True Confession

Readers who don't like blogs dealing with sexual transgression can skip this letter sent to our jewishsexuality.com website. Others who realize the scope and seriousness of the problem, will find certainly appreciate its candor and insights:

Dear Site Adminstrator:  

I thought I would share some of my own thoughts and experiences with
this forum. I think it might be valuable to some of you. My intended
audience are people who are basically believing Jews - who know that G-d
rewards and punishes and all of that, yet who cannot always overcome
their temptations.

I'm imagining that many of you are basically ordinary people, say who
are young and single. Your urges are pretty strong at this stage of life
-- we all went through that once upon a time -- and they often get the
better of you. Yet eventually you would like to outgrow this stage,
settle down and get married. You'd certainly rather enjoy a kosher and
healthy married life -- with a real-life partner -- rather than the
lewdness and emptiness of closeted pornography.

Now, for most of us, thinking about the rages of Hell -- although we all
believe in it with full hearts -- really does not help us all that much.
It's far too remote and distant, and the Internet delivers addictive
gratification much sooner. Although we all know we'll pay up one day in
full currency, it's too hard to really conjure up such thoughts and
modify our behavior on account of it.

I would therefore like to suggest a different and more immediate
scenario -- because it's exactly what happened to me.

Rather than imagining after 120 years, imagine say 5-10 years down the
line. You hope to be married to a beautiful woman and enjoy a loving,
romantic, and completely kosher relationship with your life partner.
Nothing wrong with that; it's 100% permitted. Every young man wishes for
such. Now I could go on that the relationship will not really be as
special as it should if you have much-more-enticing pornographic images
floating around in your head, but that kind of stuff is too intangible
to bother us much either. Yes, it won't really be the same -- and you
may even still be lured to peeping at more attractive bodies on the
side. (Your wife will *not* appreciate it if you spend a lot of time
ogling at her like a physical object.) And also -- as I'm sure you've also heard -- the
chances of building a strong and lasting relationship with a single
spouse is that much less likely since you'll long for cheaper, dirtier
thrills. But let's suppose you'll manage to outgrow your immaturity and
build a lasting and meaningful relationship with a woman you love. Will
your troubles be behind you?

One possible answer -- and it's one that happened to me -- is no. There
is another issue, entirely in the good L-rd's control: children. Whether
or not we merit having children -- and the health and quality of them --
is entirely in G-d's hands. Imagine that six months, twelve months,
eighteen months go by, and your wife does not become pregnant. Topping
it off, all of her friends are. You start going to doctors -- that in
itself a mortifying experience. And they don't find anything concrete or
easy to fix the matter (which is quite often the case in the field of
fertility). Just for some strange reason, conception is not occurring.
You try treatment, lighter treatment, heavier treatment, invasive
treatment --  with tortuous waits for the results, and nothing is
working. And the doctors really do not know why or what to do about it.
Fertility treatment is a very iffy field. So to speak, the doctors can
only lead the horse to water, but they cannot *really* make a woman
pregnant.

All the while your wife is becoming more and more and more miserable.
She wants to have children of her own. She doesn't want to be different
from virtually all of her friends. She wants to live the married life
*she* was dreaming of all her years. And instead of enjoying a romantic,
exciting sexual relationship with your wife, you'll spend your evenings
with a crying, miserable woman, attempting yourself to console her and
give her strength -- even though you are so unhappy yourself. And what
should have been the warmest, most loving -- and happiest -- part of
your life will become the most miserable.

And the worst aspect of it is that you will know deep down that you
yourself are the cause of your beloved's suffering -- because of that
stupid pornography you could not resist years back. When you're older
you'll find out that the worst form of suffering is vicarious suffering
--  when you see your loved ones suffer -- especially when you know you
are the cause of it. And you will not even be able to tell your wife and
tearfully apologize to her, for how could you ever tell her of your own
past lowliness and weakness and the damage you caused?

And above all else you'll be wishing in your head: "Why couldn't I have
controlled myself back then? Why did I have to ruin my own life and that
of my beloved whom I care for so dearly? Had I only known how much pain
and suffering my sinfulness would have caused, I would have never gone
that way. I could have saved myself then and felt *good* about myself
today. And today I'd be eternally reaping the benefits of my willpower
-- in both this world and the next."

Let me take a moment to describe my own experiences. At 44 today, I
thankfully came of age long before the World Wide Web with all its
ugliness existed. Yet my home was not without temptations. Although I
was a serious, upstanding yeshiva student, I succumbed to my own
passions occasionally. For a while I resisted, but then my resolve
weakened. There was a period of about three years in which I didn't have
control of myself -- where I slipped and constantly regretted it, hating
myself all the while. They were tough battles. I didn't go down without
a fight. And thank G-d, I won many of them too.

And then my married life thank G-d came along. After not too long we
merited two children --  well below the norm for the Orthodox
neighborhood(s) in which we lived, and far fewer than my wife, herself
one of seven, wanted. But more children did not come. Years and years
went by. And we endured such misery and crying night after night, that
none of you would ever want to experience what we did during those
years. (And we received much less sympathy than we would have wanted as
many couldn't understand what was so terrible about having two children.
We're not *childless*!) And we went through treatment after treatment to
no avail. Finally, after over seven years -- double my own weak period
-- we were blessed with another daughter. And -- corresponding to the
time I regained control -- we have since merited several more children
-- one without treatment at all.

That's about my story. In the end we survived it all, and apart from a
curious gap in our children's ages, I'd like to feel we merited to live
happily ever after. But the pattern between my weak periods and our
childlessness are unmistakable. The Midrash, quoting an earlier ethical
work, states: "If you forsake Me one day, I will forsake you for two."
G-d paid me double for my slips. And I thank G-d every moment for the
times that I did regain control.

One quick related postscript. Many Jewish sources, both Kabbalistic and
non-Kabbalistic (see for example Maimonides, Laws of De'os 5:4-5), write
that the quality of your children will depend on the modesty and
selflessness you exhibit during sexual relations. Your fantasies may
make you think in terms of very loose and dirty married behavior -- the
sort most wives would hardly appreciate, being treated like a filthy sex
object rather than an equal partner. But the more you're in it for your
own pleasure, the smaller, weaker, less healthy, and certainly less
spiritually-inclined your children will be. Marriage can and should be
beautiful, but as the innocent and heartfelt coming together of two
loving spouses. If, however, sex with your wife will be an act of
selfish taking -- the sort of stuff you're living for today, you can
expect --  even if you do merit children -- to be granted the sort of
children you deserve.

Anyway, I hope this was helpful to a few of you.

We've Got the Same Thing In Las Vegas

Motzei Shabbat, I went to the Kotel to say Tehillim with Rabbi Leon Levi and students.

The Kotel

Afterward, around midnight, in order to get an additional spiritual lift before Rosh Chodesh, we drove up north to the holy city of Tiberias. We recited Tikun Hatzot at the tomb of Rabbi Meir Baal HaNess, the great Mishnaic sage renowned for his miracles, where I prayed for Hashem to do the greatest miracle of all – bring the Jews home from the lands of the gentiles.

Tomb of Rabbi Meir Baal HaNess

Next, we stopped to recite Tehillim at the tomb of the Rambam, five minutes away.

Tomb of the Rambam

We reached the holy city of Tzfat at around three in the morning, where we immersed in the pure, invigorating, mountain-cave mikvah of the Arizal.

Mikvah of the Arizal

Grave of the Arizal

After praying at his gravesite, we journeyed on to Meron, where we davened Vatiken, the sunrise service, at the Tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, author of the Zohar.

Tomb of Rabbi Shimon

We drove back to Jerusalem along the breathtaking Jordan Valley highway.

"And the L-rd said to Abraham, Go to Monsey NY

Just like a typical Saturday night in Brooklyn, or Monsey, or Toronto, or Australia, or Las Vegas.

Chodesh Tov.   

Hevron Now!

Rabbi Meir Kahane was a very gifted writer. He could have stayed in America and written talkbacks and letters to the editor all day long. But he chose to make aliyah and personally participate in the rebuilding of the nation in Israel, rather than just writing about it from the sidelines.

Since thousands of Jews will be visiting Hevron this Shabbat for the Torah portion of “Chaya Sarah,” we thought it fitting to conclude the Rabbi Meir Kahane Legacy Memorial Week with a story from his inspiring biography about his involvement in the resettlement of the city of Hevron.

Thanks Rav Meir!

THE RIGHT TO RETURN TO HEVRON

(Excerpted from the biography, “Rabbi Meir Kahane - His Life and Thought” Vol.1, written by his wife, Libby Kahane.)

At the same time, Meir embarked on a campaign for the right of Jews to return to Hebron, which was historically Jewish. Over 3,000 years ago it was King David’s capital. Only recently, in 1929, Jews abandoned Hebron’s old Jewish quarter after a bloody riot in which Arabs massacred sixty-seven Jews and wounded many others. Arabs now occupied the homes of the eight hundred Jews who had lived there. After the 1967 Six Day War, when Israel recaptured Hebron, a group of Jews went to settle there. They were housed in the Israeli military compound until 1971, when a new Jewish town bordering on Hebron, Kiryat Arba, was built. But Jews were not permitted to live in Hebron itself. Meir believed Jews should have the elementary right to return to the Jewish homes in Hebron and live there.

His first step was to send a telegram to the mayor of Hebron, Sheikh Mohammed Ali Ja’abari. He informed Ja’abari that he and his followers would arrive in Hebron on Sunday morning, August 27, to begin arrangements for the return of Jews to their homes and for the return of their property. Of course, he also sent copies of the telegram to the media.

Mayor Ja’abari, who claimed to support co-existence between Arabs and Jews, appealed to the Israeli government to prevent Meir’s arrival, declaring that he would not be able to prevent violent demonstrations by the Arabs of Hebron. To avoid Arab unrest, minister of defense Moshe Dayan issued an order keeping Meir and his followers out of Hebron. However, they succeeded in circumventing the army’s roadblocks. Some went by car early in the morning, when the main roadblock on the southern outskirts of Bethlehem was manned by only one soldier. Others went by Arab buses and taxis, and some spent Shabbat in Hebron. Meir drove through the roadblock by pretending to be an American tourist. He donned sunglasses and a baseball hat, and when he was stopped, he asked in English,

“Is this the way to Beersheba?” The soldier waved him through.

David Fisch recalled:

“Meir had three of us, including me, dress as American tourists – floppy rainbow hats, dangling cameras, Bermuda shorts, really ridiculous stuff – and take a ride to Hebron on an Arab bus line. We did. We got into the city, really close to Ja’abari’s house (i.e., just short of the front door), and handed a letter to the guy guarding the door. I don’t know what was in the envelope, but it got the guy really frenzied. There were a million soldiers, and they seized us and put us on a bus out of Hebron.”

The letter that was presented to Ja’abari was in English. It said:

To the Honorable Sheikh Ja’abari, Mayor of Hebron, City of the Patriarchs: We are here to discuss repatriation of the former Jewish residents to the Jewish city of Hebron, whose Jewishness dates back to Abraham our father. We are also interested in receiving your reply to the ugly rumors concerning your participation in the Hebron riots of 1929, in which scores of Jews were massacred, as well as the part you played in the slaughter at Gush Etzion [the Etzion Bloc] in 1948. [signed] Yitzhak Ben Avrahamú Hebron Chapter Chairman.

About 60 Liga [Jewish Defense League] members assembled in the plaza outside the Cave of the Patriarchs. A photo in Yedioth Ahronoth shows Meir with Yosef Schneider and other supporters, singing and clapping hands. In a Ma’ariv photo, Meir stands with several supporters at the top of a hill, the houses of Hebron spread out below them.

Reporters who came to cover the story asked Meir if Liga members could live together with the Arabs of Hebron. Meir promptly replied, “What a question! The Arabs couldn’t wish for better neighbors!”

Referring to the historic Jewish quarter of Hebron, Meir told the reporters: “There’s a Jewish quarter here, but no Jews yet. Ask the leftists who think the Arabs should return to Biram and Ikrit why they aren’t demanding the return of the Jews to Hebron!”

Army officers approached Meir quietly and invited him for a talk in the nearby Settlers’ Restaurant. There he received orders to leave Hebron with his followers. Back in Jerusalem he held a press conference. He maintained that expelling him from Hebron was a violation of his civil rights. He announced that he would apply for a court order that very day to allow his group into the Jewish quarter of Hebron. Attorney Meir Schechter immediately applied to the High Court of Justice for an order nisi calling on the defense minister to show cause why Meir should not be allowed to “tour” the old Jewish quarter of Hebron. Justice Moshe Etzioni’s decision, given the next day, denied Meir’s request. But Meir had succeeded in making the Hebron issue an important news story. His demand for the return of Jews to Hebron and the restoration of their property was carried by all the Israeli media. Ma’ariv carried this insightful commentary by Yizhar Arnon:

“The Hebron massacre took place when I was a child. I have vague memories of postcards with the pictures of the victims, but in later years there were no reminders of the massacre. In grade school and in high school there was no mention of it, and in the course of the years it was forgotten by most of the population.

“When Hebron was liberated in the Six Day War I thought to myself, ‘Now the victims of the massacre will see justice done.’ But after 43 years they were forgotten, and there were even many who were opposed to ‘stealing’ Hebron from the Arabs. Rabbi Meir Kahane has done us a favor by reminding us that Hebron is not only an Arab city, it is first a Jewish city.

“Try as I can, I cannot think of when anyone, in the past 40 years, has raised the subject of the Jews who were massacred in Hebron. It is not enough to write about them in the weekend newspaper, when the reader is drinking a cup of tea and nodding off. Rabbi Kahane is to be praised for putting the massacre at the top of the news.

Meir’s campaign in Hebron made waves. A letter to the editor in Ma’ariv asked, “Why can’t Mayor Ja’abari be interviewed about his past? Why can Mayor Kollek be interviewed but not Mayor Ja’abari?”

Meir continued his campaign for a Jewish Hebron. He called a prayer meeting for 10 A.M. on the eve of Yom Kippur, September 17, in Hebron, calling on the public to join him in prayers for the return of the refugees to Hebron. In mid-September, flyers asked witnesses to come forward to testify at a public trial against Ja’abari to be held September 28 at Beit Agron in Jerusalem. The flyer featured a 1948 photo of the sheikh reviewing a line of soldiers of the Arab Legion. In order to seek out witnesses for the trial, Avraham Hershkowitz and others went to Hebron, where they were detained by soldiers.

On September 22, in an unusual step, the government issued an injunction ordering Meir and 19 other members of the Liga to stay out of Judea, Samaria and Gaza. The purpose of the order was to prevent them from carrying out “any activities liable to disrupt order or endanger security in those areas.” The Ja’abari trial was “postponed,” because the Association of Journalists, whose headquarters was Beit Agron, refused to rent the hall to the Liga, but Meir had made his point. He declared:

“I say that Hebron is not the real issue, but rather the right of Jews to create a Jewish state in THEIR Eretz Yisrael is the real issue. The Arab has NO RIGHT to Haifa and Jews DO have right to Hebron because it is part of Eretz Yisrael.”

May his memory be a blessing and inspiration to all. And may his murder be speedily avenged in our time.