Year: 2018

Why Does Nobody Ask Halachic She’eilos About Sex?

I quote from a 209 survey of 300 Jewish women, “Observant Married Jewish Women and Sexual Life: An Empirical Study“:

Asking for Rabbinical Counsel

Traditional Jewish practice encourages people to seek rabbinic advice when faced with challenging questions. As all aspects of life, from the mundane to the lofty, are imbued with religious significance, observant Jews regularly pose questions to rabbis. Queries concerning pillars of observant life, kashruth, Shabbat, and taharat haMishpahah are routine. Our data, however, revealed a significant skew regarding questions posed to rabbinic counsel—namely, that women in our study were less likely to inquire about matters relating to sexuality. This is illustrated by the fact that over 90 percent of women indicated that they have asked a rabbi questions about kashruth or about laws pertaining to the Sabbath. Only 76 percent, however, have asked about an aspect of niddah, and most of these questions were directed to technical concerns about menstrual staining. Just over one-third of women had ever asked a question pertaining to permissibility of a particular sexual practice. Mindful that our respondents are highly adherent to the laws of family purity, we assumed that they would naturally have questions about the religious permissibility of various sexual activities in marriage. We knew from their comments about their kallah (bridal preparation) classes that frank issues such as sexual desires and practices were rarely discussed by those teachers. We wondered, therefore, how couples align their sexual desires and their religious sensibilities.

Fully half of all women answering our survey have wondered whether performing certain sexual acts, during the course of their observant, married life, might constitute a violation of Jewish law. Oral sex was the activity of most concern followed by the use of fantasy during relations. Of this 50 percent who acknowledged halakhic concerns, only a small portion (12 percent) asked a rabbi for guidance. Of the remaining 88 percent who did not seek religious consultation, almost half refrained from the religiously questionable sex, while the rest enacted their desire without permission.

A related area is the use of contraception. Observant Jews take the biblical commandment to “be fruitful and multiply” seriously and generally give birth to and raise families larger than those of their secular peers. We wondered how observant women access family planning. Our findings revealed that although nearly 90 percent of our sample reported using birth control at some time in their marriage, only half of these women consulted a rabbi about that decision. Once again, our data suggest that many religiously committed Jews do not bring questions about their sexual or reproductive lives to the scrutiny of their rabbis with the same frequency that they bring questions about equally serious but less bodily intimate matters.

The lesson? Torah scholars (not necessarily the same thing as rabbis!) should, in fact, know what to say and additionally actively encourage people to ask.

P.S. The study also confirms the following:

One domain in which observant women and secular American women did not differ was in the prevalence of sexual abuse. It is imperative to not minimize the prevalence of such experiences within the observant community in light of their impact on both mental-health-related issues and married life.

More Excerpts of Kedushas Tzion in English

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Here at Kdushas Tzion we are thankful to Hashem, as well as President Donald Trump, for moving the American Embassy to Yerushalayim, thereby recognizing an age-old fact of the Tanach and strengthening our sovereignty in the capital city of the Jewish people! Obviously, Yerushalayim belongs to us regardless of whether the nations of the world choose to recognize it as ours (and we must make that clear!), however, international recognition is definitely a blessing and perhaps a “stepping stone” towards the fulfillment of Yeshayah Hanavi’s prophecy that describes the nations of the world coming up to Bais Hamikdash… With the Help of Hashem, hopefully, many more nations will join this process and more importantly, may we the Jewish people merit to lead the world in the right direction and be a true light unto the nations!

*Thank you to our professional translator Shlomo Wrubel- for any translating needs he can be reached at: 216-315-2764/ s_wrubel@live.com

Ron Paul: Abolish the CIA!

Haspel is Not the Problem. The CIA is the Problem.

By 

Ron Paul Institute

May 24, 2018

As a general rule, when Dick Cheney favors a foreign policy position it’s best to be on the opposite side if you value liberty over war and authoritarianism. The former vice president’s enthusiastic endorsement of not only Gina Haspel as CIA director but of the torture program she oversaw should tell us all we need to know about Haspel.

Saying that Haspel would make a great CIA director, Cheney dismissed concerns over the CIA’s torture program. Asked in a television interview last week about the program, Cheney said, “if it were my call, I’d do it again.”

Sadly, the majority of the US Senate agreed with Cheney that putting a torturer in charge of the CIA was a good idea. Only two Republicans – Senators Paul and Flake – voted against Haspel. And just to confirm that there really is only one political party in Washington, it was the “yes” vote of crossover Democrats that provided the margin of victory. Americans should really be ashamed of those sent to Washington to represent us.

Just this month, the New York Times featured an article written by a woman who was kidnapped and send to the secret CIA facility in Thailand that Haspel was said to have overseen. The woman was pregnant at the time and she recounted in the article how her CIA torturers would repeatedly punch her in the stomach. She was not convicted or even accused of a crime. She was innocent. But she was tortured on Haspel’s watch.

Is this really what we are as a country? Do we really want to elevate such people to the highest levels of government where they can do more damage to the United States at home and overseas?

As the news comes out that Obama holdovers in the FBI and CIA infiltrated the Trump campaign to try and elect Hillary Clinton, President Trump’s seeming lack of understanding of how the deep state operates is truly bewildering. The US increasingly looks like a banana republic, where the permanent state and not the people get to decide who’s in charge.

But instead of condemning the CIA’s role in an attempted coup against his own administration, Trump condemned former CIA director John Brennan for “undermining confidence” in the CIA. Well, the CIA didn’t need John Brennan to undermine our confidence in the CIA. The Agency itself long ago undermined the confidence of any patriotic American. Not only has the CIA been involved in torture, it has manipulated at least 100 elections overseas since its founding after WWII.

As President Trump watched Gina Haspel being sworn in as CIA director, he praised her: “You live the CIA. You breathe the CIA. And now you will lead the CIA,” he said. Yes, Mr. President, we understand that. But that’s the problem!

The problem is not Haspel, it’s not John Brennan, it’s not our lack of confidence. The problem is the CIA itself. If the president really cared about our peace, prosperity, and security, he would take steps to end this national disgrace. It’s time to abolish the CIA!

From Lewrockwell.com, here.

Double Standards in the Media? You’re Joking!

Selective Horror: By Moshe Feiglin

May-23-2018

Hats off to Israel’s public broadcast corporation, which has not let us forget for one moment that a police officer kicked an Arab, leftist protester in his leg over the weekend. Police brutality, particularly when it is directed at detainees – is a very serious matter and it is good that it is being spotlighted. But after an opening monologue on the event and 20 minutes into the newscast on Israel Broadcasting Corporation, they were still on the same topic. In an attempt to hear the news, I switched over to Israel Army Radio, but they were also talking exclusively about the same item.

Hats off to the media for their valiant struggle for human rights in Israel? Not so fast. Last week, the sixth Arab house in the village of Duma was burned. When the second home was burned and three of its residents killed, the media was up in arms. Somebody had written “revenge” in Hebrew on one of the walls of the home and nothing more was necessary. The media were absolutely convinced that the perpetrators were “the hilltop youth”.

“Why hasn’t anybody been arrested yet?” the media mantra reached a crescendo, and Defense Minister Bogi Ya’alon hurried to supply the goods. Tens of hilltop youth were arrested and severely tortured, with the backing of the relevant legal counsels and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked. This was not about a kick in the leg, which did or did not take place, but rather,  actual severe torture perpetrated against minors over many long weeks – all supported by the media (and shamefully, also with the support and encouragement of ministers Bennett and Shaked, who joined in the frenzy and even stoked the fire).

What came out of all of the arrests? Out of the tens of boys tortured, there were two indictments, which rely mainly on confessions under torture. The two are still in prison in harsh conditions and their trial has not yet begun. In the meantime, a preliminary trial is underway to determine if it is legal to accept confessions attained under torture.

All the while, the houses in Duma continue to go up in smoke. All of them belong to the same extended family, all of them on the same street. So who keeps burning the houses in Duma? Perhaps it is a simple clan war, common in Arab society, and had nothing to do with the hilltop youth?

Yes, it is good to bring police brutality out in the open. It is good that the media is talking about the police officer who kicked the Arab protester. But has anyone heard the media opening with a monologue about tens of youths who were tortured for naught and never indicted? Don’t the continued arsons in Duma demand the release – at least to house arrest – of the two detained youths?

So allow me to doubt the honesty of the public broadcasting struggle on behalf of human rights in Israel. It is actually all about politics. Just politics.

From Zehut, here.