning ladies

Recently, I had one of those discussions with Builder that make me wonder why I signed up in the first place.  I wanted to put Thing 1 in a Girl Scout troop.  Builder refused to allow it, since none of the kids were frum.  In fact, I think there was only one other Jewish family in the troop.  Now, this doesn't bother me in the slightest.  However, Builder doesn't want our children socializing with and learning values from "Goyim."
This breaks my heart.
There is a mindset that seems steeped less in Torah and more in paranoia, that the Gentile world should be avoided at all costs.  There is no "taking the fruit and leaving the rind" because there is no fruit.  At least, no kosher fruit.  So, what happens?  Children of survivors (and that would be about 90% of Hasidic Brooklyn) treat all Gentiles as potential Nazi stormtroopers.  (In fact, my initial mental reaction to Builder's refusal was, "It's the Girl Scouts, not the Hitler Youth!")  Other than the cleaning lady that comes once a week, few of my neighbors see Gentiles at all.
So, what is the outcome?  Children who grow up with this mindset have a mentality that all Gentiles are either rabid anti-Semites, or only fit to clean their houses.  Ethnic jokes and slurs abound.  Families even refer to their housekeepers as "the goyta," as though she has no name.  My friend CeCe, a Jewish woman of color, used to work at the Bronx WIC office.  Those Jewish families that came in for benefits would avoid her and her coworkers of color like the plague.  (Even though these African American and Latino Americans were working and not on benefits). 
My sincerest hope is that my daughters will grow up to see all people, whether Jewish or Gentile, as human beings.  Some are good, some are flawed.  But neither side is perfect.

What's in your head?

Builder is concerned about the effect I'm having on Thing 1 and Thing 2.  He's afraid that I want them to be "modern" (whatever that even means anymore).  Last week, he asked me, "How would you feel if one of our daughters married a boy who wears a shtreimel?"
As long as he's a decent human being, it doesn't bother me in the slightest.  I would give the same answer for every type of cover, from a shtreimel to a sruga.  I care more about what's in the head than what's on it.
I'm going to be every shadchan's nightmare when my girls grow up.  I care nothing about externals or how many blatt Gemara my potential son-in-law can parrot back.  I care about the inside.  What kind of person is he?  Is he considerate?  Does he work hard?  Will he respect independent-minded women?  Will he be a good father?  Does he respond well to setbacks?  Is he open-minded?  Is the Torah he studies in him as a way to live?  Does he love and respect his family?  Does he have a good, caring heart?  None of these questions can be answered by looking at shirts, hats, or tablecloths.  They can only come with time.

Welcome to the Republic of Gilead!

Recently, a senior rabbi ruled that a man can take a "pilegesh," a concubine, if the couple is barren and the wife refuses to accept a divorce.
When did we turn into the Republic of Gilead?
For those who missed the reference, I was alluding to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.  The story takes place in the Republic of Gilead, a future society run according to a strictly fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible.  (Sort of the like the X-tian version of sharia law, complete with public stonings.)  In this society, women are under complete control of the male-dominated society.  They are not allowed to vote, work, have access to money, speak publicly or read even so much as a street sign.  Needless to say, "be fruitful and multiply" is a big deal.  However, because of ecological blight and nuclear war, there are copious quantities of radioactive waste on the outskirts of the Republic of Gilead.  As a result of all this pollution, most people are sterile.  Most of the babies that are born are deformed, and destroyed at birth.  However, a few women are still able to bear healthy children.  These women, dubbed "Handmaids," are expected to mate with the husbands in a bizarre coupling ritual that involves the Handmaid literally lying between the Wife's legs while the husband (dubbed a "Commander") attempts to impregnate her.  Needless to say, the Handmaids are thought of as little better than whores.
Look at the similarities.  A pilegesh is a woman dependent on the man she's with.  Her job is to be available for s*x and bear children.  Her presence may be both tolerated and resented by the man's wife.  Also, it's up for debate who would be considered the child's actual mother.  (In Atwood's tale, a Handmaid who successfully bore a child would nurse the child for three months, and then be sent to another family.  She would never see the child again.)  If it's the pilegesh, would the child have the same rights as a child born of marriage?  And if not--what then?

With apologies to Jonathan Swift...

...I have a "Modest Proposal" of my own.  (And, no, I am not going to suggest eating our young--children are not kosher.) 
Everyone complains about the tuition crisis, but no one does anything about it.  Those who complain the loudest (and rightly so) are the middle-class workers who are going broke to pay tuition while the children of kollel parents receive all sorts of free stipends.
Well, I did a little research.  I talked to my friend H., a practicing Catholic who attended Catholic schools for her K-12 years.  According to H., Catholic schools employ monks, nuns and priests who are paid a pittance.  However, since their needs are mostly provided by the Church, the teachers can still afford their standard of living.  Also, it helps that they've taken vows of both poverty and chastity.  In other words, they don't need to worry about tuition for their own kids, nor will they take expensive vacations or drive luxury cars.
So, why not take this model and apply it to kollel?  Allow anyone who wishes to learn in kollel to do so, as long as they agree not to marry while they are there.  The minute they wed, they have to leave off full-time study and go out and work.  Additionally, they have to teach in the schools while they're learning for a small stipend.  Enough for any needs that won't be met in the dormitories, but not enough to support a family.  This solves several problems:

1.  By disallowing marriage, it means that yeshiva bochurim don't have to decide between kollel and working.  They will not have to worry about their kids tuition because--they don't have kids!
2. No more kollel wives means that more women can choose to stay home with their kids during the formative years.
3. No more rebbes with high salaries--tuition drops.
4. This also has an effect on the "shidduch crisis."  Because learning boys cannot marry anyone until they leave kollel, there is no more pressure for girls to attract "top learners."  The boys also have an obligation to support their wives, meaning that they will choose based on factors other than yichus and money.  (They may still choose based on looks, but we are talking about men here.  They're only human.)
5. This will also eliminate the benchwarmer problem.  Because learning boys will have to live a hard life and will be denied marriage, the boys who are not serious about full-time learning will leave the yeshiva.  They will then be free to pursue a career or join the army if they live in Israel.

There are those who will say that I'm an apikorus, or worse.  That I don't understand that Torah study preserves the world.  I have no problem with Torah study...before and after work!    The Torah commands us to work.  Pirkei Avos commands us to work.  The Gemara commands us to work.  If you want to learn, fine.  Then live a lifestyle devoted to kedusha.  Just make sure that you don't have family responsibilities taking you away from kollel.

Poverty? Could've fooled me!

Recently, the UJA released a study that said that Jews in NYC (and that includes Westchester and Long Island, but not Rockland County or New Jersey)are more likely to be either Orthodox or non-denominational.  Also, the the number of Jewish households is getting poorer, with 45% of Chasidim with incomes below 150% of the national poverty line (and since the poverty line is based on taking the cost of a subsistence diet and multiplying it by three, that's REALLY poor.)
You'd never know by living here.
Seven kids in private school from 2-18 is not poor.  A stay-at-home mom isn't poor.  Summer camp, especially sleepaway camp, for large families isn't poor.  A $50,000 wedding for your daughter isn't poor.  Owning property in the NYC metro area isn't poor.  A closetful of silver isn't poor.  A seven-inch-tall fur hat and a $3,000 hairpiece isn't poor.  Imported clothes and shoes for a growing family isn't poor.  Weekly cleaning help isn't poor.  Something does not add up.
Now, I will admit to having some of these accoutrements (Builder has a friend in the shaitel business, so my shaitels were bought wholesale, and I haven't purchased a new one since I was first married.  We homeschool the kids, only use camp for one month each year, and Builder wouldn't be caught dead in a shtreimel.  As for the rest, I plead the Fifth.  But we don't cry poverty to Uncle Sam.)

A truly horrifying metaphor

                                        

This film about the rise of Nazi Germany was about the ways that a divided people can fall prey to a cruel, despotic tyranny--one that is literally self-destructive.
But we're doing the same damn thing.
When I was still in San Diego, I thought there were Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Jews, with a few Humanists, Renewals and Reconstructionists thrown in just to keep life interesting.   And then I moved to Boro Park.  I had been here scarcely two weeks before I started joking that Brooklyn was the only place in the world where you could have two Jews in a mixed marriage.  Suddenly, the overarching category of Orthodox became further divided into Ashkenazic, Sephardic, Left-wing Modern, Right-wing Modern, Centrist, Agudah, Young Israel, Mizrahi, Haredi, Chassidic, Misnagdic, Yehivish, Litvish, Lubavich, Belzer, Telzer, Bobov, Spinka, Satmar, and on and on and on.  We have, instead on One Judaism Under G-d and Torah, a thousand variations all clamoring to be right!  We have separate shuls, yeshivas, newspapers, and even kosher standards for these groups!  And, by looking over our shoulders at hemlines, hechshers, and affiliations, we're beginning to lose the point.
Case in point: Last night, during my study session with Chavie, she read me a story that was supposed to be inspiring.  A photo processing lab in a Charedi area would stay open late every Friday.  Rather than noisily confronting the business owner, a rabbi decided on a kinder, gentler approach.  Dressed in his Shabbos finery, he went into the store, warmly introduced himself, and invited the store owner to his home for Shabbos.  The man was so moved that he and his family became shomer Shabbos.
Yeah right.
Actually, the real story, according to Chavie, was that the rabbi DID walk into the store in his Shabbos finery, sat down, and began reciting Tehillim.  The store's customers, realizing how late it was getting, began to leave the store in droves, and the store owner had no choice but to lock up early.  I explained to Chavie that this approach had the potential to backfire.  Hugely.  See, the rabbi wasn't shedding tears over the store owner who would never know the beauty of Shabbos.  He was just annoyed that he had to walk past an open store on his way to and from shul.  What did the the rabbi think the store owner would do--rush home and bench licht?  Or mumble about the "damn frummies ruining his business" and go home to watch TV?  Was the community more concerned about a Jew breaking Shabbos, or that THEIR Shabbos was being disturbed?  If the rabbi HAD opened his home to the store owner, then there would have been no Shabbos breaking at all, and they might have made a new friend.  Chavie said, "I never thought of it that way."  Of course not.  As the video showed, truth is obscured in favor of the despotism that is Daas Torah.  By compartmentalizing our fellow Jews into so many separate groups, it is impossible to see that "the other" has both feelings and a legitimate viewpoint.  And, because there is no access to literature, secular media or the Internet, there is no way to break out of that mindset.  But, as the video showed, the only outcome of this mindset is self-destruction.

What did I sign up for--Omerta

Omerta is the term for the Mafia's code of silence.  I'd say it works in the Nechemia Weberman case.

So much for family values.

A true gadol hador

Rav Shteinman was presented with a question--a mechanech in a yeshiva had a parent with two boys enrolled in the school.  The father was about to get married to a woman who was more "open" and wanted to enroll her children in his kids' school.  The school was concerned that these kids would have a negative impact on the entire student body.  Here is Rav Shteinman chewing them out but good!!!!!

Internet asifa--Who's in charge here?

Well, the BIG DAY is coming up--a day to reinforce our commitment to Orthodoxy at a major New York Area sports stadium.  No, I'm not talking about the Siyum HaShas (although Builder is getting tickets for the whole family, including the Things and Queen Mom).  I'm talking about the Internet asifa at Citi Field.
I wasn't planning on going.  Good thing, too, because the asifa is only for men.
Halachic justifications aside (I guess the mechitza fund was used up for the Siyum HaShas, and they couldn't scrape up another quarter million), I think I know why.  The main talking point that comes up again and again, is that the Internet is the source of tumah.  (For my non-Orthodox readers, the translation of tumah is below):

Of course, we ladies do not fall prey to this tumah.  We're on a higher spiritual level. (Insert laugh/gag/note of disgust here.)
And that's what bothers me.  A man must avoid the Internet lest he develop a porn addiction.  He cannot control his lust in the sight of an uncovered toe, or a wig on a styrofoam stand.  However, HE IS IN CHARGE!  If men have so little self-control (and the Torah is nothing if not self-control), why are they the ones who get to tell us what to do?  Why do they paskin all the shailos?  Why do they get semicha?  Why not let the ladies (who after all, are so much higher and less likely to fall prey to tumah) have some authority too?

The attraction of fundamentalism

Why would someone who votes Democratic and was raised as a secular feminist become a fundamentalist?  Why give up jeans and Friday night drives?  Why adhere to laws that date back 3,000 years?  Well, it ain't because I have an affinity for cholent.
Two things I lacked growing up--stability and acceptance.  I was a quirky individual--neither here nor there.  While I could be very liberal on certain issues--gay marriage, women's right to choose, society's need to assist the poor (I spent many years poor), I could also be very old-fashioned.  I never smoked, avoided drugs and alcohol, and believed that there were some things (OK a LOT of things) that a lady didn't do on the first date.  In fact, this lady didn't do any of them until marriage.  Also, I did not use profanity until I was 15, and after experimenting with it for a while, still try to avoid it.  I even dressed somewhat modestly, wearing mostly dark, baggy, fairly gender-neutral outfits.
Fundamentalism certainly provides stability by it's very nature.  After all, we have 3,000 years of tradition to fall back on.  If that isn't stable, I don't know what is.
Acceptance was a trickier matter.  While my clean-living lifestyle is certainly the norm among my female neighbors (a shocking number of Orthodox men both smoke and drink to excess), other areas, like my love for Sinatra, my waxing nostalgic for Appalachia, my reading matter, and my aforementioned liberal bent, are not accepted, except by a few individuals in whispers.  Also, because of my low tolerance for hypocrisy, it's hard for me to accept my fellow fundamentalists when they use racial slurs or try to hondle.  I can't handle JAP behavior, and I get outraged at any reports of wrong-doing.  However, in a lot of ways, this is the closest to any sort of acceptance of a pure lifestyle that I've ever seen.