A self-fulfilling prophecy

Me: "Okay, I can understand why a man can't davven Shacharit (pray the Morning Service) on the subway—wearing tallit and tefillin would be a problem. [Note: The tzitzit fringes and/or the tefillin straps could be sat or stepped on, or otherwise damaged or dirtied.] But what about Mincha (the Afternoon Service)?

Her: "No, a man can't pray on the train at all, because there might be improperly-dressed women around. But that's the guys. When I get on the train, I've got 45 minutes to say Shacharit, and nothing distracts me."

Is it just me, or do you see an inconsistency in that statement?

By way of illustration, let me quote from Rabbi Judith Hauptman’s book, Rereading the Rabbis: A Woman’s Voice, in which she cites this story from the Gemara:

“’There were a number of women captives who, upon being redeemed, came to Nehardia and were housed [in an upper chamber at the home of] R. Amram the Pious. They removed the ladder [to deny access to the women. It happened that] when one of them passed by [the opening to the lower story], light fell from the opening [and R. Amram found himself sexually aroused]. He took the ladder, which was so heavy that ten men could not lift it and, all by himself, positioned it below the upper chamber and began climbing. When he was halfway up, he stopped himself and cried out: Fire at R. Amram’s! The rabbis came [running but, upon realizing the sexual nature of the fire, chided him, saying] you have shamed us. He said to them, better that you are shamed by me in this world than in the world-to-come.’

In this story . . . , a rabbi who is loyal to Jewish law finds himself sexually aroused, burning with passion, simply by seeing the shadow of one of the women in his upper chamber.”

In my opinion, the most interesting thing about this R. Amram story (whether it’s a true story or not) is not that R. Amram was able to control himself, with a little from his friends :), but that he had such a low threshold of sexual temptation that he started climbing the ladder in the first place.

Here's another look. I must state, for the record, that it's not clear from this quote whether Rabbi Henkin agrees with this hashkafah/relgious viewpoint or whether he's simply describing it.

Rabbi Yehudah Henkin observes, "This ideology prohibits a woman from standing out—and from being outstanding. She must not act in a play, paint a mural, play an instrument or otherwise demonstrate special skills in front of men, lest she attract attention and her movements excite them."

[Tuesday, September 2, 2008 clarification: As commented by Dilbert/Noam below, Rabbi Henkin was presenting Rabbi Falk's opinion, with which Rabbi Henkin disagrees.]

I assert that this approach reflects a machloket—a dispute—between nature and nurture, between heredity and environment, between how much of human behavior is hard-wired from the womb and how much is learned.

The opinion of the rabbis seems to be that, even if women do nothing whatsoever to cause sexual arousal in men, we are, nevertheless, held accountable, in practical terms, for said arousal or potential arousal. My blogger buddy Dilbert tells me, for example, that the law against kol isha ("a woman's voice") does not prohibit a woman from singing but, rather, prohibits a man from hearing a woman sing. However, he adds that, in practical terms, what usually happens is not that the man leaves the room, but rather, that the woman refrains from singing.

Have I ever been distracted during prayer by the presence of a cute guy, or entertained "interesting thoughts" while listening to Matisyahu? Yes. The issue is not whether persons of the opposite sex can turn one another on merely by being present in the same room. The issue is what one does about that, and, specifically in this case, why the expectations are different for women than for men, particularly in the Chareidi community. My Tehillim (Psalms) group buddy is perfectly capable of shutting out distraction and davvening on the subway, but, apparently, she doe not expect the same of her own husband, and, from what I can determine with my limited knowledge, neither does halachah/Jewish religious law. Why not? Why should men be deemed so much less capable of controlling their sexual urges than women are?

So I turned to the only authority on the subject of male sexuality of whom I feel comfortable, as a married woman, asking such questions. "Just how vulnerable is a guy to, um, visual stimulation, anyway? What if you see a woman in a low-cut blouse in the subway? Would you have a physical reaction?"

"I might," said my husband. "But so what? I can always distract myself and go about my business."

It seems to me that that approach is simply the result of the way a person raised left of Chareidi is taught to think (or not think) about women. If women are human beings who happen to have interesting bumps on the front (and other less visible but even more interesting parts), then, when circumstances demand it, one can distract oneself from the bumps and parts and deal with a woman as another human being. The bumps and parts don't disappear, but one doesn't focus on them. I am reminded of the Modern Orthodox blogger who commented that having a bad memory for names gets him in trouble in business meetings with women because, while he'd love to refresh his memory by looking at their name tags, he keeps himself focused on business by trying to look at their faces only, and their name tags are generally fastened, um, considerably lower down. :)

"Then why this obsession with women's sexuality?"

"I think it has to do with men's obligation to study Torah. Women are a distraction. It's not such a problem for women, from an Orthodox point of view, because, according to Orthodox interpretations of halachah, women aren't obligated to study Torah, but men are."

Okay, so maybe it's not the worst thing in the world for men and women to study separately. And I can understand the point of having a mechitzah during prayer, though I'm not bonkers about it. But are men really so vulnerable to visual stimulation that they can't be in the presence of women under any circumstances without suffering from serious sexual temptation, as seems to be the opinion in some Chareidi communities?

On a related topic, Sweet Rose said, “The message being sent is that we are all too weak to handle any challenges, that any kind of temptation must be taken away from before us in order to be able to function as an Orthodox Jew. I think this makes us even weaker - when we are not taught how to handle any temptation or challenge, we subsequently become unable to handle it when we have to.”

We worry about children playing with matches. But as children grow, we teach them how to use matches properly. Similarly, we should teach our children how to deal appropriately with sexuality. If that means abstinence under certain circumstances, fine. But abstinence from the sex act is completely different from abstinence from almost all avoidable contact with half the human race. I think there's something fundamentally immature about a man born in the twentieth century believing that he has so little self-control that he can't even walk on the same side of the street as a woman—and then projecting that phobia (yes, I said phobia) onto women and making us pay for it. Why should a woman playing piano in the presence of a man be worth even discussing?

The last word on this subject goes to a young blogger raised in a Chareidi neighborhood. Finding herself a college student mixing socially with men for the first time in her life, she realized that it's not only possible to maintain one's standards even when not sheltered from the necessity of doing so, it's also better that way.

"i've learned how to talk to them [males] as though they are normal people and not the boogey man. you know, say what you will for tzneous [modesty], but everybody's gotta grow up sometime . . . "

If you're raised to believe that you can't resist the opposite sex and that it's their fault as much as the fault of your own weakness, you'll act that way. If you're raised to believe that, however much temptation you face, it's ultimately up to you to resist, you'll act that way. The manner in which sexuality is approached by some of the rabbinic sages and taught to some in the Chareidi community is a self-fulfilling prophecy that lends itself to lifelong immature attitudes toward members of the opposite sex.

As Fudge said, "everybody's gotta grow up sometime."