Luke Ford

Joe emails: I see the pictures of you at the porn star reunion and you look happier than a pig in slop. You are there loving being Jewish, with tzitzit hanging out and next to gals with everything else hanging out. You are, unlike the normative jews who lead the congregations and synagogue boards, able to go to minyan, daf yomi and then hangout with hookers. Most jews frown on the latter behavior as being, if not repugnant to Orthodoxy, at least incongruent.

After all, the moral code of Judaism is about moderation in all matters, and porn is about pushing limits in a critical matter of human interaction. Now, the one flaw here is that porn is really something that is this mesmerizing autoerotic pursuit that really does not in a way carry over into critical human relationships. Half of the adult men in america have perverted porn on their hard drives, but you do not see half the men in america with tattoos on major portions of their bodies having unprotected sex with girls who are on speed, meth, and every other substance. it is a fantasy, just like guys who go surfing on sundays with bodies in wet suits that look like malformed sausages. What is wrong with being part of this fantasy and going to ariel avrech lectures?

You are kind of like the old story about lithuanian jews. Those jews loved judaism for the intellectual toils of the talmud. The story goes of the lithuanian jew lighting up a nice pipe on the shabbat (a violation of the prohibition against lighting fire) and sitting on his porch studying a nice page of the talmud. The contradiction between violating god’s law by lighting up on Shabbat, versus the sheer joy of learning god’s torah are clearly irreconcilable, and the lithuanian jew does not get it.

Same with luke ford – you cannot wear tzitizit next to a girl who wears a thong thinner than a tzitzit string. Or can you? Like the lithuanian, you are not hurting anyone – clearly wearing tzitzit next to a north american boy love association meeting would be bad, but why can’t an orthodox guy who likes porn and its personnel partake of both?

I think the answer is that Judaism, in return for its good works, demands a congruence that defies logic. Yes, you like porn, but porn is not good for the soul. You can argue that it does not hurt the soul, but you cannot possibly argue that is as good for the soul as even making a mundane living as a starbucks barista, living frugally, and being able to associate with normative jews.

CHUCK EMAILS: “Joe is just jealous. He wishes those stars wanted to hang with him. You are a credit to the Jewish people. You just prove that beautiful women want to hang with Torah men. Many of us know this, but I guess not Joe.”