An old woman calls in and says, “If a man does not love his wife because she won’t dye her hair, then she has the wrong husband.”
Dennis: “Why doesn’t it go in the other direction? If a man is married to a woman who won’t improve her looks by dying her hair, then he’s married to the wrong wife.”
Good point.
Dennis asks what is wrong with people looking younger than their chronological age.
Did you ask your husband if he would prefer you to dye your hair or to be grey? That is a question a wife owes her husband.
This matter is a great reason to go Asian or Persian, because they retain their naturally dark hair color longer. They age more gracefully.
One thing caught my attention in this new book was that Facebook helps people become more unified. They don’t have a profile for work and a profile for friends and a profile for family. They have just one Facebook profile and it is meant to have their real name.
I used to live many lives. Now I lead one life. I have family on my Facebook. I have friends from childhood. I have Orthodox Jewish friends. I have porn star friends.
On his radio show today, Dennis Prager, who was born in 1948, says that as a kid, he almost never saw tattooed women. “There was a sideshow in circuses of freaky people and one of them was the tattooed woman.”
“I don’t understand the appeal of women covering their skin with anything. Women’s flesh is the allure. If it is painted, why is it alluring?”
“My mother-in-law is a psychiatrist and she says that tattooing is a diagnostic issue.”
“Where there is a heavy dose of tattooing there may be an element of will someone try to get to know me through this major barrier, this veil, I’ve put up. It’s a statement of profound emotional insecurity. I’ve read that some women who’ve been raped will get obese to not attract any more men. I wonder if heavy tattooing is a way of psychologically working through something.”
Luke Ford writes: The Torah does not categorize people by either sexual orientation or practice. The Torah does not divide between homosexuals and heterosexuals. It does not divide between people who like to have sex with teens and those who like to have sex with those their own age. It does not divide between people who like vanilla sex and those who like raunchy sex. It does not divide between people who like sex through a particular entrance and those who prefer another opening.
The Torah says man-on-man sex is forbidden, but it does not classify those who have such sex as “homosexuals.”
The idea of dividing people up based on the sexual acts they do is profoundly anti-Torah.
Two. The rabbi writes: “The document repeatedly acknowledges the very real possibility that homosexual orientation is genetically based and is not subject to change.”
Whether or not certain sexual preferences are genetic, or any behavioral choices are genetic, is irrelevant to the Torah. There is no basis in the Jewish tradition for cutting people a break on the observance of G-d’s commandments because they might have a genetic predisposition to doing certain things. On the contrary, the Torah assumes that the will of man’s heart is nothing but evil from his youth and therefore people should not follow their predispositions when these predispositions clash with G-d’s directives.
My favorite goy, Greg Leake, emails: “I thank G-d that my mother was not Jewish, and also for Jesus bin Joseph. Otherwise I probably would have fallen heir to all of these obligations and responsibilities and would have been a considerably less free human being.”
This got me to thinking about freedom in Judaism and Christianity. I spent my first 18 years as a Christian and my last 20 in Jewish life.
Here are some examples of Christian freedom in order of importance:
* You can have sex with your wife when she’s menstruating * You can study Torah while doing your business on the toilet * You can eat shellfish and pigs and anything you want any time you want any way you want with whomever you want wherever you want * You can eat and defecate at the same time just like an animal * You can wear anything you want (within the generous standards of Christian modesty) * You don’t have to fear about your Heavenly Salvation * You can rape and murder people and then get immediate forgiveness from Jesus * You don’t have to study, you can just believe * You can use French ticklers (if you are a Protestant)
Here are some examples of Jewish freedom in order of importance:
* You don’t have your co-religionists forgive your boneheaded behavior by saying, “You did what was in your heart.”
* You don’t have your co-religionists say, “Are you saved?”
Throughout my life, I’ve had my narcissism interrupted by tides of empathy. I would suddenly see things as they really were for those around me and I would see how I was doing things that were unnecessarily hurting others and myself, I would see how in some ways I had been heading down a wrong path for days or weeks or months or years. I would get these lightning flashes of clarity. They were a combination of feelings and thoughts and they left me quite ashamed.
When I would feel things as others felt them when they experienced my behavior and my words, I’d feel horrible. I’d feel ashamed. I’d determine to change my ways and sometimes I did change and did the hard work to make myself a better person. But I hated those bouts of shame. I hated them so much that I held myself away from empathizing too much and just told myself to keep my eye on the prize of accomplishment and to hunker down and to keep pushing myself forward.
Empathy and shame. They’ve run together for me much of my life.
