an admission

This blog has gotten way, way off track. The original point wasn't to discuss Middle East politics, but to tell my story. I'll try to get back to that soon.

A reminder: I generally do not publish anonymous comments. Please include a name and email if you wish to comment.

something i wrote for law school

This is a book report I wrote for my law school seminar class in Law, Religion and Morality. I basically read the book in two days and wrote the following in a caffeine-fueled jag, finishing it literally an hour before it was due. Considering these circumstances, I think it actually turned out OK. I got a B+ in the class, so take that as you like.

I know I haven't finished the story to date. I will someday.

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SINNERS IN THE HANDS OF A CONFUSING GOD: STEVE ALLEN ON THE BIBLE, RELIGION AND MORALITY

There is a stirring phrase in Pirkei Avos, the "Ethics of our Fathers" section of the Talmud: "We have no comprehension of the tranquility of the wicked, nor of the suffering of the righteous." It’s a passage with unusual candor. The Talmud was written, after all, in the early part of the first millennium, a time before science and archaeology, when unseen gods seemed all too real - and here we see these argumentative but pious rabbis admitting to the great mystery of God and Torah.

I do not know if Steve Allen has ever read this phrase, but it may have allayed some of the ideas put forth in his 1990 book, Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion and Morality. The book is partly a guide to the perplexed, partly an encyclopedic take on Biblical concepts, and - ever so subtly - a jab at those who take the Bible at face value.

It's not religious people that are necessarily the problem, Allen suggests in his foreword. A regular churchgoer in Los Angeles and a cordial acquaintance to priests, ministers and rabbis alike, he says he begins with "more of a sympathetic understanding of religious tradition than any natural antipathy toward it.' The stumbling block, he says, is his intellect: "...one cannot ignore those moments when a biblically based religious opinion comes into flat contradiction with either factual evidence or local reasoning."

Allen suggests that the great majority of religious believers experience such doubts but do not express them publicly. On this point I am sympathetic. I spent five years attending an Orthodox Jewish synagogue, learning Torah, participating in services, keeping kosher and even refraining from driving on the Sabbath. Through it all, I kept having nagging doubts. How could Moses have been hundreds of years old when he died? What were the real atmospheric occurrences memorialized as the Great Flood of Noah or the parting of the Red Sea? Why is a majority of the Book of Numbers dedicated to rote lists of obscure laws and complicated travels? If Moses wrote the Torah, how could he have written of his death and its aftermath at the end?

Allen spends most of his book making much a similar set of observations, and does so in a handy A (Abel) to Z (Zechariah) format. His writing is often engaging, but there are a few places where he loses me, and other places where he seems to omit sources crucial to his arguments.

First, a word about Christianity. I know little to nothing about the Christian Bible or the Gospels, so I have no idea whether, say, the contradictions in various passages or the missing years in Jesus' story are truly, earth-shatteringly significant. What can be said, however, is that Allen spends a lot of time recounting the Church’s history of violence, war and anti-Semitism. This is most compactly summarized in the chapter simply entitled "Belief." If fundamentalist Christians are so above us, he asks, why do they seem to worship a book rather than people? What of the Mafia and the KKK, who professed to be Catholics and Christians while doing bad things? What of racism and selfishness?

We hear this sort of argument a lot in connection these days with, for instance, the obnoxious Westboro Baptist Church, whose members go around picketing soldiers' funerals. It seems to me, however, that most Christians do not engage in such loathsome behavior. Most Christians lead pretty much normal lives and should be given credit for Reformation a few centuries back. Even if there is a minority that takes Jesus' name as an excuse to riot and murder, their book explicitly commands them to do otherwise. This is not to excuse the Westboro types, but there is not a single mainstream Christian who would abide them. (This is in sharp opposition to many mosques, which I will cover later in this report.). Quite frankly, I believe Christians have gotten a bad rap on the morality front, both here and elsewhere. It’s to the point where calling oneself a "Christian" in certain company will get one ostracized, often with talk of bombing abortion clinics or questions about abusive priests.

Allen does give credit where due. He speaks approvingly about the evolving Christian perspective on evolution, for instance, which is now accepted as an explanation for the wide variety of the animal kingdom. And he seems to appreciate the fact (though not without a bit of surprise) that Jesus is not portrayed in the New Testament as some sort of cinematic, halo-topped Son of God, but rather as an ordinary guy with some strange opinions contrary to those of the Romans or his fellow Hebrews. I believe this accessibility is one key to Christianity’s appeal. One can ask "What Would Jesus Do?" and test one’s morality in a tangible way - actually envision doing the same thing, even if not always succeeding.

When Allen gets to the Torah, he's simply confused. He has a good reason to be. The Torah is not so much a history book as it is a compendium of laws, dietary restrictions, ethics and censuses. Read devoid of context, the Torah seems sprawling, confusing and contradictory. The strictest, most devout Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn or Jerusalem would tell you the same thing. That is why they rely not on the four corners of the book (or, in the Torah's case, scroll), but the many commentaries that exist. The Talmud is the best known and certainly the earliest; indeed, many rabbis would insist that without Talmudic scholarship, one's Torah knowledge is incomplete. Then there are the commentaries on the commentaries: Rashi, Maimonides, the Chofetz Chaim, and dozens of others. Do they prove or disprove the stranger Torah episodes? No. But they should at least be given credit for demystifying and explaining the text- in the process making it a little easier for practicing Jews to focus on mitzvoth and good deeds.

At this point, it should be noted that Allen published this book in 1990 – the height of the Moral Majority, televangelists and their megachurches. Some of the book is now outdated two decades later. A 2007 Steve Allen, for instance, would probably not spend much time on cults, whose appeal seems to have faded with the Branch Davidians' unfortunate end. But more significantly, the events of 9/11 have put many of Christianity and Judaism's excesses in cold perspective.
Very few people could have foreseen that 19 hijackers would take over four airplanes and turn them into bombs, taking down the World Trade Center in the process. This may be one reason why Allen spends only two pages on the Koran, which (in my opinion) puts even the most bloody Biblical battles to shame. At the time, it was perhaps plausible to see the Koran as simply the Moslem Bible. Since 2001, however, catapulted Islam into the public eye and compelled many Westerners to take a second look at the Koran. The excesses of Sharia law, honor killings, angry mobs rioting over cartoons, and the most base forms of anti-Semitism on display, make Judaism and Christianity seem innocuous indeed in comparison.

The fact that these modern-day atrocities are explicitly done in Allah's name is chilling indeed. I don't deny the past histories of violence in Judaism and Christianity, but the difference between these religions as they stand today, and fundamentalist Islam, is palpable. After all, the worst the average Christian will do to you is condemn you to Hell for not accepting Jesus. You can either accept or reject that forecast depending on your own faith. But in many Islamic countries, one's life may be at stake.

Fortunately, Allen mostly steers clear of Middle Eastern politics. He does question why the Jews' status of "Chosen People" allows such people to have "free real estate" in the desert in perpetuity. The answer is as easily available as Joan Peters' From Time Immemorial, which lays out the history of Eretz Yisroel from Biblical times to the present, and convincingly makes the point that there have always been Jews in historic Palestine. The intervening 17 years have seen the growth of groups like Hamas, whose very charter calls for the Jews to be driven from Israel and pushed into the sea. A quick look at Israel's history puts the lie to a "free" claim to the land.

Ultimately I enjoyed Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion and Morality, but I didn't see its literalist perspective as anything new or earth-shattering. Though he has certainly not written an advertisement for atheism, Allen seems to believe that religious belief is, at least in part, an acceptance of ignorance, a denial of the truth (and not the Biblical Truth). But faith transcends reason, it’s the product of many different factors, and does not negate intellect. I believe most Christians and Jews are aware of the discrepancies in their respective books, and I don’t see Allen changing the minds of those of strong faith.

on palestine awareness week

FrontPage Magazine on SLU's "Palestine Awareness Week."

Some of you know that I attend SLU's law school at night. I agonized about how to handle the impending presence of a Palestine Awareness Week at my school: do I go and question the speakers, or do I sit it out and not even dignify such events as a Norman Finkelstein lecture? Ultimately I chose to sit it out, largely because all the lectures coincided with classes, but mostly because I was sure I would get absolutely enraged. Perhaps this makes me apathetic, but I'm glad others are speaking out about it.

I truly believe that the left is wrong on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and it's one of the reasons I no longer self-identify with the left, even as I remain liberal on most social issues.

On the bright side, the university did subsequently host Ehud Barak. You know, the Israeli prime minister who attempted to broker a land-for-peace deal with Arafat in 2000, only to watch Arafat deny the offer outright and start a new intifada. It's fun to imagine what he'd have to say to Finkelstein.

this is why i don't gamble

Did I say July? Not even January.

kosher no more

Remember the local kosher restaurant that didn't have high chairs? As of two days ago, it is no longer kosher. While I can't help but lament the loss of a local kosher restaurant, the linked story suggests that he doesn't truly understand the mistakes he made.

Basically, he complains that local kosher families weren't supporting him. "...Without any support in terms of increased traffic, Schwadron said he had to make a business decision. 'At this point in my life, I had to make a change'," he says. Meanwhile, the local Vaad rep says "...that if people want to have a kosher restaurant, they need to support it."

Look, we tried to support his restaurant. We brought our kids one day and were prepared to buy lunch for four. They didn't have high chairs, so we left. When we emailed the owner with our comments, he replied with an astonishingly nasty email. "...40% of my customers are not kosher ... I really don't cater to the kosher community." Ultimately, he wrote, he will not subject his restaurant to such people "as long as frum famlies feel that they have an inalienable right to do whatever they like." The whole email dripped prejudice toward the local Jews who were his potential local customer base. So if this guy is suggesting to the Jewish Light that it's our fault for not giving him the business, forgive me if his comments seem disingenuous. If almost half of his customer base was non-kosher, and if he was in fact discouraging the local kosher crowd (most of whom have kids) from patronizing his establishment, wouldn't he be able to support himself just fine?

Anyway, it's a moot point now. He's reopened as a sports bar unencumbered by a kosher certification. Probably he's happier now that he doesn't have to worry about those uncouth frum Jews attempting to patronize his establishment. At the same time, without the kosher certification, there's no motivation for anyone to visit. No walk-in traffic, either, as it's in an awkward retail location near I-40 in a low-rent strip mall. My prediction: vacant storefront by July.

speaking of seattle

An excellent article in this week's Stranger about "Seattle's Jewish Problem."

In 2006, there were at least three nasty anti-Semitic incidents in Seattle. Two were just embarrassing - the monorail spokeswoman blaming a cabal of Jews for its troubles, and the whole stupid brouhaha over Christmas trees at Sea-Tac Airport. One was a tragic shooting at the Jewish Community Center. That said, I never once heard anything remotely anti-Semitic the whole time I lived there. To the extent Jews have a hard time there, it has to do mostly with a) a reflexive tendency to take the anti-Israel side of any Mideast political issue, and b) a general chilly hostility to outsiders underneath a Saran Wrap-thin veneer of liberal tolerance.

Seattle is one of the most beautiful, cultural places in the United States. It remains one of my favorite cities. But living there is entirely different from visiting. Seattle never lets you stop feeling like an outsider, and that goes for more than just its Jews. The local shul was a welcome escape from all that. It's interesting to hear about Seattle's Jewish community from a historical perspective and realize that it wasn't just me.

christmas trees everywhere

The Christmas trees are back up at Sea-Tac Airport. And hopefully all goes back to normal. Everyone happy now? Thought not.

A word about Rabbi Bogomilsky. We know him and his family well. They are prominent and well-regarded in their community. They were one of the Chabad families that took us in and made us feel welcome when we were first trying out orthodoxy. Their Shabbos table was that rare mix of casual and inspirational. My wife even swapped issues of Martha Stewart Living with the rabbi's wife. And I know - can say without a doubt - that Rabbi Bogomilsky did not go into this mess with ill intentions, thinking he was going to cause trouble on this scale. It's distressing to see the amount of invective currently being directed at him in the media.

That said, I believe his mistake was to threaten litigation. First of all, I don't think he'd win. The law does not consider airports "public squares," but rather temporary dwellings where passengers have the right to check in and board their flights free of harassment. An airport can display such symbols or choose not to do so. Secondly, it was the absolute worst PR move available. Knowingly or not, he stepped into one of the most contentious and sensitive issues in America - the notion of who "owns" the December holiday season and to what extent religious imagery is appropriate. We get up in arms about whether "Merry Christmas" is a proper greeting and whether that excludes those who celebrate Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Ramadan, Tet or whatever your respective year-end celebration may be. By proposing to sue over the right to display a menorah at the airport, it appeared that he was trying to usurp the season...an image Sea-Tac certainly encouraged when it removed the trees in a snit.

I'm surprised a Chabad rabbi, especially one as smart and savvy as Rabbi Bogomilsky, didn't consider that. He had to know that threatening litigation would be counterproductive at best and potentially besmirch not only his own reputation but his community's as well. Chabad's whole thing is go to communities where there's not an established Jewish presence and bring those traditions and customs to the unaffiliated. This has gained them no small amount of enmity at times (most often from more liberal Jewish sects such as Reform or Reconstructionist), so it's important to be careful. Even if he was simply frustrated at the Port Authority's lack of response, I'm disappointed and embarrassed that he chose that r0ute.

Hopefully the whole thing can now be forgotten, though, and the Bogomilsky family can get back to their normal existence (including tending to their newborn twins - congrats if you're reading!).

flippin' out

As little as I care for most Jewish pop music, I have to pay respect to Blue Fringe. Their song "Anayni" is an extremely catchy and pleasing mix of Matthew Sweet and Teenage Fanclub, especially in the chorus. Against the usual "shiny shoe music" you hear on the Sameach Music Podcast, "Anayni" comes across like Nirvana in 1991. And of course this makes them controversial among the no-secular-influence-allowed! crowd.

where it's at

So here's where I am right now. Friday nights I usually stay in and hang out with my wife. On Saturday mornings I usually wake up with our two daughters so my wife can sleep in a bit. I play with them in the morning. Sometimes we go out for walks, or I take them for rides in their new red wagon; other times we just stay in the house, play with toys and read books. Eventually 11:45 am rolls around: I feed them lunch, try to grab a bite myself while they're eating, put the older one down for a nap, and hand the younger one off to my wife. Then it's usually off to the law library, where I spend the afternoon briefing cases or studying for finals. I come back home around 5:30 or 6, spend a little more time with the kids, and help put them to sleep.

Right now there is no shul, no yarmulke, no tallis, no suit, no Lecha Dodi, no Mussaf service, no picking at food at someone's Shabbos table, no third meal. Occasionally I run into some of the folks I used to see every Shabbos. We say hi and chat for a minute or two. There's no animosity, at least not on my end; I know they still care for me and would help my family in a time of need. But now there's also no shared bond.

Sometimes I see old friends from Seattle or NYC, or I unexpectedly run into people from the music scene that I never really left. I speak of my frum experiences as something in the past, as a phase that's now over. Usually I tell them that this blog is "about how I tried to be an Orthodox Jew but it didn't take."

The fact is that I haven't had much time lately to reflect on my few years as a semi-Orthodox Jew, which partly explains the lack of substantial posts. Life has been very busy. I work all day and go to school three or four nights a week. After a typical week of barely seeing my wife and two kids, it just seems like my Saturday morning is better spent with them than trying to bumble my way through services while feeling conflicted. Sometimes I feel guilty about not feeling guilty, but for now that's as far as it goes.

And yet I can feel the ways in which those few years have changed me. I now have the utmost respect for those who are peacefully devout. I envy those Jews who are able to throw themselves into Torah and mitzvot without a second thought. My attitude toward fundamentalist Christians has changed as well; I no longer see them as the worst thing in the world, especially a world where jihadist terror exists. I see the miniscule bit of Torah knowledge I gained to be an asset, something to carry with me at all times.

In the next few years we will have to make decisions about where our children will attend school. Before that, we'll have to figure out how to give them a Jewish upbringing outside of the local Chabad or our former yeshivish shul. I have to assume it'll all come together. I could definitely see myself taking back some elements of traditional Judaism in the future.

If you're looking for frequent updates, I can't promise those. But I will try to keep in touch via this blog.

no reply

It's been a month since I sent that letter to my shul. I have received no reply whatsoever - no phone calls, in-person visits, nothing. I don't know whether to be relieved or offended about that. I was totally expecting an awkward phone call from the rabbi urging my family and me to reconsider. The only explanation I can think of is that he wrote us off as members long ago.

Update: Just got a very nice letter from the rabbi this week.

a stranger among us

This weekend I will write a letter to the rabbi of my regular shul, asking him to officially remove us as members. It's a big step, but considering I've been to that shul about 3 times in the past year, I think it's time to make it official. I figure they'll always take us back if we reconsider. Still, it feels like a breakup. At least Chabad will take us in for the high holidays.

In the midst of this I've been reading Body Piercing Saved My Life, Andrew Beaujon's book about the Christian rock scene. Actually, it's not so much "about" the Christian rock scene as it is "about" a secular music fan's immersion into an alien but weirdly parallel subculture. It's a tricky approach, as anyone who's read the many disappointing books about Hasidic culture should know (Postville was the worst, but there have been so many others), but Andrew makes it work. He doesn't condescend or prejudge: he acknowledges his own biases and has a keen eye for the humor and irony in fusing Scriptural beliefs with rock music, but he's willing to accept the scene on its own terms. It's a fascinating book, especially for someone like me who's been through a period of religious immersion and is trying to make sense of it.

death travels west

I'll get back to my reminisces soon, I promise. But I can't let this go by unnoticed.

At least one killed during shooting at Seattle Jewish federation

The shooter identified himself as an American Muslim. He said he "didn't like what was going on in Israel." And then he started firing away.

My journey back to Judaism started in Seattle. I still feel a real connection to the Jewish community there. I have no idea if any friends or members of my Seattle shul were hurt or killed, and I'm not going to be able to find out until tomorrow night.

When discussing the Middle East, one point I always make is that it's not "Zionists" or IDF members that radical Islamic groups are fighting. It's Jews, all Jews, everywhere. In Israel there are secular Jews, Christians, Peace Now members, and others, but the bombs and rockets don't discriminate. And now Jews have been murdered and maimed in Seattle, and my wife and I could have been caught in the crossfire. It's proof that the mayhem isn't limited to that corner of the world: all Jews everywhere are at risk. It CAN happen here and it IS happening here and we know it.

on israel

I don't know all the details yet about Israel's attack on Lebanon. It may well be that Israel has responded out of all proportion to the situation. But I've already begun to see this mess spun as Israel holding an entire region hostage for the sake of one soldier.

It's way, way more complicated than that. And often inaccurately reported. Perhaps a little story will help illustrate the point.

Let's say a renegade revolutionary group from Mexico - MECHA or someone - decided that the states along the southern US border from TX and CA were "occupied territory," and their residents were "settlers" and thus legitimate targets. Let's say they started doing suicide bombings in Phoenix shopping malls, Albuquerque bus stops, restaurants in Santa Fe. Let's also say that this group was shooting rockets into Brownsville and Corpus Christi. Let's also say they started attacking Amoeba Records and other places full of people who don't agree with the US' policies or the current administration.

The Mexican government knows about all this and implicitly endorses it.

The U.S. responds (never mind which party's in office for now) by sending troops to stop the violence. The world condemns the U.S. for doing so. So the U.S. stands down, meets with this group at Camp David and says, "OK, here's the deal. We're going to give you 97 percent of what you asked for. We're going to transfer all of our American citizens out of those areas. It's going to cost billions and tear apart entire communities, but we're committed to it. All we ask is that you stop bombing and shooting us." The head of this group doesn't bother to negotiate - just walks out and starts the killing anew.

Would this be acceptable to anyone? Even the most pacifistic, anti-Bush citizens among us? That's what Israel's been going through since 1967. There's your "cycle of violence."

Update: No sooner did I finish writing this than I saw that Alison Kaplan Sommer, a blogger I respect very much, posed the exact same scenario. I promise I didn't lift it from her.

Update 2: Commenter Treifalicious makes the point that I'm describing Gaza more than the current border conflict with Lebanon. She is correct. So update the above scenario to include a related group of terrorists operating out of lower Ontario and British Columbia. Now imagine they're both attacking the US. (It helps to think of the US as no wider than New Jersey the way Israel is.)

a fleeting moment of clarity

Looking at these last few posts, it seems like I'm nitpicking. Why should a lecture on kol isha and one rabbi's opinion (not even the head rabbi) about not going to a block party scare me away? But it all adds up over time. It occurs to me that we don't have a problem with the religious aspect of frum Judaism - it's just the cultural baggage that goes with it. Any religion, after all, is more than just prayers to God and proscribed rituals. There's a social aspect, too. It's the other people in your house of worship, the parents and children, the nice people and the jerks.

This is only the second Jewish community I've lived in. The Seattle community was Chabad and more lenient. This one is yeshivish and quite strict. Are the experiences I've decribed typical, I wonder?

maybe a little too far apart

My wife and I were sitting around the rabbi's table one typical Shabbos afternoon. I liked this rabbi and learned much from him and his family, but they were always much more conservative than us. Not so much politically - indeed, I haven't even gotten to how this whole ba'al teshuvah experience has made me understand the conservative point of view - but culturally. Still, the rabbi could surprise you - comparing comic book characters to Torah stories, for instance.

We had just moved into our new house. There was a block party coming up. We didn't really know anyone in the neighborhood besides our friends from shul, and it seemed like a good opportunity to meet the neighbors. My wife was wondering, however, if the Jewish community comes out to those sorts of things. She asked the rabbi if it was a good idea to go.

The rabbi's answer? No. The local Jewish community doesn't attend such things.

"You see, we should always remember that we are a people apart," he said. Meaning: we can live in the secular world, but we shouldn't take on too many of their customs. Including, apparently, block parties attended by non-Jews serving nonkosher food.

My wife and I looked at each other, secretly shocked.

A people apart. Certainly we were that when we left Egypt, and to an extent we've remained so ever since - by choice or otherwise. Take Germany. In the 1800s, it was the center of secular Jewish life. Reform Judaism started there. And we all know how well the Jews ultimately fared in Germany, right? So it's perfectly reasonable that Jews should stick together. After all, if history is any guide, the Jews get blamed for everything. We own the banking system and secretly run a Zionist Occupied Government, yet we are "bloodsuckers" in our host lands. In Europe we were told to go back where we came from - but when we did that in 1948, we were attacked and have been ever since. Here in America we are accepted, a few Jew-and-Israel-hating bigots nonwithstanding, but the old myths and lies never died in the Middle East and even parts of Europe.

I want to see the Jews survive. I wouldn't want my daughters intermarrying or converting. I'd like them to see Judaism as an integrated part of their lives. I want to keep growing myself. But what does any of this have to do with block parties in our neighborhoods? We may be Jews, but we're also Americans and most of us live in integrated communities. What good does it do to shield ourselves from our neighbors to the extent that we stay inside while the rest of the neighborhood mingles outside? I didn't understand it, and it made me angry.

As it turned out, it rained the afternoon of the block party, so attendance was down anyway. But I resented the fact that people we otherwise respected were taking the concept of "a people apart" in its most literal, arrogant, passive-aggressive form. We can't set up a kosher food table? We can't hang out with our non-Jewish neighbors? You never know when you'll lock yourself out of your house and need their help.

That was one thing Chabad had over the yeshivish world - they actively participated in community activities. It was part of their outreach: you never knew when you'd meet and touch unaffiliated Jews. That's why they have the mitzvah tanks and put up those big menorahs every Hanukkah. When the Olympics came to Salt Lake City, the local Chabad rabbi was at the stadium wrapping tefillin and arranging for kosher meals and Shabbos lodging. I don't know if the local Chabadniks took part in this block party, but I'm certain they would have seen it as an opportunity rather than something to be shunned.

This experience made me think about the thin line between self-preservation and insularity. It wasn't quite the Satmars, but it was getting close. And it was a symptom of something else I had been noticing more and more - the tendency to dismiss almost anything non-Jewish as "goyishe," and therefore to be avoided. Except the descriptions of these goyishe forbidden pleasures were simply wrong. Movies were two-hour chunks of nonstop sex and violence. Television was a cancer that would ultimately destroy your whole house. Music was all about decadence and rebellion. Sporting events were simply bittul torah - frivolous wastes of time that take one away from learning Torah. (Think about that before seeing your next Cardinals game.) It was just too much. And it was inaccurate. Too many rabbis, community leaders and editorial writers were making grand pronoucements that simply didn't match reality.

It seems to me that if you're dealing with ba'al teshuvot, none of this is a good idea. We may be secular, but we're savvy, we have standards of taste and it's insulting to suggest we go for the lowest common denominator.

totally crossed out

My wife sent me this article this morning:

Piety blurs the female face in haredi catalogues

This is fine with the president of Feldheim Publishers, one of the major Jewish book publishers. "For me, women walking around half naked is a million times worse than being a little overstringent," he says. I have two problems with this attitude:

* First, I'm positive that he's exaggerating about the half-naked women. Whatever he's seeing in Ben Yehuda, most of it probably doesn't qualify as that prurient. He's probably referring to short-sleeved shirts or, like, exposed women's hair.

* Second: a little overstringent? Blurring female faces, censoring images of even infant girls, and refusing to stock excellent books like The Magic Touch - which explains the practice of not touching members of the opposite sex in reasonable lay terms - is a little overstringent?? Try insulting and belittling. When you actively and obviously cross women out of your newspaper or catalog...well, how exactly does that demonstrate the kind of high respect for women that the Torah commands?

I understand that the haredi community has strict standards regarding modesty. I understand that these standards are often in conflict with modern Western feminist principles. I even get some of it: it's hard to concentrate on davening when staring at the hot girl a few rows ahead of you in shul. But the above doesn't encourage respect for women. Instead it implies that they're not even part of the community. It's closer to what you'd expect from the Taliban or Israel's sharia-oriented neighbors.

I wondered all night about you

How long will you stumble along both thought-paths? If Hashem is the Lord then follow Him, and if the Baal, then follow it! (I Kings 18:21)

That's from my favorite Haftorah. Ironic, given the state I was in when we moved to St. Louis.

As much as I was attracted to the idea of a "portable Judaism," what really happened was that I ended up with two separate and distinct lives. There was my frum world of Shabbos, kashrus and Torah. Then there was my secular world of work, music and popular entertainment. Rarely did the twain meet.

To my shul friends, I did not try to explain my record collection, the fanzines I wrote and published, my old band and the live shows we played. They didn't understand. Or they thought of it as something I'd gradually lose as I became more frum. To my secular friends I didn't exactly keep my growing observance a secret, but I didn't initiate conversations about it, either. They tend to be left-liberal in political persuasion; many are Jews, but virtually none are practicing. Some are openly hostile to organized religion. A very, very few (well, just one) have some background with Orthodoxy. But I could envision taking my secular Jewish friends to shul; they might get a kick out of it. I could not, in my wildest dreams, envision taking my shul friends to see the Mountain Goats.

Even before the whole kol isha thing, I wasn't sure how I could possibly integrate these two worlds. This dilemma hit its most ridiculous extreme when we went to Chicago in late 2003.

Belle & Sebastian is my wife's and my favorite band. A few months after we moved to the Midwest, they announced a Chicago show, so that was our excuse to visit. Before we left, we also made plans to spend Shabbos with a local Jewish family. We saw the Belle & Sebastian show on a Thursday night. They were just magnificent - this was just after Dear Catastrophe Waitress came out, which is one of my favorite CDs, and they did not disappoint. Friday I poked around Wicker Park's record and bookshops while my wife did some shopping downtown. Friday night we went to West Rogers Park and met up with the family that was hosting us.

Shabbos was pretty awkward. The shul was in a converted pizza restaurant, which I actually thought was pretty cool. But the family we stayed with was...well, not as joyous as you'd want for Shabbos. Dinner was rather somber; as opposed to the extravagant meals at the Yaris or our Seattle rabbi's house, this was just the husband, wife and their one child, and no one really said much. Again and again on Saturday, people asked us what we were doing in Chicago; not in a nasty way, just curious. We couldn't exactly say that we traveled 5 hours to see our favorite rock band play, so we just mumbled something about seeing the city together for the first time.

I can't speak for my wife, but to me, Shabbos didn't feel particularly special or joyous in West Rogers Park that weekend. It just felt like...well, the thing that you do on Friday night or Saturday. It wasn't all bad, but my very favorite moments had little to do with Shabbos: the walks we took by ourselves, and the wonderfully long Shabbos nap before mincha and shalosh seudah.

Perhaps our own shyness contributed to this bad experience. Perhaps if we'd enthused about the things we really liked, that would have broken the ice. Perhaps I should have done this all along. But although we hadn't admitted it yet, I think we both felt intimidated by this entire scene - I know I did. Only motzei Shabbos, when we retired to Gino's East for some traife stuffed pizza, did I feel like myself again.

kol isha

(I'm going to discontinue the "history lesson" format. Unless I say otherwise, just assume we're in St. Louis now.)

When I look back on when I really started to become disenchanted with orthodoxy, it's pretty clear that the laws of kol isha had much to do with it. In a nutshell, men are not allowed to listen to women's singing voices. Hearing a woman sing is tantamount to seeing her naked; women can sing for each other and you can listen to your wife sing, but no other woman. That's a very surface explanation, and I'm heartened that there is debate about it online (some say this only applies to the Shema, and others question whether it applies to recorded music), but it's generally understood as it's written: if you're a man, no women's singing voices.

Those of you who know me must be chuckling at the irony.

I've been obsessed with music since age 13. I'm going to be 40 soon. During that time, most if not all of my favorite groups or performers have been women. When I did a college radio show, I had a reputation as "the guy who only plays girl groups" (which was inaccurate, but I wore it proudly). As a music writer, I've written extensively about all-female and coed bands. Take the women out of my CD collection, and you're left with almost nothing.

After hearing a lecture on kol isha at my shul, I left with the sinking feeling that this was one Torah law I would not keep. Clearly this was different from some of the other differences I had with Torah thought. The whole thing about homosexuality being an abomination - I didn't agree with that, either, but I was able to intellectualize it and agree to disagree, perhaps because I had no such temptation myself. And I didn't really see the value in such strict separation between the genders, which seemed to place "impure thoughts" where none would have existed otherwise. But this one hit too close to home.

A law like kol isha gave me two stark choices. Either I could go on listening to my music and understand that I'm a hypocrite according to the Torah for not accepting it in its entirety. Or I could sell most of my CDs, stop going to concerts, erase most of my iPod hard drive, and delete most of my links to music websites. It was a challenge - you could even say a God-given challenge - and I knew I was not up to it. Give up listening to Young Marble Giants, The Raincoats, Richard & Linda Thompson, Scrawl, Shop Assistants, and who knows how many others? No Shangri-Las or Phil Spector girl groups? No Patsy Cline or Carter Family? It simply. Wasn't. Going. To happen. Ever. I'd always falter, and I knew it. Had I occasionally developed crushes on female singers in the past? Absolutely. But not usually. And never once did I ever experience the kind of prurient attraction of which the Torah warns. It just doesn't give men enough credit as multidimensional beings who are capable of interacting with women as equals.

And, you know, if I hadn't had kids on the way, I might have even been able to accept that bit of hypocrisy within myself. But with my first daughter on the way, I was thinking about the importance of being consistent and logical in rearing her. We were already quite a bit more secular then many in our community - we had a TV, for instance. I didn't want her to hear Daddy listening to his One Kiss Can Lead To Another box set, only to be told in class that what Daddy does for his hobby is tantamount to seeing another woman naked. It just set up too many problems in terms of mixed messages.

I know that part of being a ba'al teshuvah is growing and stumbling. But this wasn't me trying to live up to a mitzvah or a Torah edict. This was me actively rejecting something about which the Torah felt strongly enough to include. Not even the most vociferous debate was going to take kol isha away. I could give up driving and turning on lights for Shabbos; I could keep the meat and milk separated at home; I could fast all Yom Kippur and give up leavened bread for 8 days on Passover. But when asked to basically give up the music I loved, I reached my brick wall.

Update: Cheers to the Weird Jews Livejournal group, who've posted lots of interesting and thoughtful comments about this.

chazak, chazak, venischazek

Thanks, everyone, for your kind comments. I guess I was getting discouraged, and it's nice to know that there are other people reading besides the vocal minority. I'll continue at my usual lazy pace, then. Hope everyone enjoyed some cheesecake for Shavuos.

religious clown thing

I'm getting bored with doing this blog, and am really discouraged with the comments I've been receiving. I may pull the plug soon.