Frummer Than God

I recently received an invitation to a family wedding. The invitation was unremarkable, except for one interesting coincidence: both of the bride’s grandfathers had married women named “rayuso.”

The recent practice of omitting women’s names is ostensibly because printing a woman’s name is untznius. Yet even if we take it as a given that tznius is a legitimate concern, this practice makes no sense.

1) In regards to this particular case, it seems that it would be far more tznius to write “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” than it is to write “Mr. Smith and his beloved.”

2) The stated rationale of tznius rules is to avoid anything erotic. It follows that anything avoided due to tznius concerns is (at least somewhat) erotic. I find it hard to believe that even the most sex-crazed guy would find the name of a grandmother printed on a wedding invitation arousing. Yet it seems there are people in the Chareidi world who believe that even mentioning a woman by name is erotic. (Either that, or they never thought through the implications.) Which brings us to:

3) There are women’s names all through tanach. Here is a community that sincerely believes that God wrote every word in the Torah. God clearly thought there was no problem with referring to women by name. And yet, they have the chutzpah to try to be FRUMMER THAN GOD!

Go figure.

Eating is Sexy

As you may have heard, one of the three boys caught smuggling drugs into Japan was sentenced this past Thursday. The following letter from one of the boys’ mother, written before the sentencing, appeared in my local Jewish newspaper this past week. The letter begins by thanking everyone who has been donating money, davening, and doing other mitzvos on the boys’ behalf. Then comes the interesting part of the letter. (I’ve tried to reproduce it here with the original spelling, grammar, and punctuation.)



…our children need a tremendous yeshua in every aspect, so that they can be set free. Out of sheer desperation Harav Hatzadik Rabbi Yakov Meir Shechter was approached and questioned as to what more can be done for the three bochurim. The tzadik’s answer was precise: An ‘hisorrerus’ [awakening] in Tznius will surely be a big z’chus for the yeshua!

Dear sisters I approach you with a trembling body and shattered heart. Heed the cried of young innocent children who are yearning to taste freedom again. The commitment of righteous women, to improve in any area of Tznius carries more weight than all efforts combined. Your contribution in the form of a personal undertaking can be the deciding factor in their fate. Who can remain idle at this time?


Yoel Zev ben Mirel Risa Chava, Yakov Yosef ben Raizel and Yosef ben Ita Rivka, are counting on YOU. Please do not let them down. Since we started this Tznius campaign we have seen incredible siyata dishmaya in easing the plight of the prisoners somewhat. Let the merit of your kabalah give rise to the ultimate release of our children, and may the collective zechus of Tznius improvement, result in the geulah shleima for all of Klal Yisroel, amen.

• Sheitel is refined [within parameters of halacha] and does not attract attention.


• Refrain from wearing excessive make-up and perfume in any public areas


• Refrain from wearing attractive or excessive jewelry in any public areas.


• Refrain from brisk-walking as a form of exercise.


• Refrain from eating/drinking in public areas, especially where men are present.


• Skirt is at least four inches past the knee.


• Neckline properly adjusted in all clothing.


• Turban/tichel covering all hair at all times during the day.


• Secular newspapers and all fashion magazines kept out of the house.


• When in public [street, stores, buses, waiting rooms,] Cell phones vibrate silently and phone conversations are kept short and quiet [out of earshot of bystanders]


• Shoes/heels/ fitted with a rubber sole.


• Exercising discreet and low-key behavior in a shared sitting area. [apartment building lobby, doctor’s office, chasuna hall, shul mechitzah, bus stops, standing in line at checkout counters, etc.]


• Learning Hilchos Tznius daily.


• Refrain from brisk-walking in a public area.

Your undertaking will provide us with the strength and stamina we so desperately need at this time. We cannot adequately express our appreciation to all who are accepting upon themselves to enhance their current Tznius standards so that our children can have hope to see the light of freedom again.




Before I comment on the letter I want to say that I do not mean to belittle this woman’s pain over her son’s situation. I can’t imagine what I would do if something similar happened to my child. What I am doing is questioning the details of this letter.

Let’s start with Rabbi Shechter’s statement. Hopefully this is an excerpt from a longer conversation, but as quoted it is strange. What is the connection between tznius and the guys in Japan? Unless this is a way to rack up brownie points with God and thereby get Him to intervene. If that’s what this is, though, why tznius? Wouldn’t any mitzvah do?

In the next paragraph his statement that tznius would help is somehow taken to mean that “Tznius carries more weight than all efforts combined.” This is followed by an appeal to women to get personally involved by accepting chumras in tznius. What a great way for people who feel for this poor mother to feel like they’re doing something useful to help. The feeling is bolstered by the assertion that “Since we started this Tznius campaign we have seen incredible siyata dishmaya in easing the plight of the prisoners somewhat.” This of course is confusing confluence and causality. Things improving a bit for the boys at the same time that the tznius campaign got going doesn’t mean that one caused the other.

Then comes the incredible list of tznius rules participants are to take upon themselves. I don’t know where the list came from, if it was compiled by a rov, gleaned from seforim on tznius, or made up by the author of the letter. But it seems the thrust of these rules is to minimize women being noticed. The ideal, it seems, is for women to be invisible. I think that’s disgusting.

The Girl in the Blue Uniform

Reading this post on DovBear brought me back to high school and the rumors that circulated about this guy or that yeshiva. It also made me remember the Yeshiva’s attitude toward sex and the opposite sex. Their opinion of contact between guys and girls can be summed up in one word: EVIL. [Since then Frum Satire has also had a post related to the subject.]

Girls were presented (intentionally or not) as evil succubae that would lead a yeshiva bochur away from all that is good and holy. They weren’t human – they were GIRLS.

A few anecdotes to illustrate what I mean.

The yeshiva I was in had a lot of guys (like myself) from other cities who stayed in the dorms. The yeshiva would usually arrange for us to eat one of the Shabbos meals with families from the local community. If the family had any daughters over the age of eight or so, these girls had to leave the house in order for the family to invite us. Not so bad, right? The girls went to friends’ houses, and we got a good meal. Why, though, couldn’t the families’ daughters and the bochurim sit at the Shabbos table together? Because we might talk to each other. Which brings me to my second anecdote.

One Shabbos afternoon in the spring one of the guys in yeshiva decided to go for a walk and ended up at a local park. The park was full of frum families enjoying a pleasant Shabbos afternoon. While there he struck up a conversation with a girl about his own age. After chatting for a while they each went their own way. Someone in the park recognized him and told the Rosh Yeshiva that he had been talking to a girl. The result was a week’s suspension.

Now we come to my personal high-school experience with a girl. Ready?

I used to bike the six or seven blocks from the dorm to the yeshiva every morning. Over the back wheel I had a rack with a spring-loaded clip that I would use to hold stuff I was transporting: books, snacks, etc. On my way to yeshiva I would often pass groups of girls on the way to one of the local bais yaakovs. One day as I was passing a group of girls the clip gave way and spilled my books into the street. One of the girls helped me pick up my books and handed me the ones she had collected. I said, “Thank you.”

That’s it. My entire high-school experience with girls. Yet it was such an anomaly that even now, eleven years later, I can remember the blue uniform skirt she was wearing and the shy smile on her face as she handed me the books.

Why is there this insistence on the strict separation of the sexes? Why is the worst thing a teenager (and in some circles, even an adult) do is talk to a member of the opposite sex?

I think answer is in the yeshivah world’s opinion that people can’t control themselves and in the stereotypes promoted by yeshivas and bais yaakovs.

The idea that humans have no natural self-control is illustrated by the often-repeated argument that we must be slaves either to our desires or to God. While this argument contains a number of logical fallacies, I’m not going to address those now. The point I’m making here is that the underlying assumption of this argument is that without God’s rules to restrain us we would follow every whim with no possibility of self-restraint.

If that is true, then men and women should be separated, since they won’t be able to control themselves. Yet we see that, aside from a small number of criminals, men and women do not assault each other when they are allowed to interact.

The yeshiva world largely ignores this obvious fact, and instead points to teen pregnancy rates in society at large as evidence that guys and girls shouldn’t socialize. Apparently interaction inevitably leads to sex. And why is that? Because guys, especially teenage guys, can’t control themselves around girls. This has a grain of truth – teenagers (guys and girls) do tend to be obsessed with sex. And yes, teenagers, due to a lack of experience and a tendency not to think of consequences, do a lot of stupid things. Letting guys and girls socialize does carry some risk that they may make unwise decisions. But parents and schools should teach them how to act responsibly and how to make the right decisions. Instead they are denied the opportunity to learn how to interact appropriately. This leads to a mythologization of the opposite sex.

Girls, according to yeshivas, come in two varieties. The first is the aishes chayil – our mothers and sisters, the wives of tzaddikim, the kind of girl every guy should want to marry. This version of women came up infrequently. Far more common was the girl as the temptress who would lead the good yeshiva bochur astray. Of course, the poor yeshiva bochur, being a guy and therefore unable to control himself around women, had no defense against these girls. Not that these girls meant to be evil. It was simply the nature of things that girls tempt guys, guys have no defense, and the results were always catastrophic.

As I understand the girl’s point of view, they are taught that guys have no self control, and that dressing untzniusly will cause him to sin. In other words, they are being taught that men see them as sex objects, and that they must make every effort to minimize their unholy influence.

So we have guys characterized as animals who can’t control their desires and girls as sex objects who stir those desires. These stereotypes represent the worst extremes in relations between the sexes and present those extremes as normative.

How insulting.