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.
That is exactly correct.
Well, I mean, they like it (the gay culture).
They don't like it that way, most of 'em.
May I send you an entry form for the 2008 New Hampshire primary?
your excellent post illustrates my contention that there is still hope...
A grey what?
No, but it probably makes life for Jewish men more tolerable...
ROFL, boy does this condure up those on the hunt scenarios both men and women practice these days!
At 5ft. nothin' all the responses here remind me of why I sit on the bar stools...evens the height issue out. It's just experience talkin', but yeah I have found my shortness an issue on the dating scene. If I am standing around etc. it's nada. If I am sitting at near level height at least I might get a "hello" and some flirting, giving the guy the chance to get to know a bit about me, before he realizes I am from the land of the liliputians!
Very old women...
Mark
Actually, no woman of intelligence whatever her appearance would be interested in a man who looks only for 'models'. What does that say about him? Not much. He and his 'model' hopefully find each other.
I would guess that, as with fishing, you participate in the "catch and release" program.
Mark
Few women are interested in marrying a hunk.>>>>>>>>>>>>>
HaHaHaHaHa, I will bet you still believe in Santa Claus too!
Give me a man who looks like a man, who looks like he's lived life, whose face has never been within miles of a moisturizing cream, who got his muscles from physical labor and not the gym, who has a belly for me to wrap my arm around when I sit next to him with my head on his chest, and who is supremely confident in his masculinity, makes no apologies for being a real man, and who will love me and be devoted to me above everything else in his life.
That's what I have now, and if I wasn't already married, that's the type of guy I'd go for.
I agree with your logic. Just look around you - even at engagement announcements in the paper - and you will see that the vast majority of happily married people are far from gorgeous. I really don't know where this author is coming from - but it's a place I definitely don't want to go!
And btw, I'll bet you're adorable [:D
Geez! The misogyny and Judeophobia expressed on this thread and in this post in particular would please the entire Muslim male world. Why don't you guys just move to Kabul and have the time of your lives??
Wow that's some post! I had to read that again to make sure I got all of the side-swipes in there.
"Problem is simple... who wants to raise their child alone because their wife died young, had a stroke, has diabetes, or any other number of maladies..."
Oh dear...the problem is here is, of course, that if you marry and have kids with a shallow, vain but beautiful woman, you'll end up raising your kids alone too, not because she died, but because she ran off with your best friend.
Having once run a web dating site, and ran statistical analysis on the interactions, I can tell you the women are just as bad, only with different criteria. Forget it if you are bald, short, do not have a "professional" career (and salary), or are more than 5 years older than her.
Guys are hard-wired to be maximally attracted to women who are healthy, fit ( healthy + fit = attractive, generally speaking) and in their prime childbearing years
I think it's more akin to why so many very attractive women are "high maintenance" : it's because they can get away with it.
A handsome, well-built guy can be a jerk, and still get lots of women going after him. He thus has no incentive to change.
An attractive woman can be a complete jerk as well, yet still have lots of guys chaing after her, so she also has no incentive to be nicer and more considerate
This is self-correcting with many as they get older and discover that looks don't last, but character does
I knew a guy who you might consider fitting that category. Overweight, not well educated, starting to lose his hair. He flirted at every woman who looked interesting. Most women were repelled.
Why did he keep doing it? Because it worked for him!
Yes, most women were repelled. A significant percentage were not. So he always had female companionship.
A technique with a 95% failure rate is still viable if you're not investing that much time and effort in the failed attempts, as you quickly sort through the women who are not going to be interested in you in order to get to the ones who will be.
Rather than being on his best behavior, and spending a lot of time on a woman before she decided he wasn't for her, he made no attempt to mask who and what he was, but didn't spend more than a few minutes on a woman before deciding whether to move on. In the process, he left behind a bunch of women who thought he was a jerk. But he didn't care, because he was carefull to do his flirting away from work, so it didn't matter what the women thought of him afterwards
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.