The New York Times article last week about the explosion of anorexia and eating disorders in the orthodox community highlights a tragedy that has long been buried. About four years ago I published a column about an eighteen-year-old girl my daughter knew at seminary in Jerusalem who died of anorexia. The seminary denied it was the cause and cited some other illness, even though the girls at the seminary watched her wasting away with the administration seemingly oblivious.
The tragedy is not only the danger posed to religious girls with eating disorders but rather the growth of corrupt values in the orthodox community. The New York Times highlighted how matchmakers are calling about girls and asking what dress size they and their mothers are. What does this have to do with Jewish values? Sure, a man has to be attracted to a woman. But the narrow definition of the body as the only ingredient of attraction is a betrayal of the traditional Jewish definition of feminine beauty.
Time was when a Jewish woman's comeliness was determined holistically and was based on five key components: her body, her mind, her heart, her piety, and her personality. Now, it's been reduced to her dress size. Stick-thin scarecrow-like features are the foremost determinant of attractiveness.
To be sure, being overweight is not healthy. But women who focus only on their bodies to the exclusion of their souls are equally unhealthy. And religious men who have practiced Judaism their whole lives but are blind to a woman's righteousness and virtue, focusing exclusively on her form to the exclusion of her substance, are even more unhealthy.
The crisis in orthodoxy today is the practice of Jewish ritual to the exclusion of Jewish values. And in no area is this more evident then in the increasingly shallow dating values that are betraying our community. King Solomon's ode to the 'Eishes Chayil -- Wife of Excellence' that we chant every Friday night risks becoming an empty refrain, with men paying lip service to its central proclamation that 'physical beauty is misleading, but a woman who fears G-d is truly to be praised.'
I would never have thought we orthodox Jews would arrive at a stage where our young men of marriageability have become so one-dimensional that their superficiality and pickyness would begin to literally kill our young women. That their mothers -- women themselves -- are colluding in this corruption by calling up to ask a girl's dress size in the same breath as asking what her level of Torah observance is doubly tragic.
The New York Times article also cited the immense pressure that orthodox women feel to marry at a very young age and how they feel themselves to be failures if they are in their mid-twenties and not yet married with a few children.
I have long advocated marrying young -- for orthodox and secular alike -- because it allows a couple to grow up together and solidify their union with life's formative experiences. But this has to be balanced against the desire of the orthodox community to see their young women educated and using their minds and not just their wombs. It's a beautiful thing to see orthodox Jewish seminaries for women bursting at the seams. Jewish women today are being exposed to the great texts of Judaism, from Talmud and Midrash to Halakha and Chassidus. Stern and Touro are graduating orthodox girls with degrees in international relations and public relations, proficient in the sciences and mathematics.
Secular Jews have long dismissed the orthodox attitude toward women as demeaning and misogynistic. They argue that we treat our girls as baby-making machines who belong in the kitchen. But the highly educated orthodox Jewish woman gives the lie to these malicious accusations. Should we be so stupid as to prove them right by making women feel so much pressure to be married by the age of twenty that failure to do itself constitutes failure? Is it not our responsibility to demonstrate that a woman can maximize her fullest intellectual potential alongside having a family and that she need not choose between them.
I am, thank G-d, the proud father of nine children. People often ask me how I have time to do my professional work with a large family. I answer them that only in the modern world have we created this false notion that family is an impediment to achievement. Queen Victoria had nine children but ruled the largest land empire in the history of the world. Rose Kennedy, an accomplished woman in her own right, had nine children and is the matriarch of the greatest political dynasty in American history. The list goes on.
I want my daughters to marry young and to marry virtuous men. I shudder at the idea that after raising them to embody the virtue of the Jewish matriarchs they should meet orthodox Jewish suitors obsessed with their external beauty to the exclusion of their inner G-dly commitment. And if that's the case, could I not have found that in the secular world?
I have spent my life critiquing the secular culture's attitudes toward the feminine, especially in my book 'Hating Women,' where I decry a culture that has reduced women to the libidinous man's plaything. But we in the orthodox community dare not make our own mistake of reducing our women to pretty baby-making mannequins. Our women must possess, and be appreciated for, intellectual and spiritual substance.
Sure, family in Jewish life is the most important thing. And dating recreationally for ten years -- as is common in secular society -- is scant preparation for the life-long commitment of marriage. I am a counselor to secular singles who suffer the effects of the recreational dating culture. They often experience the pain and heartache of going in and out of relationships and the numbing affects of sexuality practiced as a hookup.
Orthodox Jewish life is meant to offer a radical alternative, one where romance is valued and sexuality, reserved for the sanctity of marriage, is practiced as the highest expression of human intimacy. But viewing women as either the orthodox male's frum Barbie, whose foremost responsibility is not learning Torah and practicing mitzvos but going on the treadmill and pumping iron, or seeing a woman's education as inconsequential and making her feel old and discarded if she is not married by twenty-three, is hardly an attractive alternative.
Shmuley Boteach, 'America's Rabbi,' is one of the world's leading relationship experts and the recipient of the American Jewish Press Association's Highest Award for Excellence in Commentary. Among his 25 books are such classics as 'Kosher Sex,' 'Judaism for Everyone,' and, most recently, 'Renewal: A Guide to the Values-Filled Life.' Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.
Follow Rabbi Shmuley Boteach on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RabbiShmuley
I'm not Orthodox, nor even a Jew, but I would point out that I have long admired the belief in the sanctity of marriage, and in the Jewish ideas surrounding marriage. I've been married a long time myself, and married young, and I would say the idea of marrying someone whom you get along with, who shares your values, who is intelligent, moral, etc, are right on point. External beauty fades. Even more importantly, you'd get tired pretty darn fast of an external beauty without any internal beauty.
It does concern me, however, as an outsider, in how women value themselves in a community where childbearing becomes paramount. What of the women who cannot conceive or carry to term? What of the women who suffer such severe postpartum depression that pregnancy and childbirth is not a good idea? What of the women who are just not cut out for motherhood? The list goes on? I would not doubt that Jewish teaching, many of which are very wise, has an equally wise answer. But is this answer practiced, or even preached in such a community?
Even scientific and psychological studies seem to like to focus on the compulsive-vanity angle, and I'm just not so sure that's the *root* cause, even in environments where food's all wrapped up in reward-and-punishment and parental affection from young ages, and even when the value of a girl in her family and household is first and foremost determined by marriageability. I think the 'obsessive' ideas of vanity actually are secondary, the context in which eating disorders develop, but not the whole of the illness or its cause.
Really, I think it's about control, sometimes the only thing one *can* control, in certain environments: especially if marriage is the only 'acceptable' way *out,* so to speak. Such environments *do* mess with anyone's head, (Everyone can seem to relate to the pressure to be thin in this society where both food and diet pills are constantly advertised so) but I note that one can have the same basic appetite problems and even trouble assessing one's own weight without the same 'vanity' complex.
I have a distinctly subtypical appetite, myself, but I note it expressed differently for me, the queer, freaky, too-smart one, compared to my more 'marriageable' sister and others. Takes mindfulness to eat enough, but few illusions about it. :)
There once was a rabbi who followed in the footsteps of Reb Nahman of Breslav.
This rabbi who was deeply devoted to the inner teachings of the Hasidism but fasted from Sunday til sundown Friday. He only ate on the sabbath. Unlike the great tana Hillel of the early middle ages who ate because he pitied his body, this rabbi mortified his physical existence. Eventually his life spiraled down to an untimely death leaving a family behind and his disciples bewildered.
Fasting to this extreme is certainly not a wide practice among ascetics. It is more often than not condemned and does not fit well into Hasidism.
The point of this account is the need for balance. One could despise the body to the extent that it is ultimately sacrificed. What is recognized here as a terrible disease, anorexia, also has spiritual consequences. In the quest for perfection one seeks eradicating life's blemishes. Also, one may regard the body as a hindrance that obscures a clear view of that which matters. One's existential presence might be regarded as a separation from the divine. Or one is so dedicated to the divine that that care of this body is forgotten and therefore abandoned.
Physical existence is not an obstacle but a gift and a spiritual resource for human beings. How does one reach people who believe otherwise?
I generally agree with good Rabbi, and much of this column is also sensible. This, however, has been shown to fail in real life.
Some young people do well in marriage, but most do not.
Also, large families are more than the world can carry, and by this I mean the planet itself. Population pressure will, and does, drive great evil.
I take exception, though, to what the rabbi says about marrying young, and how it's somehow related to respect for women. I don't understand how you could hope that your daughters married young. I want my daughter to find a partner who is kind, compassionate, and respectful. If that happens by age 25, great. But it might not.
And by the way, that might not be what she wants. Does that count for antying?
It was invented by people marketing family and children's books and movies.
We are genetically programed to value appearance. It signifies good genetics, which means good offspring, which at the end of the day is still what we're programed to be about.
Actually, our culture has a problem with obesity. The idea that we are not accepting enough of fat people is a joke.
I am a woman and through various groups I participate in I hear women break down in tears about how they allowed themselves to be used by selfish, uncaring men. They ALLOW themselves to be used by selfish, uncaring men. Then they get in their mind that there are no good guys out there. Is this feminism?
I know there are good guys out there. I can now spot the shallow men a mile away and I want nothing to do with him. They are such a turn-off. I actually laugh at them.
My husband isnt a doctor, but he knows people that are underweight and have died. He himself has more health problems than I do and I am considered overweight.
I believe that there are people that are overweight and unhealthy however, the studies done about obesity are usually done by thin, blonde and attractive males and females.