I often get off the 10 Freeway at Robertson Blvd and have to pass by this den of iniquity — Skin, a strip club at 3388 Robertson.
As I drive by Skin, I often wonder how crazy would it be to go in? They’re always advertising free admission and free lunch. Now, I certainly couldn’t eat there. I severely doubt it is kosher. Now, I certainly could not go into Skin while a member of Bnai David-Judea or Aish HaTorah or YICC or Beth Jacob, none of these holy shuls, but hell, I’m not a member any of these shuls. I’m not good enough for them. I’m dirty. I certainly couldn’t step in while doing an Orthodox conversion, but hell, that’s in the past now. I’m as free as a bird. I have only my conscience to guide me and my conscience is a frightfully flexible. It’s all the yoga and Alexander Technique I do. Downward Dog and semi-supine and all.
A story in the brand new, sharply designed and overall very intriguing new Jewish web magazine, Tablet, describes the Jewish infatuation with the Alps. The best line, cited at the end, is the famous one from Rav Hirsch:
Samson Raphael Hirsch, the father of modern Orthodoxy, may have best captured this sentiment: “When I shall stand before G-d,” he wrote in the 1880s, “the Eternal One will ask me: Did you see my Alps?”
So, I had no intention of visiting this strip club. It contains sights that a religious man should not see. It breaks down family values. It exploits women. It causes spiritual pollution.
Then I had a thought. What if on Judgment Day, the Eternal One asks me, “Levi, did you see my lapdancers?”
What would I say? I’ve never had a lapdance. I feel like this privation is a slap in the face to God for the beauty he’s created for me to enjoy.
