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Why do women want to put on Tefilin?
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Dolly Welsh




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jun 29 2015, 11:59 am
It's not about "feeling special". It's much more complicated than that.

I mention a Chassidic story I may have heard (I'm not learned) about some sages who eliminated sx from the world by decree. They did that because sx and its stupid, messy contradictions seemed to be a contaminant and a defect. They insisted on sense. They cleaned it up. As you are trying to do.

Then cook came roaring in, ranting that there were no eggs on the farm. The hens had laid no eggs. What was she to do? What had these gentlemen done???

The sages understood they must reverse their decree, and did. The world can't be purified of its gender "nonsense" or there will be no eggs. No life.
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marina




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jun 29 2015, 1:00 pm
Dolly Welsh wrote:
It's not about "feeling special". It's much more complicated than that.

I mention a Chassidic story I may have heard (I'm not learned) about some sages who eliminated sx from the world by decree. They did that because sx and its stupid, messy contradictions seemed to be a contaminant and a defect. They insisted on sense. They cleaned it up. As you are trying to do.

Then cook came roaring in, ranting that there were no eggs on the farm. The hens had laid no eggs. What was she to do? What had these gentlemen done???

The sages understood they must reverse their decree, and did. The world can't be purified of its gender "nonsense" or there will be no eggs. No life.


I don't know... I feel like people are still managing to have plenty of seks, even with the more fluid gender roles in society today. And I'm not particularly worried about the population dying out. But that's just me.
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MagentaYenta




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jun 29 2015, 1:15 pm
Dolly Welsh wrote:
... The world can't be purified of its gender "nonsense" or there will be no eggs. No life.


Can you try harder to be even more insulting? Rolling Eyes
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Dolly Welsh




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jun 29 2015, 1:16 pm
The JEWISH population is indeed a cooked goose, in all but Orthodox circles. It seems hard that ten percent of the Jews should have to produce the Jewish future.

I have no idea what your other statement means. Merely having sx isn't that hard, it's what comes afterward that requires more thought.

Neither is sx abundant after youth.

You're on a married website. We have a few here between husbands, but it is in general a very married population here, which, B"H, knows nothing of zxual deserts and dry spells you so airily and drily dismiss.

('m married too.)
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Dolly Welsh




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jun 29 2015, 1:20 pm
My remark to Green people is: if the human race wants to reduce its numbers for ecological reasons, I suppose it may, if it pleases, and good luck. Not my business.

But MY PEOPLE, the JEWS, are a measly 14 million people, a tiny crumb of humanity, and WE are not going to reduce one inch, or one diaper. NOT US.

I can be Green on occasion, but not about that. Not over here. Not in my house. Every Jew should have another baby. Here. Take a few. They're small.
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Dolly Welsh




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jun 29 2015, 1:23 pm
MagentaYenta wrote:
Can you try harder to be even more insulting? Rolling Eyes


Who or what did that insult? Eggs? Chassidim? Sx? I am in favor of all those things. I really don't understand what you mean.

You are amazed sx brings complications? It does bring them, in any and all communities. Or it can. This is news? You have read Romeo and Juliet. Well, that was an extreme case, but you get the idea.
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Barbara




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jun 29 2015, 1:26 pm
marina wrote:
I don't know... I feel like people are still managing to have plenty of seks, even with the more fluid gender roles in society today. And I'm not particularly worried about the population dying out. But that's just me.


First of all, I'm still ROFL* at the thought that the reason men would reverse a decree against z3x is so that they could have some yummy scrambled eggs. Especially since hens don't NEED to have z3x in order to produce eggs.

But in any case, I guess we're all aware of how the secular world, with its less defined gender roles, has become virtually celibate. People aren't having z3x anymore.
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Barbara




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jun 29 2015, 1:28 pm
Dolly Welsh wrote:
My remark to Green people is: if the human race wants to reduce its numbers for ecological reasons, I suppose it may, if it pleases, and good luck. Not my business.

But MY PEOPLE, the JEWS, are a measly 14 million people, a tiny crumb of humanity, and WE are not going to reduce one inch, or one diaper. NOT US.

I can be Green on occasion, but not about that. Not over here. Not in my house. Every Jew should have another baby. Here. Take a few. They're small.


I'll give you the name of a doctor right here in the US who is willing to work with women in their 50s and 60s, and who has successfully achieved pregnancy in even post-menopausal women. Send us photos of the new little ones.
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amother
Salmon


 

Post Mon, Jun 29 2015, 1:34 pm
Dolly Welsh wrote:
The JEWISH population is indeed a cooked goose, in all but Orthodox circles. It seems hard that ten percent of the Jews should have to produce the Jewish future.

I have no idea what your other statement means. Merely having sx isn't that hard, it's what comes afterward that requires more thought.

Neither is sx abundant after youth.

You're on a married website. We have a few here between husbands, but it is in general a very married population here, which, B"H, knows nothing of zxual deserts and dry spells you so airily and drily dismiss.

('m married too.)


I'm 51 and it's better than ever and as frequent.
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Dolly Welsh




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jun 29 2015, 2:02 pm
I think I get what Magenta found insulting.

We have sometimes absorbed Xtian ideas. This may be one of the times. Yes, they do put the blame for life's zxual complications, which Torah solves in a constructive dynamic, on the woman. Yes, they do view woman as the bad vessel. But we don't. We don't blame anybody at all and put no negative on anybody, woman or man. We simply think that's how Hashem made things and we don't claim to really know why. We are just glad he gave us Torah so we can live constructively.

So that's what sounded insulting. No, I didn't mean anything like that.

Barbara, it's a Chassidic story. Perhaps those men did not want to make further inquiries about what else they had gummed up down the street. They got the point. It wasn't about scrambled eggs.

Ladies of 51 who are having a nice time are married ones. Marriage is rooted in Torah, not in nature. Nature is not much interested in 51 year old ladies one way or another. No offense. That applies triple to me. I too am glad to live in a traditionalist mentality, which is the only reason I am not alone.

I wouldn't like to be alone.

I am alone in the sense that I don't have to share with younger wives.

Polygamy is being discussed out in the great world. Not very seriously or universally, but this has been a week of new things in some quarters, and there are shakings-up.

I wouldn't like that.
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MagentaYenta




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jun 29 2015, 2:44 pm
Dolly Welsh wrote:
Who or what did that insult? Eggs? Chassidim? Sx? I am in favor of all those things. I really don't understand what you mean.

You are amazed sx brings complications? It does bring them, in any and all communities. Or it can. This is news? You have read Romeo and Juliet. Well, that was an extreme case, but you get the idea.


Romeo and Juliet was a fictional play. Your perception of posts is distorted. I clearly quoted the insult.
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Dolly Welsh




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jun 29 2015, 3:52 pm
"... The world can't be purified of its gender "nonsense" or there will be no eggs. No life."

By "gender nonsense" I meant all the complications and problems and tensions that accompany the fact that there is sx. The idea that people should be calm, rational and just do their own assignments and not be affected by the presence or the activities of the other gender is shown as impossible by both the Chassidic story and the Romeo and Juliet.

Under that idea, Juliet would have married the man rationally offered by her father. She didn't. Nobody would have heard of the play if she had. It would not have meant what it has meant to people for four hundred years. It reflects life.

And egg laying isn't done for people's omelets but to make more chickens, by sx, even if it doesn't always result in more chickens because of human intervention. Eggs are the result of the existence of sx. No sx, no eggs.

You might have a different view, but I don't see cause for seeing insult. Neither Juliet, nor Romeo, nor the chickens are presented as idiots who can't control themselves. There is no insult present. Not sure what you meant. I certainly don't mean to offend.

The Chassidic story figures in Gemara (someone just pm'd me that, in detail way over my head).
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etky




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jun 29 2015, 4:32 pm
Dolly Welsh wrote:
"... The world can't be purified of its gender "nonsense" or there will be no eggs. No life."

By "gender nonsense" I meant all the complications and problems and tensions that accompany the fact that there is sx. The idea that people should be calm, rational and just do their own assignments and not be affected by the presence or the activities of the other gender is shown as impossible by both the Chassidic story and the Romeo and Juliet.

Under that idea, Juliet would have married the man rationally offered by her father. She didn't. Nobody would have heard of the play if she had. It would not have meant what it has meant to people for four hundred years. It reflects life.

And egg laying isn't done for people's omelets but to make more chickens, by sx, even if it doesn't always result in more chickens because of human intervention. Eggs are the result of the existence of sx. No sx, no eggs.

You might have a different view, but I don't see cause for seeing insult. Neither Juliet, nor Romeo, nor the chickens are presented as idiots who can't control themselves. There is no insult present. Not sure what you meant. I certainly don't mean to offend.

The Chassidic story figures in Gemara (someone just pm'd me that, in detail way over my head).
[b]

Was going to say that it is a very well known rabbinic aggada that appears somewhere in the Talmud, not a chassidic story. It makes the point that w/o the yetzer hara, which chazal sought to "imprison" as the story goes, there is no creativity of any kind. Interesting that chazal intuitively understood the creative urge as the sublimation of s-xuality, almost two millennia before Freud...
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PAMOM




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jun 29 2015, 4:47 pm
Dolly, in the story of the Akedah, Abraham (and so Isaac) is NOT ultimately called upon to make the sacrifice. That's the point of the story. Also, I'm confused about the connection between sx and gender roles. Finally, "Romeo and Juliet" ends poorly because their authority over themselves isn't respected. I don't see your analogy.
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Dolly Welsh




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jun 29 2015, 4:58 pm
I am not qualified to opine here, but I will say that the Akeda showed a willingness to do without, without even life itself, and yet G-d made the experience bearable and survivable. And ennobling. I chose (and that's just me) to make an analogy with the life of Woman. Which involves sacrifices. But which turns out ok.

Romeo and Juliet doesn't end poorly, it ends tragically. Which means it had to end poorly, to illuminate something about human nature, that isn't so much bad, as human, and we recognize ourselves.

As for the connecton between sx and gender roles, the chickens in the Gemara could not do their jobs in a chaste, sx-less way. When sx was taken from them, they shut down as chickens. The story says that sx is potent and near, and cannot be put aside, like a coat you hang in another room because it's in the way and is wet and needs to air, and you don't want it in the dining room. No. Sx cannot be conveniently hung in another room for now. It stays in the room with you. At all times. No sx, no you. No eggs. No life.

Yes you can have personal discipline obviously, about sx, but there are going to be limits. There are going to be times when you cannot ignore sx / gender, and deference and accommodation must be paid to that.

That's why men need us to not do what they do, and not to put on tfillin, and why they need protection from our presence, which they cannot always or completely ignore as a sx fact.

They are quite willing to be near us in many ways - and Judaism is the most woman-friendly culture on planet earth - but they need some fences. I remarked that we also have this need, for a fence. We need our own unique things too, that they can't do. Usually. I know a man lights candles, but only if no woman is present.

I said that on a rigorously women-only website, this one.
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sequoia




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jun 29 2015, 5:10 pm
Romeo and Juliet were a couple of teenage morons and the play is satire. Is anyone unaware of that?
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PinkFridge




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jun 29 2015, 5:16 pm
sequoia wrote:
Romeo and Juliet were a couple of teenage morons and the play is satire. Is anyone unaware of that?


I didn't know it was satire. I never read it, nor was I taught it. I was hoping you'd chime in because I figured you would appreciate someone taking some meaningful lesson out of a profound piece of literature. So much for profound.

But I can't discount the chizuk Dolly gets from her other examples. No, the point of the akeida is not that Hashem called it off, though that is a significant part of it. The point is the extent we would go to sublimate our will to the very clearly voiced ratzon Hashem. Once Avrohom Avinu actually put that latent potential into physical action, he was able to hand it down to us. We now have the spiritual DNA to do the ratzon Hashem, even when difficult, with serenity and alacrity.

As far as the Chassidic/gemara story....um... I wasn't following so carefully so I can't comment. But I think it's legitimate to get inspiration from a story if correctly interpreted.
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Dolly Welsh




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jun 29 2015, 5:28 pm
Juliet isn't satire. People weep buckets when it's performed.

As chazal don't want us to put on tfillin, and we have faith chazal is speaking for G-d, meaning we are respecters of Oral not just Written law, then, maybe part of our spiritual DNA is to not put on tfillin, if we are a woman. Even if, as Pink Fridge says, it's difficult.

(I am SURE Pink Fridge didn't mean that just our men have this gift from Avraham, not us.)
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Dolly Welsh




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jun 29 2015, 5:30 pm
Satirizing sx comes in Midsummer Night's Dream.

Sx is satirized in Juliet, but BEFORE the real action starts.


Last edited by Dolly Welsh on Mon, Jun 29 2015, 6:12 pm; edited 1 time in total
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MagentaYenta




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jun 29 2015, 5:48 pm
sequoia wrote:
Romeo and Juliet were a couple of teenage morons and the play is satire. Is anyone unaware of that?


Likely you and me and all the other students that shared my Jr year HS English lit class, and my Shakespeare prof from freshman year of college.

If folks are deep into romanticism they likely will never get the satire. It's pretty nuanced in R&J and folks who think in black and white will have difficulty finding the nuances.
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