Sunday. 10 a.m. Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller and his sex therapist wife Doreen hold what they say is their first joint session in a quarter century. It’s about deviant sex and it’s filled with pages from the Talmud and the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch.
The room is jammed with about 150 Jews.
Doreen’s practice is filled with Orthodox Jews. One woman came to her because she and her husband had been unable to consummate their marriage. Doreen introduced her to dildos. The wife learned to penetrate herself. Doreen told her to have her husband watch. The couple said no because then their children would be born deformed.
We study the Talmudic texts which say that if a man looks at that place, his children will be born deformed.
From Edah.org:
Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller is in his twenty-seventh year at UCLA Hillel as director. He previously served as Hillel Director at Ohio State and as Rabbi of Congregation Ahavat Achim, New Bedford, Massachusetts. He was ordained in 1971 at Yeshiva University where he also earned a Masters Degree in Rabbinic Literature. Rabbi Seidler-Feller is a lecturer in the Departments of Sociology and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at UCLA where he teaches courses on the “Jewish Experience in Contemporary America”, on the “Social, Cultural, and Religious Institutions of Judaism” and on “Philosophers and Mystics”. He serves on the Governing Council of the Progressive Jewish Alliance, on the Advisory Council of EDAH, a voice of Modern Orthodoxy and is a founding member of Americans for Peace Now. Chaim is the founder of the Streisand Center for Jewish Cultural Arts at UCLA Hillel and was a rabbinic consultant to Barbara Streisand during the making of the film Yentl. Chaim is the recipient of the Youth Education Stairways (YES) Award as exemplary clergyman in recognition of these efforts. He is married to Dr. Doreen Siedler-Feller and is the father of Shulie and Shaul.
Dr. Doreen Seidler-Feller is currently a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at UCLA Medical School where her responsibilities include supervising residents and interns and teaching third-year medical students selected topics in the psychology of doctoring. She also has a private practice of Clinical Psychology. Dr. Seidler-Feller received her MA in Clinical Psychology in 1973 from The Ohio State University and went on to receive her PhD in Clinical Psychology in 1980. For five years, she was an assistant professor at California State University and for four years, she lectured in Psychology at The Ohio State University. From 1968-1969, she was teaching associate and taught in conjunction with playwright Arthur Sainer.
Here is how the class is described at limmudla.org:
Sexual Repression and Obsession in Traditional Jewish Practice: The Case of the Kitzur Shulhan Arukh
Although the Jewish tradition is generally open-minded regarding sexual behavior within marriage, certain repressive ideas have gained currency over the centuries and have determined sexual attitudes within elements of the Orthodox community. The claim of this workshop is that the Kitzur Shulhan Arukh, a popular 19th century halakhic work read broadly by Yeshiva High School students, is largely responsible for the dissemination of these ideas. Among the issues to be discussed will be masturbation, tzniut in dress and modesty in sexual intercourse. We will read the texts, explore the origins of these teachings, look at alternative sources, and discuss the psychological impact of these prohibitions and inhibitions.
Doreen: "In the course of working with her, I had brought her to the point where she was comfortably able to insert a dildo, which she acquired from me, dildos of various sizes, as a bridge to working with her partner. I told her to ask her husband to look at what you are doing so that he can orient himself."
"She came back to me the next week and she said to me, ‘He can not look there. It is not allowed. If he looks there, my children will be blind and disabled.’"
"I was shocked by that. I don’t like to give people prescriptions they can’t follow. I don’t want to injure them. I don’t want to be insensitive. That’s the basis for this study session because I was at a loss to understand what she was talking about."
Rabbi Seidler-Feller: "When I was at yeshiva high school, the only source of information we had on sex was the kitzur Shulchan Aruch… Once in a while we’d have a rabbi who’d say things like, ‘Keep your hands out of your pockets.’
"There was a whole mode of transmission that was allusive and suggestive but nobody talked directly to us so the boys looked in the book. Over the years, I thought, how damaging."
"I went on the YU tour of 1964 and Rabbi Shlomo Riskin was our tour guide and all these guides, me too, had these private sessions with Rabbi Riskin. You could talk openly with Rabbi Riskin."
"Rabbi Shlomo Ganzfried (author of the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch) was Hungarian… That reinforces those who of us who have particular prejudices [about Hungarian Jews]."
Widespread laughter.
"I lived in Borough Park. I was surrounded by Hungarian Jews."
A man in the audience tells Doreen that men are dogs and fixated on sex.
Doreen: "Why? Because sex serves a wide range of functions for you, not only those connected to being a dog, but to being intimate with another human being, succulence, nurturing… You’re being reductionist to the point of absurdity. We have to think more broadly about male sexual desire… [The Talmudic sex ethic] depends on a mechanical construction of the model of a man."
Rabbi Chaim: "How can we as religious people deal with lust? Shouldn’t the holy person be clear of all lust?"
"I see young students who are becoming more religious. They don’t read the Rambam. The Rambam is the loser in the battle for the Jewish world. They learn the manuals, which quote all the most stringest opinions."
"This [extreme attitude towards sex] comes from the mystical tradition."
"The Zohar says that masturbation is the worst sin. It’s the only sin for which there is no forgiveness… It caused the flood."
Doreen returns to the troubled couple she mentioned at the start of the class: "I taught him how to insert the dildo without looking."
