5 Tammuz 5772
In Jerusalem
the sun shines between mountains
and stone becomes gold.
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Being Married
I was thinking about all the pressures young orthodox women face to date, and to date in the right way, and to date the right guy, and to marry the guy who fits all the rules in the book and should logically be adored by all. I was also thinking of how skewed our perspectives on relationships often are. I was particularly thinking of a friend of mine who told me she'd never consider a younger man for reasons mentioned below, and of all the people who keep asking if they can set me up. Funny thing is that when I ask who the guy is they had in mind, they often tell me they didn't have a guy in mind. They just wanted to know if they could set me up. So I tell them no.
All these frustrations were bumping around in my head, until they somehow articulated themselves in these words.
___________
Despite all the hype that surrounds it in the Orthodox Jewish world, I'm not so interested in getting married.
I want to be married.
See, getting married views marriage as a goal to be a achieved. It's about you getting something that you want to have. Being married is about having an active relationship with another person.
It isn't about getting the life that you dreamed of, or moving on with life, or placing yourself in the right social circumstance. It isn't even about settling down and having children at the time when you want to. So many people get married because they want to start having children. This makes your spouse a means to an end; a tool by which you can accomplish your goals. The relationship is primarily about taking. It is no longer about the other person. I've heard many women say that because they want to have children they wouldn't marry or date a man who is younger than they, because they'd have to wait for him to finish school and be able to support a family.
I don't care.
I'm looking for a husband, not a sperm donor.
Marriage is a relationship, not a task to be accomplished. Nor is any other stage of life. Life is a process. Life is dynamic; it changes. I change with it. The more G-d shows me of the world, the more my mind and heart and self flow from one state to another in a dance where each step is my response to an opportunity or a challenge. I am not looking for myself anymore. I am just dancing with life, and as I dance I get to know myself better.
Life is one long, exciting, dynamic, dance so I want to live with someone who can dance with me. Someone who will be open and encouraging, supportive and understanding of my unique step. Someone whose dance will complement mine. I believe G-d placed such a man in the world for me. He may be ten years younger than I, and if he is then I will wait ten years for him.
I won't marry a man I love less so that I can have a child with him that I will consider mine, but not his. I wont marry a man I love less so that I can remain on par with my friends in life.
Instead I will marry a man with whom I can live, and go through life so that in ten or a hundred years from now when all my opinions have changed we two will still be dancing, weaving our steps together between the walks of life.
9 Marcheshvan 5773
All these frustrations were bumping around in my head, until they somehow articulated themselves in these words.
___________
Despite all the hype that surrounds it in the Orthodox Jewish world, I'm not so interested in getting married.
I want to be married.
See, getting married views marriage as a goal to be a achieved. It's about you getting something that you want to have. Being married is about having an active relationship with another person.
It isn't about getting the life that you dreamed of, or moving on with life, or placing yourself in the right social circumstance. It isn't even about settling down and having children at the time when you want to. So many people get married because they want to start having children. This makes your spouse a means to an end; a tool by which you can accomplish your goals. The relationship is primarily about taking. It is no longer about the other person. I've heard many women say that because they want to have children they wouldn't marry or date a man who is younger than they, because they'd have to wait for him to finish school and be able to support a family.
I don't care.
I'm looking for a husband, not a sperm donor.
Marriage is a relationship, not a task to be accomplished. Nor is any other stage of life. Life is a process. Life is dynamic; it changes. I change with it. The more G-d shows me of the world, the more my mind and heart and self flow from one state to another in a dance where each step is my response to an opportunity or a challenge. I am not looking for myself anymore. I am just dancing with life, and as I dance I get to know myself better.
Life is one long, exciting, dynamic, dance so I want to live with someone who can dance with me. Someone who will be open and encouraging, supportive and understanding of my unique step. Someone whose dance will complement mine. I believe G-d placed such a man in the world for me. He may be ten years younger than I, and if he is then I will wait ten years for him.
I won't marry a man I love less so that I can have a child with him that I will consider mine, but not his. I wont marry a man I love less so that I can remain on par with my friends in life.
Instead I will marry a man with whom I can live, and go through life so that in ten or a hundred years from now when all my opinions have changed we two will still be dancing, weaving our steps together between the walks of life.
9 Marcheshvan 5773
Monday, December 10, 2012
Manipulation: Posing the Question
20 Kislev 5773
"And G-d said to Jacob, 'Return to the land of your fathers and to your birthplace and I will be with you.' And Jacob sent and called Rahel and Leah to the field, to his sheep. And he said to them, "I see your father's face that it is not unto me as it was yesterday and two days ago, and the G-d of my fathers is with me...And an angel of G-d said to me in a dream...'now rise, leave this land and return to the land of your birth.'"
Genesis 31:3-13
If G-d revealed Himself to you today and asked you to do one thing, would you do it?
Of course you would.
Yet when G-d tells Yaakov to get himself out of a situation that Yaakov himself qualifies as being terrible, rather than simply do it he first consults with his wives regarding the matter.
If they had said they didn't want to go, what would he have done?
As I see it there are three ways of looking at Yaakov's proposal:
1) He really thought they had an option.
2) He knew that he was obligated, but didn't feel that he could impose that obligation on others.
3) He thought they didn't have an option but wanted to break the news to them in a way that would make them agree.
In the first case Yaakov consults with his wives sincerely, in order to determine how they felt about leaving. Presumably, if they had said that they did not wish to leave their father he would have acquiesced.
In the second case Yaakov is generous. To be fair, G-d did phrase the command in the singular, so it could have been that Yaakov himself was required to leave, but his wives and his children weren't. Had they not wanted to go with him he would have had to separate from them, and he makes this clear to Rahel and Leah by keeping the imperative of 'to leave' in the singular. He even conceals the fact that he received this command from G-d Himself, claiming instead that he received direction from an angel, perhaps in order to ensure that Rahel and Leah not feel obligated by the will of G-d to go with him. Yaakov makes it clear that he must go and is inviting them to join him.
The third option is the one that is both most likely and most disturbing to me. In this situation, Yaakov knows that his wives and children are bound to follow him, like as not, so he presents the facts to them in such a way as will influence them to agree with him. He presents it to them as though they have a choice so that the decision feels autonomous, rather than imposed, making them more open to it. In addition to this he spends four verses (6-9) abusing their father and presenting G-d as a saviour to him in the face of the abuse he suffered at their father's hand.
It seems that Yaakov is very carefully and subtly manipulating his wives.
This presents a most difficult moral dilemma: Is is appropriate to manipulate a person in order to fulfill a greater good, even be it the will of G-d?
Obviously this is a loaded question, and to answer it would require deep analysis of the moral nature of manipulation, and its effects upon free will and human respect.
"And G-d said to Jacob, 'Return to the land of your fathers and to your birthplace and I will be with you.' And Jacob sent and called Rahel and Leah to the field, to his sheep. And he said to them, "I see your father's face that it is not unto me as it was yesterday and two days ago, and the G-d of my fathers is with me...And an angel of G-d said to me in a dream...'now rise, leave this land and return to the land of your birth.'"
Genesis 31:3-13
If G-d revealed Himself to you today and asked you to do one thing, would you do it?
Of course you would.
Yet when G-d tells Yaakov to get himself out of a situation that Yaakov himself qualifies as being terrible, rather than simply do it he first consults with his wives regarding the matter.
If they had said they didn't want to go, what would he have done?
As I see it there are three ways of looking at Yaakov's proposal:
1) He really thought they had an option.
2) He knew that he was obligated, but didn't feel that he could impose that obligation on others.
3) He thought they didn't have an option but wanted to break the news to them in a way that would make them agree.
In the first case Yaakov consults with his wives sincerely, in order to determine how they felt about leaving. Presumably, if they had said that they did not wish to leave their father he would have acquiesced.
In the second case Yaakov is generous. To be fair, G-d did phrase the command in the singular, so it could have been that Yaakov himself was required to leave, but his wives and his children weren't. Had they not wanted to go with him he would have had to separate from them, and he makes this clear to Rahel and Leah by keeping the imperative of 'to leave' in the singular. He even conceals the fact that he received this command from G-d Himself, claiming instead that he received direction from an angel, perhaps in order to ensure that Rahel and Leah not feel obligated by the will of G-d to go with him. Yaakov makes it clear that he must go and is inviting them to join him.
The third option is the one that is both most likely and most disturbing to me. In this situation, Yaakov knows that his wives and children are bound to follow him, like as not, so he presents the facts to them in such a way as will influence them to agree with him. He presents it to them as though they have a choice so that the decision feels autonomous, rather than imposed, making them more open to it. In addition to this he spends four verses (6-9) abusing their father and presenting G-d as a saviour to him in the face of the abuse he suffered at their father's hand.
It seems that Yaakov is very carefully and subtly manipulating his wives.
This presents a most difficult moral dilemma: Is is appropriate to manipulate a person in order to fulfill a greater good, even be it the will of G-d?
Obviously this is a loaded question, and to answer it would require deep analysis of the moral nature of manipulation, and its effects upon free will and human respect.
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