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Friday November 28, 2003

Bringing our children from the streets to values of our tradition

by hinda langer

Problems with teenagers and explicit, self-revealing videos? Why is anyone surprised?

“Once upon a time” is usually the beginning of a fairy tale. However, once upon a time, in the ’50s, explicit sexuality in the media was illegal and pornography was not a part of everyday life in America. Were Americans more conservative in their family structure? Yes. 

Today, the entire advertising, movie, TV and Internet industries are filled with explicit sex. “Just do it!” is a part of the young child’s world. The double-entendre is well understood even pre-puberty. It is an educational axiom that children are influenced in the extreme by visual images and input. 

So why is anyone surprised that the average age for teens to begin to be sexually active is 14? If the Jewish community would do any soul-searching, it would recognize that this is an issue that cannot be dealt with in the context of the fabric of American culture. Where might Jews look for an answer? Not in the context of what is popular, but in the context of what is authentically Jewish in our tradition’s attitude towards sexuality.

Sometimes I am tempted to read j. the Jewish news weekly in a holistic way, as a unified fabric of thought, like a kaleidoscope that is moving with the same pieces being put in different configurations. Let’s join the two articles about relationships — Jay Schwartz’s autobiographical read and Rabbi Daniel Greyber’s op-ed describing the shocked parent seeking to find a way to raise his children’s moral standards.

Schwartz finds his former girlfriend’s attraction to Orthodox Judaism a remote and puzzling choice. I find the implication refreshing to think that she is thinking along the lines of modesty, possible celibacy before marriage and return to tradition. How can young people find balance when they have been sexually taken advantage of in the myriad ways that our American culture currently fosters? 

The ancient ways of the Torah include an amazing recipe for lasting relationships and sexuality within the context of the rest of life, rather than as a pastime or a casual way of socializing. 

The idea of not touching until marriage, maintaining a sexual distance and coming back together through the mikvah experience, within the context of a long commitment in marriage were all part of the way the older members of our family tree made their marriages work. The high value placed on having children meant that sex had consequences that were normal. The extreme value placed on birth control today in American society is a very obvious way of helping to make sex a recreational activity, not part of life partnerships.

Is all this old-fashioned? Very. Does it work? Not perfectly. But the Torah wasn’t given to angels, but to human beings of flesh and blood. If we apply tikkun olam to our intimate relationships, we will still try to improve the world that we are given at birth. But does it really make sense to set Jewish children adrift in the sea of American values without at least a foundation in their own traditions about intimacy?

The word kiddushin is part of the marriage ceremony, indicating that entering into an exclusive sexual and lifetime relationship between a man and a woman is holy. Like other ideas of sacredness in Judaism, there are limits in time, place and person to sexuality. Our body has been compared to a Torah that is kept in a special way, in an Aron Kodesh, behind a beautiful curtain and only utilized in a way of profound respect and reverence.

The Berditchever rebbe, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak, the “defense attorney” for the Jewish people, had frequent discussions with God. He argued, “Lord of the universe, why did you put all the temptations of the world in front of our eyes and Your holy wisdom inside the covers of a book? Couldn’t You have done the opposite? Why couldn’t we look at the world and see Your holy wisdom and all the temptations could be hidden away in a book?” 

After bringing up five children in San Francisco and running a preschool here, I feel a lot like the Berditchever rebbe. But what choices do we have? It depends on us.

If parents really want to deal with moral issues that are vulgarizing and degrading Jewish life — unfortunately exemplified by the sexual videotape incident at Milken Community Jewish High School in Los Angeles — try looking for something holy inside our books. We cannot allow the billboards, bus-shelter posters, and ads for bebe and Benetton clothing and Altoids mints to be the default teachers of our children.

Given our understanding of tikkun olam, obviously, God wanted us to put some effort into our partnership with Him in this world. As People of the Book, let’s look inside. 

If Oprah can recommend workshops on ancient tantric yoga for married couples, maybe the ancient Jewish sexual practices merit the same amount of time devoted to learning them. 

There has never been greater freedom to do whatever we want sexually. Let’s experiment with some ancient wisdom and see if it works. At the very least, let us not abandon our commandment to teach our children well and give them rules for living, rather than allowing American culture to lead us by the nose.

Hinda Langer is the director of the Shalom School in San Francisco and Shabbat programs of Chabad of S.F.

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