It’s easy to write off someone else or their belief – to just put them into a convenient cubby hole that doesn’t tell the whole story.
Traditional Jews are so old fashioned. No premarital sex. No extramarital sex. There are even limitations on when a husband and wife can be together.
It’s so easy to file this into our cubby under “Old Fashioned” or “Prudish.” But the whole picture is so much more . . . well, whole.
There is a goal of purity. Now this can throw people off quickly. “Be realistic,” they say. “That’s not the world that we live in.”
Idealism must be the starting place. If practicality causes us to find some element of compromise, then we’ll get to that road. Our ideals, however, should be clear. So what is the ideal? For lack of a better word: purity.
This area is one where what some people sometimes perceive from the outside is the exact flip of the reality within. The perception that many people have of Torah observant Jews is that we are at best sexist, at worst – misogynists.
Women can’t be rabbis. Women and men sit separately in synagogue, with men having the prominent role. The list of attacks is long, but the reality is different.
The goal of sexual purity is the goal for man and woman alike. Included in that goal is something which at first glance is nearly impossible to conceive for anyone raised in a Hollywood dominated society. The goal is to not objectify women.
In polite circles, women are referred to by their hair color. In less polite circles, by the sizes and shapes of body parts. In nearly all circles, women’s fashion is fashioned to highlight erotic parts of the body. In other words, women dress to highlight the parts of their bodies that men like to touch. This all leads to seeing women as objects – our descriptions are based on the physical.
I find this distasteful. I struggle to not objectify people.
People like to respond to this by saying things like, “Well, you have a problem. Why should other people have to conform to your problems?” This person is either a woman or a liar. This is not how men naturally see the world. Unless we work on ourselves for years, our eyes are naturally attracted to women’s bodies. You are entitled to believe that this is good. I would argue that it is only good to help continue our species. However, my goal is to continue the species with one wife. So, now that I’ve found her, I’d like to focus all of my male/female energy on her. I don’t want to find myself attracted to other women.
The Jewish answer to this is that women dress modestly, and men must learn to control their eyes and even their thoughts.
One great aspect, then, of sexual purity is learning how to see a woman first as a spiritual being. When we dress and live with our focus on the physical, we see a physical and objectified world.
The purity demanded of us is a great and beautiful ideal. There are many small steps to take. We all know that small steps can cover great distances over time.
