Posted on 03/18/2006 7:03:00 PM PST by goldstategop
The miracle of Purim owes much to a superficial, womanizing male who set about dating as many women as possible to find the one that was the most beautiful. Ahasuerus is like so many shallow men today who reduce women to nothing but a slim figure and a pretty face. But in the end, the story of Esther makes it clear that the secretly Jewish queen was chosen not for her looks, but because she "found grace and favor" in the eyes of all who beheld her. There was a womanly dignity, a sublime feminine majesty, to Esther that the rest of the harem lacked. They were empty suits, packaging only, without substance or personality. They were the kind of women who attract attention with low-cut blouses rather than high intelligence, short skirts rather than a lofty spirit. But Esther is a woman possessed both of outer and inner beauty, a heroine who exhibits uncommon wisdom, courage and dedication to the helpless. In short, she is a woman of outstanding character and her story is that of the triumph not only of the Jews over their enemies, but also of a woman's ability to win over a man with her brains rather than her bust.
How tragic, therefore, that Jewish men today have adopted the dating mores of Ahasuerus. And I'm not just talking about secular Jewish men whom we might expect to have adopted less lofty criteria in their choice of a mate. Rather, I am speaking especially of Orthodox Jewish men who have become so obsessed with the three modern virtues of a real woman - large chest, long legs, slim figure - that heart, mind, even the sparkle of her eyes, count for almost nothing.
I once served as matchmaker-in-chief for JDate. But I now find matchmaking nauseating thanks to the dispiriting superficiality of today's Jewish men. I now know that the countless men who tell me how desperate they are to find a really nice girl are lying through their teeth because what they really mean is a woman who looks like a model. At my weekly Sabbath table, where I host many singles, I watch as the men immediately dismiss even the most interesting women with the warmest hearts if they lack a bombshell body.
If she's short, she's out, and if she's overweight, well, that's the kiss of death. I'll set up men with women who I know to be attractive and charming, only to have the guy call me back the next day and complain of a lack of chemistry, by which he always means, "She wasn't pretty enough." The poor woman never had a chance. Before she opened her mouth, her body did her in.
BUT WHY would we expect anything different? Superficial people seek superficial qualities, and men today are about as deep as a crack in the sidewalk. They have been given one criterion for success, money, and they use that money as a commodity to purchase a woman's chief commodity, her physical beauty. Today's religious men are trained to appreciate little else.
I know a 20-year-old Jewish girl who developed a dangerous eating disorder because her very religious parents told her that unless she lost weight the type of yeshiva student they wanted her to marry would not take her out.
But weren't Jewish men, especially Orthodox ones, supposed to be different? The nation that gave the world's Solomon's Ode to a Woman of Valor, where a woman's God-fearing qualities are what make her beautiful, have betrayed that ideal utterly. If you are a woman in the Jewish singles scene who isn't stunningly attractive, you're going to wait a long time to get married. And once you're married, you better keep your looks up, because the women who are going to be praying with you in the ladies' section spend five hours in the gym for every hour they spend in the synagogue. They're not fools. They know that their husbands are trained to appreciate muscle tone rather than piety. And don't have more than two children, even though we need as many Jewish babies as possible, because kids will make your figure go to hell and your breasts droop almost as far.
NEVER believed that I would witness a time when even marriage-minded, Orthodox men would become womanizers, giving themselves the latitude to date as many women as possible so that they can find "the best." In yeshiva I was taught one did not date a woman the way one shopped for a car. Rather, you focused on one woman completely and tried to develop a soulful connection with her without worrying about what else might be out there.
Recently, I had a young rabbinical student of marriageable age at my home. He told me he had already dated 40 girls and had not found what he was looking for. I was stunned. "Forty nice, religious girls, and not one of them was good enough for you?"
But anyone familiar with the increasingly toxic shidduch system among the ultra-Orthodox knows that what many young men are looking for is anathema to Jewish values, namely, looks, money and pedigree. Find all three and you have hit the jackpot. Find only one, or even two, and you have "to settle."
Now, no doubt, in the secular world marrying money and marrying into an important family are also important. But when religious Jews marry for materialistic and ego-driven values, they degrade a glorious spiritual tradition.
It is high time that rabbis started giving sermons from the pulpit exhorting single men in the congregation to be gentlemen and reward women for developing the traits that Judaism truly values like compassion, wisdom and goodness. While physical attraction is always important in marriage - both for men and for women - Jewish leaders must begin inspiring future husbands to judge their wives' attractiveness by considerations beyond flesh alone. For if we fail, we'll continue seeing Jewish women feeling permanently insecure about their "imperfect bodies" rather than taking pride in their generous spirits.
Well, good for you. :-)
I think the higher the Lower Continental Indian DNA the greater the risk of obesity...and the frame for it.. More European or Mulatto Latin women are no fatter than well behaved Gringas...maybe even less so
Aye. But you spelled "grey" wrong :-)
Full Disclosure: From C.S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet:
"...This love, you say, comes only once while the hross lives?'
'But it takes his whole life. When he is young he has to look for his mate; and then he has to court her; then he begets young; then he rears them; then he remembers all this, and boils it inside him and makes it into poems and wisdom.'
'But the pleasure he must be content to only remember?'
'That is like saying, "My food I must be content to eat."'
'I do not understand.'
'A pleasure is full grown only when it is remembered. You are speaking, Hman, as if the pleasure were one thing and the memory another. It is all one thing. The seroni could say it better than I say it now. Not better than I could say it in a poem. What you call remembering is the last part of the pleasure, as the crah is the last part of the poem. When you and I met, the meeting was over very shortly, it was nothing. Now it is growing something as we remember it. But still we know very little about it. What it will be when I remember it as I lie down to die, what it makes in me all my days till then--that is the real meeting. The other is only the beginning of it. . . .'
. . . 'And indeed,' he continued,'the poem is a good example. For the most splendid line becomes fully splendid only by means of all the lines after it; if you went back to it you would find it less splendid than you thought. You would kill it. . . .'
I didn't understand it when I first read it in high school. But I understand it somewhat better now...
Cheers!
Disagree. Schmuley properly realizes that set while set "really nice" and set "good looking" overlap, that the subset "really nice and good looking" is in all liklihood numerically insufficient for every man, or even most men to find one.
But what do I know? I'm as ugly as homemade sin, and I married a truly gorgeous 6' blonde.
Again, this exibits an implicit (and remarkable) bias against good looking women. Rabbi Schumley is better than that! A shame!
It's both. There is no reason a good man can't find an appealing, and substantive, mate.
I think liberal women who live for validation project inner dissatisfaction same as men.
I first saw this in manhattan early 80s when all these hippiechick/women's lib super educated at Sarah Lawrence types woke up at over 35 in a panic for children and often saw it get away from them.,
They got sold a bill of goods by Sontag and Jong and have spent the last 20 years middle aged alone and trying to explain why they were actually "right" even though they know they were wrong as hell.
i am seeing younger girls reject their mom's fembot ways...they see what mom has tried to hide.
Well, you might try developing some better lines! ;-)
My sister and brothers and I used to play Barbie and GI Joe. No Ken for us. He was a wimp.
Gotcha beat. My tallest flame was 6'6" and yes, she played basketball in college. She was a whopping 17" taller than I am. I finally married a woman who was only 11" taller than I am, and our 15th anniversery is rapidly approaching.
Ann is rare in that she has an equally great flare for writing and entertainment.
I think she is a total riot and any guy she ends up will have a fun marriage IMO if she does allow enough time at home to conduct a life.
I get the impression she would have her guy constantly laughing with one heck of a mischievous sense of humor.
Now I'm known as Dapper Dan, the lady killer man,
And those that I don't kill I wound a bit.
I run a fancy car, I call it the Mayflower,
On account of all the Puritans that've come across in it.
Now I took 20-year-old Pam up to the wood near Boulder Dam,
Stopped the car and thought that she'd know what to do.
I said, "Get in the back now, Pam," she said, "What the heck do you think I am?"
I wanna stay in the front seat here with you."
Oh, give me an older woman every time, every time,
Give me an older woman every time.
They don't yell, and they don't tell, and oh, they're grateful as hell,
So give me an older woman every time.
- The Wisdom of Mr. Benny Hill
Not always. Supermodel Stephanie Seymour used to visit my favorite coffee shop back when I lived in southern CA. She was absolutely lovely, easily prettier in person than in photos. It was hard not to stare.
Plus, she was friendly.
Don;t fall for this line, Paul. There are many very goodlooking women who have substance. You don't have to sacrifice one for the other. I never have.
I confess that some of these legs forever supermodels look enticing
they sure wear jeans well
I really just paid much attention....I was an exploiter of oppotunity and I reckon I attracted more shorter women
Ya, we all like Ann but she could do with a few more pounds, especially when you realize that pictures and TV are supposed to add 10lbs to a person!!
I've heard that many Indians and Mexican tribals groups are very suseptible to the bad effects of a western diet. Some groups are reported to have aduly onset diabetes rates of 40 % when they adopt a western diet as opposed to sticking to a traditional diet. It sounds like there is a major genetic component involved.
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