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Forbidden Desires
Orthodox Judaism keeps husband and wife apart and passion alive.
by Lynne Meredith Schreiber
So there I was, on the lawn between two play structures, my children taking drags of water from sippy cups and ambling off to climb and slide and squeal. My heart ached for these women who were so lonely in their relationships, who felt desexualized from breastfeeding babies, whose hormones had killed their libido. I couldn’t imagine 27 months without Avy’s touch–12 days is an eternity.
Every system can strangle you if you let it, and I had just been complaining to Avy about the strictures of our religious sex life. “So what if I pass you the ketchup!” I spat. “It’s not going to make me have sex with you right here.”
“I kinda like having these nuances,” my husband said quietly. “I miss you, but it’s exciting when I can just come up behind you at the sink, lift your hair, and nuzzle your neck. Hell, holding your hand makes me want you. Would that happen if we didn’t do this?”
I was quiet. Religion is hard, which is why so many people don’t practice it. But there is joy in it, too–which is why I joined the thousands of ba’alei teshuvah, Jews who abandon secular life for the incredible passion that results from devotion to the Torah. And Avy was reminding me of one of the greatest joys: sex.
I am ready. I take off my clothes and fill the bathtub. After a 45-minute soak, full of peaceful reading, then scrubbing, combing, and rinsing, I am ready to descend into the mikvah’s waters. I follow a woman down a silent, tiled hall until I reach an unmarked door and walk through it. Bright light bounces off the white ceiling. I take off my robe and step in until the water reaches my shoulders. I can hear my breath echo against the wall.
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1 anonymous // May 11, 2008 at 12:26 am
In defense of the author:
Yes, she wrote this beautiful piece, and now since she is divorcing it seems like it’s just hypocritical hogwash.
Going through something similar myself – I have to say, quite the opposite is true. You see, these observances and the powerful intimacy they create are so amazing that they can even fool you when there is little true intimacy in a marriage.
I am going through a divorce after 14 years of marriage, during which we kept these same observances. I realize now that if not for them (these laws and rituals) I probably would be divorcing a whole lot sooner. For me this was not a good thing, this illusion of intimacy – it backfired because I got married and got religious for the wrong reasons, namely to get away from feeling so lonely (the author, it seems, made similar errors). But that was MY mistake. If the foundation is not good, nothing can save the relationship…. But probably the intention here was to help couples whose foundation is good, to keep the “magic” of love and desire going. If you are truly in love with your spouse, but the daily grind gets in the way of really feeling that love, who wouldn’t welcome a little illusion to help them feel reality? Isn’t that what mood lighting and music do too…
But illusion to mask reality… ah, that’s dangerous.
We wouldn’t negate the effectiveness of candles and sexy music just because the couple later broke up. In fact it shows what such methods can do, for better or for worse – that’s up to us.
2 Anon // Mar 27, 2008 at 3:38 am
Here’s what she says about her “wonderful” husband now via her blog: “My three children – gifts, all – will learn in time that their father does not have it together. They will be disappointed by him….But I know there will be pockets of dangling when I’ll have to remember why I ended my marriage in the first place: because I deserve more than a life of loneliness.” This is why you don’t write articles about how your marriage is morally superior to everyone else’s. I feel bad for her and her kids.
3 Jeanne // Mar 22, 2008 at 1:17 pm
If you read the author’s blog, she notes that she is now in the middle of divorcing her husband! So much for the ancient Jewish laws keeping their marriage hot. This article was only published about 1.5 years ago, and Schreiber tells us how happy her marriage is. But it does now sound that she has been unhappy for a long time, judging from her blog, so it is curious why she even bothered to write this article at all.
The moral of the story seems to be that becoming Orthodox didn’t guarantee her the husband of her dreams. It struck me as a very peculiar reason to become orthodox in the first place, or her idea that orthodox men were somehow a step above the average. Perhaps now is a good time for Schreiber to reconsider what she wants in her religious faith and in a husband.
4 Yerushalayim Yocheved // Jan 11, 2008 at 6:34 pm
I converted to orthodox Judaism when I was 21 years old, was “dunked” in the mikvah by the Holy Beit Din of Yerushalayim Ir HaKodesh for my conversion. I believed that I had found G-d. I was devout and devoted to both othodox Judaism and my husband. Instead I found a closed community ruled by men. [Thank you Anonymous Commentor #5.]
I left Jewish practice because my husband was anything like Ms. Schreiber’s. [Thank you Anonymous Commentor #9.]
My cycle was irregular during my orthodox marriage and continued to be so up until I had a hysterectomy at the age of 42. [Halleluyah, I wish I had done this immediatly after my second daughter was born, what a relief!]
This was a biological problem that orthodox Judaism could not and would not help me with the situation–12 days! Hah! I would have welcomed 12 days. Try 6 months, then going to the mikveh and that very night before intercourse becoming tameh again, or how about right after this first intercourse and having to separate the beds again and go another 4 months. My downstairs neighbor complained about the sound of us pushing the beds together and then pulling them apart so quickly. [She didn’t know why, thank G-d.]
Per my husband’s orders, my b’dikah cloths andor underweear had to be shown to nothing less than the Chief Rabbi . . . talk about daunting when your husband is away for miluim and one spots frequently as I did. I never hit my fertile “period” since I ovulated so irregularly and could not have sex the majority of the time. I only go pregnant when (1) I was coming off of birth-control pills [the only way to have a regular period, and, yes, they were sanctioned by the Chief Rabbi too!] and (2) when I took ferility pills to make me ovulate. Thank G-d I only had these two children in hindsight (and I thank G-d that I do have two lovely grown-up daughters). But it was quite a shanda to have to explain why I wasn’t pregnant, wasn’t pregnant, wasn’t pregnant, no I was just fat . . .
Thank you Commentor #16, my husband didn’t “really” love me, he did nothing to make our marriage exciting, and even posited that the problems I was having with irregular periods and spotting was G-d punishing him (my husband) for his having gotten two prior girlfriends pregnant and having abortions before he “hashav b’tshuva.”
My conversations with other orthodox wives and Rabbis were met with pitying signs and the few offers of assistance from Rabbis were overruled by by husband as not being good enough, since they were not the Chief Rabbi [have I mentioned how hard it was to get an appointment with him, get a babysitter, take 2 buses in the Jerusalem rain to show him a cloth that had been in my vagina?!?].
Last but not least, while I live and let live and I know that G-d loves me and all of creation (no mistakes), when people who have not lived this life ask me about it, I give them the example that if I as a woman have to cover MY elbows (guard the mitzvah!) so that a man, my husband or otherwise, would not get turned on by seeing a woman’s ELBOW (!), there is something wrong with that allegedly pious man and with the rules that dictate this. This is why I left practice and my husband (there were obviously personal conflicts here too! LOL!).
I will be Jewish according to Judaism forever. I prefer to think of myself as a precious child of G-d and an Israeli.
Cheers!
Yocheved
P.S. Both of my daughters have thanked me on numerous occasions for taking them out of orthodox Judaism and only now as adults do they feel comfortable re-establishing a relationship with their still orthodox. . . Rabbi. . . Abba, because they have control of their own lives.
Also, recommended viewing, “Kadosh,” it’s on DVD . . . oh, wait, can you watch movies?!?!?
5 C. Ville Edde // Jan 9, 2008 at 7:35 am
I am a man who has been happily married for 55 years. And I am an atheist, while my wife is a Catholic. I am a lay student of theology and anthropology, along with two degrees and 5 majors, all in science. I found this article to be a beautiful statement of a woman’s commitment to her religion and to her husband. Many thanks for sharing it.
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