Professional Therapists Or New Age Hookers?

Posted on January 30, 2011 by Luke Ford

The Jewish Journal.com is getting pretty edgy!

I wonder if the Torah permits the use of sexual surrogates.

Here’s a snippet:

Photo

Barbara Streisand plays a hands-on sexual healer in “Meet the Fockers”

Want more Yenta? Visit AskYourYenta.com

To Ms. Yenta,

I have a sexual question and it has taken me time to even consider asking this question but here it goes. I have had a long term sexual problem (Premature Ejaculation) which I have not been able to cure. I have tried the silly Kegel exercises and they cause me pain and frustration. I recently have heard about sexual surrogates. Surrogates being sex therapists who actually engage in sex with the patient in order to help their patients with their problems. I’m wondering if you know anything about surrogates and if they are a good choice or just new age hookers?

*Thank you*

-from Stephen J

Dear Stephen,

Thank you for your brave honesty! For you, I learned about sex surrogates. I am now a HUGE fan of this concept. For those of you not aware of sexual surrogacy, it is a medical route to sexual assistance. Ie, you go see a doctor who then helps you with your sexual self in a “triad” with a third person, the sexual surrogate. This person actually assists you manually in learning how to be more intimate and sexually adept.

Prostitutes far and near often speak of their job as a sex worker as one of a sex therapist. Depending on the hooker and depending on the John, this is a place for acting things out emotionally via sex, off the grid. This work, for the happy hooker, can be really transformative.

The difference, however, between a prostitute and a sexual surrogate is the medicalization and legalization of the practice. One woman touching you and teaching you is usually illegal, whereas the other is sanctioned by a doctor with whom she works in conjunction. For more on legit sexual surrogates, see IPSA, The International Professional Surrogates Association.

In his pulp novel, Counsel For The Damned, author Neil Montefiore Fleishman writes about how the first five hours of marriage make or break every union. He has a theory stating that men are either born lovers, or aren’t, and that this shows in those few hours past the threshold. Sexual surrogacy is a fabulous challenge to the notion that a man can’t learn to be a phenomenal lover. Think about Footloose. If Kevin Bacon can teach that chump to dance, then anyone can learn to make love like a pro.

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Seventh-Day Adventists Permissive On Abortion

Posted on January 30, 2011 by Luke Ford

I grew up a Seventh-Day Adventist and I recall very little condemnation of abortion beyond the church’s general condemnation of sex outside of marriage. It just wasn’t on the agenda.

The Washington Post reports:

Christians of all denominations are gathering on the National Mall today to protest the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide. But one denomination that may be sparsely represented is Seventh-day Adventists whose large worldwide network of 170 hospitals allows elective abortions.

This stance was revealed last week when Maryland state regulators gave Holy Cross Hospital, a Catholic institution, permission to build a hospital in growing northern Montgomery County, shutting out the Seventh-day Adventists, who also wanted to build a hospital in the area. Some abortion rights advocates opposed Holy Cross’s selection because it does not allow abortions.

Adventists resemble many conservative Protestant denominations as they believe in divinely inspired Scripture, six literal days of Creation, justification by faith and baptism by immersion.

Their distinctive rites include worshiping on Saturday, the seventh day of the week as opposed to Sunday, an emphasis on the Second Coming of Christ and an emphasis on following Jewish dietary laws concerning abstinence from pork, shellfish and other foods proscribed as “unclean” in the Old Testament. The denomination is known for its emphasis on health. Alcohol and tobacco are prohibited and many Adventists are vegetarians.

But the denomination may be the only theologically conservative Protestant group that allows elective abortions. Many of their own members didn’t know that their worldwide hospital network performed the procedure, which has been quite the discussion on the Adventists for Life Facebook page. A number of posters were shocked to learn the denomination’s stance.

“I can’t belong to a organization who advocates abortion,” one poster wrote. “I believe in Christ my Saviour, the Sabbath & etc. I believe in Sister White also,” referring to Ellen G. White, one of the revered founders of the denomination.

Another poster said that Adventists opposed abortion until 1970. That is when Hawaii legalized abortion and Castle Memorial Hospital, an Adventist institution in Kailua, Hawaii, the poster said, was pressured by its own doctors, and donors, to start offering abortions. At the time, Adventist leaders in Washington indicated they did not oppose the procedure and thus, more Adventist hospitals began offering the procedure. In 1992, the denomination issued these guidelines on abortion. The official position of the church is that abortion is allowed in “extraordinary circumstances.”

SDA evangelist Kevin Paulson has given the longest defense of the church’s position here where he agrees the church essentially has no restrictions on the practice and might do well to restrict it more.

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Yisroel Pensack: Barack and Mubarak Were on Top of the World Trade Center; Mubarak Fell Off — Who Was Left?

Posted on January 30, 2011 by Yisroel Pensack

In an article on the Egyptian crisis headlined “Obama Presses for Change but Not a New Face at the Top,” David E. Sanger and Helene Cooper of The New York Times report:

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s decision to stop short, at least for now, of calling for Hosni Mubarak’s resignation was driven by the administration’s concern that it could lose all leverage over the Egyptian president, and because it feared creating a power vacuum inside the country, according to administration officials involved in the debate…

The administration’s restraint is also driven by the fact that, for the United States, dealing with an Egypt without Mr. Mubarak would be difficult at best, and downright scary at worst. For 30 years, his government has been a pillar of American foreign policy in a volatile region, not least because of Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel. American officials fear that a new government — particularly one dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood or other Islamist groups — may not honor the treaty signed in 1979 by Mr. Mubarak’s predecessor, Anwar el-Sadat.

Mr. Sadat was assassinated two years later, paving the way for Mr. Mubarak…

…Some officials have compared what is unfolding in Egypt with the uprisings more that three decades ago that led to the ouster of Iran’s shah, and the protests in the Philippines that brought down Ferdinand Marcos.

In Iran, Washington gambled on the emergence of a government that it could work with, and lost — a process that one member of the Obama cabinet, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, was deeply involved in as a young aide in the Carter administration. In the Philippines, the result was a messy democracy…

Obama administration officials would like to see a moderate and secular government emerge from the…Egyptian crisis. But in large part because Mr. Mubarak stifled so much political debate and marginalized any opposition, there is no middle ground in Egypt’s politics, no credible secular party that grew up in opposition to Mr. Mubarak’s government. Instead, there is the army, which has long supported Mr. Mubarak’s government, and on the other end of the spectrum, the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood…

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This Week’s Torah Portion Is Terumah (Exodus 25:1-27:19)

Posted on January 29, 2011 by Luke Ford

Watch the whole show.

I discuss the weekly Torah portion with Rabbi Rabbs every Monday at 7pm PST on my live cam and YouTube.

This week’s parasha is Terumah (Exodus 25:1-27:19).

* We discuss my Saturday night interview with Heshy Fried.

* The Torah is obsessed with order. There is to be order in the sanctuary, in the camp, in the calendar, etc. And along with order comes hierarchy. Some people are more holy than others. We are not all equally holy, Korach. Somebody owns moralleader.com and others do not.

* Exodus 25:1. Each person is to give what his heart desires.

* Giving what my heart prompts me to give has gotten me into a lot of trouble in my life.

* If you do religious rituals and your heart is untouched, the rituals are empty. If prayer and kashrut have no meaning to you, then they won’t shape you to be a better person. That’s how people can pray regularly and keep strict kosher and cheat in business. When it comes to ethics, the heart does not matter much, but in religious rituals, the heart is important. If your heart is not into being ethical, be ethical anyway, but if your heart is not into keeping Shabbos and it has been this way for many years, you might need to adjust your observance. The Sabbath should be a delight.

* A third of Exodus is about the sanctuary. It is a route to God, perhaps more immediately accessible than anything we have today. The purpose of the sanctuary (mishkan) is to house the presence of God. Is God with us today? In our homes and in our cars and in our businesses and in our shuls? There is no better question than — is God in our midst?

* This parsha tells us what it is good for people to make, including the Sabbath. They shouldn’t try to be gods and to clone people. The vocabulary of the tabernacle — finished, work, blessed — is reminiscent of the Creation (Gen. 2: 1-4).

* God rescues the Jews and then has them build a place for Him to dwell with them.

* How could the Jews have all these sanctuary materials while they were running out of Egypt and wandering in the desert?

* People have tried to reconstruct the sanctuary from these instructions and it has not worked out. These are ideal measurements rather than real world measurements. The tabernacle is essential in Israel’s idea system. Seventh-Day Adventism sanctifies time and the Mormon faith sanctifies space (Utah) but Torah does both (time is the Sabbath and festivals etc, and the sacred space in particular is Israel).

* In Ex. 25:8, God says the Israelites should build a sanctuary “so that I may dwell among them.” Did not God dwell among them without a sanctuary? Isn’t God everywhere?

I believe God is everywhere but we don’t feel God’s presence equally? I walk into secular homes and I am struck by the absence of God. I walk into a religious home and I am comforted by the presence of holy books and religious artifacts. I feel a sense of the divine.

Similarly, I am less likely to feel the presence of God at a disco or an orgy than at a temple or church or mosque or yoga. I am less likely to feel the presence of God when I listen to the BeeGees than when I listen to Bach or Debbie Friedman.

According to the Artscroll chumash, the temple was only needed because Israel lapsed into idolatry with the Golden Calf. (Pg. 444)

How much are we losing by not having the temple today?

You can pray in your toilet or at a disco but it is not as easy a bridge to the transcendent than a holy place. What better to use gold or music or art for than to reach out to God?

Are we more deaf to God today? Because we are so busy? A secret to the Sabbath is quiet. We experience God through the holy. Secular people who act kind don’t experience God through their kindness.

God must be experienced, not intellectually argued for.

* The Artscroll definition of “Terumah.” “The root of the word is to uplift. The effect of these contributions was to elevate the giver.” (Pg. 445)

* The temple and the ark in shul holding the Torah scroll are embodiments of the revelation at Mount Sinai.

* The Torah scroll is so holy that it can not receive impurity. A menstruating woman touching a Torah scroll does not defile it.

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The Longest War By Peter L. Bergen

Posted on January 29, 2011 by Luke Ford

I had high expectations for this new book. It has received glowing reviews. Many people say that Peter L. Bergen is the premiere expert on Al Qaeda and terrorism.

So I pick the book up Friday and start reading and I am blown away by the stupid statements of partisan political opinion scattered throughout.

As E. B. White put it, a single overstatement has the power to destroy for the reader the object of the writer’s enthusiasm.

Here are some examples:

Talking about President Bush’s big speech of Sept. 20, 2001, Bergen writes: “What went unsaid in Bush’s speech was the idea that the United States, the consumer of a quarter of the world’s energy, should launch a Manhattan Project-style policy to make Americans less dependent on the Middle Eastern countries that had helped to incubate al-Qaeda.” (Pg. 58)

Is Bergen an expert in energy policy? If America wants to be less dependent on Middle East oil, wouldn’t it be at least as logical to build more nuclear power plants and to reduce restrictions on domestic drilling as to mount some fantastic government funding of green energy, which shows little promise of meeting our energy needs?

Why drop hand grenades of partisan opinion in matters in which you have no expertise into what might be (I am no expert in these matters) a sound book?

Because Bergen does this, he can’t be trusted. Some of the time, he writes as a left-wing partisan and some of the time he seems to report dispassionately, but you never know fully which role he’s playing in each sentence.

On page 97, Bergen writes that the Bush administration chose to “jettison the country’s core principle: that it is a nation of laws.”

How? By outsourcing “more than fifty suspect terrorists to countries that practice torture.”

Which laws precisely does this violate? All these terrorists are not American citizens. Non-citizens have no rights under American law. As for the Geneva Conventions, they do not apply to terrorists. They only apply to soldiers in uniform for nation-states.

Even if these decisions by the Bush administration violated some laws, were they much different than what every presidential administration does? Was Bush the first president to break the law? Extraordinary rendition was started by Bill Clinton.

On page 155, Bergen writes: “The CPA [Coalition Provisional Authority of Iraq] would prove to be one of the more inept imperial administrations in modern history.”

On page 196, Bergen writes: “America’s neglect of Afghanistan was an enormous missed opportunity…”

A missed opportunity to do what? Create a functioning prosperous democracy? That was never on the cards. America can not win in Afghanistan. We can’t reshape the country. The best we can do is to hold the major cities.

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The Darkening World Of American Judaism

Posted on January 28, 2011 by Luke Ford

The Washington Post reports:

Like so many Jewish women, Anne Suissa pursued her education and career with gusto, earning degrees from Cornell and MIT and going on to manage 27 people at the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Suissa always knew she wanted marriage and family, but by the time she had found her husband and began trying to have a child, she was in her late 30s. Doctors told her the fertility treatments she had begun probably would not succeed.

Today, the Suissas are parents of two children from Guatemala, both of whom they converted to Judaism. Though their lives are full and rewarding, Suissa still wishes someone had encouraged her to start a family earlier.

In Jewish families, it’s “education, education, education,” said Suissa, who lives in the District. “But nobody told me that college might be a good time to meet a nice Jewish boy.”

The general track of Suissa’s life is not unusual among Jewish American women. As a group, they’re highly educated – a fact demographers say contributes to their relatively low fertility rates.

Still longing to be mothers, they often adopt, and frequently, their children are of Latino, Asian or African descent. And that, in turn, is slowly changing the face of American Judaism.

Those who study American Jewish families can’t point to formal surveys to document the trend, but clergy and congregants say they are noticing more of these children.

“People don’t blink when they see these kids in synagogue today,” said Susan Abramson, the rabbi at Temple Shalom Emeth, a Reform synagogue in Burlington, Mass.

A generation ago, when Abramson co-founded Stars of David, the first national group of Jewish adoptive families, the idea of bringing children of color into their congregations was daunting for many parents. They wondered how children who didn’t share the same Jewish ancestry would be accepted.

But the phenomenon is now a point of pride within many Jewish communities, and their presence reflects the varied complexions of Jews globally, from the Middle East to North Africa and India.

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Orthodox Jewish Boxer’s Upcoming Bout; Revisiting Haiti One Year Later; President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address

Posted on January 28, 2011 by TheJewishChannel

Click here to watch in High Definition (HD)

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Jewish News

Posted on January 27, 2011 by Luke Ford

From TorahMusings.com:

▪ Simon Wiesenthal and the ethics of history
▪ Is ‘Jewish’ Parenting Lax?
▪ Alien life deemed impossible by analysis of 500 planets
▪ Bias feared in public school proposal to absorb Yiddish special ed program
▪ Facts and Figures
▪ Returning to Moscow — A place for building, not fleeing
▪ SALT Thursday
▪ R. Josh Yuter, punny Twitterer
▪ YU Beacon – I’m not quite sure what to make of it
▪ The seed of Israel
▪ Dual-loyalty of Diaspora Jews explored
▪ Pope promotes Christian netiquette
▪ Ashkenazi haredi rabbis protest conversion ’breach’
▪ SALT Wednesday
▪ R. Haim Amsalem launches new social movement
▪ Yeshiva University Students Annual Seforim Sale
▪ Britain’s Orthodox Jews in organ donor card row
▪ An Infant Dies, and a Jewish Ritual of Birth Begins
▪ SALT Tuesday
▪ Chief Sephardi Rabbi defends IDF conversions decision
▪ Matzav: Rabbi Dr. Moshe Tendler slaughters RCA for “Dramatic Chillul Hashem” and “Nonsense,” claims shitah is “Close to a Blood Libel”
▪ Talmud to be translated into Italian
▪ The Brain Death Debate: A Methodological Analysis
▪ Rabbi, plan me a family

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Chabad Jews Tend To Be Loving Jews

Posted on January 27, 2011 by Luke Ford

Watch the whole show:

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The Next Decade

Posted on January 27, 2011 by Luke Ford

From DennisPrager.com:

Thursday, January 27, 2011 Radio Show
H1: Stop-Watch
Prager H1: Dennis discusses the declining use of watches and their technological replacements. Callers weigh in. He then reviews Chris Matthew’s interview of Washington Post reporter Jonathan Capehart, and their misunderstanding of American history and the “three-fifths compromise”.

Thursday, January 27, 2011 Radio Show
H2: George Friedman: The Next Decade, Part 2
Prager H2: Dennis talks to George Friedman, Founder and CEO of Stratfor, on his new book The Next Decade. Topics include: the state of national security, the future of terrorism, the growth of the world’s Islamic population, and America’s unique emphasis on liberty.

Thursday, January 27, 2011 Radio Show
H3: Balloon Heads
Prager H3: Dennis discusses the future of liberty in the Middle East and America. Callers weigh in on Chris Matthew and Washington Post reporter Jonathan Capehart’s opinion of the “three-fifths compromise”, along with their accusations of Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann’s ignorance of American history.

George Friedman of Stratfor: The Next Decade

Wednesday, January 26, 2011 | Posted by: Allen Estrin at 2:28 PM
Dennis talks to George Friedman, Founder and CEO of Stratfor, a private intelligence company. His new book is The Next Decade.

Rep. Paul Ryan Answers

Wednesday, January 26, 2011 | Posted by: Allen Estrin at 1:00 PM
I thought this was the best rebuttal I’ve seen. He stated the Republican position very clearly: less government, less taxes. Let the American people figure it out for themselves.

How the Public Service Unions Came into Being

Tuesday, January 25, 2011 | Posted by: Allen Estrin at 1:48 PM
Very useful and unhappy history of public service unions. We have to put this genie back in the bottle.

Still Divided Academy

Tuesday, January 25, 2011 | Posted by: Allen Estrin at 12:23 PM
Dennis talks to Matthew Woessner, associate professor of political science and public policy at Penn State University at Harrisburg. His new book is The Still Divided Academy: How Competing Visions of Power, Politics, and Diversity Complicate the Mission of Higher Education

Harvard Scientist: We Are Alone in the Universe

Monday, January 24, 2011 | Posted by: Allen Estrin at 2:23 PM
According to a Harvard scientist, the evidence is overwhelming: we are the only life in the universe.

MTV Enhances the Culture Again

Monday, January 24, 2011 | Posted by: Allen Estrin at 1:48 PM
This time MTV distinguishes itself with a show about teenage sex and drug use. The young “star” defends the show — with all the wisdom you’d expect from a teenager.

Tax Laws Don’t Change the Behavior of Wealthy?

Monday, January 24, 2011 | Posted by: Allen Estrin at 1:16 PM
Oh, really? Then, explain Alec Baldwin, Mr. Hollywood Liberal. Can we call him a hypocrite? Don’t miss the last two paragraphs.
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