tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4908170626335283336.post2929483605942586260..comments2016-05-09T17:25:01.255+03:00Comments on VaTashar Devora: The ketuba, asmakhta, and the Merchant of VeniceDevorahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14579018807634647530noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4908170626335283336.post-5693851889430505552013-05-16T10:20:11.347+03:002013-05-16T10:20:11.347+03:00Reb Chaim, I would also like to respond to a point...Reb Chaim, I would also like to respond to a point you made about Ashkenazi custom versus Sephardi custom. It is clear you are Ashkenazi, and I sense a tone of "us and them", and even a slight tone of superiority over "their" customs. I happen to be of Ashkenazi descent. But roughly half of the Jews in Israel are of Sephardi descent - there should not be any "us and them". כל ישראל ערבים זה בזה. More and more marriages in Israel are between various Jewish "ethnicities", and so it should be. And your comment about announcing synagogue pledge amounts in public is quite surprising. I have attended tfilot in dozens and dozens of Ashkenazi synagogues in my lifetime, and only a handful of Sephardi ones, and it used to be VERY common to announce amounts (and still is in some places) in the Ashkenazi ones. If you go to any Ashkenazi synagogue (pretty much the only choice) in European cities today, you will find that same practice prevail. The Young Israel movement in the US - among some of its goals - was to eliminate the auctioning off of aliyot, a very common practice in (Ashkenazi) European synagogues - every Shabbat, and not just on Simhat Torah. Devorahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14579018807634647530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4908170626335283336.post-91433405096118365822013-05-14T09:26:32.031+03:002013-05-14T09:26:32.031+03:00You're right that stuff is drivel and is borde...You're right that stuff is drivel and is border-line misogynist. I don't think the material you quoted is standard. It certainly does not reflect the Medieval ideals of Raavad's בעלי הנפש and/or Nachmanides' אגרת הקודש nor does it reflect the ideas set forth in the Steipler Gaon's open letter to young couples or Rabbi Chaim Friedlander's וידעת כי שלום אהלך or Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe's שיחות הדרכה לחתנים which are all the standard texts taught to young couples in the Orthodox world (granted the latter two are geared for the grooms more than the brides). For English-speaking brides, the standard tends to be "The Secret of Jewish Femininity" by Abramaov and "Marital Intimacy" by Rabbi Avraham Peretz Freidman. These book also do not contain anything close to the drivel from which you quoted.Reuven Chaim Kleinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05836805247888732019noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4908170626335283336.post-31403394878214272662013-05-13T22:50:16.978+03:002013-05-13T22:50:16.978+03:003) Yeah, I come down hard on that stuff. Because ...3) Yeah, I come down hard on that stuff. Because I hear from young women about the nonsense they are told - yes, I do call it nonsense. If those madrikhot would just stick to hilkhot nidda, fine (and they don't need to give every humra they ever heard of or all kinds of superstitious stuff), but they tell women stuff that rather than try to repeat, I will simply paste here an example - something a woman recently wrote in a facebook group. Now, this is not from a madrikha. It is material given out by the rabbanut. But many madrikhot tell similar types of stuff. OK, I should not generalize. Some madrikhot might be more enlightened, and not tell things that are not scientifically correct (which is why I used the word 'medieval'). Just because something has been a tradition, does not make it good practice. But read this stuff - it has nothing to do with tradition. And, keep in mind that women are not forbidden to use birth control.<br />"אז לאחר ששילמנו את חובנו למועצה הדתית בראשון לציון, קיבלנו שקית צבעונית ויפה עם הכתובה שלנו. ביחד עם הכתובה, הסתתרו להן כמה חוברות צבעוניות ויפות ודיסק, עם שמות מאוד רומנטיים ומפתים: "הדרך אל האהבה", מצהירה כותרת אחת החוברות. "הסוד אל הזוגיות", כתוב על הדיסק.<br />שמחים ונרגשים, התחלנו לקרוא את החוברות. להלן פירוט:<br /><br />בחוברת שעוסקת בדרך אל האהבה, כתוב לאשה מה עליה לעשות כדי שבן זוגה יאהב אותה. "הגבר צריך כבוד. הוא צריך לדעת שהוא שולט בהכל. לכן, אל תכעסי עליו אם הוא מתנהג באנוכיות - ככה הקב"ה ברא אותו. <br />אם הוא לא מתנהג אלייך יפה, ואת מרגישה פגועה מהיחס שלו - אל תשווי בנפשך לא לטבול במקווה כדי להעניש אותו, או מתוך מחשבה שהוא אינו ראוי לך. ההפך! תני לא את הכבוד שהוא ראוי לו, ואז תראי איך בבוא מן הימים הוא יעשה ממך מלכה...".<br />תרגום לעברית: מותר לגבר להשפיל את האשה, וזאת בכלל לא אשמתו. כך הוא נברא. תפקיד האשה הוא לתת לגבר כבוד בכל מקרה, מתוך ציפייה שזה ישתלם.<br /><br />בחוברת שעוסקת בילודה, כתוב שלפי "כל המחקרים" הגלולות למניעת היריון הן ממש רעל, והפגיעה שלהן בגוף האשה היא קשה ובלתי הפיכה. <br />הפלות, אליבא דחוברת, פוגעות בגוף ולא מאפשרות לאחריהן להיכנס להיריון נוסף.<br /><br />בדיסק ה-DVD שקיבלנו הופיע רב חביב, המרצה בפני נשים ומגלה להן מהו הסוד לחיים ארוכים ובריאים: "נשים שמקפידות על הלכות נידה", אומר הרב, "לא יכולות לחלות בסרטן צוואר הרחם". נו, ניחא. יאלצו נא הנשים המקפידות על נידה להסתפק בסרטן השד.<br /><br />אלו הן, כמובן, רק דוגמאות.<br />4) In response to this point - there is no way that the woman benefits by not having an inheritance. One short point: If the wife remarries, she does not get anything any more. Same for the daughters. Very paternalistic, wouldn't you say? The husband can remarry and keeps all. The sons can keep all. Maybe at some point I'll get to matters of inheritance in this blog, but in the meantime, I will post on my Hebrew blog an article that I wrote in response to something that a rabbi wrote just about that. Please read it and then I'm sure you will understand that the simplistic message of halakha looking out for the woman is very misleading. The link is: http://vatashardevoraivrit.blogspot.co.il/2013/05/blog-post_13.htmlDevorahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14579018807634647530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4908170626335283336.post-45769668570103590102013-05-13T22:49:41.315+03:002013-05-13T22:49:41.315+03:00It appears that I have to enter my response in par...It appears that I have to enter my response in parts:<br />Thank you for your comments and for your positive feedback.<br />I will try to respond to your points one by one:<br />1) Those who hold the opinion אין תנאי בקידושין usually base it on the concept אין אדם עושה בעילתו בעילת זנות. However, there is no halakhic consensus that there is no conditional marriage. I suggest you read R. Eliezer Berkovitz's book תנאי בנישואין ובגט to get a picture of the variety of opinions among the rishonim on this. It is feasible, for example, for a man to say that he is not concerned if his relation with his "conditional wife" turns out to be construed as בעילת זנות and he will marry his wife under the condition that she does not need to do yibbum or halitza. Perhaps he is a soldier and has a 2-year old brother and does not want to keep his wife in limbo in the event that he is killed. (He could also give a conditional get for that problem, but then she could not marry a kohen.) That way, if he dies young, retroactively, the marriage never took place, thus saving her the horrid fate of having to wait for his 2-year old brother to grow up and do halitza, and he spares his wife and his brother the degradation of that ceremony.<br />As far as why חיבת ביאה (how would you translate that - the enjoyment of sexual relations?) causing one to forgive the claim of asmakhta - I have never seen such an argument made, and it appears to me to be a very different situation. There is nothing to forgive here. If a man is divorcing his wife, I would guess the חיבת ביאה is no longer there. But I will try to post to my Hebrew blog (which I use to post some Hebrew texts from time-to-time) another case with some details of the asmakhta arguments that are used, so look here for a future comment from me with a link.<br /><br />2) Though there is this concept that the prevailing practice for Ashkenazi Jews is to write the basic amount in their ketuba, the reality in Israel shows otherwise. It is probably less the situation in the US, because the ketuba is much less likely (if at all) to be enforced. Again, the cases I read prove otherwise. Often, at the beginning of the pesak, it actually states "of Lithuanian practice" or such.Devorahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14579018807634647530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4908170626335283336.post-75797758350264668642013-05-13T21:11:44.132+03:002013-05-13T21:11:44.132+03:00I will first acknowledge that my experience in mat...I will first acknowledge that my experience in matters of אה"ע and חו"מ is limited, but I think I do have what to contribute to this discussion:<br /><br />1) Firstly, I'm just wondering that if we say that אין תנאי בנשואין is because the חיבת ביאה causes a מחילה, why do we not say that there is also no אסמכתא because the חיבת ביאה creates a מחילה?<br /><br />2) From my limited experience, it seems that the prevailing customs amongst Ashkenazi Jews is to only add another 200 zuz to the Kesuba and it is considered a weird thing to add more than that. Perhaps this case of adding one million shekel was a Sefaradic Jew who also tend to publicly announce the dollar amounts of their synagouge pledges. I think that exaggerated Kesuba amounts is hardly an epidemic.<br /><br />3) I think that it is counter-productive for you to label what Kallah teachers impart to young brides as "medieval drivel about her responsibilities to please her husband". First of all, labeling this as "drivel" implies intolerance of accepted Jewish traditions for hundreds of years. Drivel is nonsense, this is not nonsense. Secondly, you oversimplify the instructions of Kallah teachers as if to imply that they only teach the brides about their responsibilities to please their husbands (which, by the way, conversely the husbands are taught about their responsibilities to please their wives) but not the complexities and significance of hilchos niddah and mikva and how to maintain proper marital harmony.<br /><br />4) You made a point of noting that a wife does not inherit her husband, but a husband does inherit his wife. You neglected to mention that the widow and daughters are entitled to מזונות and פרנסה and that their rights supersede the inheritance of the deceased's sons.<br /><br />I find your blog quite interesting. Your bias is obvious (but then again, so is mine), but the discussions are quite thought-provoking and very well-researched. I will indeed enjoy engaging on your blog.<br /><br />Reuven Chaim Kleinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05836805247888732019noreply@blogger.com