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ven

Thu, Jun 11 2015, 6:23 pm

Okey , I got so nosy I bought the book in the play store on my phone.
What a wonderfull and heart wrenching book. I never once thought he was being unrespectfull . Just plainly stating how sheltered the community is and what they ( don' t) tell chossons just before wedding. I so feel for this man. Leaving kids behind must be very very hard

Barbara

Thu, Jun 11 2015, 7:17 pm

Raisin wrote:

So, you would be ok with a former boyfriend or husband publishing a book about you or one of your loved ones, in which s-xual details etc are mentioned?

There are no z3xual details in the book. He's quite discrete, referring to his own inadequacies and fumbling, but far from prurient. His reference to his ex-wife, and to her first pregnancy, "we had created love," is one of the loveliest, most romantic sentiments I've ever read. I most assuredly would not mind anyone writing that about me.

rosehill

Thu, Jun 11 2015, 7:25 pm

I haven't read the book, or even most of this thread, but isn't it possible he asked his ex-wife's consent before writing /publishing the book? Is anyone aware that she has expressed displeasure about her portrayal?

sourstix

Thu, Jun 11 2015, 8:35 pm

maya I must comment on a post you wrote on page 2. chasidish pp dont have to ask their rebbe for a name for their child. so untrue. those who choose do so. I actually didnt. I discussed it before my children were born. and I gave the names I wanted. neither did my parents. and my father is very chasidish. not satmar or skvere. there are reasons they ask their rebbe. its not a place here. but to say they have no choice?! thats absolute absurdity. I grew up chasidish. never did I hear or feel this way. cut it out. and btw the forward magazine is an antisemitic paper. spreading it all over the news is disgusting. and a real chilul hashem. there is nothing to gain from it.

PinkFridge

Thu, Jun 11 2015, 8:38 pm

Maya wrote:

Please, let's not deny that these issues are rampant in the Chassidish world, especially in the really insular sects. Trying to minimize it by claiming it's just one couple's problem with communication is wrong.

Though that definitely exacerbated things. I still have 2 pages to go, and a while before I can even reserve the book because only one library in the system has it and it's still considered too new to go out of their district. But what I gather is that while he had a troubled youth, he seems to be fairly healthy and not vindictive. Which sounds refreshing. And makes me take this post seriously. (Though I am with Tablepoetry who said something that's been said before, about how it doesn't seem unfair to his wife; she said it exceptionally well.)

PinkFridge

Thu, Jun 11 2015, 8:45 pm

Barbara wrote:

From what I gather, what he writes is relatively tasteful. Relatively being the operative word. Still seems disconcerting to me.

Maya

Thu, Jun 11 2015, 8:53 pm

sourstix wrote:

I read through all of page two and three, and nowhere did I say that all Chassidish people ask their rebbe which name to give. I think you're imagining things.

sourstix

Thu, Jun 11 2015, 8:54 pm

[quote="debsey"]You don't think they had to decide whether or not to take this advice and actually move? They could have stayed in Willy but her husband had an excellent job opportunity here. Being from the culture they are from, they spoke to whoever was their adviser and made their decision to move.

When I ask a shayla or more specifically, an "eitzah" from a gadol, I don't necessarily have to follow it. I have to figure out how and when and where to implement, how much to implement, and whether or not I can make it work. All of that takes critical thinking.[/quote]

if you ask a shayla and dont follow what good is asking? if you respect this person why wont you follow his advice? my parents taught me that if you ask a rebbe then be prepared to follow if you arent prepared then dont ask. it isnt kavod. you are free not to ask. a gadol that has yiras shamayim and is a talmid chochom is respected for all this. and pp therefore give him the respect and ask him for guidance. we have a lot of respect for the gedolim that are sincere. we give over our critical thinking to them at that point. they have experience in areas you wouldnt believe. some in medicine and some in business. and they havent gone to college. so yes we respect and look up to our gedolim. are there holes in the system? yes and I have experienced them myself on my own skin. but you cant take away chochma and respect for torah. and btw gemora teaches critical thinking.

sourstix

Thu, Jun 11 2015, 8:58 pm

[quote="Maya"]In other words, a Litvish gadol gives an eitzah, and a Chassidish rebbe gives a psak. That's the bottom line difference.

Do you know that the Bobov rebbe in Boro Park has a new game he plays? He asks of random newly married men to put on veise zocken and asks their wives to cover their sheitels with a hat. He doesn't suggest, he demands. I would imagine very few, if any, couples deny him the request. That's just the way it works. You can't compare it to an eitzah given by a Litvish rav whose suggestion you can then mull over and think about and come to your own conclusions and decisions.[/quote]

be very very careful not to mention names. its ok to be frustrated and discuss it. trust me I have my share of frustrations in this system.

PinkFridge

Thu, Jun 11 2015, 8:59 pm

Sourstix, there is a difference between asking for a psak and asking for eitzah. A psak means you are prepared to follow what the rav says. An eitzah means you want to make the decision yourself but value the input of someone with greater insight who knows you well. It's like a consultation. The former is re halachic issues, the latter is not necessarily. (Think in terms of which school to send a child to.)

octopus

Thu, Jun 11 2015, 9:07 pm

PinkFridge wrote:

see this is the litvish mentality. exactly how pinkfridge said. people with a chassidishe background will sound exactly like sourstix. It's just a different mentality.

amother

Peach

Thu, Jun 11 2015, 9:16 pm

sourstix wrote:

if you ask a shayla and dont follow what good is asking? if you respect this person why wont you follow his advice? my parents taught me that if you ask a rebbe then be prepared to follow if you arent prepared then dont ask. it isnt kavod. you are free not to ask. a gadol that has yiras shamayim and is a talmid chochom is respected for all this. and pp therefore give him the respect and ask him for guidance. we have a lot of respect for the gedolim that are sincere. we give over our critical thinking to them at that point. they have experience in areas you wouldnt believe. some in medicine and some in business. and they havent gone to college. so yes we respect and look up to our gedolim. are there holes in the system? yes and I have experienced them myself on my own skin. but you cant take away chochma and respect for torah. and btw gemora teaches critical thinking.

I knew a guy whose rebbe told him not to do gastric bypass surgery for weight loss even though his health was at great risk. A few years later he came to his senses and decided that perhaps doctors orders are more important, but before he could have the surgery, he died in his 60s of a heart attack likely brought on by his obesity. That rebbe killed him with his "sincere" advice, great "chochma" and "medical experience."

marina

Thu, Jun 11 2015, 10:26 pm

Barbara wrote:

I loved that part too

marina

Thu, Jun 11 2015, 10:34 pm

zaq wrote:

This is in fact the one thing for which I cannot forgive Deen. If he had written under a pseudonym and disguised the community, people who knew them may have conjectured but would have had no proof. Laying such intimate moments bare to the gaze of the world is IMO an even bigger betrayal of his ex-wife than going OTD. A diary is one thing and a memoir another. In the interest of --what? Gaining readership? Satisfying the publisher's minimum requirement of prurient-interest?-- Deen sacrifices the dignity, modesty and privacy of an innocent woman in whose world dignity, modesty and privacy are everything. There was no need to go into such specifics. Shame on him.

If he had written under a pseudonym, it would be like people using amother here- no one would have believed him and they would have made fun of him.

He did not disguise himself because he is honest.

And about the wife- I understand your point, she is probably very uncomfortable with the book. But what do you expect? He wrote a memoir. A critical piece of his life is his relationship with his wife and his family and how chassidic outlooks shaped his most intimate relationship... do you really expect him just to skip it? It's not about prurient interests at all. It's about painting a whole picture, explaining the entire gestalt. Trust me, people who are looking for prurient interests would look in vain in this memoir.

And also about the wife? Cry me a river. She alienated his kids. She took away from him what he valued most and she did it just because she was told to by religious people. So yeah, now we all know that they didn't have the best romantic life and they were confused and awkward and uncommunicative. I'm not crying in bed over her.

amother

Violet

Thu, Jun 11 2015, 11:04 pm

I agree with sourstix that chassidim do not necessarily ask how to name their babies. (I didn't check where in the thread it was previously mentioned, and sorry for going off topic here.)

When we had a disagreement over the name by one of the kids my husband went in to our rebbe and asked his advice.

The rebbe said TO DO WHAT HIS WIFE WANTS (and I hadn't even been there to argue my points Wink

).

In the end my husband felt he had to give the name he preferred (the bris was on the yahrtzeit of this illustrious ancestor, bla bla bla) because the sign from Heaven (the bris date) was more to his liking than the rebbe's eitzah.

I have so much eyerolling to do about that whole incident, but one will suffice. Rolling Eyes

happybeingamom

Thu, Jun 11 2015, 11:26 pm

marina wrote:

Put yourself in her shoes and this is my take from reading the book since I don't know them.

As per the book she gave in and gave in. He basically did what he wanted. She tried so hard to be accommodating to keep the marriage going until it was not possible anymore.

Now putting myself in her shoes, after the divorce she might have reflected how she kept giving in and that was not enough. She could of said to herself I have been sacrificing my values to save this marriage but now the marriage is over I am going to bring up my children the way that I think is the best for them. This man my XDH just as he ignored my values in our home why should I trust him to respect my values now that we are not even married. Her feelings of betrayal made it very easy for her to listen to people who told her to alienate the children from him.

Honestly I can't blame her for what she did and the older children who were aware what happened very likely felt betrayed by him. I could see that they feel he chose his beliefs over them. There is a good chance they felt abandoned. (He writes about how his daughters were very unhappy in Monsey as the girls were so different then them.)

Based on the book Deen did not know how to respect a wife (I don't blame him for this because I don't see were he ever saw interactions between husband and wife to know how to act as a husband. His Chasson class based on what he wrote were absurd). This self absorbed behavior in my opinion led him into the situation that he is now.

I do feel bad for him because I don't feel he was being malicious rather that he had no clue how to be a husband. As I wrote earlier in the thread this is one sad story, you can just cry.

marina

Fri, Jun 12 2015, 12:24 am

happybeingamom wrote:

He very very clearly did not realize he would lose his children over the religion thing. He thought they would just work it out- because he was naive. Read more here http://tabletmag.com/jewish-ne.....rents

And although it's normal for the New Square community -apparently- to alienate nonfrum parents, it is objectively completely immoral and almost evil. And it doesn't make it any better to say,"well, hey, what do you expect it's New Square and his daughters probably felt betrayed blah blah blah" That's like saying, yeah so sad that the girl got herself honor-killed, but it's normal for that community, and yeah, her family probably felt betrayed.

To take away a child from a parent? To make the child hate the parent? Who does that? You know who does that? A woman who is married to a child rapist or an abuser. That's who takes the child away and never lets the father see the child again. Not a woman whose husband chooses to eat treife food or drive on saturday.

Just like you wouldn't alienate yourself from a child that went off the derech, you can't alienate the child from a parent who did that. Parental relationships do not depend on whether everyone in the triangle keeps shabbos and kashrus, do they?

And the other way too- if your spouse becomes religious and you divorce him and alienate the children because dad is now a religious fanatic who won't even drive on saturday- that is just as wrong and evil.

Gitty could have easily - but for her oppressive community - let the children see their father once a week. A sleepover on Wednesday night. He kept kosher in his home for their sake, did you know that? Okay, you don't want a sleepover, ok, just spend Sunday afternoons together. No. She couldn't do that. You know why? Because she has to make him out to be some big bad [non jew] in her children's eyes so they won't go off the derech too, so that means... he can't see them at all. Not every Sunday. Not every other Sunday. Not one Sunday a month for two hours. Not at all. Never.

Why are you defending that behavior? Why?

MagentaYenta

Fri, Jun 12 2015, 12:35 am

marina wrote:

Tablepoetry

Fri, Jun 12 2015, 1:55 am

I agree that there is no justification to destroying the children's relationship with their father.
I haven't read the book/blog, but I actually don't understand how it was possible to deny him visitation. Unless he did have visitation, but she so poisoned them against him that they didn't want to go?

I still think it's wrong and immoral to publish your bedroom secrets with your ex-wife for all the world to see. The covenant between husband and wife is that these things are forever private. Deen smashed that covenant to pieces.

That said, if I compare sins, yes it's worse to alienate your kids from their (caring, decent) father forever, than to kiss-and-tell.

ven

Fri, Jun 12 2015, 2:42 am

It shocks me that any community would want to install such severe opression on it' s members. Just to keep them in line. The ones in power will do anything to keep the money and people well under their influence. Free will and a mind of your own is nipped in the butt. This should be a source of anger and outrage and not one we should want or applaud. This human " want" for power and money is exactly the cause of destroyed lives. Nobody should be granted so much influence as it is well known to corrupt basic human rights and values.

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