Hat tip to Hadassah for tipping me off to the absurdity that can be viewed being espoused here. While I realize that the three minutes that you will spend watching that video is three minutes of your life that you will never get back and probably utter bittul Torah, you really should watch it in order to understand the rest of this post.
For those of you who simply won't in short, if you hire good looking women(or women with better middot) to help around the house, its your own fault if your husband cheats. So only hire ugly cranks to watch babysit your kids and sweep your floors.
To which I say that we are Jews. We are supposed to be sons and daughters of Kings. Instead mean are being portrayed as... well the image that comes to my mind is a starving pitbull staring down a T-bone steak. There just isn't much you are going to be able to do hold it back. If that is really how you want to view your spouse well I guess that is your decision, but it certainly is not healthy.
Let me start by saying that one I am offended that it is only "men" who are portrayed as the cheaters. From painful personal experience I know that such simply is not the case. Furthermore quite honestly, as someone who has suffered the infidelity of a spouse, my perspective is that if spouse is cheating, most of the time there is a serious sickness in the relationship, not just the typical ebb and flow of a marriage. Rather there are real and serious problems that leave the spouse feeling that they would be better getting their needs fulfilled outside of the marriage. That is not to excuse their bad choices. People's bad behavior is ultimately a matter of their own bad choices and bad decisions. Much like a man who is starving because he cannot buy bread, has the choice to beg for a few shekels to buy a loaf of bread, or to steal one.
However neither am I saying that we should put ourselves in a place of personal testing. Ultimately I think that spouses should be able to be open and honest with each other about their faults, failings and temptations. For instance if a husband is in a situation where he feels himself being attracted to a woman other than his wife, if he is wise he will confide that in his wife, and if at all possible remove himself from the situation. From personal experience I know that this is effective.
When we used to host Sem girls for Shabbat, every so often a Sem girl would adopt us, and my wife was never too good at saying no to someone in need for a place to go on Shabbat. When I started getting dreamy eyed looks from some of those girls, I would start disappearing to the Yeshiva for Shabbat. Once I started to explain it to my wife, and she just said, "Well I figured that you found X attractive and she obviously has a bit of a crush on you... so I figured you were just removing temptation." See sometimes we do think alike.
Finally is the importance for a person to be honest with himself and his spouse about his own weaknesses and Ta'avot. Our sages say that everyone has some level of ta'ava(desire) for every aveira(sin), however not all are equal. The Ben Ish Hai writes in places that he struggled all of his life against his own ta'avot to steal and murder, yet everyday he overcame and conquered those. Some people have exceptional ta'avot for food, or whatever... it is simply important to know what one's own weaknesses are.
While it is true that the majority of men, even according to our sages, have a ta'avah for the opposite gender, it is not up to the women to safeguard men from it(except for the halakhot of tzniut which our sages ordained). Doing so only leads to things like the burqa ladies. Rather it is up to men to learn to conquer it and overcome it, as well as when to remove themselves from the situation.
About two years ago I was offered a job teaching at a Sem. My answer was swift, "Ask me again in twenty years." The Rabbi making the offer asked me why the refusal, my answer to that was essentially that in 20 years those girls will be closer to the age of my daugther than my wife, and I don't want to end up as another Sem Rabbi statistic of leaving his wife for the young pretty thing in his class. It is up to the men to lay down proper boundaries for themselves. It is a personal matter and thus highly individualistic. To try and force it into the communal arena has proven to be damaging. To alleviate men of their responsibility and lay it upon the wives and women doubly so.
1 comments:
A fantastic post. Maybe one of your best efforts yet. Many non-religious and even religious Jewish women are turned off to being careful with tznius because they feel that the frum community directs all efforts to control men's raging ta'avahs on the backs of women.
For example, you could have simply stopped taking sem girls for shabbos guests. That would have helped you with controlling your desires, but it would have come at the cost of sem girls losing out on shabbos meals (and a chance to be exposed to a great Torah-oriented family).
A more balanced approach, such as the one described in this post will, I believe, go a long way in making more Jewish women receptive to the ideals of tznius.
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