Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough

Lori talks about the trivial reasons many women use for disqualifying a guy for a second date. According to a survey, men gave three reasons for not going on a second date with a woman (not cute enough or nice enough or interesting enough), while women listed 300 reasons for not going on a second date (he ordered tap water at the restaurant, he wore a brown belt with black shoes, etc).

Lori says the guy she’s currently seeing was not initially attractive to her on his match.com profile because he was shorter than she wanted, he did not appear creative (he worked in real estate), and he wore a bow tie (she thought it was dorky).

Lori: “The Atlantic article was my opinion. The book is not my opinion. I’m a journalist. I went out and spoke to a lot of people.”

The Jewish Journal’s Danielle Berrin interviews Lori:

 

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Orthodox Female Rabbis III

I’m told: There are many aspects to this and I do not believe that any one or two people can change things on their own. Orthodox Judaism is a religion of consensus. Sometimes ideas are discussed for decades before they are acted upon (and sometimes more than decades). Even when a new idea is started by a small group and acted upon immediately, the people are scholars of world class, see Rabbi Hildesheimer in Berlin in the 19th Century. For an activist of fourth rank scholarship such as R. Avi Weiss to make this kind of radical change is unheard of.

Now the issues:

What is the job of a rabbi? It is clear that the contemporary “Rabbi” is not the same as the traditional Rav (or Chacham in the Sephardic world). The Rav was primarily a Judge and Posek. Today that is almost never done by the pulpit Rabbi. So the question is what are we having this woman do? Is she being ordained to have all of the functions of a Rabbi or Rav? This has not been spelled out so it is impossible to answer from a halachic point of view. It is clear that there are things that a woman can do and things that she cannot do. Have they worked this out?

 

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Orthodox Female Rabbis II

This approach by Rabbi Kanefsky reminds me of another controversy he plunged into with utter recklessness. In the October 25, 2007 issue of the Jewish Journal, Rabbi Kanefsky wrote: “It’s not that I would want to see Jerusalem divided. It’s rather that the time has come for honesty.”

The clear inference here is that if you oppose a divided Jerusalem, you’re dishonest.

It’s a distressing tendency in Rabbi Kanefsky’s thinking that he regards those who disagree with him on many issues to be inherently dishonest.

I can’t imagine there is anyone in the world who loses sleep because Rabbi Kanefsky regards them as intellectually dishonest. These accusations distress me, not because anybody is hurt by them, but because they hurt the rabbi.

Orthodox Female Rabbis

I don’t know much about Torah but I instinctively find the notion of an ordained female Orthodox rabbi to be post-Orthodox aka outside of Orthodox Judaism.

The Orthodox Judaism I thought I knew prescribes very separate roles for men and women. It takes ten men to make a minyan. A woman can not be counted for a minyan. Almost all time-bound ritual commandments are binding upon men and not upon women.

How can a woman, who is not commanded, take a position of religious leadership over men, who are commanded to follow these commandments?

 

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An Education - My Favorite Movie Of 2009

This was my favorite movie of 2009. I was enraptured by it from the minute I read its plot summary: “A coming-of-age story about a teenage girl in 1960s suburban London, and how her life changes with the arrival of a playboy nearly twice her age.”

Today I had a woman tell me she saw the film and it left her unmoved.

So we talked and tried to figure out why I was moved and she wasn’t.

Then I said — maybe it’s a guy thing. Maybe guys — myself excluded of course because I am a Torah Jew — are just turned on by stories of the seduction of post-pubescent schoolgirls. They love stories about suave characters who can take an innocent girl and show her the world while wowing her parents and her friends.

I know that I identified all too readily with the girl’s admirer her age who just couldn’t cut it. He had no game. He was awkward and easy and her parents despised him and she couldn’t care two figs about him. No, she wanted the guy twice her age who had money and class and could show her the world.

The No-Demands Relationship

I’ve had one of these.

It’s been quite rare in my life.

I associate “relationship” with having to do a lot of things you don’t want to do. In exchange for this hard work, your partner has to do a lot of things she doesn’t want to do. You get to make demands on each. If you don’t want out, you can get fused and lose your own integrity.

That’s what I was used to.

Then along came a no-demands relationship. “I want you to come to shul with me,” I said.

“Why would you want me to do something I don’t want to do?” she said.

“Because that’s how I understand relationships,” I said.

And then I racked my brain for examples of when she had asked me to do things I didn’t want to do. And in a year together, I could not come up with a single example. For instance, even though she hated the beard, she never asked me to shave it.

Dennis Prager For President 2012

I’ve been waiting for Dennis Prager to run for president since 1989.

I’m excited that the big day is almost here.

I feel it in my bones. Dennis Prager is at the top of his game. He is as eloquent and clear-thinking as he has ever been. He seems filled with energy and drive.

People of the world, Dennis Prager is the change you’ve been waiting for.

From Townhall.com:

This past weekend, after President Obama addressed the annual retreat of Republican Members of the House, I, along with my Salem Radio colleague Hugh Hewitt, and John Fund of the Wall Street Journal, were also invited to address them.

I have never been as proud to be a Republican as I have this past year with your unanimity in opposing Obamacare and the other bills that would transform America. Please know — you need this feedback — that your having been able to stand together and do this has been a luminous moment in Republican Party history.

 

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