www.aish.com

David #fundie aish.com

[David writes about his "journey to straightness."]

Facing the Truth

To solve a problem you must admit it exists.

You can deny it - but then you must keep on denying, as reality mounts around you. From the first kink of self-serving untruth, you can, like a snail, build a crooked little world of your own.

[...]

In our generation those who struggle with homosexuality have the option of wrapping themselves in the gay liberation narrative. The mantle of chic victimhood quiets a lot of the inner distress - for a while. The haunting sense of otherness folds in on itself to become a virtue. It feels wonderful to finally renounce that sense of being less than a normal man by declaring you are something else entirely.

But it's a false identity. As I saw up close, brave statements do not end the compulsive search for masculinity. There is no resolution, no revelation of true self.

Standing Straight Before God #fundie #homophobia aish.com

[This is in response to Sandi DuBowski's film Trembling Before G-d.]

Change is possible

As someone who struggled with homosexuality, as well as someone who is an orthodox Jew, as well as someone who is somewhat politically involved, this movie pained me. It pained me because of the intolerance towards people like me. I am someone who changed my "sexual orientation". I took it upon myself to go through therapy for my own personal beliefs in the Torah and am now happily married to a lovely lady with a second child on the way. I have no agenda of trying to get other people to go through what I went, but Sandi Dubowski, don't for a second claim to be showing the whole story of homosexuality in the Orthodox community. There are many people like me and we are deemed homophobic and intollerable by the gay rights activists as well as you. Again, I have no interest in trying to change anyone and I respect everyone's decision in life. But Sandi where is the recognition for what I did, and what many other men are struggling to do?

M. Gary Neuman #fundie aish.com

HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU'RE BEING UNFAITHFUL?

Consider your own personal relationships:

- When you hear a funny joke or good piece of gossip, do you first tell other colleagues? By the time you get home, have you chewed it all over so much at the office that you don't feel like telling that joke again to your spouse?

- Do you discuss all of your work problems (or issues involving volunteer work or other important things you are involved in) so thoroughly with colleagues that you're all talked out by the time you return home? Do you feel like it would take too long to review and explain the entire issue from scratch to your spouse?

- Do you go out alone to lunch or after work for drinks with members of the opposite sex?

- Do you enjoy harmless (by your definition) flirtation with someone of the opposite sex at a cocktail party?

- Do you believe that getting emotionally excited by flirting with someone of the opposite sex is helpful to your marriage? Do you think it helps educate you as to what you need more of from your spouse? Do you tell yourself that the juice you get from flirting brings more vitality to your marriage?

- Do you spend as long buying the "right gift" for a colleague of the opposite sex as you do for your own spouse?

- Do you share intimate issues about yourself or marriage with a member of the opposite sex?

If you're doing any of these things, you're being emotionally unfaithful to your spouse. You have only so much energy. If you're spending it with coworkers or outside the home and then getting home and feeling too tired to spend any more on your spouse, that's emotional infidelity. You're effectively relocating vital marital energy into the hands of others. Forget about where it might end up. Even if you never touch this other person, you have still used that person to relate to, and in doing so, you relate away from your spouse.

You may be shaking your head and disagreeing. But I've spent years helping couples pool their energies toward each other, and it has changed their marriage immediately. Stop all of these outside relationships and bring all your emotional and sexual energy home to your spouse, and you, too, will change your marriage immediately.

Aish Rabbi #fundie aish.com

[A FtM transgender Jew asks what (Orthodox) Judaism says about his gender dysphoria.]

God created men and women. He wants there to be a clear boundary between the sexes. From the fact that there is such a commandment, it means that some people have a desire to do just what the Torah forbids. It means there are men who would like to be women, and women who would like to be men.

God does not make mistakes. If He gave you a female body, it means that he wants you to live your life as a Jewish woman, not as a Jewish man.

If you were to undergo an operation to try to change your sex, you would be trying to escape from the responsibilities that God has entrusted with you. If you underwent an operation, you may look more like the way you feel, but in God's eyes you would still be a Jewish woman and be expected to act that way. No amount of operations or name changes (a name change, by the way, is not advisable) can alter the metaphysical reality, nor it's implications, that was imposed on you by your Creator, along with it's incumbent responsibilities.

Consider the person who was born with an unusual ability to perform on the violin. God has given him this talent to bring peace, tranquility, and joy to his fellow humans.

Now let us say that this person has no desire to give other people pleasure. In his heart he does not feel like playing. However, the obligation to give others pleasure is still incumbent upon him. Even if he were to cut off all his fingers, it would not change the obligations that he has, he would simply be unable to fulfill them.

Sara Yoheved Rigler #fundie aish.com

One of the properties of the Jewish soul is that it cannot bond with any other type of soul. This is why intermarriage is ultimately a denial of one's essence. Marriage is a union of souls, not just bodies and hearts. A Jewish soul cannot unite with a non-Jewish soul any more than a helium atom can bond with any other atom. Not because helium is clannish or racist or snobbish - or any worse than a hydrogen atom, but because chemical inertness is simply one of its essential properties.

[...]

Anti-Semitism is the Divine equivalent of the parent of a diabetic child locking the cookie jar. A Jew in 15th century Spain or 20th century Germany or 21st century America may want to blend in with the surrounding society, but anti-Semitism is a sealed door, strong and black as iron, which keeps him out - and separate. Anti-Semitism keeps the Jewish people from dissipating into oblivion.

The ubiquitous effort to trace the source of anti-Semitism to the Jews remaining different and aloof - implying that assimilation cures anti-Semitism - is an inversion of the truth. Assimilation si not the antidote to anti-Semitism, anti-Semitism is the Divine antidote to assimilation.

JBDestiny #fundie aish.com

Mandatory paternal leave? In other words, it's somehow your employers’ responsibility to provide for your family for six months, while paying other employees to do Mom's and Dad's work, so you don't have to make hard choices. Well, YOU had the kids, not your employers. YOU need to make the choices for your family, not government. If Mom and Dad are both going "stay-at-home" for 6 months, they had better save up at least 6 months’ worth of funds. Who chose to have the kid(s), your employers? What if you have several kids close together - my two are 13 months apart? Employers need to pay for absentee employees who are gone for half a year at a time, once a year, in that case. Should Mom and Dad be given automatic promotions for time away, so they don't lose out on the career end, which accounts for the pay gap? Is any of this FAIR and EQUAL? I could point out more flaws, but I don't think you'll hear me. Men and women are DIFFERENT. We have different roles. We have different responsibilities. And if you want to confuse the two, have the decency to ante up your own funds! Here's a shocker: learning domestic skills and money management has nothing to do with mandatory leave for parents. Countless women of past generations had their kids and then entered the workforce and had satisfying careers. Neither feminists nor your mother invented this. I wish all you JULIAs (Obama video) would stop your crusade to "liberate" me. I'm exhausted and distracted because of people like you, JULIA. I don’t have the ability to think about what I want to do, because I’m so busy paying for the clever schemes of the JULIAs in this country!

Christina #fundie aish.com

[A commenter describes how their mother suffered a painful fight with terminal bladder cancer and wanted to die to end her pain.]

So then you do not believe in miracles? What if your mom could have gotten better, even in the most unlikely circumstances. God can do anything, and doctor-assisted suicide is giving up. If your family member does end up dying in the end, such as your mother, at least you would know that you and the doctors did everything you could to keep them alive, and preserved the sanctity of life.

Chana #fundie aish.com

["I am doing a persuasive speech on this topic for college, and I am for it. I fell that if you have the right to determine the outome of a pregnancy you should have the right to choose the determination of your future."]

You certainly do NOT have a right to determine the outcome of a pregnancy - abortion has become to prevalent, but what exactly makes it any less murder than the killing of a child outside the womb? In my last pregnancy I was advised to "terminate the pregnancy" due to my having CMV. "Terminate the pregnancy." A cleaner way of saying "kill the baby". All society now needs to do is refer to child murder as "terminating childhood" and that makes it a tad more innocent.. and another step in the direction this world has been taking toward Sedom-like laws. You and I and everyone else have absolutely no right to terminate ANY life - whether in the womb, outside, or on a hospital bed. It is only for God to decide. Terrible stories have been told about terminating seemingly "pointless" lives - every moment of which was in fact offering the victim extra merits in the world to come, now "terminated" by those who supposedly loved him - and the suffering it had brought. Who are we to take the fate of another into our hands????

Tzippy #fundie aish.com

Every Single Time that Jews have tried to assimilate, G-d sends anti-Semitism to remind us to keep yearning and praying for messiah and return to Zion. Anti-Semitism is a "hidden blessing" because without it we would have assimilated and disappeared as a nation - much like all of the ancient empires of history. (ex. In Germany before WW2, the Jews said "Who needs Zion, Berlin is our Jerusalem.")

Chana Levi #fundie aish.com

Years ago if a Jew married a non-Jew, the whole family sat shiva, cried their eyes out and refused to speak to him/her again. Then they realized and acknowledged the true tragedy of intermarriage. Nowadays, when a Jew announces his/her engagement to a non-Jew, the parents meekly accept it. They might even be surprised if their son or daughter did come home with another Jew! Intermarriage today is a spiritual Holocaust and the way we are losing our people is a tragedy. The Nazis tried to destroy us physically, now intermarriage and the 'demoncratic' American way are destroying our people's souls. Few families, even Orthodox ones, are unaffected. One of my first cousins is a non-Jew and my husband, a baal teshuva, is the only
religious member of his entire extended family. Of his ten cousins, half married out. They are all descendants of a great 18th century rabbi from Prague yet they have no knowledge of their amazing heritage and some of their children today are sadly, goyim. Trips to Israel like Birthright are nice and enjoyable but they are just a bandaid on a life-threatening, gushing wound.
Only a true, intense Jewish education and active outreach programs on every U.S. campus and community might have an impact.

Jason #fundie aish.com

Now, if you choose to intermarry, you've set it upon yourself to cut your lineage off once you have kids with your gentile partner. You're Jewish lineage ends with you. When moshiach comes in the end of days (which is now) you'll feel pretty awkward then, trust me...

Lauren Roth #fundie aish.com

God decides—on Rosh Hashanah, actually—how much money each person needs for his or her tasks in life. Some people are meant to have more money, others are meant to have less. But God apportions the amount, and it’s always for a good, Heavenly Decided reason.

Dwight Beadle #fundie aish.com

Life devalued in steps

The "right to choose" whether a baby is born or killed could lead that devalued generation to disregard the "old" or "useless" people. (An ironic role reversal) The obvious next step is to purge "undesirables" - those who disagree with the "correct" point of view. Hello "pure race". Hello Hitler.

Anonymous #fundie #homophobia aish.com

[The movie this person is referring to is "Trembling Before G-d", a documentary about homosexuals in the Orthodox Jewish community.

Acceptance of homosexual behavior

I participate in a group in Jerusalem for people with homosexual attractions who want to reduce or change their homosexual behavior and/or attractions. There are currently about a dozen of us. I think I am therefore in a good position to evaluate "change" efforts. If people knew that these efforts involve working on assertiveness, self-esteem, and other aspects of character development, they wouldn't be so quick to dismiss reparative therapy and similar approaches. Harmful? Far from it. This is about personal development. I don't know anyone in our group who feels that they haven't benefitted from the experience.

[...]

Regarding the film, I recently attended a public screening of it at a Masorti synagogue, which was followed by an audience discussion. Some people saw this issue as being all about "tolerating people who are different", which is certainly a message promoted in the film, but I didn't see it that way. Should Orthodox Judaism allow openly-adulterous rabbis to lead congregations, or give public honors to intermarried congregants? So why should the community welcome openly-gay people, who are living with same-gender partners, as rabbis or synagogue presidents? Doing so would convey a lenient attitude toward something clearly contrary to Jewish tradition.

Gary Katz #racist aish.com

Just think: if Israel didn't exist, what would be there instead? Just another dusty, meaningless Arab garbage heap. All those who vilify Israel's existence act like the world actually needs another underachieving Arab/Muslim country. Yeah, like a hole in the head.

Jaclyn Barnes #fundie aish.com

Your Freedom Are Precious

I hope that after what happened in Boston American's,realize that they.Can lose there freedoms at,any minute!!This horrific tragedy was committed by two Muslims who were trained,in Russia by al-Quadia.We must unfortunately be on guard at all times because,of what.Is going on in America.The man who is occupying the Oval Office believes in letting illegals in this Saudi who.Was under tight security in the hospital after the blast,who was thought to be involved!!Said he was not and will be deported back to Saudi Arabia!!No back round checks are done on these illegals,under this man!!So again I say it's unfortunate but you must be careful of those,you do not know.For those who were on hand to help during this tragedy,my hat is off to you!!!

Emuna Braverman #fundie aish.com

Firstly, many women who enjoy their careers would still rather be home raising children if they have the option. This is their primary goal and desire. Sometimes they don’t even it realize it themselves. But it’s certainly not deceptive or manipulative. It’s very basic and primal. We call it the maternal instinct.

The second issue – her dependence on you – is also universal. It is in the established nature of male-female relationships that the woman is emotionally dependent on her husband. His love and approval are like oxygen to her. This metaphor is not an exaggeration. If deprived of this support, women feel as if they can’t breathe. And it doesn’t seem to matter how “independent” they were ahead of time.

Anonymous #fundie aish.com

Ridiculous reform

Sadly and tragically, reform and other movements think its fine to re create the laws, calling a child a Jew if they ha e a father who is a Jew. This is purely to serve the self cent redness of the parties who have no knowledge whatsover, of any Torah. The simple law is, from a Jewish mother, because she houses the baby and her blood food oxygen is the definition then the child is a Jew. End of. Why bother having reform, it's an excuse to just hang onto something Jewish, why not just dump it all, ? Because being a Jew is something g No Jew can forget, get rid of or leave. For all those married to Gentiles, my heart aches for you, try reading a good Jewish book from a proper Jewish source, reform amd conservative liberal etc, all are country clubs. Please save your poor children from the craziness of being screwed up. A Jew is a Jew. There are no halfs. I a an observant Jewish worn with lovely kids who respect all people, no matter what faith, sadly other Jews do not think their brethren deserve respect. Save your children from the confusion. Don't tell them they are Jewish if their. Other is a catholic, a Protestant or anything else. Very very sad. If you. Arry a gentile, that is the end result, gentile children, and you cannot change this fact. I know it's a hard pill, but, if you want Jewish, Marry a jew

ana #fundie aish.com

i used to wear verrrryyy revealing clothing

then i learned that the nazis used to force girls to take off their clothes all the time and that when the jewish girls were given clothing, it was just a small dress. i realized that if the nazis, who were brutalizing and killing jews, used little and no clothing as a way to demean jewish women, that i should think twice if i want to do this to myself. i realized that nazis yank off clothing and keep girls undressed in order to demean them, but i have a choice, and i chose to stop demeaning myself. it wasn't always easy at times, but the more a person does anything at all--including wearing revealing clothes, too, until it seems totally normal--the easier it becomes.

Paysach Freedman #fundie aish.com

In an atheistic civilization, morals are intrinsically fluid, and subject to change. The natural goals of such a society can only be greed, might and power. It is survival of the fittest. He who owns the most, and controls the most, wins!

Atheism is worse than idol worship. Idol worship is polytheism, the belief in many powers. It is possible to progress from many gods to belief in one God. The prime example is Abraham. Originally an idol worshipper, he eventually came to the knowledge that there can be only one true Power. The road from many powers to one power is relatively short, since the individual accepts in principle that there is something directing the universe.

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