I'm a good Jew but...

amother

Thu, Jul 24 2014, 7:05 pm

I think I'm a nice Jewish woman but I can't wrap my head around certain halachos. It makes me feel like a semi-apikoras but what should I do? For example, I am worried sick about fasting on Tisha B'Av. I am nursing a baby and I get so weak if I merely am late with a meal, and I must drink like two gallons of water a day. How am I supposed to manage with the fast? I know I could ask a Rav for a heter, but why isn't there a free pass for nursing mothers, for example? Why must we always have to ask for heterim for everything? Why can't there just be get out of jail cards for certain people with special needs. Why do I have to ask for a heter for BC (I don't, btw), why do I need a heter to take a medication on Pesach if I am pregnant, etc.?

I guess I'm a bad girl because I don't ask for heterim when it comes to BC. I know my own body and what I am capable of right now - whereas my Rav doesn't. I am just scared he'd have given me a 6-month heter at the very least - which isn't good enough for me. So I just didn't ask and that was that.

I also listen to music in the three weeks because otherwise I feel down. I need to cope with certain stressful stuff and the not listening to music rule just doesn't work for me. I know I can't pick and choose what to do and what not to do, but this is just too hard for me. And there's no actual prohibition of listening to music in the three weeks, is there?

I feel like such a bad girl but I also have complaints Wink

thanks for listening to my vent.

mummiedearest

Thu, Jul 24 2014, 7:12 pm

amother wrote:

thanks for listening to my vent.

ok, fasting on tisha b'av when nursing is not held to be necessary by all rabbanim. my rav told me to try. if it isn't working, take shiurim. if that doesn't work, eat with no guilt. he also said the reason he told me to do it this way was out of respect for the general minhag of the country, but that in other countries they are more lenient.

not everyone holds that heterim for bc are necessary.

music in the three weeks: I have definitely heard of people being told to do so if it affects their mental health.

I don't think you are a "bad girl." I think you need to find a rav who is patient enough to explain halacha to you without making you feel stupid. I happen to have just such a rav. when I ask a question, he often thanks me for it. (I tend to ask unusual questions.) asking a question like this is more about learning the halacha than about "asking permission." any rav who makes you feel like he can give you permission is not going to be a good rav for you.

monseychick

Thu, Jul 24 2014, 10:15 pm

amother wrote:

thanks for listening to my vent.

BC... Im not going to touch. Its a hot potatoe. But, music is live music with instruments, not electronics, and according to many poskim, you can be lenient till shavua she chal bo.

I was always taught, common sense, use your head. There are tons of english seforim to look up things like this. Are you as quick to ask the rov about hurting another lady's feelings because shes not your "type" or as cool as your friends...

amother

Fri, Jul 25 2014, 3:16 am

Im a good jew (I hope), ask shailos, keep TH, work on Shalom Bays, do my best in chinuch, keep shabbos, kashrus, Im fasting, ask for heterim, blablabla
I teach giorets and BT-women
BUT ::::

I find it very very very very very VERY difficult to cover my hair at home (when alone or with my baby).
Obviously when dh is arround or other ppl, I cover my hair. But when Im alone I just CANT. I find it uncomfortable, tichels tend to constatly fall off my head, I sweat in them , I dont wanna ruin my shaitel when Im cooking or just lying on the couch or nursing in bed etc.

My conscience is killing me but thats just such a difficult task for me (other tsniut related things, like skirtlength, bulletproof tights, necklines, sleeves, colors etc never caused a problem). I would say I dress boring/modestly (thats just my style and I dont care), but KISUI AT HOME is challenging!!!!!

Any advice??

anon cos Im so embarrassed of this problem and I hope IRL nobody knows (well dh knows, I quetch about tichels allt he time )

heidi

Fri, Jul 25 2014, 3:26 am

amother wrote:

Is this a joke?

amother

Fri, Jul 25 2014, 4:59 am

I also get upset sometimes, and feel that it's "a man's world". Eating matza, grape juice and lettuce in the middle of the night, when in first trimester is one of the most traumatizing experiences of my life. Nursing a newborn in a pitch black room at my in-laws on a Friday night because we forgot to leave a light on.... I was ready to throw my snood out the window and yell, "I'm done!" Last year I fasted on Tisha B'av when in the very early stages of my first trimester, and I literally felt like I was dying. Why didn't I just start drinking and eating? I don't know. I didn't think it was okay.

Since then, I've found that the more I learn Halacha, the more I realize how much more lenient than I thought halacha is. For example, I just learned that pregnant or nursing women who have a hard time fasting should "drink first, ask later". Listening to music during the 3 weeks is not okay, however if a person needs to listen to a bit of music to avoid a depression, go for it. It's considered a medical necessity. About BC, if you have a boy and girl, you don't have to ask a shaila. Do what you feel is healthy and right for you.

The Rabbis are not out to get you with their month-by-month regulation of your fertility and hard line halachic demands. They are there to help you figure out what the Torah wants from you. A Rabbi who just lays down the law about how many months you can use BC without discussing the situation with you and really understanding who you are, is not the type of Rabbi to ask.

eschaya

Fri, Jul 25 2014, 7:58 am

I think a big part of the problem OP - and many like her (including myself) - has is the way torah and halacha are taught to girls. In the mainstream frum world we are taught black and white, assur and muttar. Because we aren't taught torah she'beal peh, we don't understand the way halacha works and how current practices have been established. We just get the "final answer". Except, as I've slowly been discovering, halacha is a lot more fluid than that. Torah is a sorry excuse if all there is are sets of rules with the option of asking a "holy" man to negate those rules for us when we come crying in desperation and degraded. But real Torah is not like that, except that most frum girls aren't taught to be aware of that.
OP, the reason you are going to ask a rav all those questions is because you truly have not been taught how or where to search for the answers yourself. Of course there will always be the need for truly great Rabbanim who can answer the difficult and important questions, who have years of learning and experience that allows them to take heavy weights on their shoulders and make difficult decisions. But with regard to so many of your, and our, daily questions... you have the right and ability to learn and find out on your own what is baseline halacha, when circumstances will change halachic outcomes, and what questions are beyond the scope of our personal decisions. Because we don't have the education or background it seems sometimes like it is impossible, and I will admit that I resent our dis-education greatly, but we really have that right and ability.
I think that when you feel empowered with regard to your judaism and relationship to halacha you will feel a lot less resentful in general, and specifically to the times when something truly is assur (or required).

Peanut2

Fri, Jul 25 2014, 8:39 am

The use of the word heter has created some crazy form of Catholic-Judaism where we o the the priest-rabbi and ask for permission and forgiveness and all the rest. I call BS.

The whole idea of asking a rav - or any other more knowledgeable person - is about clarifying what is halacha. Yes, there are some poskim of great knowledge who might be able to actually (gasp!) create new halacha. But your rav is generally just saying the same thing over and over again. Sometimes he - or a greater rabbi - might actually have to apply the laws in a more challenging or novel way, or to a more challenging or new situation. But most of the time that doesn't happen.

Asking a question is just asking a question. There is no 'heter' - just being told that something is permissible.

So if I don't know what bracha to say over pineapple and ask a friend, she is just telling me what to do. (It's adama, right? I'm not actually sure I know the answer to this.)

If I'm not sure whether I am allowed to pull open a stroller canopy on shabbos, or wash my children's clothing on chul hamoed, or use my hands to crumble feta cheese on shabbat (or whether I'm allowed to make a yummy dairy meal on shabbat) - I ask. And if I ask a rav and he says yes, I am allowed to do all of the above, I might later say "I got a heter." Really all I was told is that doing so is permissible.

Now, people seem to use the word heter when the norm is assumed to be different. So if most people don't open their stroller canopies or crumble feta (that's a machloket, I think) or whatever, I ask and then use that phrase to indicate that this exception is permissible by halacha. But the rabbi here is just the one aware of different opinions and is relying on these opinions to tell you that something is permissible.

With something like birth control, for example, it can theoretically always be permissible to use birth control. The question is just whether it should be an exception to rely on the opinion that birth control is totally permissible, or whether lechatchila it is totally permissible. There is no clear answer. But birth control is totally permissible. (We also have a mitzva of having children, and a few other related mitzvot of not stopping to have children. And frum society views having children as something of great value, so that should be taken into account.) This whole 'asking for a heter' is nonsense. (If anything, it seems that in many communities women feel tremendous pressure to have children, even if it is not good for their health, emotional well-being, or the their shlom bayit, or the well-being of their other children. But that's a different issue.) But yes, if your outlook is that you should have as many children as possible with no birth control, and something comes up and you aren't sure what to do, it's a good idea to clarify things.

As for everything else - yes, people should fast on fast days, and not listen to music when it is forbidden. When I learned these halachot I learned a range of acceptable behavior, and the assumption was that we would be capable enough to know when to apply these halachot to standard situations. And if we are unsure, it's a good idea to speak to a knowledgeable person familiar with us and halacha, though not necessarily a rav. (And not for lack of rabbis. I live in a neighborhood where every man has smicha or was in the process of learning for smicha.) We learned a range of acceptable opinions regarding music, for example. When someone doesn't know - she asks. So a friend who suffered from anorexia talks to a rav often about what to do re fast days. And when I am pregnant or BF and kvetching during a fast I might just get told by whomever I am kvetching to that I should just eat. (Baby crying - TBC.)

Frumdoc

Sat, Jul 26 2014, 6:52 pm

Peanut2 wrote:

Agree, agree, agree.

The halachic wranglings are far more convoluted and complex than we know, hence, the more learned the Rav or posek, the more able to find a precedent or appropriate interpretation of the law to find you an answer that fits your needs.

A heter is not a "get out of jail" card, it is an interpretation of the law in your particular circumstance that allows you to do what you are requesting, usually a leniency of one sort or another.

Hence, the law is the law, but interpretations can vary, circumstances will always vary, so a ruling may vary, but it isn't that you personally are being excused from your obligation, it is that your circumstance means that you are not obliged or excuses you.

This may sound pedantic, the difference between you as a person being excused or your circumstance excusing you, but it is a fundamental difference in the way Jewish law works and the way other religions, in particular Christianity, with its system of personal dispensations which enable individuals to be exempt from their obligations, a heter is a legal kulah that means you are not obliged.

Asking a Rav is the equivalent of asking the legal expert, in halachic shailos. It is so important to be aware of this distinction, or we become subject to an ethos where the laws are not universally applicable, which is dangerously close to those streams of Judaism which do not hold by authentic halacha.

Frumdoc

Sat, Jul 26 2014, 7:04 pm

PS, for the OP.

You are a good person who struggles with some of her obligations. Like all of us. Outside extreme examples, there is no such thing as a good or bad jew, just people who succeed more or less in following the law.

The things you say you struggle with, such as covering hair when no one is home, are not necessarily mainstream halacha. It is worth confirming what is absolutely necessary, what is d'oriasa and d'rabannan, what is your community norm, what is stricter or "praiseworthy" but not obliged by halacha , learning how to negotiate what you can and can't do from a personal level, and finding someone who can guide you from where you are to where you want to be.

No one here can tell you what the halacha is for your circumstance, as we all have different community norms, but it is normal and common to struggle with one or more areas, and rather than call yourself "a bad jew", tell yourself you have an issue with xyz, and this is what Hashem has sent to test you right now, and working on understanding and keeping this mitzva in the way that is right for you will help you grow in many ways, which is the only path Hashem wants from us, to work on growing, developing our practice of Yddishkeit.

amother

Sat, Jul 26 2014, 7:21 pm

amother wrote:

I am a bad faster, I have fasted through 6 pregnancies, and numerous years nursing. I never needed a heter until I was diagnosed with cancer and the time I had a baby right before 9 av. I even fasted at 41.2 weeks. Count your blessings that you have a bracha and thats why you are fasting.

There is no get out of jail free for any halacha, why pick on fasting.

Amother so as not to announce my medical condition to the world.

Im oh so glad that you think you can judge. I have ended nearly all of my fasts vomiting and nauseous, and miserably sick after I did eat and drink, and miserable the next day. I lived through hypermesis with all my pregnancies, and was still told to fast, so I did. I actually was so sick that I passed out the day before the fast, in a crowded store. I still had to fast. It was miserable. All I could think was how badly I needed to drin for 26 hours. then I drank after the fast, and threw up non stop for three days.

Yeah I know what bad fasting was like. I even had to fast YK with 103 fever, throwing up, and unable to drink even enough to take tylenol.

Please you are not the only one who fasts badly. I never resented it. I did my best to stay in bed and hydrate the day before. every fast was 3 days of misery for me. I still wish I was healthy enough to fast this one. Instead, I will be on an active cycle of chemo. so yes Count your blessings and do your best.