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.
Nice tip ;-)
Slowly, desirable qualities are exaggerated until you have the freakishly thin, soccer-ball smuggling cricket woman ideal of today.
We men would all like you to be supermodels, and a few of us would like you to be intelligent. I'm cool with that kind of a generalization.
Hey, I wouldn't doubt it.
The easiest way to get babes is to "pretend" that you are a liberal.
But, then don't you get stuck with liberal women? Why would you want that?
Ooooh, you lick women with baaaaaaaaack. :)
"My generation craves hairless, tanned, toned, smooth men who get manicures and smell nice, and who won't argue with the women in their life. The feminists tell us that this is the only kind of man that will make us happy."
Are you talking about METROSEXUALS????
lick = like LoL!
And women are hardwired to want one thing too: STATUS.
If that's the case...both my wife and I are...
prisoner6
Problem is you need to try out several hundred to find a single one capable of making such a connection, and when you do, the chances are someone else has found her first. Not our fault, rabbi.
Oh please NO!! My daughter is dating a self-professed "METROSEXUAL" ... UGH!
Men have always been attracted to hot women.
Geez....this rabbi wants to make a "new man" devoid of his innate nature.
Messianic.
Is this a chick thread?
My advice to Jewish chicks...and I've dated a few including living with one for 3 years including buying a house together:
Relax and let the man be a man. Don't be bossy. My attraction to them in my Manhattan days was that I was like the opposite of a stereotypical Jewish "doctor type"...Southern Alpha male...very non-Alda or Woddy Allen....devoid of angst and no mother issues.
They loved it except when their parents gave them grief over my goyishness but in the end they remained very Jewish and I remained very Alpha.....and what had attracted them ended up repelling them.
Some things are nature I'm convinced....culturally entrenched. Not that it can't be done but I think Jewish men pair better with Goy chicks than vice versa.
oh well maybe I didn't meet the right one but I woulda never converted...and that always came up.
Jews really need to start marrying each other and having lotsa babies or they are going to fade away largely....victims of their own doing
soooo glad you caught the "lick" .... cuz I was just gonna have to say something..............LoL!!!!!
Getting closer, getting much closer. Terms such as `aesthetic' and `desirable'. Who does the defining of how these are made physically manifest?
Hint: certain young women are described as "nubile", taken by most to mean `voluptuous, desirable', when the word really means "eligible for marriage".
Is desire for the opposite sex divinely ordained? I think so.
"most women do not know what they want after all the BS on the TV, but one thing that has changed is the way society has made men subservient to women, the entire gay culture is popular because women like it that way, or so they think."
Wait until China invades us or we get nuked by them. Then women will suddenly and absolutely demand John Waynes to go and kick some foreign rear end. Will there be any left by that time with the almost complete feminization of boys and men?
Sounds like winners to me.
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