How Should A Man Relate To Jenn Sterger?

Posted on October 18, 2010 by Luke Ford

I’ve spent my morning looking at photos of Jenn Sterger and I have come to some very profound conclusions.

I’m wondering if she wanted to receive those intimate texts from Brett Favre?

I’ve spent a long time looking at photos of Jenn Sterger and I am mystified at what else one would text to such a lady? Brett’s Little Viking might be just the thing.

Jenn Sterger has based her whole career on her sex appeal. So why is it wrong for guys to try to relate to her in a sexual manner? Heck, I am a very religious guy, but after a quick peak at her photos online, I want to send her photos of me.

And that’s not how I normally relate to women. Normally, I am much more interested in their character and soul than their body. I want to go to shul with girls, not go to bed.

Such meaningless sex is boring to me and I know that it loses its excitement after several decades.

I remember the movie director Greg Dark, who got to know dozens of actresses. Some of Greg’s peers were appalled. They said he was abandoning the lofty standards required of someone in his position as a genre director.

Greg’s view? What else do you do with them? Discuss Descarte?

Girls who put their sexuality first and forward will inevitably attract sex-centered attention.

On the other hand, pious Torah scholars such as myself inevitably attract lofty theological insights, which, in the final analysis, are much more rewarding.

It hurts me to waste my time on this tawdry story when there is so much in the Torah that I have yet to understand.

How come sexual harassment only goes one way? Women can dress as provocatively as they want but if men respond to that, even if only by staring, then it is sexual harassment? (Dennis Prager)

Why am I not being sexually harassed when a woman with a great rack turns her headlights on me?

I am only flesh and blood. I know most of my readers think of me as a great holy man, but I too have my weaknesses and the high beam can dazzle me and render me incoherent, thus separating me from my fierce commitment to ethical monotheism and leaving me to wander in a fallen secular world abounding in Jenn Stergers.

I want to share a story with you. Only now can the truth be told.

In 1999, I was set up with a nice Jewish girl. We IM on AOL. She asks me what I like and then she emails me a photo of herself and she asks me to email her back an intimate photo of myself.

How did I know that this was not a trap? That this evidence would later be used against me when I made courageous moral stands?

Let me just say that I went forward in faith and God never punishes someone who acts in faith.

I’d like to think that my indiscretion has disappeared into the ether.

The other topic that has been preoccupying me of late is suicidal gay teens. I’m thinking that one bright side of this tawdry Jenn Sterger story is that some confused and suicidal gay teens may look at photos of Jenn Sterger and find their way back to the light.

Howard Kurtz writes: I didn’t get into journalism to write about Brett Favre’s private parts, and I suspect most of my colleagues would like that story ruled out of bounds.

But our ability to spike such tawdry tales ended many seasons ago. The story of whether Favre sent racy messages and pictures of what family newspapers call genitalia to a female New York Jets staffer started on the snarky sports blog Deadspin, and was soon propelled to the 50-yard line of MSM Stadium. If the sexting allegations against the veteran quarterback are true, Deadspin may have performed an admittedly distasteful public service.

…The danger, as sleazy stories ooze from the depths of the Web, is that traditional news outlets will find themselves spreading unsubstantiated garbage. But in a growing number of cases — the Enquirer’s John Edwards takedown comes to mind — the allegations unearthed by tabloids and blogs turn out to be true. While it’s clearly troubling for a publication to fork over cash for trash, the condescending media elite are often forced to play catch-up.

In the end, I don’t want the New York Times devoting its resources to quarterback sexting. The paper, and others like it, should investigate campaign finance abuses, dig into city contracting, cover the war in Afghanistan — all the heavy lifting that need not concern the Deadspins of the world.

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Jews On Welfare

Posted on October 17, 2010 by Luke Ford

In a 2010 lecture on Leviticus 25, Dennis Prager said: Jews feeling responsibility for a fellow Jew has carried on to the modern era.

For a Jew to go on welfare, even during the depression, was unheard of. It was considered an embarrassment to the Jewish community if a Jew went on the dole.

You’d think that Jews would be the most conservative group in America, and they are for themselves. I say to my fellow Jews who are liberal — why don’t you preach what you practice? Jews practice conservative lives but they advocate liberal lives.

Jews created free loan societies. You got a loan from the Jewish community and there was no interest. Jews were known for taking care of their own.

I wish every community took care of itself and thought it was an embarrassment to go on public welfare.

The underclass doesn’t care [about taking welfare]. Like the freeloaders at my father’s synagogue, they complain the most.

Do you want to create an angry person? Give them something for nothing.

The chapter never speaks of charity nor does it ever appeal to feelings of compassion. There are no claims about love or forgiveness. This is an unemotional chapter.

My motto is the bigger the state, the smaller the citizen.

Just as the communist manifesto is that nobody will have property, the Torah’s view is that everybody should have property.

Chaim Amalek emails: Prager has got it dead wrong, at least with respect to welfare program participation among contemporary Jewish communities and also, one suspects, lots more. Here in New York State, the communities with the highest rate of welfare program participation are not Negro ghettos or Mexican villages, they are Jewish, and more exactly, they are communities of Toi-reh-Yidden who live off the goyim’s generosity.

From Wikipedia:
“Kiryas Joel The great majority of its residents are Hasidic Jews who strictly observe the Torah and its commandments, and belong to the worldwide Satmar Hasidic dynasty.
Most of the village’s residents speak Yiddish as their first language. The village has the youngest median age (15.0) of any population center of over 5,000 residents in the United States.[1] Residents of Kiryas Joel, like those of other Haredi Jewish communities, typically have large families. Kiryas Joel is the place in the United States with the highest percentage of people who reported Hungarian ancestry, as 18.9% of the population reported Hungarian ancestry in 2000.[2]According to 2008 census figures, the village has the highest poverty rate in the nation. More than two-thirds of residents live below the federal poverty line and 40% receive food stamps”.

JDR puts it thusly:

Kiryas Yoel, a Hasidic town in upper New York state, has now earned the dubious distinction of being the fastest growing place in the region as well as the poorest city in America and the one with the greatest number of food stamp recipients according to the US Census.

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The Religious Desire To Afflict Oneself

Posted on October 17, 2010 by Luke Ford

In a 2009 lecture on Leviticus 22-23, Dennis Prager said: Why does the Torah say to afflict oneself on Yom Kippur?

I never look forward to fasting. Perhaps you can tell.

I’ve done it since I was 12 (except for two occasions when I was sick).

This is the only time the Torah says to afflict yourself. All the other holidays you are to enjoy yourself.

The Torah confined a common religious instinct to one day a year. It is common for religious people to think that self-punishment and aescetism are holy. The medieval world had Christians wearing hair shirts. In the Shiite world, they whip themselves till they bleed.

When I was in yeshiva, [I was told about] a very very pious rabbi who on Yom Kippur was so careful not to drink that he would not even swallow his own saliva. He would spit it out. I remember thinking the man was an idiot. The thought of a guy spitting all Yom Kippur, what’s so pious about that? I would leave shul.

The Torah is saying that one day a year, oppress your soul. That’s it. Otherwise, enjoy your life.

This is very common among religious people, the harder it is to be religious, the closer you get to God.

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Sola Scriptura

Posted on October 17, 2010 by Luke Ford

In a 2009 lecture on Leviticus 21, Dennis Prager said: The concept of sola scriptura is untenable. You have to be guided. That’s why we have religion. Religion becomes unnecessary if we just have scripture. Everybody will read his Bible and do the right thing.

This is the reason Protestants have more denominations than any other religion.

Catholicism had the opposite — there is one way to understand holy scripture and that is through the Church. You would ask what are the Church teachings on this verse, then I will understand it.

In the 16th Century, you had Catholics who couldn’t read the Bible and didn’t have a Bible, and all the priests taught the Bible.

In rabbinic Judaism, the rabbis explained the text.

I met theologian Eliezer Berkovits in my youth. That’s a great story. Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits called the Orthodox world Karaites of the oral law aka rabbinic Judaism. What Karaites did to the Torah, the Orthodox do to the rabbis — unchanging, only one way to read it… End of issue.

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Riveting Torah

Posted on October 17, 2010 by Luke Ford

In his 2009 lecture on Leviticus 21, Dennis said: “There are more riveting chapters of the Torah. And there are less riveting ones.

“A dear friend of mine, one of his two sons, had a bar mitzvah. The portion of that Sabbath was not one of the more scintillating ones in the Torah. He asked me if I would speak on the Torah.

“It happens to be that while he is not Orthodox, his family is ultra-Orthodox. Black hat and beards. Very Orthodox. He’s the black sheep in the family for not being Orthodox. At least they came.

“I got up and said this is one of the less riveting portions of the Torah. And his relatives got up and left. I felt so bad for my friend. They were not prepared to hear that one might say that one portion is more riveting than the next.”

“The traditional rabbis of Judaism knew that some portions were riveting and some were not. The traditional Torah text is found in books surrounded by commentary (Rashi, Rashbam, Rambam, Ramban, Onkelos, all sorts of medieval commentaries). There is the text in the middle surrounded by commentary. There are pages of the Torah that have no commentary. They have nothing to say. It could be just a bunch of genealogies.”

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Keeping Kosher On An Interdate

Posted on October 17, 2010 by Luke Ford

In his second lecture on Leviticus 20 in 2009, Dennis Prager said: “When I was in my bachelor days in my twenties, I went out with women of all backgrounds. I intended to only marry someone born Jewish or converted to Jewish. My one criteria was is it a woman?

“I kept kosher and still do. I was going to write a long article for Jewish publications titled, ‘Keeping Kosher on an Interdate.’

“I said this publicly at the time, I would tell Jewish audiences, ‘Folks, it is a little eery. When I am with a non-religious Jewish woman, she thinks that what I am doing by disqualifying many things on the menu because I am a Jew is absurd. Whenever I am with a non-Jewish woman, she has such respect for what I am doing. Every one has said, ‘I am not going to order anything like that either. What would offend you?”

“Of course it doesn’t offend me if a non-Jew has a BLT. I just salivate.”

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Why Doesn’t The Torah Ban Lesbianism?

Posted on October 17, 2010 by Luke Ford

In his second lecture on Leviticus 20 in 2009, Dennis Prager said: Jacob Milgrom argues that the Torah does not care about lesbianism because lesbians don’t spill seed. But there’s no prohibition against the spilling of seed in the Torah. The sin of Onan is in his refusing to inseminate his wife. The Torah could’ve explicitly banned masturbation and the spilling of seed but does not.

I have been perplexed for a long time about why the Torah does not have anything to say about lesbianism. I think I have the answer.

The answer is — all of these laws presuppose the male as the actor in sex. So just as the Torah does not say to the woman that she can not sleep with her father or brother or son, though there is the bestiality issue. It is hard to imagine a woman initiating bestiality. It was probably a kinky practice that some men found alluring. Bestiality is the only time the woman is possibly pictured as the actor…

You can’t argue that because the Torah does not ban a woman from having sex with her brother but only a brother having sex with his sister, then it is OK for a woman to lie with her brother.

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How Many Troubled Kids Can A School Take In Before It Is A Troubled School?

Posted on October 16, 2010 by Luke Ford

Harkham Hillel Hebrew Academy is the only Orthodox elementary school in Los Angeles who admits troubled kids. Other yeshivos don’t want the aggravation.

So let’s say you let in a hyper-active kid who creates a lot of tsures (trouble). What about the impact this has on other kids? On disrupting the learning environment?

These are tough choices a school must make. I don’t envy the leaders.

Yavneh gets to maintain very high standards because it knows that kids who don’t get in can go to Hillel. If there weren’t a Hillel around, Yavneh would have to relax its standards.

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I Love Luxury

Posted on October 16, 2010 by Luke Ford

Dr. Spielvogel, the first time and only time I’ve lived with a woman was in Orlando, Florida, in 1993.

About a month or two in (we only lasted four months), she said to me, “You love luxury a lot more than I thought.”

She had this great chair and I always chose to sit in it.

I love luxury. The reason I don’t have much material luxury in my life is that I prefer the luxury of my spare time and my freedom to write what I want. I look around and see that all my friends have bosses and many of them are afraid to write what they truly think because they can’t afford to rock the boat. I can write what I want. That to me is primo luxury.

If you give me the choice between freedom austerity on the one hand versus material luxury and servitude on the other, I’ll choose freedom.

I love nice chairs and sweet beds and fast cars and massages and dinners out, but I love my freedom more.

How often do I treat myself to material luxury? Whenever it is given to me. I rarely purchase it for myself. Instead, I treat myself with an abundantly free schedule and an independent life.

If I had more money, I wouldn’t buy a couch or a bed. I’m happy sleeping on the floor. There are a lot of other things I’d purchase first.

I have two immediate possibilities for a better life. They could be huge.

I have these delusions of grandeur. I could be a great man if things just fell my way. I live in a hovel without a bed but I walk around with delusions of grandeur. I could be so great if…

“How does that serve you?”

I remember as a kid I would sit in a chair and tell myself stories for hours on end. Great adventures. I was always the protagonist.

How does it serve me? It inspires me. They feel good. They make me think I am better than other people.

About three therapists ago, she said to me, “I’d hate to see you waste your life in delusions of grandeur.”

Dr. “That’s what they tend to be — fantasies. It’s avoidant behavior typically. We put off doing what we need to do to create the reality we want. Instead, we just dream. It takes you out of reality and the steps you need to take to achieve what you think you want.

“It’s the guy who sits on a barstool and regales you with all the great things he’s doing to do with his life.

“Delusions of grandeur can make us think we’re above certain things. I’m not going to take that staff job and work my way up the ladder. I’m above that.

“Delusions of grandeur can convince us that we don’t need to do the work.”

I’ve always worked hard, but not always worked smart.

I remember working 60 hours a week in construction for just $4 an hour and seeing these peers of mine make $20 an hour doing work less difficult than what I was doing.

So what was the difference? They were at ease with themselves and with other people, so life seemed to be smoother for them. They related to other people naturally.

I didn’t learn that ease with myself and with others in my childhood. I was outside the popular crowd. I was a nasty piece of work. Big mouth. Ill at ease with myself and with others. At war with the world.

I was struck by how the popular kids so often had so much love and joy and happiness in their homes. They weren’t cold places dedicated to austere causes.

I never learned to connect naturally with others (aside from the 5% of humanity who get me and it is effortless for me to relate to them).

When I look back on my dating, I realize that women from broken homes have a much more fractured approach to relationships than those from stable homes. When people grow up with a graceful approach to themselves and to others, they’re more smooth and their journey through life is easier because they’re more likely to enjoy other people.

I grew up believing that the outside world was something to be debunked.

I was miserable like those around me and I grew up believing that I too would need to find a world-changing project to lose myself in.

I always think I’ve turned the corner on my misery but then I keep screwing up in seemingly new ways. I’m often expected to be great but I inevitably bollix things up because of the awkward way I have around people.

Five percent of people get me. Like Joey Kurtzman. He came over yesterday to do Torah Talk and I just went off about suicidal gay teens and how Joey used to be one at Beverly Hills High and Joey just rolled with it. Most people would take offense but Joey never takes offense at things I say.

With 95% of humanity, I have to regulate myself. I can’t be my playful sarcastic self. So I don’t expend much effort relating to the great unwashed.

Doc: “I’m wondering if there aren’t other parts of you that can flourish in an authentic way when dealing with the masses? And you can keep your playful side for the tiny percentage who are like-minded.”

I get tired of explaining myself. If I have to explain when I am being sarcastic, it’s just not worth interacting with that person more than pro forma.

I get the sense that 95% of my readers don’t particularly get what I am doing on my blog.

When I have to choose between my relationship and my integrity, that’s wrenching. Say, having to choose between blogging and my marriage. That would be a killer.

Dr. “What would be the benefits of no longer being somebody who blogs?”

I could have more normal relationships with other people. I could free up my mind and my life and my time to pursue other projects.

After about a year or so of not blogging on the porn industry any more, people stopped relating to me as “the porn guy.”

After finishing my Orthodox conversion, I changed from the angry outsider to the satisfied insider. The tone on my blog changed dramatically. I was now in the club and I would say to people struggling with their conversions, “Orthodoxy has high standards. Maybe it is not for you?”

Now that I am in, I have greater peace with those high standards. Now that they include me.

Dr. “You derive a lot of pleasure out of that.”

Yes. There’s something smug and insufferable about me when I have any success.

Narcissism is really hard to cure, doc.

Dr. “Perhaps a little grandiose?”

Whenever I overcome an obstacle, I say to others, yeah, it takes a lot of effort. You have to step up to be like me.

Dr. “What are you feeling right now?”

I’m just laughing. My smugness amuses me. My lack of empathy. My grandiosity.

Dr. “I’m wondering if there is another tactic you could use with others to make your narcissism smaller. What is a way you could communicate with people going through their struggles that would diminish your grandiosity?”

I could remember my own despair in similar situations.

Dr. “I wonder if there is a way to empathize? You seem to have black-and-white thinking. Things are either ha ha ha, I’m great, or you are connecting with that deep dark despair. I wonder if there is a way for you to empathize with others?”

“I’d like for you to engage more with people. Including that other 95%. Think about ways you can authentically show up and be you.”

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Spitting On Yom Kippur

Posted on October 16, 2010 by Luke Ford

In a March 10, 2009 lecture on Leviticus 19: 26-28, Dennis Prager said: When I was in yeshiva, a very very pious rabbi who on Yom Kippur was so careful not to drink that he would not even swallow his own saliva. He would spit it out. I remember thinking the man was an idiot. The thought of a guy spitting all Yom Kippur, what’s so pious about that? I would leave shul.

The Shulchan Aruch says you should wake up every night after midnight and mourn the destruction of the temple. That’s a happy life. What a joyful life, you get up at 2 a.m. every day to cry.

A great religion makes you happy to be alive. It increases your joy in life.

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