Shorter Cross Currents
Those pro masturbation JOFA sluts need to stop bothering that nice Rabbi Pruzansky
Think I'm joking? Find it hard to believe that a Very Serious Blog such as Cross Currents would see the subject of female masturbation as an opportunity to attack JOFA and provide additional support for a rape apologist? Read it yourself.
The first thing we see is a note, in which the editors let us know that they intend to publish some dirty words for the express purpose of saving yiddishkeit. They had no choice, see? Preserving the mesorah demands it! NO OTHER WORDS WOULD DO!
Unfortunately, and to my great disappointment, the article contains no vulgarities -- all we get are words like "masturbation" and "vibrator."Y awn. But hey, now that you know such words have magical mesorah preserving abilities, please be sure to use them all the time.
[Editors’ Note: The piece that follows contains frank and graphic language, the kind that those faithful to derech Yisrael sava and kedushas Yisrael avoid using without euphemism, and then only in private. Nonetheless, there are times when dramatic means are necessitated to meet a challenge to mesorah. Readers are forewarned that the essay that follows is not for children, and indeed, not for many adults. We are mispallel for the day that Hashem will repair the pirtzos of Klal Yisrael.]
After the warning, the article begins with a rather bland, not very scholarly dvar torah. Be holy, blah blah, because the verse says "be holy" and its written in the present tense so you have to be holy all the time. An orangutan with access to a Stone Chumash could have done a better job.
As Jews, we are powerfully aware that the past is never just the past. The lessons, the struggles and even the victories of past ages are ours to relive in one generation after the other. In the Haggadah, we read, “You shall tell your child on that day, it is because of this that the Lord did for me when I left Egypt.” The reading is forever in the present tense, in my life. I am not to tell my child what the Lord did for the Hebrew slaves at the time of the Exodus. No, I tell what the Lord did for me.
The reading is forever in the present tense because its addressing the actual generation that actually left Egypt. You know. Context.
God’s freeing us from bondage is constant in all our lives.
At this point, I felt certain the dirty-words warning related to an S&M theme. Don't get excited spankos. Not happening.
So too, when God commands us to “be holy” it is clearly not a directive only to the generation in the Sinai. It is a command to all of us, for all time.
Like, um, every other commandment? Failing to see what the chidush is. Also, failing to see why we needed to go through Egyptian bondage in order to get here. Unless, you know, kink.
Each age and generation makes specific demands on those who live it. Ours is no different. While every generation confronted salaciousness and sexuality, what other generation has had to wrestle with the ever-present Internet? What other generation has had to endure a constant barrage of pornographic images rain down on it from billboards, television screens, movie theaters, radios, and concert halls?
Who can tell me where I can find this magic radio? The one I own doesn't provide images. Also, the poor dear! He keeps wandering into porno theaters and ordering smutty PayPerView and buying tickets to dirty stage shows and tuning his magic radio to the naughty sports station! Why doesn't he open a sefer instead?
The images, language, and messages benumb us. We become calloused. We become inured.
Sure, if like the writer, you spend all your time searching for pornographic billboards and radio programs you're going to eventually get a little jaded.
Happily, us ordinary folks aren't busy looking for it with every waking breath. And if you're not actively seeking it out, porn can be pretty hard to find. I've been online today for several hours, and not one salacious website has spontaneously appeared on my screen.
In doing so, we make the mistake of also becoming accepting of this pornographic tsunami. Oh, of course not “accepting” in the sense of thinking any of this is good. But we become accepting in that we simply allow it to continue in our world, viewing it as the necessary backdrop of our lives.
In doing so, we fail to take account of the damage it does to us and, more importantly, our children.
How does this generation protect itself from this onslaught?
We'll pause to note that no real evidence of any onslaught has been provided.
G
od’s call for us to be holy is an eternal call. It is as immediate a call today for us as it was to the Hebrews in the desert of Sinai. Holiness must be protected in order to preserve its spiritual essence. While it must be hidden and protected, our teaching is clear that creation is good. We are not to remove ourselves from the world. We must function in the world. We must engage the world.
If we are to be holy, that must mean that holiness also needs to function in the world.
But, in a very deep sense, it can never be of the world.
Those who try to compromise holiness, to fail to see the eternality of the command, do lasting damage to themselves and to the Jewish people. There is no place where the challenge of kedusha is more at risk than when it comes to sexual behavior.
There is no more self-serving
Heh. Self serving
or hurtful excuse for the lack of kedusha than the excuse that it is “for mental health”. That is, for sexual health. Imagine, rationalizing deviant behavior, countering Torah teaching, for a positive reason! The world has been turned upside down!
This is where the article fails in fundamental way. Rather then provide us with any sources that confirm that female masturbation is forbidden by Jewish law the writer simply declares it deviant. And rather than provide any arguments in support of those sources, he chooses to just shriek about it. While our writer may have abdicated his obligation to persuade or convince, he does perform an admirable imitation of the preacher's wife from The Simpsons.
The Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance has taken hold of God’s divine declaration and rendered it a nullity. By aggressively championing sexual behavior – not just knowledge that a wife might use to benefit the sanctity and joy of marriage – JOFA stands opposed to the call to kedoshim tiheyu.
If Cross Currents wasn't wearing a hard-on for JOFA they might have written that sentence any number of different ways. For example:
- The Haredi Community of Jerusalem has taken hold of God’s divine declaration and rendered it a nullity. By rioting in the street and assaulting Jewish policeman the HCoJ stands opposed to the call to kedoshim tiheyu
- The Satmar Community of Kirya Joel has taken hold of God’s divine declaration and rendered it a nullity. By coddeling and protecting pedeophiles the SCoKJ stands opposed to the call to kedoshim tiheyu.
But Cross Currents doesn't write this way. Smashing liberalism is their one and only reason for existence. A bearded phony who behaves obscenely has nothing to fear from the self-appointed mesorah guardians at Cross Currents.
As reported in Lilith.org by Susan Schneider, JOFA is committed to “explicit and liberating sex education.” Interesting that sex education would be considered “liberating” when it was God’s liberation of the Children of Israel from Egypt to led to the command for us to be holy.
Have we fallen so far?
Yes, our ability to use words correctly, and in a variety of semantic senses is just one more example of our moral decline! Down with deviant synonyms! Take your slutty homonyms backs to Gomorrah, you gutter dwelling pervert!
In the article, Ms. Schneider writes, “Bat Sheva Marcus, a sex educator, has a new tool for enlightening not just the Orthodox or ultra-Orthodox women who are the base of her clinical practice, but the rest of the human race as well. She is the lively and genial — and often funny — co-host and resident sexuality expert for a new podcast series, ‘The Joy of Text,’ a forum for rabbinic and psychological perspectives on sexual behavior, from masturbation before (and during) marriage, to the use of sex toys, to whether fantasy can be a religiously approved aspect of sexual behavior. One such podcast which was recorded live at LimmudNY recently featured Marcus in conversation with Miryam Kabakov, author of the lesbian anthology “Keep Your Wives Away from Them: Orthodox Women, Unorthodox Desires”. In another segment, Marcus and her co-host, Rabbi Dov Linzer, answered a listener’s question about whether it’s permissible to “talk dirty.” Earlier episodes discussed premarital condom use and “sneaking out to the mikveh.”
Our writer seems to taking an awfully close look at JOFA's dark sexual underbelly. He's read their articles, and heard more than a few of their filthiest podcasts. I'm sure all this is being done for the article plus research and/or preserving the Mesorah, so let's applaud the little eager beaver's selfless, and possibly self-abusing, dedication.
I have quoted here verbatim because I don’t know that I could have found words to come close to capture how disturbing this all is.
Yes, you're bad with words. Which is why your article is basically one long whine, with no arguments or sources. About the only details you provide relate to the content of the scores of sexually descriptive podcasts you've been hearing.
Bat Sheva Marcus is, after all, a woman whose doctoral dissertation in human sexuality was on women and vibrator use!
Good heavens! In Donald Trump's America!
S
he takes great pride in telling high school students in Jewish day schools to intimately examine their bodies in a mirror and telling them to find the most pleasurable way to masturbate!
Oh My God! Note, I am not saying OMG because I think its terrible for a woman to teach other women about women things. I am saying OMG because I can't believe the moron who wrote this article thinks writing a sensationalist sentences passes for an argument. Again and again he begs the question (in the old fashioned sense) by simply asserting what he's should instead be demonstrating. We're more than half-way done and he still can't be bothered to give us even a single reason to oppose female masturbation. He just don't like it, and he can't believe people are talking about it for non-mesorah saving purposes.
Could anyone stand not before a mirror but before any of our rabbis and sages – let alone God – and convincingly explain how these animalistic teachings conform with kedoshim tiheyu?
Maybe not. Maybe yes. But that's not the point. You're against it. Tell us why. Don't skip that part!
Ramban teaches us that the concept of holiness is not limited to the observance of any particular category of commandments. To be holy is not to adhere only to the letter of the law but to embrace the fullness of holiness. In the words of our Sages, not only by refraining from what is expressively forbidden but from too much of what is permitted! How could JOFA answer that admonition?
By pointing at all the fat stomachs and all the big Jewish houses. In short, we are a self-indulgent people. We're gluttonous and greedy, and no one Rabbinic blinks. Why don't we say a few angry words about those bad habits before penning a complaint about female lust.
But is this screed really about female lust? ? The lack of sources suggest an agenda, as does the gratuitous mention of JOFA. Then, right at the end, we have this:
On whose book shelf of good and sacred books would “The Joy of Text” reside? Not on the shelves of those who would answer God’s call to holiness. Not to those who would heed JOFA’s vicious attacks and condemnations of a New Jersey Orthodox rabbi for openly speaking out about lifestyles that have the potential to lead all to what is decidedly not holy.
Yup. It seems this whole thing was about Pruz. JOFA took a shot at him, so here comes the Pruz brigade doing anything it can to throw some mud at people who have rightly and correctly criticized him for being a rape apologist. Terrible work guys. If you hadn't shown your hand at the end we never would have caught on to your real purpose.
