JStandard: My Dear Rabbi Talmudic Advice Column for September: Sex and Kol Nidre

Published in the Jewish Standard, Dear Rabbi: Your Talmudic advice column

Dear Rabbi,

I attended an all-boys Yeshiva for high school, and I am going off to live on campus at a coed college. I have not been dating until now. To be upfront, will you give me some advice and guidance about sex?

Blunt in Bergenfield

Dear Blunt,

To be candid with you in return, no I will not. Why? First off, the subject is immensely complex and your question is overly vague. The spectrum of human sexuality is wide and it varies significantly from person to person. Some people are driven strongly and are intensely engaged by sexual forces and others are not. I’d need a lot more specificity about you as a person before I would even try to answer your question. And without any details I prefer not to infer or read between the lines of your inquiry.

Second, I simply have no training in counseling or expertise in advising anyone about that complex set of subjects related to your inquiry about “sex”. I am a rabbi, not a sex counselor.

To train as a rabbi I studied Bible, Talmud and religious law codes. Those books do in fact contain information related to sex and to relationships between sexual partners. But some people could contend (and I would agree) that content is anecdotal, antiquated and quirky at best.

Furthermore, as is well-known, many of the guidelines of the Talmud in this area are rules that instruct people in what not to do in sexual relations. On that subject of prohibited sexual things, you might consider me informed. But I sense that what not to do is not primarily what you want to know about.

And even in the area of sex-no-nos, I am not sure I qualify to offer you significant advice. I got some of my training in the laws of the rabbinic menstrual taboos, for instance, years ago from a series of lectures by a noted rabbinic authority in the field. While sitting in his classes in rabbinical school, I recall that I wrote one time in my notebook in puzzlement about why this man was teaching us this subject, “I’m pretty sure this rabbi has never menstruated.”

Is Google Glass Jewish?

Even though the last name Glass is often associated with Jews, no, Google Glass is not Jewish. Google Glass is a shiny piece of technology and as such does not have a personal religious affiliation.

But the fine folk at Rusty Brick software are busy at work developing JewGlass - apps for Jews who use Google Glass - to make them better Jews. They say:

JewGlass is now officially live and free for Google Glass users to experiment with. The software will intelligently send you Jewish notifications based on your location and your preferences. Such notifications include prayer time notifications with prayers, locations of synagogues and more. Also included are Shabbat time reminders and prayer tips to inform you what prayers to say that day. JewGlass will also provide you kosher restaurant data at breakfast, lunch time or dinner, with nearby restaurants, the ability to call them or even get driving or walking direction.

Check out this link for a series of pictures that will give you a good idea of what JewGlass can do to make you frummer. And the JewGlass apps are free! As they said at Mt. Sinai, "Free? We will take ten."

Is Diana Nyad Jewish?

No, as best as we can determine, endurance swimmer Diana Nyad is not a Jew and does not practice any religion. She professes to be an atheist. Diana discussed her atheism with Oprah (10/2013), "Oprah tells atheist swimmer Diana Nyad that atheists don’t believe in ‘awe’ and ‘wonder’".

She is one tough and determined woman. And she is an inspiration to us all to persevere. Even after having to abandon her goal to swim in open waters 103 miles from Cuba to Key West Florida several times, first more than thirty years ago, she returned to the water to try again. Her blog is here.

She finally did it 9/2/2013! "Diana Nyad completes Cuba-Florida swim." We identify so strongly with Dina Nyad because we swim over 400 miles a year. True, we don't swim 103 mile open water courses from Cuba to Florida all at once. We swim in a pool, one mile and a half a day. It took us all summer to swim 103 miles (and we did that! including one harrowing mile in the Hudson River!)

Diana claimed at age 62 to be in the best shape of her life. What an inspiration. And we mean this personally. Diana set a goal years ago and could not reach it. She tried again in 2011 and 2012 and had to stop. But that did not deter her from her determination to try once again.

She did it in 2013 at age 64 and the message she sends to us is loud and clear and utterly simple. If you have a goal that is worthy, keep at it. There is no shame in failure. Get up. Try to meet your challenge again.

God bless you Diana for your example of grit and determination. Godspeed to you. Swim on.

(Hat tip to Yitz who found out about the swim in Israel.)

Is Sex Expert Dr. Ruth Westheimer Jewish?

Yes, sex expert Dr. Ruth Westheimer is a Jew, a holocaust survivor and a former Israeli Haganah scout and sniper.

Wikipedia reports:

Westheimer was born Karola Ruth Siegel in Wiesenfeld (near Karlstadt am Main), Germany, the only child of Orthodox Jews Irma (née Hanauer) and Julius Siegel. In January 1939, she was sent to Switzerland by her mother and grandmother after her father was taken by the Nazis. There she came of age in an orphanage, and stopped receiving her parents' letters in September 1941. In 1945, Westheimer learned that her parents had been murdered in the Holocaust, possibly at the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Westheimer decided to emigrate to the British Mandate of Palestine. There, at 17, she "first had sexual intercourse on a starry night, in a haystack without contraception." She later told The New York Times that "I am not happy about that, but I know much better now and so does everyone who listens to my radio program." Westheimer joined the Haganah in Jerusalem. Because of her diminutive height of 4 ft 7 in (1.40 m), she was trained as a scout and sniper. Westheimer was seriously wounded in action by an exploding shell during the Israeli War of Independence in 1948, and it was several months before she was able to walk again.

In 1950, Westheimer moved to France, where she studied and then taught psychology at the University of Paris. In 1956, she immigrated to the United States, settling in Washington Heights, Manhattan. She still lives in the "cluttered three-bedroom apartment in Washington Heights where she raised her two children and became famous, in that order." Because of the two synagogues she belongs to, the YMHA she was president of for three years, and a "still sizable community of German Jewish World War II refugees," she remains in the neighborhood. She speaks English, German, French, and Hebrew.

She earned a master's degree in sociology from The New School and an Ed.D. from Teachers College, Columbia University. She completed post-doctoral work in human sexuality at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, training with pioneer sex therapist Helen Singer Kaplan.

Westheimer has written several books on human sexuality, including Dr. Ruth's Encyclopedia of Sex and Sex for Dummies. 

Dr. Ruth's Sexuality Encyclopedia is available in full version here online. It is a valuable resource for people of all ages seeking professional expert counsel on matters relating to sexuality.

Is Sam Horowitz' Bar Mitzvah Dance Video Kosher?

Sam Horowitz performed a dance at the Omni Hotel in Dallas to celebrate his bar mitzvah. Sam danced on stage in November 2012 with eight (visibly taller) women dancers in a number that lasted less than three minutes where he appears on stage about halfway through. As of 8/18/2013 the video has received 726,000 views on YouTube.



I think that yes, the video is kosher and an appropriate way to mark the coming of age of a young man. It is a cute and sweet and entirely wholesome performance. I assume that Sam likes to dance. He does it well. And now that he is 13 he chose to descend to the stage to enter and dance with the women in an innocent and shy way.

Some rabbis disapprove of the ostentatiousness, the cost and what they perceive of as the inappropriateness of the event. David Wolpe wrote (ranted) in the Washington Post, "The egregious, licentious and thoroughly awful video that is circulating ‘celebrating’ a Bar Mitzvah contains so much that is offensive that it requires restraint to hold oneself to three ways in which this display slaughters the spirit..." I guess I saw a different video - one that elevated my spirit.

For the record, the bar mitzvah is a rite of passage ritual that began in medieval times and has been associated with calling a boy to receive an aliyah to the Torah at his thirteenth birthday. To the rabbis who innovated that ritual that was an appropriate way to mark the coming of age of young boy. The rite presumes that an aliyah to the Torah has positive meaning in a community and that a young boy will appreciate an aliyah as a symbolic way to mark his turning into an "adult". That may be the case.

Yet, I have attended synagogues in which aliyahs are granted in a less than wholesome and equitable way to wealthy donors and to the favorites and cronies of the rabbis and gabbais. And I have seen many bar mitzvah boys endure the requirements of an aliyah performance as an anxiety ridden ordeal, rather than a pleasant ritual.

In his dance, Sam looks to me happy and full of positive expression. I deem what he did to celebrate, a proper and kosher expression of his coming of age. Mazal tov Sam!

Is Carl Icahn Jewish?

Yes, corporate raider billionaire Carl Icahn is a Jew.

Wikipedia says, "Icahn was raised in Far Rockaway, Queens, New York City, where he attended Far Rockaway High School. His family was Jewish in name, but his father was a 'dogmatic atheist'. His father was a frustrated opera singer who settled on being a cantor, before becoming a substitute teacher. His mother also worked as a schoolteacher. He graduated from Princeton University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy in 1957 and then joined New York University School of Medicine, but he dropped out after two years to join the army."

Icahn's net worth (3/2013) is $20 billion. He tweeted on August 13, 2013 that he had taken a stake in Apple stock and the buying that ensued sent the stock up over 5% within a day.

Experience God's Favorite Prayers

Is Steve Lonegan, the anti-Spanish former Mayor of Bogota, Jewish?

No, New Jersey Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Lonegan is not a Jew. He is Catholic and attends St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church in Bogota.

Back on 7/17/2006 here is what we posted on our blog about Mr. Lonegan when he tried to get a Spanish advertising billboard removed from his town...

Don't confuse this town with the capital city of the same name in Colombia, South America, where the official language is Spanish and the national motto is Libertad y Orden.

The Bogota NJ city council made it perfectly clear last week that is wants no Spanish billboards in that borough.

Apparently NOBODY told these folks how dumb they look protesting a billboard. So they escalated the matter by protesting to the offending advertiser, McDonalds, and by calling for a boycott. Thankfully. McD's won't budge.

They are removing all doubt down there south of Teaneck. Even NPR is mocking them. Anti-hate web sites feature Bogota's Mayor as a poster boy for racism.

The Fox fighters at News Hounds reported with the video clip of Mayor Lonegan from the Fox and Friends show on 7/11 that,

Yesterday morning on FOX and Friends First, Steve Lonegan, Mayor of Bogota (pronounced Bug-OH-dah), New Jersey, proved that bigotry, pettiness, mean-spiritedness and prejudice are alive and well on FOX News Channel and, sadly, it seems, also in New Jersey. Mayor Lonegan is very, very, very upset that McDonalds has posted a Spanish-language billboard in his fair city of 8,000 (1,680 of whom are Hispanic) and is agitating to get them taken down.

I don't know why Mr. Lonegan did not try to rename his borough. After all Bogota looks a lot like, Bogotá, the capital city of the Spanish speaking South American country Columbia. Wikipedia reports that, "Bogotá is the largest city in Colombia, and one of the biggest in Latin America."

Bogota, New Jersey - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: (from 2006...)

Bogota is a Borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, the borough population was 8,249. Bogota was formed on November 14, 1894 from portions of Ridgefield Township at the height of the "Boroughitis" phenomenon. Portions of Bogota were taken in 1895 to form part of the new Township of Teaneck. Bogota was named in honor of the Bogert family, which had been the first to occupy the area.

The Mayor of the Borough of Bogota is Steve Lonegan. Members of the Bogota Borough Council are Pat Kearns, Joe Noto, George T. Shalhoub, Melissa Schnipp, George Silos and Patrick McHale. In July 2006, the conservative Mayor Lonegan, who in previous years had unsuccessfully sought several higher offices, including a race for governor in 2005, created a firestorm when he engineered a Borough Council resolution requesting that McDonald's remove a Spanish-language billboard for iced coffee in town. Lonegan said the billboard was 'divisive.' The story received national publicity, occurring concurrently with a national debate on illegal immigration.

Selichot are Not Outcries

My teacher taught that the selichot prayers are an outcry to God, a form of prayer that is out loud and hence a blatant public event. Outcry prayers he says, are different from more ordinary request prayers, more dramatic and more emotional.

The obvious repetition in those liturgies makes sense to the Rav because outbursts expressing needs and drama and emotion are repeated.

I disagree. Outcries ordinarily are one-time events. Only in utter desperation are they repeated. We who recite this prayer are not in utter desperation.

The repetitions of Selichot are way too numerous to make sense to me as outcries. And the label of "outcry" or "outburst" is hardly a category bearing significant cognitive meaning, deep theological content or any distinctive personality.

So no,  it is not correct to read the selichot as outcries. What then are the selichot?

Selichot are quiet and personal and above all, meditations seeking compassion.

Repetition is a hallmark of meditation. And compassion is a central end goal of the High Holiday season, central in particular to the Yom Kippur liturgy.

In his wonderful book, "Before Hashem You Shall Be Purified : Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik on the Days of Awe," by Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Arnold Lustiger, Lustiger says, "On Rosh Hashanh, Hashem moves from the throne of justice to the throne of mercy (p. 35)." Call it mercy or or call it compassion, I agree that movement takes place in the prayers for these holidays.

Through this season our prayers call on us to alternate between a definite certainty of the Kingship of God and a great uncertainty of the worthiness of our actions. We vacillate, we move at times into the personality of the brave public celebrity who is sure that we are number one and our God is number one.

Then we move into the personality of the insecure meditator, who seeks through meditative introspection a confirmation of the worthiness of his meager life. In one part of our service we crown God our King. And in another we meditate and seek the king's compassion so that we may live another day.

We start out this dramatic up and down High Holiday season as meditators seeking the compassion of God in the repetitions of the selichot prayers. Next we will go on to proclaim the Kingship of God on Rosh Hashanah. Then on Yom Kippur we will return and focus on our complicated quest for compassion with many quiet and personal selichot meditations -- persistently seeking compassion.

Whence and Wherefore | God's Favorite Prayers

Is Google NOW incredible or creepy? Is NOW kosher?

There sometimes is a fine line between incredible and creepy.The Times hints at this in a review of phone app technology that seems to know what you are thinking, especially Google NOW.

Case in point. Yesterday I had to go from Teaneck, NJ to Forest Hills Queens, NY to attend the funeral for my sister's father-in-law. Knowing the possible traffic situations I figured on leaving my house an hour earlier, at Noon. I actually left about 12:15.

The event time and location were in my Google Calendar. And so,  I was on the GWB I got an alert from Google NOW at about 12:30 - telling me I had better leave now to get to the funeral on time.

First I thought, this is incredible. Then I thought, this is creepy. Finally I thought, NOW is not a New Yorker and does not have a clue about the time you need for getting around the city, especially for potential parking time.

The Times observes:

Already, an app called Google Now is an important part of Google’s Internet-connected glasses. As a Glass wearer walks through the airport, her hands full of luggage, it could show her an alert that her flight is delayed.

Google Now is “kind of blowing my mind right now,” said Danny Sullivan, a founding editor of Search Engine Land who has been studying search for two decades. “I mean, I’m pretty jaded, right? I’ve seen all types of things that were supposed to revolutionize search, but pretty much they haven’t. Google Now is doing that.”

The Times mentions some of the other amazing feats that NOW can offer - once you give up your privacy entirely to Google. I have it on my phone and I've been kept apprised by NOW of package deliveries, (Google's imagined) travel time to home and work and other meetings, stock prices, nearby restaurant recommendations and more.

Bottom line? Let me say I certify that NOW is kosher. You will have to judge for yourself whether it is incredible or creepy.

JStandard: My Dear Rabbi Talmudic Advice Column for August

Published in the Jewish Standard, Dear Rabbi: Your Talmudic advice column

Dear Rabbi,

My son, his wife and children have decided to make aliyah to Israel. My husband and I understand their practical and idealistic motivations for this decision. We applaud what they are doing and feel pride in their Judaic and Zionist ardor. We plan to visit them in Israel periodically, but we have no plans to move there.

At times we both admit to ourselves that we worry about them and that we will sorely miss them. What advice can you give us to help us cope with this bittersweet situation that we face?

Stuck in Bergen County
New Milford

Dear Stuck,

First, know that you are not alone. In our area, a good number of Modern Orthodox families with young children make aliyah. An underlying motive for this uprooting is the financial burden of local day school tuition. That concern combines with years of sincere devotion to the Zionist dream. Modern Orthodox education encourages pride in the miracle of the State of Israel. And many Jews simply feel a mystical attachment to the Land of Israel.