Palin Power

It's been nearly two weeks since John McCain introduced Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate, so this post is long overdue.

I confess that I've been almost entirely cut off from this presidential campaign, especially compared to the last one where I campaigned for George W. As a conservative, I don't like Obama but, - also as a conservative, - I don't like John McCain either. His record in the senate is entirely too liberal for my taste. So I've been sitting out this election; disliking Obama wasn't enough of an incentive to get me to campaign for another man I don't like.

As I wrote previously, in a race where it was McCain running against Hillary, I would have voted for Hillary because I considered them to be equals politically and at least with her we'd finally have a woman in the White House.

So how do you think I felt when I woke up on August 29 to hear that John McCain had chosen a woman as his vice-president?

"That is awesome!" I said as I read the news reports, laughing out loud to myself.

And the news just got better and better: she's a mom of five kids; her youngest has Down's Syndrome (I've always admired the parents of children with special needs); she's a lifetime member of the NRA; she started out as governor of Alaska and was now being considered for the position for vice-president of the United States... She was where I've dreamed of being myself. (Well, my dream is to become governor of California and then run for President, but it's almost the same.)

It was the first time that I felt excited about this election and determined that I would definitely be voting for McCain. (Not that I would have voted for Obama; I would have just abstained.)

It was the smartest move - or, possibly, the only smart move - that McCain has made during this entire campaign. My (very) liberal history professor claims that she's just a dumb redneck woman who I'm smarter than (that's what he said) who doesn't have the experience necessary to run this country. He says he can't understand for the life of him why McCain chose her as his VP. I suggested that maybe he was trying to get more conservatives to support his campaign, and though he disagreed, that's still what I think.

It definitely got me on board.

For the Sake of Your Spouse

I asked a question in my last post and G-d decided to answer me when I was browsing a Jewish website today.

My question was: When a man cheats on his wife, whose fault is it - his own for breaking his oath of fidelity, or his wife's for not keeping him happy?

The answer that I found was written by Rabbi Isaiah Horowitz (aka "the Shelah"), a renowned rabbi and mystic who lived from 1565-1630.

The Shelah writes that all human beings have two kinds of desires: desires of the soul, and desires of the flesh. Both are good, writes the Shelah, since both were given to us by G-d; but they have to be used correctly.

Following the desires of the soul, a person will do good deeds, following the path that G-d wants us to follow.

Following the desires of the flesh, however, often leads a person to selfishly chase objects of their own pleasure.

The desires of the flesh were not created for a person's own selfish use, says the Zohar, (the most important work of Kabbalah); rather they were given to each person for the sake of their spouse.

"Therefore," writes the Shelah, "a man should not indulge in any pleasure except that which beautifies and benefits his wife."

The explanation goes into more Kabbalistic (and more complicated) detail, which I won't go into here, but the practical lesson here answers the question that I asked by telling us that a man is only given "desires of the flesh" for the sake of his wife, so if he decides to take them elsewhere, he's using those desires for entirely the wrong purpose.

Clearly, according to the Shelah and Kabbalah (and, thus, according to Torah and G-d,) a man who cheats on his wife (or, conversely, a woman who cheats on her husband,) is in the wrong.

Cheater Cheater

Here's a nice attitude that I've recently discovered some people in the frum community hold: If a man cheats on his wife, it's because his wife was doing something wrong.

So, just so we're clear, the guy breaks the sacred bond of marriage and it's the woman who gets blamed.

I hope that the fact that I heard this from people in the frum community doesn't mean that it's a common attitude in the frum community.

How many frum people out there agree with this statement?

Sexist Shidduchim

I was a accused of being sexist a few weeks ago.

It happened when I was talking to someone about the shidduch (Orthodox Jewish system of matchmaking) system and mentioned that I believed that it was the job of the man to pursue the woman. The man I was speaking to immediately accused me of being sexist against men by suggesting that the man should do the difficult part.

It took me slightly by surprise, probably because I'm not accustomed to hearing people speak about sexism against men, but I automatically answered, "Of course it's not sexist! The Torah (Bible) says that the man should pursue the woman, the Torah is written by G-d, and G-d isn't sexist; so obviously, it's not sexist."

It's the truth. The Talmud teaches that a man is supposed to search for his soulmate, "as a person seeks an object that he has lost." (Kiddushin 2b; Niddah, 31b) Frankly, it makes perfect sense to me. After all, the mitzvah (G-d's commandment) of marriage is for men. Men are the ones who are obligated to get married, according to the Torah; not women. So why should the woman pursue the man if he's the one who's required to get married?

In the Orthodox community today, it's the absolute opposite. Theory has it that there are more Orthodox single women than Orthodox single men, which means that women need to "fight" to get a good guy. Ultimately, that means that women need to work hard to find a match whereas the men can sit back and wait to be pursued by the girls.

And they do. I can't tell you how many stories I've heard from girlfriends about guys who will date a girl and just automatically "throw her away" because he knows that there are plenty of other girls who want to go out with him. Random dating is not how the shidduch system was ever meant to work. The system is based on the idea that men and women only date for marriage and dating numerous girls carelessly just because they're available doesn't really fit the bill of, "dating for marriage."

Yet it happens time after time that girls - wonderful, sweet, pretty girls - get passed up for another girl because the guy can say, "Well, she was fine, but there might be something better out there..." And Orthodox girls keep taking it - being treated by guys as objects in a store that are picked up, examined, and then abandoned, - because they want to get married and are willing to do what it takes to make that happen, even if it means being treated like trash over and over again.

It has to stop. Single women in the Orthodox community need to start putting their collective feet down and demand that the men stop this silliness; if the men want to get married, then they need to start taking dating seriously.

A Royal Code of Conduct

I've spoken about Tznius (the Orthodox modest dress code) before, here and here. I've written that since I believe (with perfect faith, as Maimonides wrote,) that the dress code is based on G-d's commandments, that I don't have a problem with questions of sexism. G-d is not a sexist and therefore the dress code that He created cannot be sexist.

Tznius (or Tzniut) is more than just a dress code, though. It also includes a code of modest conduct. I choose to think of it as a royal code of conduct. G-d chose the Jewish people to be His chosen Nation, His firstborn child, and since G-d is the King of all Creation, that makes us all royal children. Along with the privileges of being the children of royalty come serious responsibilities, and that includes a strict code of conduct.

Not that I would compare the Jewish People's spiritual royal dynasty to theirs, but for the sake of discussion, let's take a look at the British royal family. Most people, when they think of the Queen of England, recall seeing her in suits and hats at all times, following a royal dress code that commands respect for her majesty based on her royal position rather than on how trendy her outfit is.

The same goes for her demeanor. She does not demand respect through a loud voice and outlandish publicity stunts (can you say, "Paris Hilton"?). She keeps a calm and collected persona in public because that is what is expected of a woman whose social position itself commands respect and veneration.

It is similar with the Jewish people. Our social status and existence is not based on the opinions of others. If it was, these "others" would have finished us off a long, long, time ago.

Rather, our status in the world is based on the fact that G-d chose us to be His nation. We have survived all this time with our dignity intact solely as a result of G-d's will.


Based on modern psychology, the way that the Jewish people have been treated for thousands of years - as dirt beneath the feet of the gentiles, - one would expect us to have serious self-esteem problems. How often do we hear about how African Americans have less chances in our society because they were treated as slaves for hundreds of years? Yet we, the Jewish people, who were treated worse than slaves for thousands of years, don't seem to have a problem climbing the ladder of success in the secular, gentile world. Why is that?

Because we have known throughout the years of torture, denigration and murder that no matter what the nations of the world think of us that we are still G-d's chosen nation. Like the Queen of England's position, society's opinion of the Jewish people cannot change our royal status. They could treat us like vermin all the wanted; in the end, we rose from the extermination camps and built new lives, new communities, new shuls (synagogues), and new personas of beauty despite what they thought of us and all that they did to us.

Like the Queen of England, then, we should remember that we don't need to show off our bodies - whether by taking off our clothes or by running down the street yelling, - to gain the respect of others. We can carry ourselves with dignity because we know that no matter what that person driving by in the fancy German car sees when they look at us, their opinion cannot change who we really are.

Seeing us as vermin didn't stop us before and it won't stop us now.

Back to Feminism

It's been a little while since I last talked about the question that got this blog started: whether or not I'm a frum feminist. It's mostly because I haven't had anything new to add to the subject, but lately that's changed.

I've recently found myself getting eerily interested in cooking and baking. Two cupcake books (not to mention the cupcake-decorating *GULP* gadgets) and online Food Channel videos in the last two to three weeks. Today, I bought a recipe keeper, which is basically a folder in which you can write and organize recipes that you find, and I bought it because I've been finding recipes, using them, and wishing I had a place to keep them.

Does that as sound 'housewivey' to you as it does to me? It's making me feel like I'm related to Bree Hodge, and that's seriously creepy. (Does the fact that I know who Bree Hodge is make me less frum, nevermind the feminist part?)

What it doesn't sound like is feminist.

It's not that my feminist views have changed. For example:

In addition to cooking and backing, I've also recently become interested in a show called Army Wives, which presents wives of U.S. Army personnel and shows them, (from what I can tell -- I haven't really watched the show,) almost exclusively as housewives. In true feminist fashion, I've found this a bit disconcerting. I read a comment about the show on the internet which said, "Why don't these women have their own careers?" and I agreed with it. I found it disturbing to see these women relegated to staying at home and taking care of the kids while their husbands went off to war.

Clearly I still have feminist views, but all this recent cooking-and-baking-enjoyment has got me questioning where exactly I stand on the feminist scale. So here I am again, faced with the question of:

Am I a Frum Feminist?

Protecting Air, Space, and Cyberspace

You can call me a geek, but occasionally I find myself on Wikipedia, reading information just for the heck of it. Tonight I found myself reading about the United States Air Force when I came upon the following text:

The stated mission of the USAF today is "to deliver sovereign options for the defense of the United States of America and its global interests — to fly and fight in Air, Space, and Cyberspace".

"Ha ha!" I thought to myself. "That's hilarious!" I was sure that it was a joke, which some Wikipedia (which can be edited by anyone) user decided to put in. But I was curious to see if anyone else had ever commented on it so I googled, "USAF Cyberspace," and found out that it's actually true.

Apparently, "the Air Force has begun reorganizing itself to conduct cyberspace operations."

We've all heard of cyber-crime and most recently in a course I've been taking on terrorism the question of cyber-terrorism and the need to prevent cyber-terrorist attacks came up. I realized that a government institution would have to be set up for that defense, but it never occurred to me that it would be the air force.

I find it "blooodee fasinaitin'," personally.

Note: The awesome graphic is not mine; it belongs to the U.S. Military. I just spruced it up a bit.