Community Problems - Simple Solution

Parshat Mishpatim 

by Rabbi Avi Billet

Being in touch with the various Jewish media outlets, which include newspapers, online magazines and blogs, one is never at a loss for conversation. Topics that appeal specifically to Jewish interests keep us all on our toes.

 Last week I came across a few items that struck chords, mostly because they are all reminiscent of how Albert Einstein defined insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

 The first item: the so called-Shidduch crisis, in which Jewish girls past age 22 are no longer considered a “good catch,” in certain Jewish communities, leading to a “crisis” of thousands of wonderful young women who simply can’t find husbands.

 The second (though this one has a better chance of success with the talented Allison Josephs being the brains behind solution attempts): that people who leave the Orthodoxy of certain right-wing communities often drop all measures of religious life in lieu of finding perhaps a more centrist or even left-leaning halakhic lifestyle as an alternative.

 The third: a study of where Orthodox singles who are engaged in amorous activity fit in the Jewish community.

 The fourth: a viral video of Rabbi Jeremy Stern of the Organization for the Resolution of Agunot (ORA) insisting an 18-year get-withholder leave a maariv minyan at the YU Seforim Sale.

 I believe that all of these are representative of problems which require a simple (though perhaps romantically naïve) solution: Follow what the Torah says!!!!!

 A man whose marriage has ended has a commandment (see Maimonides mitzvah 222, and Sefer HaChinukh 579): write a get (or have it written), and hand it to your wife (Devarim 24:1). Your marriage together is over, demonstrate it through giving her a get and move on with your lives. That any rabbis support get-withholders, for any reason, is shameful. There will sadly be fights over money, property, child-custody. But the chaining of a woman to a non-existent marriage has zero halakhic validity.

 The Torah tells us (Shmot 22:15) “If a man seduces a virgin who is not betrothed, he must pay a dowry and must marry her.” I don’t want to get into whether this is a punishment, penalty, or responsibility. The Torah does not say a crime has been committed – it tells us that an act has consequences. In the Jewish community, we look at the act of marital intimacy as a sacred connection that binds two people together in marriage. It is a stain on our singles community that society at large has infiltrated values counter to our values, in effect justifying bed-hopping. The Torah says if you went so far, it is time to marry one another.

 I once heard a very experienced rabbi suggest that there is a singles “crisis” because the singles don’t follow the Torah – which says to get married. While the statement is an extremely sweeping generalization, at least with respect to marriage it has much truth in it.

 The marriage commitment is not easy, and many people need help and guidance, even after they take the so-called plunge. There is a world of people who earn a living writing books, speaking, or counseling about how to improve marriage. God bless them. But the fact that people hold off, sometimes for 15 plus years after reaching marriageable age/maturity is a frightening statistic.

 Of course there are people who “aren’t ready” or who “did not find the right person.” There are always exceptions, and there are always explanations. But for a man who is told “It’s not good to be alone,” (Bereshit 2:18) and who has a mitzvah to have children (#1, according to Sefer HaChinukh), there has to be a better way than dating every girl on the Upper West Side without finding one to marry. And it begins with education – towards marriage, commitment, communication – at a younger age.

 I am choosing to address the remaining two items together because they demonstrate that the problems are only getting worse inside a community that digs its hole ever deeper without considering Albert Einstein’s wisdom.

 I promise that the case from our parsha mentioned above did not come about because a shadchan introduced two people. They met on their own. They talked on their own. And the man seduced the woman, leading to his obligation to marry her. And while I certainly believe the act they commit together is only appropriate after chuppah and kiddushin, it is the way they met and communicated which seems to be a much more natural form of leading to marriage.

 A system in which young people are not permitted to meet naturally and without chaperones, in which parents have so much say as to who their marriage-age children can date (without giving any credit or respect to the choices their age 20-something children might make on their own), in which the communication after a date is through a third party always, is not going to lead to people actually building a relationship and working their way – positively – through their differences. Going on five dates in 4 weeks doesn’t mean you’re ready to get married any more than dating someone for 5 years means you’re ready to get married. [Though to the 5-years people, what are you waiting for?]

Being ready for marriage means being ready to commit to a relationship both people will work at through giving to the other, and always putting the other person first. Of course, finding one another attractive, being able to communicate, and being able to have a good time together are important. And so are shared values. But the successful marriage focuses on the relationship building side - because without that, everything else can quickly fade away.

 I believe the dating game example is a microcosm, one minor example, of what causes people who leave the religious community to abandon it altogether. People need to have choices. They need to be made aware that the halakhic system wears many hats, and that there is a place for everyone who respects it within its very wide spectrum. Nothing is only black and white. Grey, with reference to halakha, is a beautiful color.

 May our community be blessed to see the beautiful rainbow that different approaches to serving God within the boundaries of halakha has to offer. As long as we understand that following what the Torah and halakha actually have to say is our baseline (not twisted to meet our pre-conceived ideas, but what it actually says) our community will be in a much better place in dealing with all of these issues.

Men, Women, and Megillah

[This is not as much a Purim dvar Torah, as much as it is a thought related to the title, using examples from Megillat Esther.]

Emotional vs Intellectual decision making

By Rabbi Avi Billet

I don’t care very much to compare women and men simply because I think the comparison isn't fair. Human we all are, but other than the obvious physical differences, I believe that the natural differences that come from being different genders make comparisons ill-conceived. It's almost like comparing a tennis player to a soccer player, wondering which is a better athlete.

I first heard the following generalization from one Rabbi W/Vunder who was one of the rabbis on the Heritage Tours trip to Poland that I participated in as a teenager, when I noticed Israeli girls weeping in Auschwitz while I was scribbling in my notebook and keeping my emotions to myself. He said, "That's the way it is. Girls are more emotional." The generalization is more supported in a simple Google search than the other way around, and it follows that males – in general, though by no means exclusively – make more decisions based on a rational or intellectual thought process, while females are (generally, though not exclusively) more prone to making decisions based on emotions.

            

With that in mind, I confess that this past week, in advance of one of my public speaking engagements, I happened to run some of the ideas past my wife, who told me that one of the thoughts I planned to share – though heavily sourced in a comment of Tosafos (Yoma 72a) as well as by many Rabbinic sources from the last several centuries – was anachronistic and inappropriate for the intended audience. 

Was her response emotional or highly thought out? It may have been both. But I can say with certainty that my defense was purely emotional. What's wrong with it, I argued! Every person who studied in yeshiva knows this! Yes, she responded, but your audience is not a bunch of yeshiva guys. I realized I was letting my emotions dictate what my intellect was telling me should be OK to share. The emotion versus intellect roles, it seems, had been reversed.

As luck would have it a rabbi I admire happened to approach me before I spoke. I quickly asked his advice to which he responded quoting Bereshit 21:12: "All that your wife Sarah has told you, listen to her voice!" And I did. They were both right.

With all this background, I think there are two very worthy points we can take from Megillat Esther which can play a significant role in the male-female relationship: the first for spouses and the second for those looking to find spouses.

The Megillah is full of characters who are impulsive, who make every decision based on their emotions. Arguably the only exceptions to this are Mordechai explaining to Esther how she can not shirk her opportunity to save her people (which causes Esther to change her emotional response to an intellectual response), and Haman's wife Zeresh who lays out for her husband a logistical plan for how to rid himself of the nuisance called Mordechai who literally ruins Haman's day every time he refuses to bow. She tells him, "Make a wood [gallows] 50 cubits high, and in the morning you will tell the king, Mordechai will be hanged, and you will come to [Esther's second] party happy." (Esther 5:14)

The king's insomnia may have uncovered his obligation to Mordechai for saving his life, but he may have chosen to honor Mordechai in a different way had Haman not shown up in the middle of the night and gotten tricked into playing into the king's "trap." Even if Mordechai had been otherwise rewarded that night, without a personal parade and Haman's disgrace, were Haman to come along in the morning to say, "Since saving your life, Mordechai has become a traitor!" there is a reasonable chance to say the king might have allowed the execution after he had paid his debt to the man.

But everything changed for Haman because of his problem; he did not listen to his wife! His wife said, "Sleep on it. Wait until the morning." But he had no patience. He let his emotions overtake him, and they told him, "You have to do this now." Intellectually it made sense, but the intellect was really driven by the emotion.

The moral of the story: If your wife gives you good, sound advice, take it and follow it.

The second lesson about relationships is based on a comment made by Rabbi Elijah Kramer, the Gaon of Vilna (Gra), when Achashveirosh crowns Esther queen. "Esther was brought to the king in the tenth month, Tevet, in the seventh year of his reign. And of all the women, the king loved Esther, for she found favor and kindness before him… and he placed the crown on her head, making her queen in place of Vashti." (Esther 2:16-17)

The Gra wrote, "He crowned her immediately, without waiting to see if there might be one more pleasing than she. He told himself there is none better than she."

One can argue that a man who has spent every day with a different woman for four years either knows everything about women, doesn't know what he's looking to find, or knows exactly what he is looking for in a woman.

In light of the Gra's interpretation, my vote is for the final possibility because I believe that the "Maybe there is someone better" attitude is one of the most destructive approaches to "shidduchim" out there. Too many people play games with others' time and lives because they don't really know what they are looking to find.

We can learn from Achashveirosh, however, to know what you're looking to find so that when it comes your way there need not be hesitation. Go for it. Work at it. Make it work. Lightning doesn't strike. Bells and whistles don't sound. You just know. You make a decision, a commitment, and then a "go" at a life together. And with God's help, it lasts a lifetime.

And when men listen to the sage voice of "all that Sarah says to you," (not that men don't have good advice, ideas, suggestions and encouragement to provide as well – it does take two to tango, after all) we can come out looking great for doing the right thing.

            

And our relationship is only strengthened as a result.