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| Photo of new cabinet as it appears in the Hebrew B'Chadrei Charedim |
Chava, Sarah, Rivkah, Leah, Rachel, Tamar, Yocheved, Miriam,
Devorah, Ruth, Naomi, Batsheva, all have something in common. They are all
heroines of either the Torah, Nevi’im or Kesuvim (Tanach). I mention all these
names in the hope that a bolt of lightning doesn’t come down from heaven and
strike me down.
‘What’s that,’ you ask? Why in Heaven’s name would I think mentioning
these names from Tanach would cause God to be angry at me? Well, by mentioning
the first names of women, I might come to improper sexual thoughts.
Sounds pretty ridiculous, right? Not so fast. It isn’t
ridiculous if you are the publisher of the Israeli Hamodia. They seem to feel
that mentioning any woman’s first name will cause men to sin. So they simply
don’t do it. From JTA:
HaModia’s list of the new government’s ministers omitted the women ministers’ first names. So while it listed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Education Minister Naftali Bennett, for example, it noted only Justice Minister Ms. Shaked.
Whew! Saved by a clever editor at Hamodia.
The sad thing is that this isn’t just some idiotic editor of
a newspaper being ridiculous on his own. This seems to be the mindset of an
entire community of religious Jews. Their rabbinic leaders have apparently determined
that seeing a female name in print can potentially
cause a man to sin.
Once you plant that thought into the minds of people who are
concerned about modesty, they may actually see these names as erotic. It has apparently been imprinted on their brains from earliest childhood to associate female names
with erotic thoughts. So that when they see such a name they might easily have
one.
Eroticism has some near universal applications. There are
images and words (erotic literature) that are erotic to virtually any civilized
society no matter how permissive or strict. But there are words and images that are erotic only to those that have been indoctrinated to see them that way. People will have an erotic response to things they see based on
the culture in which they live. My guess is for example that in Muslim countries
where woman wear burkas that covers even their faces, the exposure of a face
may generate erotic thoughts in men.
In their own way this is apparently the case with the people Hamodia
serves. They are sensitive to things that the Torah itself is not sensitive to.
Like publishing the names of women. Their approach to reading these names is an extreme reaction to matters of Tznius
that goes well beyond even Chumra. A reaction
that is constantly being reinforced throughout
their lives. They might even wonder why the rest of Orthodox Jewry doesn’t see
that. Or believe that when we do see it, that we are in denial about what are
innermost thoughts really are.
One might say that Hamodia and like minded publications have
the right to whatever standard they feel is appropriate. And the right to
treat their publications that way. I wholeheartedly agree. But I have a right
to ridicule it – if I see it as harmful to the fabric of our people.
Why
ridicule and not simply protest? Because that is a normal reaction by normal
people. A reaction the vast majority of
the civilized world would have to considering female first names too erotic to
publish. That is so abnormal - that it makes Judaism an object of ridicule. Unless
those of us in Orthodoxy with any degree of sanity ridicule it right along with them. It is no
Mitzvah to go to extremes so beyond the pale that the word Chumra doesn’t even
apply. So extreme that it makes us look foolish.
Sure, we are
obligated to follow Halacha even if it makes us look ridiculous in the eyes of
the world. But if we start making things up that look ridiculous in the eyes of
the world - things which make people
laugh at Judaism, then in my view they are not serving God. They are serving
the notion that their views are holier than anyone else’s - even within Orthodoxy.
I have no issue with how much Frumkeit they want to embrace.
They can be as ‘Frum’ as they want internally. I could not care less. But when
a (non)Chumra like this one hits the media, and makes us look
ridiculous, they have crossed a line from Frum to foolish. They gain nothing spiritual
at all (except perhaps in their own minds), for if that were a value at any
level, the Torah would not have ever mentioned any female names.
And all of this doesn’t even touch the foolishness of
blurring out the faces of women in a group photograph of the Israeli Prime Minster and his new cabinet ministers
seen on the Charedi website B’Chadrei Charedim (…now there’s an oxymoron -‘Charedi
website’) while allowing the rest of
their bodies to be shown. (See above)
So even while they have a right to be as foolish as they
want in private, when they do it in the public square, I have the right – and maybe even an obligation - to point out how foolish they are in public too.
