Reflections on Modern Orthodox Judaism

Oh, gosh, here I was feeling all admiring of the Orthodox website. I mean, it's well-done, very comprehensive, broad in ways that surprise me (a job search site connected with the Orhtodox movement -- now that's networking!) but then I clicked on "Mourner's Kaddish" in the "Judaism 101" section and saw the instruction that this prayer must be said by a "quorum of ten adult male Jews." I forgot that I am not even eligible to be a member of a minyan in Orthodox Judaism!

I should have remembered that when I saw, reading an article on the website, the names of couples listed, for example, as "Mr. and Mrs. Jordan Shifriss." Ooooh, the HT, by policy, had stopped referring to married people like that even before I came there 11 years ago! (A policy that I am more than happy to enforce, of course!)

There is a lot of Yiddish or Hebrew on the OU website which assumes that one just understands it, I guess. Like, what does “Kol Yisrael Areivim Ze Ba Ze” mean? It's in the section where they are talking about "changing the face of North American Judaism."

We have really good friends of our family who are Modern Orthodox, and so reading this section was really interesting. I printed out the Berman article so I can talk to them about it when we (hopefully) go see them in Pittsburgh for a long weekend sometime soon.

At the same time while I respect ppeople who can immerse themselves so fully in their beliefs and live by very strict rules, I have to say that some Orthodox behavior I do find offensive. For example, a few months ago my husband was in Israel, where most of his family lives. One branch of the family became very strictly Orthodox a few years ago. He went to stay, in Jerusalem, with his cousin and his wife for an overnight. But the cousin had to leave early in the morning so Jordie had to get up really early and leave, because he could not have been alone in the apartment with his cousin's wife. That, to me, is insulting and demeaning. I don't mean that the cousin and his wife meant any offense -- only the rule which they are required to obey.

One of the most delightful things about my working life, I think, is the opportunity to develop good friendships with men. I see several of the men in the newsroom of the HT as brothers that I didn't have. I wouldn't think anything of going to lunch with one of them or telling them about a problem of mine, etc. To see every interaction between a man and a woman as potentially sexual is limiting and insulting.