The Evolving Jew

Gil Student tries to pin down what Modern Orthodox people believe (though he mixes the terms “Modern Orthodox” and “Centrist Orthodox”.) The problem with that is that it's much easier to define people fairly accurately by a label the farther to the religious right they are. Charedim have specific hashkafot in place for the various groups, and complete adherence is expected of members. Centrist Orthodoxy is a little harder to pin down onto a range of individuals and by the time you get to "Left Wing Modern Orthodoxy" or "Open Orthodoxy", there's not much of a party line and the mass of individuals represent quite a spectrum of beliefs. Personally, I like it that way. It forces people to get to know one another as individuals instead of projecting a label on them.

There’s been a lot of blogging lately on Israeli Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger’s psak forbidding single women from going to the mikvah . According to the Jerusalem Post: "It is absolutely prohibited to allow a single woman to immerse herself in a mikve," wrote Metzger. "And it is an obligation to prevent her from doing so." I find the second part of that statement especially distasteful. But this issue has been discussed to death the last few days on Jewish blogs. I want to make a peripheral point. On several blogs, in posts & comments, I’ve seen the sentiment that one of the reasons that Modern Orthodox young men & women are having premarital sex is because of a culture in the community that is accepting of people being single for years and that the culture is what has to change. (First of all, there’s far less of this going on than people firmly ensconced in the Centrist Orthodox community think. The Upper West Side is not a den of iniquity

Harry Maryles blogs about the new "minhagim" of gifts for chatan & kallah at weddings, as well as more & more lavish weddings, and the takanot that some rabbanim have issued to limit the spiraling expenses and social pressure. I totally agree with him. Thankfully my wife & I got married in our early 30's and did not socialize with the young couples who have this mindset. We did not give each other gifts in the yichud room. Neither did most of our friends. The attitude of many of these young people, especially the brides, seems to be more excitement about this paraphernalia than the marriage itself. As soon as the first dance is over, the girl's friends all huddle around her giggling while she proudly displays the jewelry she got from her groom in the yichud room. Is it still a minhag for the girl's parents to get the boy a shas? The truth is, most people who have those big expensive sets of shas rarely use them. They use their old beaten up gemara

I have 2 female friends who are Orthodox and single, one in her early 40’s and one in her late 30’s. The former recently had a baby and the latter is pregnant. It’s a tough decision to become a single parent, but other than that, I see no reason why that decision should be stigmatized by Orthodox Judaism. These women are opting for artificial insemination. While there may be some halachic issues, they’re not an insurmountable barrier. These women felt their biological clocks ticking and decided to go for it. They're both successful professionals who can afford to do this financially and they have support systems of friends. Instead of this being something that is talked about in hushed tones, the Orthodox community should relax its obsession with the supposed “singles crisis” and create an environment where such decisions are celebrated rather than looked down upon. How about an organization to help older single Orthodox women with this decision? If bringing children into the world

This article reports on a new school of thought within the mental health field: Happiness is overrated. According to several researchers our society has stigmatized sadness so much, labeling it “depression” and something to be treated, that we have discarded the value of sadness as a healing and creative power. Happiness, they say, has become an all-consuming passion in western culture. I think it depends on what you define as happiness. In a consumer culture such as ours, people define happiness as getting everything they want. If things are lacking within their lives, the pursuit of happiness is the pursuit of whatever we perceive as lacking. I would go so far as to say that the extreme pursuit of happiness is the very cause of much of the unhappiness. If your goals are always to attain something else then you always feel something missing. (Not to mention the issues that accompany the obsession, such as debt and destruction of relationships.) If we view happiness as satisfaction, c