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<v Speaker 1>Hey, hello everyone. My name is Frieda Vizel. Welcome or

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<v Speaker 1>welcome back to all of you for another live stream

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<v Speaker 1>on my channel. We are recording on April twenty nine at.

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<v Speaker 2>Three pm Eastern time. What is it noon for you

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<v Speaker 2>in California? I know me?

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<v Speaker 1>That is right, Okay, great, it's noon. Perfect time to

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<v Speaker 1>do a little bit of a chat. Thank you all

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<v Speaker 1>who are here for the live The idea is to

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<v Speaker 1>be able to take your questions, especially for some of

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<v Speaker 1>the people who have been on my channel, some of

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<v Speaker 1>my beloved guests who've been on my channel several times,

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<v Speaker 1>so we can have a conversation that's more interactive. So

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<v Speaker 1>please in the chat leave your comments or questions and

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<v Speaker 1>we'll try to field some of them. If you're here

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<v Speaker 1>when we're not live anymore, you're rewatching it another time.

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<v Speaker 1>I'm happy you're here as well. Leave a comment in

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<v Speaker 1>the video description.

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<v Speaker 2>Okay.

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<v Speaker 1>My guest today is the wonderful Noomi Sideman, who I

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<v Speaker 1>have had on my channel several times. I think the

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<v Speaker 1>last time we did something together was in Poland, correct,

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<v Speaker 1>I think that's right. Yeah, we went to Poland together

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<v Speaker 1>and that was amazing. Today we are going to be

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<v Speaker 1>discussing Nomi's book.

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<v Speaker 2>Nomi is a.

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<v Speaker 1>Scholar at University of Toronto and the author of several books.

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<v Speaker 1>Today we're going to be discussing the marriage plot, and

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<v Speaker 1>hopefully we'll talk about Judaism, marriages, arranged marriages, not arranged marriages,

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<v Speaker 1>and marrying in the faith or outside of the faith.

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<v Speaker 1>What do you think of that, Nomi?

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<v Speaker 3>That is great. I would love to talk about that.

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<v Speaker 4>Awesome.

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<v Speaker 2>Thank you so much for agreeing to do it. How

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<v Speaker 2>are you doing. How's everything great?

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<v Speaker 3>Yay? Short semesters?

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, how come you're in California and you're house.

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<v Speaker 5>Our semesters are very short in Toronto. My last day

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<v Speaker 5>of I mean I didn't actually teach this semester, but

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<v Speaker 5>if I would have, my last day of teaching would

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<v Speaker 5>have been April third, fourth. It's something like that. So

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<v Speaker 5>I was back here for my birthday in April sixth.

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<v Speaker 5>So yeah, it's I mean, it's great being a professor.

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<v Speaker 5>And you know, the two best things about about being

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<v Speaker 5>a professor what.

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<v Speaker 4>No, I don't know li in August, but I see.

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<v Speaker 3>May and June are great too.

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<v Speaker 5>In the case, I keep going, just finishing up like

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<v Speaker 5>various little things for this semester and then going to France.

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<v Speaker 2>You go to France.

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<v Speaker 3>How come you know?

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<v Speaker 5>We my partner and I like almost never take vacations

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<v Speaker 5>like academics.

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<v Speaker 3>We go.

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<v Speaker 5>I have an academic friend who says, I'm very polite.

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<v Speaker 5>I only go places I'm invited. We tend to organize

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<v Speaker 5>our vacations quote unquote around conferences or he has a

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<v Speaker 5>gig somewhere, We'll go along, and I'll go along and take.

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<v Speaker 3>An extra day.

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<v Speaker 5>And so that way we don't like actually have to

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<v Speaker 5>do what you know ordinary people do, which is actually

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<v Speaker 5>buy a plane ticket and go somewhere, make a hotel reservation.

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<v Speaker 5>And I was just thinking, you know, we're never gonna

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<v Speaker 5>get invited to the South of France, so I'm never

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<v Speaker 5>gonna go because they're never gonna have a Jewish studies conference.

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<v Speaker 5>And I thought I could just buy a plane ticket.

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<v Speaker 5>Actually it was all on miles. I have a lot

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<v Speaker 5>of miles, which is what happens when you have a

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<v Speaker 5>life like mine.

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<v Speaker 3>So we're paid the.

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<v Speaker 5>Hope for the whole thing on miles and made a

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<v Speaker 5>reservation and we're going to the South of France, which

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<v Speaker 5>neither of us has ever been there. So we're going

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<v Speaker 5>on what other people call a vacation, no talks, no jazz,

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<v Speaker 5>at least no jazz that John plays, and we're gonna

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<v Speaker 5>do what people do.

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<v Speaker 2>Wow, how long are you going?

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<v Speaker 6>Ten days, ten days Sundays.

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<v Speaker 5>I know, I know, I'm just really really hoping to

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<v Speaker 5>take care of everything so I don't have to have

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<v Speaker 5>meetings on Zoom, but I do.

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<v Speaker 3>I'm actually going to teach one class pretty much in

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<v Speaker 3>the middle.

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<v Speaker 5>Of the night from France, so yeah, I know I

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<v Speaker 5>couldn't totally clear my schedule.

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<v Speaker 2>Wow, look at you going to the south of France.

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<v Speaker 1>Also, since we're talking about marriage and all of that,

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<v Speaker 1>I'm surprised to hear you talk about John as your partner,

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<v Speaker 1>which is now the trendy way of people talking about

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<v Speaker 1>their husbands.

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<v Speaker 5>And why I'm confusing to people because like your business partner,

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<v Speaker 5>your lesbian partner, you know, like what is it? And

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<v Speaker 5>I don't wear a wedding ring.

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<v Speaker 3>So no, we actually are legally married. We got legally

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<v Speaker 3>married three days before my our son was due.

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<v Speaker 5>We went really courthouse, and we were so kind of

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<v Speaker 5>embarrassed to be doing something so square that we.

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<v Speaker 3>Didn't tell anybody.

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<v Speaker 5>And not only that, we don't like observe our wedding anniversary.

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<v Speaker 3>And the word husband gives me the hebgb's, so I

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<v Speaker 3>just can't say it.

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<v Speaker 5>I mean, you don't have all these gender issues, so

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<v Speaker 5>I don't like the word husband. Partner is weird. I

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<v Speaker 5>guess I could call him my boyfriend. I think that's

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<v Speaker 5>kind of sexy.

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<v Speaker 1>I might start to really, but he's if you can't

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<v Speaker 1>call him your boyfriend if he's your husband.

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<v Speaker 3>Is there a law?

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<v Speaker 2>There is a law?

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<v Speaker 5>Oh well, well guess I'll just have to go to

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<v Speaker 5>relationship jail.

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<v Speaker 2>I will, I will bail you out.

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<v Speaker 4>I feel like, thank you, thank you?

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

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<v Speaker 1>Oh interesting, See this is the first time I hear

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<v Speaker 1>I hear about how you got married. Is it okay

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<v Speaker 1>if I ask you some more personal questions about your marriage?

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah?

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<v Speaker 4>John, Yeah?

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<v Speaker 2>Did you never have a fancy, proper wedding?

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<v Speaker 3>We never got the cash and prizes.

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<v Speaker 2>But did you ever wear a white dress?

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<v Speaker 5>And I mean I wore the maternity my fanciest maternity shirt.

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<v Speaker 3>It was nine months pregnant, nine and half or whatever

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<v Speaker 3>it was. No, we did not have a fancy wedding.

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<v Speaker 5>We didn't have a neither of us like we have

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<v Speaker 5>this kind of aversion to I don't know, bourgeois conventional like,

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<v Speaker 5>for instance, we live here with housemates, which is I

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<v Speaker 5>think unusual for a married couple.

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<v Speaker 3>And we also said we have a little we have

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<v Speaker 3>one housemate.

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<v Speaker 4>Now we and that housemate has a pet.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I didn't.

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<v Speaker 5>I don't think I told you that Vanessa died. But

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<v Speaker 5>I know we're not talking about pets this time. Oh no,

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<v Speaker 5>I know, you know what. That's another reason we're going

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<v Speaker 5>to friends. Because so Vanessa had kidney disease and we

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<v Speaker 5>had our living room looked like a hospital room because

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<v Speaker 5>we had this ivy thing. We gave her iv every

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<v Speaker 5>night and we weren't going to go anywhere with her

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<v Speaker 5>that's sick. And I told you I came back home,

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<v Speaker 5>I guess for Paysach on my birthday and she was

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<v Speaker 5>doing fine.

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<v Speaker 3>She did. You couldn't even tell she was sick.

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<v Speaker 5>And then the day I got back, she just she

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<v Speaker 5>couldn't jump up on the couch. She was suddenly very weak.

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<v Speaker 5>We took her to the emergency room and she died

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<v Speaker 5>that night. They called us a two in the morning

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<v Speaker 5>and said, if you want to see her, come quick.

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<v Speaker 5>And you were in Toronto, No, it was my first

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<v Speaker 5>day back in California, and when.

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<v Speaker 3>It was three or four weeks ago, Oh.

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<v Speaker 2>My goodness, I'm so sorry.

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<v Speaker 7>It was.

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<v Speaker 3>It was devastating.

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<v Speaker 5>I mean, I've heard people describe the difference between a

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<v Speaker 5>pet dying and a close human being dying, and for

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<v Speaker 5>some reason, it's like the pet thing gets way deep

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<v Speaker 5>in there. And also they're not ambivalent relationships. They're pure relationships.

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<v Speaker 5>He are not like well I sometimes like them, I

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<v Speaker 5>sometimes don't the way we all have these complicated human relationships.

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<v Speaker 5>They're super uncomplicated and they're super pure, and their death

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<v Speaker 5>is just devastating as I think, you know. Yeah, anyway,

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<v Speaker 5>so that just happened, and yes, it was devastating, and

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<v Speaker 5>it was also freeing.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, I'm so sorry.

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<v Speaker 3>I'm sorry for putting it that way. We loved you, but.

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<v Speaker 4>Yeah, yeah, don't worry. She gets it. She gets it.

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<v Speaker 1>She's listening, but she she's die.

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<v Speaker 5>The only thing she got, I mean, what she got

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<v Speaker 5>is she knew she was sick. She would let us

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<v Speaker 5>take care of her. She would be trembling so hard

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<v Speaker 5>when we gave her these ivs and we were not

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<v Speaker 5>good at it, so we would her her and she

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<v Speaker 5>would yelp, and she would still let us do it.

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<v Speaker 5>And then at the very end, the only way I

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<v Speaker 5>can describe it is she was trying to tell us something.

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<v Speaker 5>She was making these noises I've never heard before, like

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<v Speaker 5>these intense, eye contacted these noises and basically saying help me,

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<v Speaker 5>is how I can interpret it.

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<v Speaker 3>And we helped her by letting the letting them do

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<v Speaker 3>what they do.

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<v Speaker 5>They're in those veterinarian emergency rooms. Okay, but let's talk

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<v Speaker 5>about let's talk about my research if you don't mind.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, okay, well, because.

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<v Speaker 5>You know, I'm when does an academic ever get to

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<v Speaker 5>have this kind of exposure?

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, but you have done research on dogs, though, but

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<v Speaker 1>we're not talking about that today.

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<v Speaker 3>I'm talking about dogs jobs.

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<v Speaker 5>I like Freud. I became a deep, deep, deep dog lover.

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<v Speaker 5>In my case, it wasn't dogs in general. Like, we

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<v Speaker 5>actually have two dogs. One is my housemates, and I

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<v Speaker 5>have no feelings for one of them. I'm kind of

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<v Speaker 5>like confessing deep in humanity and coldness in relation to

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<v Speaker 5>one of my dogs. But I used to say, I

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<v Speaker 5>look at Mooch, one of our dogs is Muchkala.

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<v Speaker 3>I look at much and I see a dog, cute dog.

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<v Speaker 5>I looked at Vanessa and I saw Vanessa.

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<v Speaker 2>Do you remember Vanessa's been on my videos?

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<v Speaker 3>Vanessa?

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<v Speaker 5>I yes, eternalized, immortalized, I hope, yeah.

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<v Speaker 4>Sweet.

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<v Speaker 1>Okay, then let's let you talk about let's talk about marriage.

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<v Speaker 1>Let's let's go back to you for a.

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<v Speaker 2>Minute, and then we're going to talk about your research.

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<v Speaker 2>Is that okay?

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<v Speaker 4>So something that I.

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<v Speaker 1>Think about quite a bit is the clash of values

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<v Speaker 1>that present themselves with two people merging together, which obviously

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<v Speaker 1>is so difficult in so many scenarios. I was at

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<v Speaker 1>the gym and this absolutely wonderful woman told me she's

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<v Speaker 1>getting married to a sort of from Ish guy, and

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<v Speaker 1>that guy's family is from and they're navigating the wedding.

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<v Speaker 1>Just the wedding alone is so complicated because you have

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<v Speaker 1>all of these families coming together from different values. Who's

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<v Speaker 1>going to be in the men's side, who's going to

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<v Speaker 1>be in the women's side? Is there going to be

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<v Speaker 1>a men's side of women's side? People are going to

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<v Speaker 1>be offended if you do that, but other people will

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<v Speaker 1>be offended if you don't. There's so much happening with

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<v Speaker 1>my own son. I didn't make a bar mitzvah for

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<v Speaker 1>this reason, and so many people were so offended that

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<v Speaker 1>I didn't, but I just couldn't figure out how to

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<v Speaker 1>do it.

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<v Speaker 2>So anyway, I find it.

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<v Speaker 1>Interesting that you didn't actually have a wedding to John.

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<v Speaker 2>Was it intentional in that sense?

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<v Speaker 3>I know, I know the point. Actually, Can I tell

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<v Speaker 3>you a little bit about Essa's bar menzvah?

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, for sure.

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<v Speaker 3>So we did have.

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<v Speaker 5>A bar mensa for our son, and at first we were,

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<v Speaker 5>you know, I had this idea that you know, I'm

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<v Speaker 5>in secular, atheist whatever, that it was gonna be a

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<v Speaker 5>kind of like unusual bar mitzvah. We tried to like

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<v Speaker 5>get like a family history and a vision quest and

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<v Speaker 5>spend the day alone and nature.

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<v Speaker 3>I had all these grand ideas, and the end it

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<v Speaker 3>was really.

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<v Speaker 5>Hard to pull it off, and we just hired someone

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<v Speaker 5>to teach my son how to read from the Torah.

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<v Speaker 5>And then at the very last minute, my mother decided

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<v Speaker 5>to come and.

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<v Speaker 3>Which is very, very moving, but we really weren't quite prepared.

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<v Speaker 5>And it was because so this won't be surprising to you,

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<v Speaker 5>because you know about these huge families, but I have

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<v Speaker 5>a brother who's I don't know.

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<v Speaker 3>Third son was born on the very same day as

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<v Speaker 3>my son, and.

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<v Speaker 5>My cousin, who's like very open minded but kind of classidic,

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<v Speaker 5>asked my mother which bar mitzvah you're gonna go through?

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<v Speaker 5>And my mother said, I don't know. She's like, well,

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<v Speaker 5>how do you choose between? So suddenly she kind of

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<v Speaker 5>got my mother to think about going. And we had

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<v Speaker 5>it on a Monday because we just couldn't manage the

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<v Speaker 5>Shavist thing, and it happened to be Memorial Day, so

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<v Speaker 5>people were off of work, but we had arrange to

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<v Speaker 5>have it in where I was teaching, which was a

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<v Speaker 5>Christian divinity school. So like we just pulled down so

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<v Speaker 5>many crosses from the wall and we went to the

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<v Speaker 5>Orthodox Synagogue and borrowed a maritza and we put the

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<v Speaker 5>maritza just in the first three rows, and my mother's

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<v Speaker 5>sitting there with my claucidic cousin who basically got her

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<v Speaker 5>to go, and my sister because she was pretty old

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<v Speaker 5>to be traveling alone, and we were like, who's going

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<v Speaker 5>to be on the men's side. And I had a

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<v Speaker 5>trans student who had just become a trans man, and

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<v Speaker 5>I think he was so happy to be on the

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<v Speaker 5>men's side. He was there with like fill in and

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<v Speaker 5>he was shuckling. He had also converted into Judaism. And

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<v Speaker 5>my mother, my mother was looking at him like that, like, well,

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<v Speaker 5>you have such froom friends students.

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<v Speaker 3>My student, she's like beautiful, you know, she.

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<v Speaker 5>Was my trans student, very happy to be on the

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<v Speaker 5>men's side of the militza.

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<v Speaker 1>And then three there was just two people, Ezra, your

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<v Speaker 1>husband and.

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<v Speaker 5>My my father in law and my student, and everybody

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<v Speaker 5>else wanted to sit in the mixed section, so we

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<v Speaker 5>just had the back was mixed.

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<v Speaker 3>So it was like everybody every somebody said during the.

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<v Speaker 5>You know, during the party, it was just a little

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<v Speaker 5>party with we had kosher food. But of course it

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<v Speaker 5>wasn't going to be cod. My mother was you know,

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<v Speaker 5>it wasn't going to trust it. But you know, we

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00:14:47.240 --> 00:14:49.279
<v Speaker 5>tried to make it. At least my mother wasn't watching

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<v Speaker 5>people eat trade. It was like my mother bent bent

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<v Speaker 5>toward us, and we bent toward her. And it was

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<v Speaker 5>really the beginning of a kind of beautiful rep Prochemont.

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<v Speaker 3>My mother brought I think you could see them. Where

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<v Speaker 3>are they?

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<v Speaker 5>My mother brought like the only family heirlooms that she

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00:15:10.120 --> 00:15:13.279
<v Speaker 5>has from Europe, like and They were like a very

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<v Speaker 5>plain kiddish cup not from before the Holocaust but after

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00:15:17.679 --> 00:15:22.960
<v Speaker 5>the Holocaust, but Europe and candles shot us candles, and

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<v Speaker 5>she gave them to my son, and I was like, why,

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<v Speaker 5>my son. My mother had you know, many many grandchildren

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<v Speaker 5>and great grandchildren, and she said, I don't know what

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<v Speaker 5>your siblings.

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00:15:32.559 --> 00:15:35.399
<v Speaker 3>Are gonna give you when I'm gone, so I want

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00:15:35.440 --> 00:15:36.000
<v Speaker 3>you to have this.

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<v Speaker 5>So my mother, really, my mother wrote a five hundred

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<v Speaker 5>dollars check, which was you know, my mother had very

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00:15:42.519 --> 00:15:46.679
<v Speaker 5>little money, so I never cashed it, which I think

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00:15:46.720 --> 00:15:51.360
<v Speaker 5>may have offended her. But it was just a really

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00:15:52.799 --> 00:15:55.399
<v Speaker 5>beautiful way, and it came together at the last minute,

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00:15:55.519 --> 00:15:58.960
<v Speaker 5>and it happened. A wedding I think would have been

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<v Speaker 5>much more difficult through all these My husband's father is

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00:16:04.879 --> 00:16:08.120
<v Speaker 5>Jewish but not his mother, and which as you know,

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<v Speaker 5>means to my religious family, and he's not Jewish, and

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<v Speaker 5>he would have had to convert Orthodox, which was he

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<v Speaker 5>would have had to say he was gonna It just was.

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<v Speaker 3>Too complicated to pull off.

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<v Speaker 5>And also we were both like we had tons of

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<v Speaker 5>we're both bisexual, we had tons of gay friends, and

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00:16:26.399 --> 00:16:28.279
<v Speaker 5>we were kind of embarrassed and we had this like

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00:16:28.440 --> 00:16:29.960
<v Speaker 5>heteronormative privilege.

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<v Speaker 3>You know, we live in the Bay Area.

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<v Speaker 5>We just it's funny we have to be embarrassed in

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00:16:35.519 --> 00:16:37.480
<v Speaker 5>marriage became legal.

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00:16:38.000 --> 00:16:39.480
<v Speaker 3>He said to me, Oh, let's get married.

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<v Speaker 4>No, it's so funny.

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<v Speaker 1>It's a culture of its own where marriage between a

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00:16:48.039 --> 00:16:50.799
<v Speaker 1>heteronormative couple is or not even embarrassing.

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<v Speaker 4>He's embarrassing.

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00:16:53.919 --> 00:16:54.960
<v Speaker 3>I can say.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, So let's talk about your research. What was your about? Yeah,

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00:17:01.639 --> 00:17:03.000
<v Speaker 2>what was the book about?

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<v Speaker 3>So my book?

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<v Speaker 5>Maybe I'll start by saying, so, there's a really influential book.

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<v Speaker 5>It goes back to the nineteen fifties when people still read.

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<v Speaker 5>It's called The Rise of the Novel, and it basically

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00:17:14.640 --> 00:17:19.440
<v Speaker 5>describes like how the novel came to be, and it

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00:17:19.599 --> 00:17:24.400
<v Speaker 5>traces a kind of history of like worship of the

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00:17:24.480 --> 00:17:29.960
<v Speaker 5>virgin Mary, to the chivalric romance where the chival where

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00:17:29.960 --> 00:17:33.680
<v Speaker 5>you have the lady that is kind of virginal, she's married,

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00:17:33.680 --> 00:17:39.400
<v Speaker 5>but she's not the night can't have her, and to

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00:17:39.920 --> 00:17:44.400
<v Speaker 5>the novel which plays at this whole worship of women

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00:17:44.759 --> 00:17:51.000
<v Speaker 5>and fascination with women's beauty, and this kind of translation

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00:17:51.079 --> 00:17:56.559
<v Speaker 5>of religious ideas into erotic ideas. Right, this kind of spirituality,

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00:17:56.640 --> 00:18:00.759
<v Speaker 5>the sublime romantic love, and he described that's how in

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00:18:01.880 --> 00:18:05.359
<v Speaker 5>eighteenth century England where he sees the novel kind of

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00:18:05.400 --> 00:18:10.640
<v Speaker 5>beginning it suddenly you suddenly had all kinds of conditions

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00:18:11.119 --> 00:18:11.759
<v Speaker 5>that made it.

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00:18:11.839 --> 00:18:13.319
<v Speaker 3>Women had more free time.

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00:18:13.920 --> 00:18:18.319
<v Speaker 5>They were kind of because these were industrial societies, they

347
00:18:18.319 --> 00:18:21.240
<v Speaker 5>were now depending on male labor, which meant that they

348
00:18:21.240 --> 00:18:26.400
<v Speaker 5>were actually quite dependent on men. So these novels basically

349
00:18:27.599 --> 00:18:32.839
<v Speaker 5>flattered them by centering, you know, adored women and then

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00:18:33.160 --> 00:18:35.599
<v Speaker 5>kind of covered over the fact that women needed men

351
00:18:35.640 --> 00:18:40.200
<v Speaker 5>to survive economically by having the men want the women.

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00:18:41.359 --> 00:18:44.480
<v Speaker 3>So it's it's this very influential history of the novel.

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<v Speaker 5>And basically I set out to write the kind of

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<v Speaker 5>rise of the Jewish novel, like how did this all

355
00:18:50.359 --> 00:18:53.759
<v Speaker 5>play itself out in Jewish circles and the difference between

356
00:18:53.799 --> 00:18:57.119
<v Speaker 5>it in some ways, it played itself out in many,

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00:18:57.279 --> 00:19:01.440
<v Speaker 5>many different societies. So with the distinct the difference that

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00:19:01.839 --> 00:19:06.759
<v Speaker 5>these societies didn't inherit these Christian ideas. So the novel,

359
00:19:06.799 --> 00:19:10.480
<v Speaker 5>according to Ian Watt, inherited all kinds of Christian ideas,

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00:19:10.519 --> 00:19:17.359
<v Speaker 5>including the fascination with female virginity not a thing in Judaism,

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00:19:17.680 --> 00:19:21.359
<v Speaker 5>the kind of the praise of celibacy, again not a

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00:19:21.440 --> 00:19:23.000
<v Speaker 5>thing in Judaism.

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<v Speaker 3>Knights.

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<v Speaker 5>Jews were familiar with knights from as one put, as

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00:19:27.680 --> 00:19:30.079
<v Speaker 5>one scholar puts it, from the other end of their

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00:19:30.200 --> 00:19:34.680
<v Speaker 5>spare like there is they experienced.

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00:19:34.119 --> 00:19:38.200
<v Speaker 3>Nights, not as like the knight in shining armor.

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<v Speaker 5>But like oh my god, run, yeah, what happens when

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00:19:42.839 --> 00:19:47.440
<v Speaker 5>when this developed, this this novel which became a.

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<v Speaker 3>Thing all over the world and all kinds.

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<v Speaker 5>Of societies, how did it manifest itself differently in a

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<v Speaker 5>society like Jewish society, which didn't have the prehistory that

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<v Speaker 5>Ian Watt said the monarch European novel had. It didn't

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<v Speaker 5>have all kinds of things it had, you know, it

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<v Speaker 5>didn't have.

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00:20:06.720 --> 00:20:08.680
<v Speaker 3>The you know, the first even.

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<v Speaker 5>The idea that women's beauty is more interesting than men's beauty.

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<v Speaker 5>The tallement has all this stuff about men's beauty. Right,

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<v Speaker 5>Reba Yochanan is supposed to be very beautiful. Rache laquis

380
00:20:20.200 --> 00:20:23.279
<v Speaker 5>like makes the passi him. So it had all kinds

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00:20:23.279 --> 00:20:27.880
<v Speaker 5>of other things behind it, other kinds of traditions. And

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<v Speaker 5>even though in the nineteenth century, Jewish writers adopted the

383
00:20:32.720 --> 00:20:36.400
<v Speaker 5>novel and created a revolution which is called modern Jewish literature,

384
00:20:37.759 --> 00:20:40.440
<v Speaker 5>they did it differently, and that's what my book is about.

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<v Speaker 5>It's like, what does it mean to be what does

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00:20:42.799 --> 00:20:45.680
<v Speaker 5>it mean to be participating in novel writing? And I'll

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00:20:45.680 --> 00:20:49.559
<v Speaker 5>just point out that the word novel in many different languages,

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00:20:49.599 --> 00:20:52.519
<v Speaker 5>including Hebrew and Yiddish, but also French et cetera, is

389
00:20:53.400 --> 00:20:59.359
<v Speaker 5>Roman or romance. So Roman, what does it mean to

390
00:20:59.400 --> 00:21:03.559
<v Speaker 5>be writing romance? And this is a question that some

391
00:21:03.599 --> 00:21:06.559
<v Speaker 5>of the Jewish writers asked, is how do we write

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<v Speaker 5>a romance?

393
00:21:07.240 --> 00:21:08.599
<v Speaker 3>We don't know anything about romance.

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<v Speaker 5>We were married off at the age of fourteen to

395
00:21:10.519 --> 00:21:13.640
<v Speaker 5>a twelve year old, like we never one of them

396
00:21:13.680 --> 00:21:16.039
<v Speaker 5>says in this mental milch As Farm. I don't know

397
00:21:16.039 --> 00:21:18.079
<v Speaker 5>if you've heard of him, the great, the grandfather of

398
00:21:18.119 --> 00:21:21.440
<v Speaker 5>modern Hebrew Yiddish literature. He's like, I can't write a

399
00:21:21.480 --> 00:21:24.799
<v Speaker 5>novel slash romance. I never went to a bull, I

400
00:21:24.880 --> 00:21:28.160
<v Speaker 5>never fought a duel, I never flirted with a woman,

401
00:21:28.319 --> 00:21:31.559
<v Speaker 5>a young woman our eyes meaning across, how do I

402
00:21:31.599 --> 00:21:32.000
<v Speaker 5>do it?

403
00:21:32.160 --> 00:21:32.279
<v Speaker 1>Like?

404
00:21:32.359 --> 00:21:34.680
<v Speaker 5>I just have no life experience. The only experience I

405
00:21:34.720 --> 00:21:37.279
<v Speaker 5>have is reading novels. So one of the things I

406
00:21:37.279 --> 00:21:39.640
<v Speaker 5>say is that you know, to become modern was to

407
00:21:39.680 --> 00:21:42.799
<v Speaker 5>start reading novels, and it was to fall in love

408
00:21:42.920 --> 00:21:47.880
<v Speaker 5>with the literary idea of romance, which was foreign to

409
00:21:48.359 --> 00:21:52.640
<v Speaker 5>Jewish traditional culture, not entirely foreign, but in the same

410
00:21:52.640 --> 00:21:55.359
<v Speaker 5>way that it's foreign to many other traditional cultures where

411
00:21:55.480 --> 00:21:56.720
<v Speaker 5>arranged marriage is the norm.

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00:21:57.880 --> 00:22:04.200
<v Speaker 1>Wow, it's so interesting saying, because I often talk in

413
00:22:04.279 --> 00:22:08.119
<v Speaker 1>my own work and my own tours about the fact

414
00:22:08.160 --> 00:22:10.839
<v Speaker 1>that you can go into asiach bookstore and you won't

415
00:22:10.880 --> 00:22:15.200
<v Speaker 1>find a single romance novel, and I think for the

416
00:22:15.240 --> 00:22:20.519
<v Speaker 1>average person it leaves this huge gaping sense of then

417
00:22:21.000 --> 00:22:23.640
<v Speaker 1>what are these books? How could there be all of

418
00:22:23.680 --> 00:22:29.640
<v Speaker 1>these books without the love story? And it's sometimes hard

419
00:22:29.680 --> 00:22:31.799
<v Speaker 1>for me to articulate. It's almost like I have to

420
00:22:31.839 --> 00:22:34.680
<v Speaker 1>go through and show what they're all about in order

421
00:22:34.720 --> 00:22:36.960
<v Speaker 1>to show yes, you can actually have stories, and they're

422
00:22:36.960 --> 00:22:39.640
<v Speaker 1>not there's no romance in them at all.

423
00:22:40.640 --> 00:22:43.319
<v Speaker 5>So one of the things that one of the writers

424
00:22:43.319 --> 00:22:46.400
<v Speaker 5>said in the nineteenth century, Marshal Lais Lillian Bloom, who

425
00:22:46.400 --> 00:22:51.519
<v Speaker 5>wrote a memoir about growing up you know, religious. One

426
00:22:51.559 --> 00:22:54.599
<v Speaker 5>of the things he says is that the Jewish conception

427
00:22:54.720 --> 00:22:57.000
<v Speaker 5>of the Christian conception of love, where you can say

428
00:22:57.240 --> 00:22:59.920
<v Speaker 5>the Christian that then becomes the European conception of love

429
00:23:00.839 --> 00:23:05.160
<v Speaker 5>highlights this one particular kind of love and is kind

430
00:23:05.160 --> 00:23:11.519
<v Speaker 5>of obsessed with it. So the young, you know, the

431
00:23:11.559 --> 00:23:17.880
<v Speaker 5>people at their bioerotic peak, sixteen seventeen year olds, hormones flowing.

432
00:23:18.440 --> 00:23:21.920
<v Speaker 5>That kind of love is the staple, which you know

433
00:23:22.240 --> 00:23:24.359
<v Speaker 5>for most people lasts a couple of years.

434
00:23:24.440 --> 00:23:24.640
<v Speaker 3>You know.

435
00:23:26.079 --> 00:23:30.480
<v Speaker 5>That's if you looked at Hollywood movies and novels, you

436
00:23:30.559 --> 00:23:33.680
<v Speaker 5>think that was like most of life. But he said

437
00:23:33.759 --> 00:23:39.160
<v Speaker 5>Jewish love. Jews understand love to be so much more,

438
00:23:39.319 --> 00:23:43.279
<v Speaker 5>he says, including the love of parents and children, the

439
00:23:43.359 --> 00:23:47.599
<v Speaker 5>love of even the loves in which that marriages from

440
00:23:47.640 --> 00:23:50.799
<v Speaker 5>which marriages are built. For instance, in Shifkreh Best and

441
00:23:50.880 --> 00:23:54.880
<v Speaker 5>Praise with the Bolsheintov, which is a kind of novel

442
00:23:55.119 --> 00:23:58.839
<v Speaker 5>about the founding of the Hasidic movement, it says very

443
00:23:58.920 --> 00:24:05.680
<v Speaker 5>clearly that I think his name is Rabbi Abraham falls

444
00:24:05.680 --> 00:24:10.359
<v Speaker 5>in love with the young Balshamtov, and his heart is

445
00:24:10.480 --> 00:24:14.000
<v Speaker 5>drawn to him, and he decides, this will be.

446
00:24:14.000 --> 00:24:14.720
<v Speaker 3>My son in law.

447
00:24:15.839 --> 00:24:19.440
<v Speaker 5>Wow, you will find that in the books in your

448
00:24:19.480 --> 00:24:25.200
<v Speaker 5>Hassidics bookstores. Other kinds of love. People don't live without love.

449
00:24:25.279 --> 00:24:29.680
<v Speaker 5>It's also the Bible, so that One of the interesting

450
00:24:29.720 --> 00:24:34.279
<v Speaker 5>things is the first best selling novel, the first big

451
00:24:34.400 --> 00:24:38.880
<v Speaker 5>runaway novel that was read gobbled up by all these

452
00:24:38.920 --> 00:24:42.920
<v Speaker 5>Aeshiva boys gone bad, right hidden in the pages of

453
00:24:42.960 --> 00:24:46.519
<v Speaker 5>their tumut. They're reading this novel and it's called Avatsion,

454
00:24:46.640 --> 00:24:49.480
<v Speaker 5>the Love of Zion, and it takes place in the time,

455
00:24:49.720 --> 00:24:54.359
<v Speaker 5>in Biblical times, presumably because the author felt well in

456
00:24:54.400 --> 00:24:56.720
<v Speaker 5>the Bible they still knew about love. Right, there's the

457
00:24:56.759 --> 00:25:02.640
<v Speaker 5>song of songs. Those are Jews, you know, the Rachel

458
00:25:02.759 --> 00:25:04.720
<v Speaker 5>fell in love. I mean Jacob fell in love with

459
00:25:04.839 --> 00:25:09.799
<v Speaker 5>Rachel and worked for her for seven years. And I

460
00:25:09.799 --> 00:25:12.039
<v Speaker 5>mean one of the things that I talk about is

461
00:25:12.079 --> 00:25:17.119
<v Speaker 5>that the Bible actually has both kinds of ideas about love.

462
00:25:17.240 --> 00:25:17.279
<v Speaker 1>It.

463
00:25:18.079 --> 00:25:21.720
<v Speaker 5>So one idea is there is one true person for you,

464
00:25:22.240 --> 00:25:29.920
<v Speaker 5>and no her sister isn't an allowable substitute. One true love, right,

465
00:25:30.039 --> 00:25:35.720
<v Speaker 5>one and one only. And the other idea is in

466
00:25:35.759 --> 00:25:38.200
<v Speaker 5>the dark old cats are alike. I see your cat.

467
00:25:39.640 --> 00:25:41.039
<v Speaker 4>She's scratching at me.

468
00:25:41.119 --> 00:25:44.279
<v Speaker 2>She's like got her claws on my side.

469
00:25:44.759 --> 00:25:46.680
<v Speaker 3>I'm not alike. I'm the one true cat.

470
00:25:47.559 --> 00:25:53.720
<v Speaker 5>So the principle behind arranged marriage you more or less

471
00:25:54.240 --> 00:25:57.400
<v Speaker 5>throw you know, an eighteen year old girl and an

472
00:25:57.400 --> 00:26:00.640
<v Speaker 5>eighteen year old boy into a room together, and you

473
00:26:00.680 --> 00:26:03.759
<v Speaker 5>know what age this is that differs, And you know

474
00:26:03.880 --> 00:26:05.240
<v Speaker 5>a year later there's a baby.

475
00:26:05.359 --> 00:26:07.279
<v Speaker 3>Doesn't really matter who they are.

476
00:26:09.119 --> 00:26:13.200
<v Speaker 5>And those like those two ideas codist in the Bible too,

477
00:26:13.279 --> 00:26:19.000
<v Speaker 5>because Jacob actually sleeps with Rachel's sister Leah, and he.

478
00:26:18.880 --> 00:26:21.359
<v Speaker 3>Doesn't know, he thinks it's Rachel.

479
00:26:22.200 --> 00:26:26.039
<v Speaker 5>So the question of whether there is want you love

480
00:26:26.119 --> 00:26:29.119
<v Speaker 5>and what it means right that Tatoma says, forty days

481
00:26:29.119 --> 00:26:32.960
<v Speaker 5>before you were born, God decrees who you're gonna marry.

482
00:26:33.359 --> 00:26:36.720
<v Speaker 5>Does that mean that you shouldn't try and meet anyone

483
00:26:36.759 --> 00:26:39.559
<v Speaker 5>at a party or does that mean that the true

484
00:26:39.640 --> 00:26:41.440
<v Speaker 5>love is fated to be right?

485
00:26:41.559 --> 00:26:45.799
<v Speaker 3>So even that belief is hard to square with.

486
00:26:48.559 --> 00:26:52.319
<v Speaker 5>Like what exactly dos believe about love and true love?

487
00:26:53.920 --> 00:26:57.160
<v Speaker 5>My argument is that they adopt the European model because

488
00:26:57.160 --> 00:27:02.119
<v Speaker 5>the European model is so delicious thing. It's the big

489
00:27:02.200 --> 00:27:06.720
<v Speaker 5>lollipop of modernity, why we want to be moderns. They

490
00:27:06.759 --> 00:27:09.559
<v Speaker 5>adopt it, but they can never take it one hundred

491
00:27:09.559 --> 00:27:14.359
<v Speaker 5>percent seriously, which is why the great what I call

492
00:27:14.519 --> 00:27:19.240
<v Speaker 5>the counter narratives of this story of true love. A

493
00:27:19.319 --> 00:27:22.839
<v Speaker 5>lot of these counter narratives come from Jewish writers, including

494
00:27:22.920 --> 00:27:24.400
<v Speaker 5>you could say Filler on the Roof.

495
00:27:24.920 --> 00:27:29.960
<v Speaker 1>Which is the counter narrative because Fiddler Tavia and his

496
00:27:30.079 --> 00:27:36.720
<v Speaker 1>wife they love each other from time together, not from magical.

497
00:27:36.279 --> 00:27:39.200
<v Speaker 3>And way is that love comes.

498
00:27:39.400 --> 00:27:43.960
<v Speaker 5>So one form of counter narrative is you live with

499
00:27:44.000 --> 00:27:47.359
<v Speaker 5>someone and then you learn to love them. Another counter

500
00:27:47.440 --> 00:27:53.240
<v Speaker 5>narrative speaking from the realm of literature, sorry, garbage truck reality.

501
00:27:54.839 --> 00:27:59.400
<v Speaker 5>So another counter narrative is that the only important people

502
00:27:59.519 --> 00:28:01.640
<v Speaker 5>in the love story are the young couple.

503
00:28:02.440 --> 00:28:05.640
<v Speaker 3>The only purpose of the parents, having.

504
00:28:05.440 --> 00:28:07.279
<v Speaker 5>Raised them to the point where they can fall in

505
00:28:07.279 --> 00:28:10.400
<v Speaker 5>love with each other, is to be obstacles and delay

506
00:28:11.039 --> 00:28:13.920
<v Speaker 5>the sexual satisfaction to make it better, because we all

507
00:28:13.960 --> 00:28:17.960
<v Speaker 5>know that sexual satisfaction delayed is a form of erotic incentive.

508
00:28:18.279 --> 00:28:21.400
<v Speaker 5>So that's how it works. The parents are in the novel.

509
00:28:21.480 --> 00:28:25.119
<v Speaker 5>The parents are basically there or Romeo and Julia. They're

510
00:28:25.160 --> 00:28:29.440
<v Speaker 5>basically there to hate each other so that the love

511
00:28:29.480 --> 00:28:34.880
<v Speaker 5>affair becomes tortured and it all just becomes hotter and

512
00:28:34.920 --> 00:28:35.799
<v Speaker 5>hotter and hotter.

513
00:28:35.880 --> 00:28:37.160
<v Speaker 3>That's the purpose of parents.

514
00:28:37.799 --> 00:28:42.960
<v Speaker 5>The Fiddler on the Roof, Ted the Teviot stories that

515
00:28:42.960 --> 00:28:48.440
<v Speaker 5>they're based on the great heresy that is accomplished by

516
00:28:48.440 --> 00:28:50.960
<v Speaker 5>Fiddler on the Roof and the Tavot stories is that

517
00:28:50.960 --> 00:28:54.119
<v Speaker 5>that same story of young love is told.

518
00:28:53.839 --> 00:28:58.720
<v Speaker 3>From the parent's perspective. No one ever cared about the parents.

519
00:28:58.359 --> 00:29:03.200
<v Speaker 5>Before, AND's like, let's see what it's like to be tevia.

520
00:29:03.880 --> 00:29:05.920
<v Speaker 5>Let's see what it's like when your daughter marries a

521
00:29:05.960 --> 00:29:08.599
<v Speaker 5>communist or when your daughter marries a nonjo.

522
00:29:08.920 --> 00:29:11.920
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, so that's and people think.

523
00:29:11.839 --> 00:29:15.000
<v Speaker 5>This is this The story is really the story about

524
00:29:16.920 --> 00:29:22.240
<v Speaker 5>how modern romance has to naturally develop out of the

525
00:29:22.359 --> 00:29:24.720
<v Speaker 5>backward traditional marriage.

526
00:29:24.759 --> 00:29:26.200
<v Speaker 3>And my argument is that.

527
00:29:26.079 --> 00:29:30.119
<v Speaker 5>What the reason why it's so popular and such a

528
00:29:30.160 --> 00:29:33.200
<v Speaker 5>great hit is because it's one of the very very

529
00:29:33.240 --> 00:29:38.720
<v Speaker 5>few stories that tells about the move from traditional marriage

530
00:29:38.759 --> 00:29:42.839
<v Speaker 5>to modern romance in terms of the price that's paid

531
00:29:42.880 --> 00:29:46.200
<v Speaker 5>for it. Yeah, no one else talks about the price

532
00:29:46.319 --> 00:29:51.319
<v Speaker 5>that's paid. And the price that's paid is no mahatanin

533
00:29:51.720 --> 00:29:57.000
<v Speaker 5>parents kicked out of the scene the you know. And

534
00:29:57.079 --> 00:30:00.319
<v Speaker 5>it's exciting for the young couple until they realiz they

535
00:30:00.359 --> 00:30:02.440
<v Speaker 5>have no community and no family around them.

536
00:30:02.519 --> 00:30:05.559
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and Heavy himself has no in laws.

537
00:30:06.279 --> 00:30:09.640
<v Speaker 5>In laws is actually a bad translation of mat It's

538
00:30:09.680 --> 00:30:11.079
<v Speaker 5>another thing I talk about in the.

539
00:30:11.000 --> 00:30:13.920
<v Speaker 2>Book Why Why is it a bad translation?

540
00:30:15.319 --> 00:30:15.640
<v Speaker 3>In law?

541
00:30:16.480 --> 00:30:21.920
<v Speaker 7>My family, so the the you know, when I say

542
00:30:22.039 --> 00:30:28.240
<v Speaker 7>my mats or my marutten, I'm talking about a kinship

543
00:30:28.279 --> 00:30:30.119
<v Speaker 7>relation that doesn't exist in the English.

544
00:30:30.400 --> 00:30:38.680
<v Speaker 5>I'm talking about the my child's partner's parent. So in

545
00:30:38.720 --> 00:30:42.119
<v Speaker 5>other words, I have a father and a mother in law.

546
00:30:42.319 --> 00:30:44.200
<v Speaker 5>John has a father and a mother in law, had

547
00:30:44.240 --> 00:30:47.640
<v Speaker 5>a father and mother in law, but my father in

548
00:30:47.720 --> 00:30:52.599
<v Speaker 5>law and is not has not I say, I'm describing

549
00:30:52.720 --> 00:30:55.720
<v Speaker 5>his relationship with my parents.

550
00:30:56.240 --> 00:30:58.119
<v Speaker 4>I see, I see, I see.

551
00:30:57.720 --> 00:31:00.720
<v Speaker 5>They work out who's gonna pay for thee and that's it.

552
00:31:00.759 --> 00:31:06.200
<v Speaker 5>They're not real relatives. And in Jewish in Jewish marriage,

553
00:31:06.920 --> 00:31:10.200
<v Speaker 5>marriages construct kinship not only between the young couple and

554
00:31:10.240 --> 00:31:16.480
<v Speaker 5>their children, they also construct kinship backward. And when you're

555
00:31:16.920 --> 00:31:23.799
<v Speaker 5>a minority diasporic community, you need as much kin as possible.

556
00:31:24.839 --> 00:31:27.960
<v Speaker 5>In case the progrum cons which is what happens to Tavia,

557
00:31:28.480 --> 00:31:33.480
<v Speaker 5>and he has no mahatanum. Who's his marutin right, his

558
00:31:33.720 --> 00:31:37.640
<v Speaker 5>children married communists or non Jews or whatever. There's no makatanum,

559
00:31:38.039 --> 00:31:42.559
<v Speaker 5>he has no safety network, which is what mahatanum often were,

560
00:31:43.559 --> 00:31:47.359
<v Speaker 5>and there's no extended family for the young couple. Obviously

561
00:31:47.480 --> 00:31:50.240
<v Speaker 5>in the heat of the passion, they don't care. But

562
00:31:50.319 --> 00:31:53.039
<v Speaker 5>you have a kid and suddenly you do care. We

563
00:31:53.279 --> 00:31:56.160
<v Speaker 5>all know how useful your parents suddenly become when you

564
00:31:56.200 --> 00:31:57.279
<v Speaker 5>have a kid, right.

565
00:31:57.720 --> 00:32:01.680
<v Speaker 1>And yeah, interesting? Okay, So first of all, I have

566
00:32:01.759 --> 00:32:03.319
<v Speaker 1>to say to all of you who are here for

567
00:32:03.359 --> 00:32:04.920
<v Speaker 1>the live stream.

568
00:32:04.839 --> 00:32:06.000
<v Speaker 2>Thank you for being here.

569
00:32:06.119 --> 00:32:11.559
<v Speaker 1>You're here for my conversation with the scholar Gnomi Siteman

570
00:32:11.599 --> 00:32:16.599
<v Speaker 1>from University of Toronto. We're talking about marriages and romance

571
00:32:17.000 --> 00:32:23.559
<v Speaker 1>and how they play out in Jewish history. Would love

572
00:32:23.599 --> 00:32:27.319
<v Speaker 1>to hear your questions for know MEI I'll take them

573
00:32:27.359 --> 00:32:27.960
<v Speaker 1>in a minute.

574
00:32:28.000 --> 00:32:29.200
<v Speaker 2>I'll read some questions.

575
00:32:30.279 --> 00:32:32.720
<v Speaker 1>This is something that's really interesting because I think we

576
00:32:32.799 --> 00:32:37.519
<v Speaker 1>live in a culture where life is considered incomplete if

577
00:32:37.559 --> 00:32:41.519
<v Speaker 1>you haven't if you haven't experienced that kind of romance,

578
00:32:42.799 --> 00:32:46.119
<v Speaker 1>that feeling of being in love, and it's very interesting

579
00:32:46.240 --> 00:32:51.160
<v Speaker 1>to me to observe. Sometimes I'll see people from the

580
00:32:51.279 --> 00:32:54.799
<v Speaker 1>Sich community who are married at eighteen and arranged marriage

581
00:32:55.240 --> 00:32:58.240
<v Speaker 1>to someone that they have a practical relationship, with a

582
00:32:58.319 --> 00:33:03.759
<v Speaker 1>functional relationship, with a successful family, and yet they go

583
00:33:04.319 --> 00:33:07.079
<v Speaker 1>into the world in their twenties and thirties and learn

584
00:33:07.119 --> 00:33:12.039
<v Speaker 1>about romance and they feel deprived of a very very

585
00:33:13.400 --> 00:33:18.640
<v Speaker 1>special experience that seems like one of the most important experiences.

586
00:33:17.920 --> 00:33:18.960
<v Speaker 2>To have in life.

587
00:33:19.839 --> 00:33:22.319
<v Speaker 1>I'm wondering if you can speak to that, Like, what

588
00:33:22.720 --> 00:33:26.440
<v Speaker 1>would be your comment to someone who would say, I

589
00:33:26.480 --> 00:33:29.599
<v Speaker 1>feel terrible that I've lived life without that kind of

590
00:33:29.880 --> 00:33:31.519
<v Speaker 1>romantic love.

591
00:33:33.160 --> 00:33:37.039
<v Speaker 5>Look, there's no doubt about it that that's a primary experience.

592
00:33:37.119 --> 00:33:37.359
<v Speaker 7>I mean.

593
00:33:37.400 --> 00:33:43.799
<v Speaker 5>Ian Watt's argument is that so secularization, romance comes out

594
00:33:43.839 --> 00:33:48.480
<v Speaker 5>of secularization the and Ian what and other people say,

595
00:33:48.880 --> 00:33:50.519
<v Speaker 5>religion doesn't just disappear.

596
00:33:51.000 --> 00:33:53.160
<v Speaker 3>It gets channeled into other drives.

597
00:33:53.960 --> 00:33:57.279
<v Speaker 5>And one of the places that religion gets channeled into

598
00:33:57.440 --> 00:34:02.920
<v Speaker 5>is this kind of quasi religion idea of this the

599
00:34:03.039 --> 00:34:06.039
<v Speaker 5>highest experience. He calls it the sex religion or the

600
00:34:06.119 --> 00:34:11.559
<v Speaker 5>romance religion, this religion that we're all indoctrinated into in

601
00:34:12.639 --> 00:34:16.559
<v Speaker 5>the West, which isn't to say it isn't true. But

602
00:34:17.920 --> 00:34:19.400
<v Speaker 5>I want to say two things about it in the

603
00:34:19.440 --> 00:34:22.840
<v Speaker 5>first and they're vying for what I'm gonna say first.

604
00:34:23.000 --> 00:34:24.639
<v Speaker 3>So first I'll say is that.

605
00:34:24.840 --> 00:34:30.119
<v Speaker 5>It isn't that traditional societies, particularly let's call them Jewish societies,

606
00:34:30.360 --> 00:34:33.559
<v Speaker 5>don't have erotic connections. One of the ways in which

607
00:34:33.559 --> 00:34:39.519
<v Speaker 5>I describe the erotic distribution of energy. Let's say in

608
00:34:39.599 --> 00:34:46.719
<v Speaker 5>traditional religious highly religious communities, Orthodox, acidic, but probably more

609
00:34:46.760 --> 00:34:52.519
<v Speaker 5>than just that, is that they divide erotic energies into

610
00:34:52.559 --> 00:34:53.800
<v Speaker 5>two different spheres.

611
00:34:55.679 --> 00:34:57.280
<v Speaker 3>One of the spheres is.

612
00:34:58.920 --> 00:35:03.559
<v Speaker 5>An erotic size homosocial sphere, by which I mean a

613
00:35:03.599 --> 00:35:06.599
<v Speaker 5>sphere that is this is particularly true for men. So

614
00:35:06.679 --> 00:35:10.360
<v Speaker 5>let's take men as the example. That men live a

615
00:35:10.400 --> 00:35:12.480
<v Speaker 5>big share of their lives, a big part of their

616
00:35:12.519 --> 00:35:19.440
<v Speaker 5>lives in all male groupings, events, dances, a tish, all

617
00:35:19.480 --> 00:35:23.519
<v Speaker 5>these that are partly eroticized. Right, you look at these spheres,

618
00:35:23.840 --> 00:35:28.559
<v Speaker 5>They're shoulder to shoulder with other men, they're swaying, they're

619
00:35:28.639 --> 00:35:32.599
<v Speaker 5>in love with the tzadik. Right, these are highly eroticized.

620
00:35:32.880 --> 00:35:35.239
<v Speaker 5>I'm not saying they're having sex with each other, but

621
00:35:35.599 --> 00:35:38.920
<v Speaker 5>some kind of erotic bond that's taking place in a

622
00:35:39.000 --> 00:35:46.280
<v Speaker 5>purely male sphere. And then at the same time, normatively

623
00:35:46.519 --> 00:35:47.440
<v Speaker 5>they're all married.

624
00:35:47.599 --> 00:35:49.360
<v Speaker 3>Right, You're not supposed to not be married.

625
00:35:49.760 --> 00:35:54.320
<v Speaker 5>And that's a sphere that's partially de euroticized. It's the

626
00:35:54.440 --> 00:36:00.360
<v Speaker 5>de euroticized because it's arranged by parents. Often it's not

627
00:36:00.400 --> 00:36:04.800
<v Speaker 5>expected to be the full sum total of your erotic

628
00:36:05.159 --> 00:36:09.679
<v Speaker 5>investment and then just to add things to So there

629
00:36:09.679 --> 00:36:13.599
<v Speaker 5>are these two spheres, and they work together to create

630
00:36:14.400 --> 00:36:18.960
<v Speaker 5>a community, a religious community, and they're connected to each other.

631
00:36:19.039 --> 00:36:25.280
<v Speaker 5>The heterosexual heteronormative let's call them partially de euroticized bonds.

632
00:36:25.800 --> 00:36:28.920
<v Speaker 5>These marriages that aren't expected to be the be all

633
00:36:28.960 --> 00:36:32.920
<v Speaker 5>and end all of everything, they're connected to the homosexial spheres.

634
00:36:33.039 --> 00:36:34.480
<v Speaker 3>The marriages are.

635
00:36:34.400 --> 00:36:38.760
<v Speaker 5>Arranged by two men who are friends with each other,

636
00:36:39.119 --> 00:36:41.079
<v Speaker 5>or two families that are friends with each other.

637
00:36:41.119 --> 00:36:44.920
<v Speaker 3>Are two So these two spheres work together to create

638
00:36:44.960 --> 00:36:48.480
<v Speaker 3>a community that's thoroughly.

639
00:36:49.960 --> 00:36:53.920
<v Speaker 5>Let's call it, has these erotic connections. It's not just

640
00:36:54.039 --> 00:37:00.079
<v Speaker 5>the married couple having sex. That eroticism is distributed. It

641
00:37:00.360 --> 00:37:03.280
<v Speaker 5>much more widely, and you can almost say throughout the

642
00:37:03.320 --> 00:37:09.840
<v Speaker 5>community as a whole. The price is that you're missing

643
00:37:10.079 --> 00:37:14.119
<v Speaker 5>this great experience. Now, first of all, this great experience,

644
00:37:14.639 --> 00:37:17.639
<v Speaker 5>the Western world acts like it's guaranteed.

645
00:37:17.760 --> 00:37:20.000
<v Speaker 3>Right, you're a human being, you're going to have it.

646
00:37:20.360 --> 00:37:22.960
<v Speaker 3>First of all, not everybody does for whatever.

647
00:37:22.639 --> 00:37:26.719
<v Speaker 5>Reason, you don't find the person, or you're not for

648
00:37:26.880 --> 00:37:27.800
<v Speaker 5>you know, whatever reason.

649
00:37:27.840 --> 00:37:30.119
<v Speaker 3>Where we take a chance.

650
00:37:30.599 --> 00:37:32.920
<v Speaker 5>And then the other thing is that these are not

651
00:37:33.360 --> 00:37:36.760
<v Speaker 5>the heteronormative bond, if you want to call it that,

652
00:37:36.840 --> 00:37:41.239
<v Speaker 5>which is the lollipop that modernity hands the traditional societies.

653
00:37:42.280 --> 00:37:47.000
<v Speaker 5>It basically results in a nuclear family, not in a

654
00:37:47.199 --> 00:37:50.440
<v Speaker 5>you know, if you're doing things right, which is also

655
00:37:50.440 --> 00:37:52.679
<v Speaker 5>supposed to be the be all and end all, and

656
00:37:52.760 --> 00:37:58.039
<v Speaker 5>it basically serves does not serve the purpose of creating communities. So,

657
00:37:58.639 --> 00:38:00.760
<v Speaker 5>in other words, what is a com unity. If you're

658
00:38:00.760 --> 00:38:04.920
<v Speaker 5>a heterosexual couple, you double date with another heterosexual couple,

659
00:38:05.000 --> 00:38:08.719
<v Speaker 5>your kids have play dates. Right there, you've basically given

660
00:38:08.880 --> 00:38:15.159
<v Speaker 5>up on that kind of erotic distribution which creates placidic community,

661
00:38:16.239 --> 00:38:20.199
<v Speaker 5>and in exchange for that, you've had what a couple

662
00:38:20.239 --> 00:38:25.280
<v Speaker 5>of years is really intense passion. If you're lucky, maybe

663
00:38:25.280 --> 00:38:26.920
<v Speaker 5>you do it three or four times, and you live

664
00:38:26.920 --> 00:38:28.400
<v Speaker 5>in the Bay Area, you do it every night.

665
00:38:28.880 --> 00:38:33.119
<v Speaker 3>I mean, in other words, these are the trade offs.

666
00:38:33.559 --> 00:38:35.320
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, I hear you.

667
00:38:35.840 --> 00:38:39.719
<v Speaker 1>It's so interesting because it's something I think about often myself.

668
00:38:40.639 --> 00:38:45.760
<v Speaker 1>The invention in my own life of the term romance

669
00:38:46.119 --> 00:38:51.800
<v Speaker 1>versus platonic or romantic versus platonic, which I experienced a

670
00:38:51.880 --> 00:38:56.119
<v Speaker 1>shift of going from friend close friend, best best friend,

671
00:38:56.159 --> 00:39:00.199
<v Speaker 1>best best friend as a scale system of described being

672
00:39:00.320 --> 00:39:06.400
<v Speaker 1>relationships to a modern Western scale system, which is romantic

673
00:39:06.519 --> 00:39:10.440
<v Speaker 1>or platonic. And in the Western world, you're either in

674
00:39:10.480 --> 00:39:14.199
<v Speaker 1>a romantic relationship or platonic relationship. And even if just

675
00:39:14.239 --> 00:39:18.079
<v Speaker 1>two men are standing too close together are being too friendly,

676
00:39:18.119 --> 00:39:20.920
<v Speaker 1>they'll say that's so gay, which is such a derisive

677
00:39:21.000 --> 00:39:27.280
<v Speaker 1>way of taking away any intimacy from relationships that should

678
00:39:27.320 --> 00:39:31.519
<v Speaker 1>have space for intimacy. And I often think about, like

679
00:39:31.559 --> 00:39:34.840
<v Speaker 1>when I go to Hasidic weddings, I find myself stepping

680
00:39:34.880 --> 00:39:37.199
<v Speaker 1>away from people who are standing very close to me

681
00:39:38.039 --> 00:39:42.480
<v Speaker 1>and creating a lot more body space than they do,

682
00:39:42.960 --> 00:39:46.199
<v Speaker 1>Like you're standing so close to me, it's almost gonna

683
00:39:46.239 --> 00:39:50.199
<v Speaker 1>kiss me, and it's like you're in my I can

684
00:39:50.199 --> 00:39:53.000
<v Speaker 1>smell you. And I was once so used to this,

685
00:39:53.159 --> 00:39:56.559
<v Speaker 1>it was normal, and it's it's an intimacy. It's a

686
00:39:56.599 --> 00:40:01.199
<v Speaker 1>beautiful blotonic I think mostly intimacy, but.

687
00:40:02.559 --> 00:40:06.000
<v Speaker 5>The idea that this is this kind of physical intimacy

688
00:40:06.039 --> 00:40:08.760
<v Speaker 5>is something. There is a very interesting character. I don't

689
00:40:08.800 --> 00:40:11.639
<v Speaker 5>know if you ever heard of him, Jerry Langer. He

690
00:40:11.800 --> 00:40:17.639
<v Speaker 5>was a friend of Kafka, and he was gay, and

691
00:40:17.880 --> 00:40:22.519
<v Speaker 5>he basically we're talking about the early twentieth century, and

692
00:40:22.599 --> 00:40:27.400
<v Speaker 5>he became a husted. He moved to bells, and he

693
00:40:27.960 --> 00:40:31.239
<v Speaker 5>talked about that intimate This is exactly what you're talking about.

694
00:40:31.559 --> 00:40:35.920
<v Speaker 5>He said, I'm in the study hole and I'm talking

695
00:40:35.960 --> 00:40:39.880
<v Speaker 5>to a man and he starts pounding me on the

696
00:40:39.960 --> 00:40:42.280
<v Speaker 5>chest because he disagrees with me. And then he puts

697
00:40:42.320 --> 00:40:44.679
<v Speaker 5>his finger in my face and then he's like and

698
00:40:44.880 --> 00:40:48.519
<v Speaker 5>I and we're all of this is just totally normal

699
00:40:48.840 --> 00:40:52.960
<v Speaker 5>in this study hole. And this was so appealing to him.

700
00:40:53.239 --> 00:40:56.159
<v Speaker 5>In other words, he preferred to be I call this

701
00:40:56.199 --> 00:40:59.079
<v Speaker 5>is what I call when I call homosocial. I'm trying

702
00:40:59.119 --> 00:41:04.440
<v Speaker 5>to describe something that's in between a sexual relationship and

703
00:41:04.800 --> 00:41:08.960
<v Speaker 5>a platonic relationship, which is these intense and they're almost

704
00:41:09.000 --> 00:41:12.519
<v Speaker 5>always same sex. But you don't do this across the

705
00:41:12.559 --> 00:41:16.000
<v Speaker 5>sexual boundary. I mean in the Bay Area you do,

706
00:41:16.239 --> 00:41:20.000
<v Speaker 5>but in religious societies. And I have to say I

707
00:41:20.039 --> 00:41:23.800
<v Speaker 5>was very freaked out at heterosexual hugging when I first

708
00:41:23.840 --> 00:41:24.679
<v Speaker 5>became secular.

709
00:41:25.079 --> 00:41:27.320
<v Speaker 3>I don't know if you had that same feeling or

710
00:41:27.360 --> 00:41:29.000
<v Speaker 3>all hugging. I wasn't like.

711
00:41:29.039 --> 00:41:31.599
<v Speaker 5>There were just things that I just couldn't get used to,

712
00:41:32.280 --> 00:41:36.039
<v Speaker 5>but the physical intimacy with members of your own sex,

713
00:41:37.360 --> 00:41:39.480
<v Speaker 5>which you could see. I mean, look at you know,

714
00:41:39.599 --> 00:41:41.719
<v Speaker 5>just google Hasida then you'll see it.

715
00:41:41.719 --> 00:41:43.360
<v Speaker 3>It's right there, It's right obvious.

716
00:41:43.880 --> 00:41:50.440
<v Speaker 5>And that kind of bodily proximity which is also spiritual. Right,

717
00:41:50.519 --> 00:41:54.760
<v Speaker 5>These are like intensively effective spaces. You love the ta,

718
00:41:54.960 --> 00:41:58.079
<v Speaker 5>you love the rebel, you love the rebba with someone

719
00:41:58.639 --> 00:42:00.880
<v Speaker 5>you know how, like doing something thing with someone that

720
00:42:00.920 --> 00:42:04.000
<v Speaker 5>you with a friend. Even this this is like what

721
00:42:04.119 --> 00:42:07.480
<v Speaker 5>we have a project together. There's something about looking at

722
00:42:07.480 --> 00:42:10.639
<v Speaker 5>the world as a team that's so much more satisfying

723
00:42:10.639 --> 00:42:14.800
<v Speaker 5>that looking into each other's eyes. Like being on a date,

724
00:42:15.480 --> 00:42:18.800
<v Speaker 5>this idea that being on a date is the ideal thing,

725
00:42:19.320 --> 00:42:21.519
<v Speaker 5>when actually being on a date is a little bit

726
00:42:21.559 --> 00:42:22.480
<v Speaker 5>of a drag.

727
00:42:22.920 --> 00:42:26.760
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I think. I mean, I haven't got the dates

728
00:42:26.800 --> 00:42:27.360
<v Speaker 3>in my life.

729
00:42:27.480 --> 00:42:29.719
<v Speaker 5>I don't know what a date is because I'm so

730
00:42:31.000 --> 00:42:34.119
<v Speaker 5>I'm so not wanted to be part of the sexual

731
00:42:34.159 --> 00:42:35.719
<v Speaker 5>culture of modernity.

732
00:42:37.280 --> 00:42:39.800
<v Speaker 3>I mean back to me and my own personal investment

733
00:42:39.880 --> 00:42:40.119
<v Speaker 3>in this.

734
00:42:41.280 --> 00:42:45.239
<v Speaker 5>But the you know, the and why it is that

735
00:42:45.280 --> 00:42:49.239
<v Speaker 5>these this kind of intimacy is so much easier to

736
00:42:49.320 --> 00:42:54.440
<v Speaker 5>produce in same sex sexually segregated societies, and people think

737
00:42:54.440 --> 00:42:59.119
<v Speaker 5>of sexually segregated societies means there's no sex. It just

738
00:42:59.480 --> 00:43:03.760
<v Speaker 5>arranges sex differently. And sometimes there are sets as we know,

739
00:43:04.039 --> 00:43:07.440
<v Speaker 5>you know, and those are same. They're like prisons and

740
00:43:07.920 --> 00:43:13.960
<v Speaker 5>you know, the army and you know, that kind of intense,

741
00:43:14.719 --> 00:43:17.800
<v Speaker 5>intensely lived communal life, and they're not so much about

742
00:43:17.800 --> 00:43:21.280
<v Speaker 5>the couple. It's always about the couple and everyone around them.

743
00:43:22.000 --> 00:43:27.239
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I you know, I love this conversation. It's making

744
00:43:27.239 --> 00:43:30.159
<v Speaker 1>me a little bit sad that I am so for

745
00:43:30.239 --> 00:43:33.960
<v Speaker 1>lack of a better word, indoctrinated into the culture of romance,

746
00:43:34.519 --> 00:43:40.599
<v Speaker 1>because I feel like it's in my subconscious that romance

747
00:43:40.719 --> 00:43:45.840
<v Speaker 1>is so so primary and important. And I sometimes talk

748
00:43:45.880 --> 00:43:48.840
<v Speaker 1>about this on my tours. I talk about the absence

749
00:43:48.920 --> 00:43:53.239
<v Speaker 1>of romance and the absence of Barbie and Ken in

750
00:43:53.320 --> 00:43:57.480
<v Speaker 1>this world, and I think about how powerful these messages

751
00:43:57.559 --> 00:44:00.639
<v Speaker 1>are that once you've been exposed to them, they're there

752
00:44:00.719 --> 00:44:04.079
<v Speaker 1>in the back of your mind and they become like

753
00:44:04.480 --> 00:44:09.000
<v Speaker 1>the defining worldview, because it's like the lollipop of all

754
00:44:10.199 --> 00:44:15.320
<v Speaker 1>a culture can offers to offer this this romantic fantasy,

755
00:44:15.599 --> 00:44:18.559
<v Speaker 1>even though it's not practical, and like you said, a

756
00:44:18.599 --> 00:44:21.760
<v Speaker 1>lot of people end up deeply frustrated going from day

757
00:44:21.800 --> 00:44:22.920
<v Speaker 1>to date not finding it.

758
00:44:23.559 --> 00:44:26.320
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, And I mean you talked about Barbie and Ken.

759
00:44:26.679 --> 00:44:29.840
<v Speaker 5>It's all based on a kind of weird set of

760
00:44:29.920 --> 00:44:34.880
<v Speaker 5>gender norms. Who makes the first move and what constitutes

761
00:44:35.239 --> 00:44:40.239
<v Speaker 5>like erotic attraction and who's supposed to be more into who,

762
00:44:41.079 --> 00:44:45.639
<v Speaker 5>And that's another price that we pay for joining this

763
00:44:46.199 --> 00:44:49.840
<v Speaker 5>great sex religion that Ian what talks about. And also

764
00:44:50.280 --> 00:44:53.119
<v Speaker 5>just didn't do that stuff that well, like we weren't

765
00:44:53.119 --> 00:44:55.360
<v Speaker 5>such great Kens, and we weren't such great Barbeys.

766
00:44:55.400 --> 00:44:56.840
<v Speaker 3>It's Barbie and Ken.

767
00:44:56.719 --> 00:45:01.599
<v Speaker 5>Were invented by a Jewish woman. But the the gender

768
00:45:01.679 --> 00:45:05.920
<v Speaker 5>roles that go along with this romantic idea are also

769
00:45:05.960 --> 00:45:08.599
<v Speaker 5>a drag. And I mean, one of the ways that

770
00:45:08.639 --> 00:45:11.840
<v Speaker 5>I understand Yental is that she wants to be with

771
00:45:11.920 --> 00:45:14.000
<v Speaker 5>a man. She just doesn't want to be a woman

772
00:45:14.079 --> 00:45:17.840
<v Speaker 5>with the man, which is something I can totally relate to, Like,

773
00:45:17.960 --> 00:45:21.679
<v Speaker 5>I just don't want to be that thing that that

774
00:45:21.679 --> 00:45:25.400
<v Speaker 5>that a female beloved.

775
00:45:24.960 --> 00:45:27.599
<v Speaker 3>Is supposed to be one thing. I chased my partner

776
00:45:27.719 --> 00:45:32.360
<v Speaker 3>for six months before we went out, like I you know,

777
00:45:32.400 --> 00:45:34.559
<v Speaker 3>I just I don't and I got him.

778
00:45:36.800 --> 00:45:40.039
<v Speaker 5>The great gender roles are also the gender roles don't

779
00:45:40.079 --> 00:45:43.599
<v Speaker 5>fit like Jews had different gender roles and when they

780
00:45:43.760 --> 00:45:48.119
<v Speaker 5>you know, and when mental Amoucher's farm said, I can't

781
00:45:48.119 --> 00:45:52.920
<v Speaker 5>write a novel because I've never I've never fought a duel,

782
00:45:52.960 --> 00:45:56.119
<v Speaker 5>and I've never been to a ball It's like he

783
00:45:56.199 --> 00:45:57.119
<v Speaker 5>was a Yeshiva boy.

784
00:45:57.400 --> 00:45:58.639
<v Speaker 3>That's what he knew how to do.

785
00:45:59.079 --> 00:46:01.840
<v Speaker 5>And often it was the it was the girl singing

786
00:46:01.960 --> 00:46:05.719
<v Speaker 5>love songs about the Yeshiva back room. It was the

787
00:46:05.760 --> 00:46:08.480
<v Speaker 5>girls that were singing Yiddish love ballads, not the boys.

788
00:46:09.360 --> 00:46:11.280
<v Speaker 5>And for them it was like what kind of boy

789
00:46:11.320 --> 00:46:13.440
<v Speaker 5>do I want? And you know and singing it with

790
00:46:13.519 --> 00:46:19.039
<v Speaker 5>other girls, so the you know who. It's one of

791
00:46:19.039 --> 00:46:21.960
<v Speaker 5>the reasons that the great you know in the Yiddish

792
00:46:22.159 --> 00:46:26.400
<v Speaker 5>in the Yiddish film industry, instead of having a beautiful

793
00:46:26.679 --> 00:46:29.840
<v Speaker 5>woman as the great star, it was Molly.

794
00:46:29.639 --> 00:46:32.360
<v Speaker 3>Pecan, who basically dressed like a boy.

795
00:46:32.400 --> 00:46:35.199
<v Speaker 5>She was a cross dresser like me, and that was

796
00:46:35.239 --> 00:46:39.440
<v Speaker 5>who they thought was like the greatest film actress, and

797
00:46:39.760 --> 00:46:44.000
<v Speaker 5>she was constantly playing cross dressing roles. So it was like, yes,

798
00:46:44.760 --> 00:46:48.920
<v Speaker 5>Jews wanted these romances, and they wanted to read romances,

799
00:46:48.920 --> 00:46:50.760
<v Speaker 5>and they wanted to fall in love, and they wanted

800
00:46:50.760 --> 00:46:54.719
<v Speaker 5>to have those peak erotic experiences. But they also were like,

801
00:46:55.559 --> 00:46:58.239
<v Speaker 5>I gotta pretend I'm this kind of man. I gotta

802
00:46:58.239 --> 00:47:00.880
<v Speaker 5>pretend I'm this kind of woman. I gotta pretend I

803
00:47:00.920 --> 00:47:04.880
<v Speaker 5>don't care what my parents think. Like that's why they're

804
00:47:05.840 --> 00:47:11.960
<v Speaker 5>producing these this literature that basically charts everything that's wrong

805
00:47:12.320 --> 00:47:16.440
<v Speaker 5>with the romance novel. I mean, if we're still allowed

806
00:47:16.440 --> 00:47:19.239
<v Speaker 5>to cite Woody Allen, like Love and Death, it was

807
00:47:19.360 --> 00:47:24.239
<v Speaker 5>just he has this film that's, you know, kind of

808
00:47:24.239 --> 00:47:27.280
<v Speaker 5>a takeoff on a Russian novel, but it's so over

809
00:47:27.360 --> 00:47:31.880
<v Speaker 5>the top that you just have to laugh at the lovers, like, oh,

810
00:47:32.039 --> 00:47:34.679
<v Speaker 5>I love your eyeballs, you know, like that kind of thing.

811
00:47:34.920 --> 00:47:39.320
<v Speaker 5>Like they recognize these as artificial because they don't have

812
00:47:39.320 --> 00:47:43.119
<v Speaker 5>that Christian prehistory, because they're just thrown into romance suddenly.

813
00:47:43.239 --> 00:47:44.079
<v Speaker 3>Like we were.

814
00:47:45.320 --> 00:47:48.880
<v Speaker 1>Very interesting, you know, if we're allowed to cite Woody Allen.

815
00:47:48.920 --> 00:47:55.320
<v Speaker 1>Woody Allen was actually one of the first films I watched, really,

816
00:47:55.360 --> 00:47:58.519
<v Speaker 1>which one Annie Hall oh.

817
00:47:58.000 --> 00:48:00.239
<v Speaker 3>Anny Hall on a date with the Hussin.

818
00:48:00.480 --> 00:48:08.679
<v Speaker 6>Oh right, you yeah, next to someone who had taken

819
00:48:08.719 --> 00:48:11.159
<v Speaker 6>his hat off to when we walked into the movie theater.

820
00:48:12.760 --> 00:48:15.960
<v Speaker 2>Wow, at the tack of a story. I wonder how

821
00:48:16.000 --> 00:48:16.880
<v Speaker 2>he felt.

822
00:48:18.320 --> 00:48:20.280
<v Speaker 3>If we just looked at each other like.

823
00:48:23.599 --> 00:48:25.920
<v Speaker 2>Okay, let's let's take some questions.

824
00:48:27.199 --> 00:48:29.199
<v Speaker 3>There are people there. I can't see anybody.

825
00:48:29.639 --> 00:48:31.239
<v Speaker 2>Yes, there are people in the comments.

826
00:48:31.960 --> 00:48:34.920
<v Speaker 1>I see them, my friend, I don't know how you know,

827
00:48:35.079 --> 00:48:36.280
<v Speaker 1>you don't see it on riverside.

828
00:48:36.320 --> 00:48:39.599
<v Speaker 3>You have to you. I trust you.

829
00:48:39.679 --> 00:48:44.199
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, I have multiple tabs open, but I'm looking

830
00:48:44.199 --> 00:48:44.800
<v Speaker 1>only at you.

831
00:48:45.119 --> 00:48:46.239
<v Speaker 2>I'm not so great at this.

832
00:48:46.360 --> 00:48:49.320
<v Speaker 4>I just like the idea of you're amazing.

833
00:48:50.119 --> 00:48:53.000
<v Speaker 1>I like the idea of doing it, like like of

834
00:48:53.039 --> 00:48:57.800
<v Speaker 1>taking people's like questions. But I'm very one channel person,

835
00:48:58.119 --> 00:49:00.800
<v Speaker 1>so I'm focusing on you. But my friend is saying,

836
00:49:01.039 --> 00:49:03.280
<v Speaker 1>I'd love to hear more on the difference in intimacy

837
00:49:03.320 --> 00:49:07.079
<v Speaker 1>are a male spaces versus female spaces. Female circles have

838
00:49:07.119 --> 00:49:10.039
<v Speaker 1>the same allowances or outlets as male circles tend to have,

839
00:49:10.159 --> 00:49:12.840
<v Speaker 1>especially so with physicality.

840
00:49:14.360 --> 00:49:16.199
<v Speaker 3>What was the last part? I didn't quite get that.

841
00:49:17.360 --> 00:49:20.840
<v Speaker 1>She says female circles have the same allowances or outlets

842
00:49:20.880 --> 00:49:25.639
<v Speaker 1>as male circles tend to have, especially so with physicality.

843
00:49:26.440 --> 00:49:27.239
<v Speaker 2>Is that truely?

844
00:49:27.719 --> 00:49:30.519
<v Speaker 4>Is that Hobby Weisberger no different?

845
00:49:30.599 --> 00:49:30.679
<v Speaker 5>Ka?

846
00:49:31.800 --> 00:49:33.800
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I know, like six covies too.

847
00:49:33.679 --> 00:49:35.079
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I know.

848
00:49:37.239 --> 00:49:43.920
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, So thanks Kavy. So one of the things that

849
00:49:44.559 --> 00:49:47.599
<v Speaker 5>I wrote in the book. Is that actually the I

850
00:49:47.719 --> 00:49:50.960
<v Speaker 5>thought that until. I mean, there were certainly women's spaces,

851
00:49:51.039 --> 00:49:55.480
<v Speaker 5>the women's section, the sewing circles, there's these women singing

852
00:49:55.559 --> 00:50:00.400
<v Speaker 5>Yiddish love ballads together. I mean, there's intense, you know,

853
00:50:00.519 --> 00:50:05.599
<v Speaker 5>definite form, and maybe women go to the mikvah cemetery rituals.

854
00:50:05.960 --> 00:50:06.719
<v Speaker 3>There certainly are.

855
00:50:06.880 --> 00:50:11.199
<v Speaker 5>But the kinds of communal spaces at like a hacidic

856
00:50:11.280 --> 00:50:15.760
<v Speaker 5>court is where yeshiva are really were.

857
00:50:15.559 --> 00:50:18.559
<v Speaker 3>Developed for women. I think in the inter war period.

858
00:50:18.880 --> 00:50:24.159
<v Speaker 5>I think partly because the Orthodox world subconsciously understood that

859
00:50:24.320 --> 00:50:27.559
<v Speaker 5>it was one of the ways to keep Orthodoxy alive

860
00:50:28.280 --> 00:50:34.039
<v Speaker 5>for girls in particular, was to create more intense, sort

861
00:50:34.039 --> 00:50:39.039
<v Speaker 5>of formal spaces for these kinds of communal eroticism, if

862
00:50:39.079 --> 00:50:40.519
<v Speaker 5>you want to call it that. And you know, I'm

863
00:50:40.519 --> 00:50:44.199
<v Speaker 5>thinking about Beisiyakov and these all night hikes where they

864
00:50:44.679 --> 00:50:48.199
<v Speaker 5>build a fire and they dance around the fire for freedom.

865
00:50:48.280 --> 00:50:50.440
<v Speaker 5>You translated that description.

866
00:50:50.079 --> 00:50:54.519
<v Speaker 3>For me so many years. I don't remember that. So

867
00:50:55.000 --> 00:50:58.280
<v Speaker 3>it was an attempt to mind that particular.

868
00:50:58.679 --> 00:51:00.880
<v Speaker 5>You know, you're not going to give I mean, they'll

869
00:51:00.920 --> 00:51:03.119
<v Speaker 5>find it at the places, for sure. You're not going

870
00:51:03.159 --> 00:51:06.280
<v Speaker 5>to give girls in that particular lollipoppe. It's too dangerous

871
00:51:06.639 --> 00:51:09.199
<v Speaker 5>to let them choose their own mates, you know, you

872
00:51:09.840 --> 00:51:13.400
<v Speaker 5>let them choose from among the Yeshiva Baker population. Next thing,

873
00:51:13.440 --> 00:51:15.239
<v Speaker 5>you know, they're reading novels and they fall in love

874
00:51:15.239 --> 00:51:17.000
<v Speaker 5>with a soldier or something, a.

875
00:51:17.000 --> 00:51:19.719
<v Speaker 3>Knight in shining armor.

876
00:51:20.480 --> 00:51:25.559
<v Speaker 5>So I think they needed to create the They needed

877
00:51:25.599 --> 00:51:29.800
<v Speaker 5>to create more spaces for women to keep them physically

878
00:51:29.880 --> 00:51:33.000
<v Speaker 5>attached to each other. And there's no doubt that this physicality.

879
00:51:33.480 --> 00:51:36.880
<v Speaker 5>When I was I read descriptions of how Basiyakov in

880
00:51:36.880 --> 00:51:38.679
<v Speaker 5>the early years the girls slept to to a.

881
00:51:38.719 --> 00:51:40.599
<v Speaker 3>Bed and.

882
00:51:42.079 --> 00:51:44.440
<v Speaker 5>As opposed to like, oh, that's so sad they didn't

883
00:51:44.480 --> 00:51:46.800
<v Speaker 5>have their own bed. I think that was part of

884
00:51:46.840 --> 00:51:52.719
<v Speaker 5>the attraction of Basiyakov, you know, what made it a

885
00:51:52.800 --> 00:51:56.360
<v Speaker 5>kind of charismatic, a way for the Orthodox world to

886
00:51:56.400 --> 00:52:00.559
<v Speaker 5>find a substitute for, you know, the lures of the

887
00:52:00.559 --> 00:52:02.119
<v Speaker 5>film industry, Hollywood.

888
00:52:02.360 --> 00:52:04.000
<v Speaker 3>The modern novel.

889
00:52:06.119 --> 00:52:09.719
<v Speaker 1>Very interesting, Nolan Frank says, can no me discuss the

890
00:52:09.760 --> 00:52:15.159
<v Speaker 1>patrilineal versus matrilineal descent in Judaism.

891
00:52:15.639 --> 00:52:18.360
<v Speaker 3>You know, I've always wanted to know more about that.

892
00:52:18.559 --> 00:52:20.800
<v Speaker 5>I think it's very interesting because in the Bible it's

893
00:52:20.880 --> 00:52:28.119
<v Speaker 5>very clearly patrilineal right, so the patriarchs in the Bible, Abraham,

894
00:52:28.519 --> 00:52:32.320
<v Speaker 5>I mean they there's no worry about them marrying.

895
00:52:32.000 --> 00:52:32.920
<v Speaker 3>Non Jewish women.

896
00:52:34.440 --> 00:52:39.360
<v Speaker 5>And the idea that Judaism is carried on through the

897
00:52:39.400 --> 00:52:42.840
<v Speaker 5>maternal line seems to be a product of the of

898
00:52:42.920 --> 00:52:48.880
<v Speaker 5>the Ribbonic period. And you know, people usually say, well,

899
00:52:48.920 --> 00:52:50.840
<v Speaker 5>you know who the mother is, and you may not

900
00:52:50.960 --> 00:52:52.039
<v Speaker 5>know who the father is.

901
00:52:53.039 --> 00:52:53.639
<v Speaker 3>I don't know.

902
00:52:53.719 --> 00:52:57.599
<v Speaker 5>I mean, I I that seems too weird and suspicious.

903
00:52:58.360 --> 00:53:01.880
<v Speaker 5>This is a very long way of saying no, yeah,

904
00:53:01.960 --> 00:53:04.800
<v Speaker 5>I'm sorry. As soon as we get off, I'm gonna

905
00:53:04.880 --> 00:53:08.920
<v Speaker 5>ask chat GPT, don't use chat GVT.

906
00:53:08.480 --> 00:53:09.559
<v Speaker 4>Don't use chat GPT.

907
00:53:10.960 --> 00:53:14.199
<v Speaker 2>No, it's a it's a very I mean.

908
00:53:14.039 --> 00:53:16.039
<v Speaker 3>What else in the chat knows better than I do?

909
00:53:16.519 --> 00:53:18.039
<v Speaker 4>Yeah? No, I appreciate that answer.

910
00:53:18.079 --> 00:53:18.639
<v Speaker 2>Let me move on.

911
00:53:19.400 --> 00:53:23.960
<v Speaker 1>Lisa says, such a fascinating discussion. Older German Jewish writers

912
00:53:23.960 --> 00:53:28.960
<v Speaker 1>such as See schach Knowitz and Marcus Lehmann did include

913
00:53:29.079 --> 00:53:34.199
<v Speaker 1>romance in their novels. Modern Orthodox Jewish literature is more sanitized.

914
00:53:35.239 --> 00:53:39.119
<v Speaker 5>Yes, so it's very interesting that this is somebody who

915
00:53:39.119 --> 00:53:39.960
<v Speaker 5>knows a lot.

916
00:53:40.239 --> 00:53:41.360
<v Speaker 3>I don't know who was.

917
00:53:41.320 --> 00:53:43.480
<v Speaker 4>It that said asked that question Lisa.

918
00:53:44.320 --> 00:53:46.159
<v Speaker 3>So Lisa right on for knowing.

919
00:53:45.960 --> 00:53:50.840
<v Speaker 5>That that's actually part of my Basiaco history, because you know,

920
00:53:50.920 --> 00:53:53.960
<v Speaker 5>there was this crisis of girls leaving Orthodoxy, and there

921
00:53:54.000 --> 00:53:57.079
<v Speaker 5>was this Rabbinic conference, and then there were other Beenic conferences,

922
00:53:57.239 --> 00:53:59.559
<v Speaker 5>and at the first for Benic conference to talk about this,

923
00:54:00.079 --> 00:54:04.800
<v Speaker 5>someone said, the problem is that Jewish girls are reading European,

924
00:54:04.840 --> 00:54:08.679
<v Speaker 5>the Polish and German novels, and we Orthodox choose have

925
00:54:08.800 --> 00:54:13.840
<v Speaker 5>to produce our own romances. And someone said, you know,

926
00:54:13.880 --> 00:54:16.239
<v Speaker 5>the Germans are in Eastern Europe. This is an Eastern

927
00:54:16.280 --> 00:54:19.000
<v Speaker 5>European Jewish conference. They say, you know in Germany they're

928
00:54:19.000 --> 00:54:21.840
<v Speaker 5>doing that, right, Marcus Lehmann has written all these novels.

929
00:54:21.880 --> 00:54:23.920
<v Speaker 5>What we have to do is translate these novels into

930
00:54:24.039 --> 00:54:27.400
<v Speaker 5>Yiddish and try to feed them to our girls.

931
00:54:27.039 --> 00:54:29.360
<v Speaker 3>Because yes they had romance.

932
00:54:29.880 --> 00:54:33.280
<v Speaker 5>No they don't have intermarriage, and there's no you know, soldiers,

933
00:54:33.679 --> 00:54:36.880
<v Speaker 5>so or you know, whatever it is that we want

934
00:54:36.920 --> 00:54:41.119
<v Speaker 5>to guard against. So these novels were translated into Yiddish

935
00:54:41.800 --> 00:54:45.679
<v Speaker 5>for Orthodox Jewish girls in Poland and it was a

936
00:54:45.760 --> 00:54:49.639
<v Speaker 5>kind of stopgap measure. And now people just like keep

937
00:54:49.639 --> 00:54:52.280
<v Speaker 5>their fingers crossed and hope for the best, and they

938
00:54:52.280 --> 00:54:55.920
<v Speaker 5>don't try that particular trick, right think.

939
00:54:57.800 --> 00:54:58.239
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

940
00:54:58.519 --> 00:55:03.360
<v Speaker 1>One thing that always interests me is that I do

941
00:55:03.440 --> 00:55:09.119
<v Speaker 1>think that these erotic same sex relationships provide the same

942
00:55:09.239 --> 00:55:16.159
<v Speaker 1>kind of intimacy, belonging, and satisfaction thrill in similar flavor

943
00:55:16.239 --> 00:55:22.960
<v Speaker 1>as romantic relationships. But Judaism is so against same sex

944
00:55:23.199 --> 00:55:28.039
<v Speaker 1>male relationships, so that sounds like a contradiction in terms

945
00:55:28.119 --> 00:55:34.280
<v Speaker 1>that these same sex relationships should be more emphasized. I've

946
00:55:34.320 --> 00:55:37.360
<v Speaker 1>spoken to Amish people where the Amish people of opposite

947
00:55:37.400 --> 00:55:41.039
<v Speaker 1>sexes have a lot of interactions and are expected to

948
00:55:41.280 --> 00:55:45.360
<v Speaker 1>meet and fall in love or whatever get into serious relationships,

949
00:55:45.360 --> 00:55:48.960
<v Speaker 1>and a part of that setup is an anxiety about

950
00:55:49.159 --> 00:55:52.760
<v Speaker 1>not channeling young hormones towards the same sex.

951
00:55:55.280 --> 00:55:59.679
<v Speaker 5>So it's true that, you know, there's an absolute prohibition.

952
00:56:00.000 --> 00:56:02.800
<v Speaker 3>I mean, it's true that it's I mean, there are.

953
00:56:02.719 --> 00:56:05.239
<v Speaker 5>People arguing against that, that it's not an absolute doubt.

954
00:56:05.519 --> 00:56:08.039
<v Speaker 5>Stephen Greenberg has a book Wrestling with God and Men

955
00:56:09.039 --> 00:56:15.360
<v Speaker 5>or Orthodox Gay you know, rabbi, but who I think

956
00:56:15.440 --> 00:56:18.599
<v Speaker 5>his husband is Steve Goldberg, which is kind of funny.

957
00:56:20.039 --> 00:56:22.679
<v Speaker 5>But on the other hand, I mean, one of the

958
00:56:22.719 --> 00:56:25.679
<v Speaker 5>things that I would say is that the notion that

959
00:56:28.920 --> 00:56:32.280
<v Speaker 5>eroticism is is an on off button, like you're either

960
00:56:32.320 --> 00:56:34.159
<v Speaker 5>having sex or you're not having sex. Like you said,

961
00:56:34.199 --> 00:56:39.239
<v Speaker 5>it's a sexual as opposed to a spectrum of desires

962
00:56:40.519 --> 00:56:44.960
<v Speaker 5>that can get satisfied in all kinds of ways, including

963
00:56:45.079 --> 00:56:45.960
<v Speaker 5>with your clothes on.

964
00:56:47.480 --> 00:56:49.039
<v Speaker 3>That those.

965
00:56:51.440 --> 00:56:54.679
<v Speaker 5>The secular world does, the whoever wants to have sex

966
00:56:54.679 --> 00:56:58.440
<v Speaker 5>with whoever, go right ahead, They do that better the

967
00:56:58.719 --> 00:57:02.880
<v Speaker 5>Orthodox world does. Let us provide a kind of framework

968
00:57:03.239 --> 00:57:07.199
<v Speaker 5>for intense and I would argue, kind of at least

969
00:57:07.199 --> 00:57:14.000
<v Speaker 5>somewhat eroticized relationships, same sex relationships that the secondar world

970
00:57:14.039 --> 00:57:18.239
<v Speaker 5>could only dream of. I mean that basically, a Hasidic

971
00:57:18.239 --> 00:57:22.360
<v Speaker 5>court is a gay bar, you know, open every.

972
00:57:22.239 --> 00:57:24.679
<v Speaker 3>Day all day.

973
00:57:24.800 --> 00:57:27.480
<v Speaker 5>Okay, you're not supposed to actually have sex with all

974
00:57:27.519 --> 00:57:30.199
<v Speaker 5>these people, but what you're doing with them can be

975
00:57:30.280 --> 00:57:33.880
<v Speaker 5>so intensely satisfying. I understand that a gay man in Prague,

976
00:57:34.039 --> 00:57:36.360
<v Speaker 5>by the way, he moved back to Prague, and he

977
00:57:36.599 --> 00:57:40.599
<v Speaker 5>walked around Prague in full Hasidic regalia and wouldn't touch

978
00:57:40.639 --> 00:57:45.920
<v Speaker 5>his parents' food. So I understand how he would something

979
00:57:46.800 --> 00:57:49.480
<v Speaker 5>was satisfied for him living in the Passidic court, and

980
00:57:49.480 --> 00:57:50.519
<v Speaker 5>he didn't say he had a.

981
00:57:50.480 --> 00:57:53.559
<v Speaker 3>Lover there, but in some way he had lovers there.

982
00:57:56.239 --> 00:58:01.840
<v Speaker 5>And there's something about that speceum that I think needs

983
00:58:01.840 --> 00:58:06.239
<v Speaker 5>to be brought to the surface. The let's call it,

984
00:58:06.280 --> 00:58:12.719
<v Speaker 5>an erotic spectrum that somehow the modern world, the European

985
00:58:12.800 --> 00:58:15.079
<v Speaker 5>idea of romance, has has lost track of.

986
00:58:17.719 --> 00:58:19.960
<v Speaker 1>We're about to wrap up, so I'm going to take

987
00:58:20.239 --> 00:58:25.519
<v Speaker 1>last questions. I find what you're saying especially interesting as

988
00:58:25.559 --> 00:58:28.519
<v Speaker 1>I think about the question I often get about the

989
00:58:28.679 --> 00:58:31.559
<v Speaker 1>Sech community. In fact, people have asked it of Pearl

990
00:58:31.679 --> 00:58:34.880
<v Speaker 1>very often. You know Pearl, who I've had on my

991
00:58:34.960 --> 00:58:37.840
<v Speaker 1>channel multiple times, not your friend Pearl, the other Pearl.

992
00:58:38.480 --> 00:58:41.400
<v Speaker 1>We know Pearls, we know David's, we know hobbies, we

993
00:58:41.159 --> 00:58:42.880
<v Speaker 1>know we know a lot of Jewish people.

994
00:58:44.679 --> 00:58:46.920
<v Speaker 2>But people ask of Pearl often.

995
00:58:46.960 --> 00:58:49.079
<v Speaker 1>They'll leave a comments and say, what does Pearl say

996
00:58:49.119 --> 00:58:51.760
<v Speaker 1>to gay people in her community?

997
00:58:51.800 --> 00:58:53.400
<v Speaker 2>And I've asked Pearl and she said.

998
00:58:53.280 --> 00:58:56.679
<v Speaker 1>Nah, that's like, that's not my thing to talk about.

999
00:58:57.800 --> 00:59:01.280
<v Speaker 2>I'm wondering if you would have an answer.

1000
00:59:01.440 --> 00:59:06.400
<v Speaker 1>That might be interesting about what happens in this kind

1001
00:59:06.480 --> 00:59:10.719
<v Speaker 1>of world, in the Jewish world, and not necessarily today,

1002
00:59:11.039 --> 00:59:13.559
<v Speaker 1>but in the context of your research.

1003
00:59:13.159 --> 00:59:17.840
<v Speaker 5>Could be a prohibition against homosexuality without a certain kind

1004
00:59:17.840 --> 00:59:24.320
<v Speaker 5>of homophobia. In other words, it's a prohibition against eating selfish.

1005
00:59:25.519 --> 00:59:29.039
<v Speaker 5>You're not gonna talk to someone who ate some shelfish.

1006
00:59:29.079 --> 00:59:31.719
<v Speaker 5>I mean, you'd be kind of It's a sin, like,

1007
00:59:32.199 --> 00:59:35.079
<v Speaker 5>it's not something that turns you into a kind of

1008
00:59:35.159 --> 00:59:40.639
<v Speaker 5>person that encompasses everything that you are, right, like an identity.

1009
00:59:40.679 --> 00:59:44.440
<v Speaker 5>It's not an identity. It's a sin. If you did

1010
00:59:44.440 --> 00:59:45.840
<v Speaker 5>a sin, you shouldn't have done a sin.

1011
00:59:46.400 --> 00:59:48.679
<v Speaker 3>It doesn't mean you are a certain kind of person.

1012
00:59:49.000 --> 00:59:51.199
<v Speaker 5>I mean, obviously we know this is a particular kind

1013
00:59:51.239 --> 00:59:54.639
<v Speaker 5>of sin that this closely tied to, you know, a

1014
00:59:54.719 --> 00:59:56.000
<v Speaker 5>deep part of who you are.

1015
00:59:57.599 --> 01:00:01.559
<v Speaker 3>And you know the Orthodox world n has seenum.

1016
01:00:01.599 --> 01:00:04.559
<v Speaker 5>But I mean it's kind of weird that it could

1017
01:00:04.599 --> 01:00:08.039
<v Speaker 5>be viewed as a sin without that sin also be

1018
01:00:08.119 --> 01:00:12.079
<v Speaker 5>treated through a kind of panic and homophobia, which is

1019
01:00:12.119 --> 01:00:16.360
<v Speaker 5>evident in the secular world. Right, people aren't freaking out

1020
01:00:16.400 --> 01:00:20.599
<v Speaker 5>about who's gay. You're not like suspected of being gay, Like, okay,

1021
01:00:20.719 --> 01:00:21.320
<v Speaker 5>you know you're.

1022
01:00:21.280 --> 01:00:22.320
<v Speaker 3>Gay, shouldn't have done that?

1023
01:00:23.280 --> 01:00:25.400
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, And you can be gay and sort of gay

1024
01:00:25.559 --> 01:00:28.119
<v Speaker 5>sometimes in Yeshima, right, what do they call like lesbian

1025
01:00:28.199 --> 01:00:29.079
<v Speaker 5>until graduation?

1026
01:00:30.159 --> 01:00:36.920
<v Speaker 6>Really you know, gay until marriage, gay until marriage, it is.

1027
01:00:37.239 --> 01:00:40.320
<v Speaker 5>It's a whole different way of understanding what gayness is.

1028
01:00:41.079 --> 01:00:44.480
<v Speaker 5>And in some ways it's it's yes, it's a sin

1029
01:00:44.559 --> 01:00:47.679
<v Speaker 5>and that's awful, But in other ways it's a kind

1030
01:00:47.719 --> 01:00:50.239
<v Speaker 5>of like you're living in a world that isn't actually

1031
01:00:50.280 --> 01:00:52.360
<v Speaker 5>it never occurred to anyone that you're gay, Like, why

1032
01:00:52.360 --> 01:00:53.400
<v Speaker 5>wouldn't they think of that.

1033
01:00:53.440 --> 01:00:55.960
<v Speaker 3>It's not a big part of how they think about people.

1034
01:00:56.519 --> 01:00:58.480
<v Speaker 5>I mean, I've seen it in my own experience. I

1035
01:00:58.480 --> 01:01:01.079
<v Speaker 5>think I told you about. You know this guy who

1036
01:01:01.119 --> 01:01:06.079
<v Speaker 5>came to when I was sitting Shiva. He's sitting in

1037
01:01:06.079 --> 01:01:08.599
<v Speaker 5>the women's section and he has eye linerer on and

1038
01:01:08.639 --> 01:01:11.840
<v Speaker 5>I go to my sister, who's that And she says, Oh,

1039
01:01:11.880 --> 01:01:14.719
<v Speaker 5>that's whatever, some guy in the neighborhood. And then he's like,

1040
01:01:15.239 --> 01:01:17.440
<v Speaker 5>you're inter said him me single. I'm like, yeah, of

1041
01:01:17.480 --> 01:01:22.559
<v Speaker 5>course he's single. Like just no gaydar, very little gaydar,

1042
01:01:24.719 --> 01:01:27.159
<v Speaker 5>so fun heaes in the rest of the world, it's

1043
01:01:27.199 --> 01:01:31.599
<v Speaker 5>like she gay, yeah, And it's almost it's a relief

1044
01:01:31.639 --> 01:01:32.440
<v Speaker 5>not to live with that.

1045
01:01:33.400 --> 01:01:33.679
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

1046
01:01:34.119 --> 01:01:36.400
<v Speaker 1>You know my story of my Birthright trip and the

1047
01:01:36.440 --> 01:01:39.960
<v Speaker 1>Gatar No did I tell you? When I went on Birthright,

1048
01:01:40.000 --> 01:01:42.719
<v Speaker 1>I was like fresh off the boat from the Sidshure world,

1049
01:01:43.719 --> 01:01:46.719
<v Speaker 1>and I was trying to integrate myself and to have

1050
01:01:46.800 --> 01:01:49.440
<v Speaker 1>a good time, but I was really still feeling very

1051
01:01:49.559 --> 01:01:53.880
<v Speaker 1>much like an outsider. I wasn't culturally adapted, and I

1052
01:01:54.000 --> 01:01:56.800
<v Speaker 1>was a young mother, and I was very in that

1053
01:01:56.840 --> 01:02:00.440
<v Speaker 1>frame of mind. And all the other Birthright Trip artists

1054
01:02:00.880 --> 01:02:04.280
<v Speaker 1>we're young people who hadn't even settled down yet. So

1055
01:02:04.719 --> 01:02:10.320
<v Speaker 1>we're somewhere out not central Israel. The first night and

1056
01:02:10.559 --> 01:02:14.119
<v Speaker 1>everyone is sitting around in this rickety motel in like

1057
01:02:14.159 --> 01:02:16.840
<v Speaker 1>a dining room that's cleaned away at night, and they're

1058
01:02:16.840 --> 01:02:21.480
<v Speaker 1>sitting on chairs and they're talking about a gaitar and

1059
01:02:21.519 --> 01:02:22.239
<v Speaker 1>someone says, I.

1060
01:02:22.159 --> 01:02:23.039
<v Speaker 2>Have a great gatar.

1061
01:02:24.239 --> 01:02:26.519
<v Speaker 1>Eric is gay, and I'm like, the yent in me

1062
01:02:26.639 --> 01:02:28.400
<v Speaker 1>is like super excited, like what's going on?

1063
01:02:28.480 --> 01:02:29.159
<v Speaker 2>Who's Eric?

1064
01:02:29.239 --> 01:02:32.360
<v Speaker 1>And so they explained to me that a gadar is

1065
01:02:32.440 --> 01:02:38.639
<v Speaker 1>when you can read who's gay. And Eric is on

1066
01:02:38.679 --> 01:02:45.039
<v Speaker 1>our trip and he is definitely gay. So my frame

1067
01:02:45.119 --> 01:02:49.800
<v Speaker 1>of reference is completely different from theirs. My frame of references,

1068
01:02:49.800 --> 01:02:52.000
<v Speaker 1>Oh my god, this person is gay. Must be They're

1069
01:02:52.039 --> 01:02:54.960
<v Speaker 1>not accepted who they are, must be. Their life is

1070
01:02:55.000 --> 01:02:57.679
<v Speaker 1>so hard. I feel so bad. I'm projecting all of

1071
01:02:57.719 --> 01:03:02.119
<v Speaker 1>my own senses of not being accepted did for being different,

1072
01:03:02.320 --> 01:03:06.440
<v Speaker 1>And I befriend Eric for the trip, and I am

1073
01:03:06.880 --> 01:03:09.400
<v Speaker 1>super machar of Eric. I sit next to Eric, and

1074
01:03:09.719 --> 01:03:13.960
<v Speaker 1>Eric is super socially awkward, so I'm like really trying

1075
01:03:14.000 --> 01:03:14.440
<v Speaker 1>to make.

1076
01:03:14.280 --> 01:03:15.519
<v Speaker 2>Sure Eric is not lonely.

1077
01:03:16.519 --> 01:03:20.400
<v Speaker 1>And then at some point I'm sitting with Eric on

1078
01:03:20.480 --> 01:03:24.159
<v Speaker 1>the bus and his hand creeps into mine and he's

1079
01:03:24.199 --> 01:03:25.519
<v Speaker 1>holding my hand, and I'm.

1080
01:03:25.360 --> 01:03:28.280
<v Speaker 2>Like, absolutely shot.

1081
01:03:29.800 --> 01:03:30.079
<v Speaker 6>Shot.

1082
01:03:30.239 --> 01:03:32.960
<v Speaker 1>I had zero attraction to Eric. I had no interest

1083
01:03:32.960 --> 01:03:36.760
<v Speaker 1>in Eric. I was told that Eric is gay, but

1084
01:03:37.960 --> 01:03:40.679
<v Speaker 1>Eric was clearly not gay. And I'm in the elevator

1085
01:03:40.760 --> 01:03:43.079
<v Speaker 1>going up to the room and the woman who had

1086
01:03:43.119 --> 01:03:54.679
<v Speaker 1>told me that Eric is gay says, so you and Eric, huh.

1087
01:03:51.920 --> 01:03:55.280
<v Speaker 5>Gay is kind of like a weird catchule, right, It's

1088
01:03:55.320 --> 01:03:56.559
<v Speaker 5>like yeah, it's like you know.

1089
01:03:56.599 --> 01:04:00.280
<v Speaker 3>Like, yeah, people think I'm gay. Yeah, it's like it's

1090
01:04:00.719 --> 01:04:02.400
<v Speaker 3>I'm queer or whatever.

1091
01:04:03.039 --> 01:04:05.119
<v Speaker 2>It's a box. I mean, you can't be gay, know me,

1092
01:04:05.199 --> 01:04:08.480
<v Speaker 2>if you're married to a man, I'm not gay.

1093
01:04:08.760 --> 01:04:11.400
<v Speaker 3>I don't know. Let's like we have a whole conversation

1094
01:04:11.480 --> 01:04:11.840
<v Speaker 3>about that.

1095
01:04:12.000 --> 01:04:15.000
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, okay, let's let's do Eric on the chat.

1096
01:04:15.760 --> 01:04:16.320
<v Speaker 2>Eric is not.

1097
01:04:16.960 --> 01:04:19.039
<v Speaker 1>Changed the name his name isn't actually Eric.

1098
01:04:19.639 --> 01:04:20.039
<v Speaker 3>Thank you.

1099
01:04:20.480 --> 01:04:22.800
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, yeah, don't worry.

1100
01:04:23.880 --> 01:04:25.199
<v Speaker 2>But anyway, nice person.

1101
01:04:25.440 --> 01:04:28.199
<v Speaker 1>But you know, there was a total cultural misunderstanding because

1102
01:04:28.679 --> 01:04:32.280
<v Speaker 1>this tendency to put people into boxes of gay, straight,

1103
01:04:32.800 --> 01:04:36.280
<v Speaker 1>et cetera. Is such a secular thing, and in the

1104
01:04:36.320 --> 01:04:40.239
<v Speaker 1>process of me trying to adapt to it, I then

1105
01:04:40.480 --> 01:04:43.840
<v Speaker 1>ended up being extremely warm towards someone who took it

1106
01:04:43.880 --> 01:04:47.840
<v Speaker 1>as sexual overtures or romantic interest, which it wasn't at

1107
01:04:47.880 --> 01:04:50.960
<v Speaker 1>all what I had meant to communicate. And it's again

1108
01:04:51.400 --> 01:04:56.480
<v Speaker 1>coming from a world where relationships are so differently categorized.

1109
01:04:55.880 --> 01:04:59.480
<v Speaker 5>Where everyone's kind of a little gay everyone.

1110
01:04:59.639 --> 01:05:03.599
<v Speaker 1>Everyone can be very intimate physically if it's the same sex.

1111
01:05:04.400 --> 01:05:08.159
<v Speaker 3>It turns out like straight people like that too. Yeah,

1112
01:05:08.199 --> 01:05:10.000
<v Speaker 3>poor people that we would call straight.

1113
01:05:11.239 --> 01:05:16.000
<v Speaker 1>Okay, let me let me take last questions and then

1114
01:05:16.119 --> 01:05:19.599
<v Speaker 1>we wrap up. I really enjoyed talking about this. We

1115
01:05:19.599 --> 01:05:22.199
<v Speaker 1>were going to talk about marrying Jews or non Jews,

1116
01:05:22.239 --> 01:05:25.119
<v Speaker 1>but we're leaving that. Okay, Barry says, I am a

1117
01:05:25.199 --> 01:05:28.280
<v Speaker 1>gay Orthodox Jew. It's been an internal conflict for years,

1118
01:05:28.320 --> 01:05:32.159
<v Speaker 1>which for me is best addressed by celibacy. Not my choice,

1119
01:05:32.199 --> 01:05:36.280
<v Speaker 1>but I don't know of any other way too. I

1120
01:05:36.320 --> 01:05:40.480
<v Speaker 1>can't see what one word told something like I can't

1121
01:05:40.480 --> 01:05:43.119
<v Speaker 1>think of any other way to do it.

1122
01:05:43.039 --> 01:05:45.920
<v Speaker 3>Poor Barry. Yeah, well, sorry, Barry.

1123
01:05:46.039 --> 01:05:49.559
<v Speaker 5>I wonder if I wonder this is a crazy idea,

1124
01:05:49.760 --> 01:05:52.960
<v Speaker 5>but maybe that maybe the solution is not leaving Orthodoxy

1125
01:05:53.000 --> 01:05:56.840
<v Speaker 5>but becoming more Orthodox, Like maybe you're modern Orthodox, which

1126
01:05:56.880 --> 01:06:00.840
<v Speaker 5>means that you've basically moved into a bourgeois form of Orthodoxy,

1127
01:06:01.280 --> 01:06:04.199
<v Speaker 5>which has all the problems of modernity in terms of

1128
01:06:04.679 --> 01:06:09.400
<v Speaker 5>reduction of community to the nuclear family. The lack of

1129
01:06:09.960 --> 01:06:15.400
<v Speaker 5>space is a physical intimacy for homosocial spaces of physical intimacy.

1130
01:06:16.400 --> 01:06:16.880
<v Speaker 3>I don't know.

1131
01:06:16.920 --> 01:06:21.199
<v Speaker 5>If you're now modern Orthodox, but then you're screwed. I'm sorry,

1132
01:06:21.360 --> 01:06:26.280
<v Speaker 5>that's the wrong word choice. But from both directions, right,

1133
01:06:26.320 --> 01:06:31.400
<v Speaker 5>it's like the Orthodox prohibition against homosexual sex plus the

1134
01:06:31.440 --> 01:06:36.079
<v Speaker 5>modern Orthodox lack of these intense homosocial spaces, so you

1135
01:06:36.119 --> 01:06:39.239
<v Speaker 5>don't even get the intimacy part of it. I don't

1136
01:06:39.239 --> 01:06:40.960
<v Speaker 5>know why, just the fact that your name is Barry.

1137
01:06:41.079 --> 01:06:44.360
<v Speaker 5>Maybe you know, like if it was Beryl.

1138
01:06:44.239 --> 01:06:49.920
<v Speaker 3>Then it's awful. It shouldn't It shouldn't be the case.

1139
01:06:50.000 --> 01:06:51.960
<v Speaker 5>I mean, the one thing is that I think the Orthodox,

1140
01:06:52.000 --> 01:06:57.360
<v Speaker 5>the modern Orthodox world is changing Stephen Greenberg, modern Orthodox

1141
01:06:57.800 --> 01:06:59.719
<v Speaker 5>rabbi married to a man.

1142
01:07:01.280 --> 01:07:04.840
<v Speaker 1>Also, I think, Knowmi, this is a particular challenge for me,

1143
01:07:05.320 --> 01:07:08.599
<v Speaker 1>and I'm supposing for you. It is very hard to

1144
01:07:08.639 --> 01:07:11.599
<v Speaker 1>hear people say that celibacy is a solution for them.

1145
01:07:12.000 --> 01:07:16.119
<v Speaker 1>I think about nuns all the time. I'm fascinated by

1146
01:07:16.199 --> 01:07:19.719
<v Speaker 1>nuns because a part of me is so sad about

1147
01:07:19.800 --> 01:07:24.000
<v Speaker 1>celibacy being a solution. But the truth is that if

1148
01:07:24.000 --> 01:07:27.440
<v Speaker 1>we respect that people know what they want and what

1149
01:07:27.599 --> 01:07:31.440
<v Speaker 1>is giving them meaning, then celibacy should be an option

1150
01:07:31.679 --> 01:07:34.079
<v Speaker 1>for people that we don't like.

1151
01:07:34.920 --> 01:07:40.159
<v Speaker 5>And you can sometimes mean eroticism. Sorry, I can't tell

1152
01:07:40.159 --> 01:07:43.719
<v Speaker 5>you a quick story. Yeah. So when I taught for

1153
01:07:43.800 --> 01:07:46.880
<v Speaker 5>many years at a divinity school and a lot of

1154
01:07:46.880 --> 01:07:50.119
<v Speaker 5>my colleagues are nuns. They actually don't call themselves nuns,

1155
01:07:50.119 --> 01:07:54.519
<v Speaker 5>their sisters religious. And I was once at a birthday

1156
01:07:54.559 --> 01:07:55.280
<v Speaker 5>party for a.

1157
01:07:55.280 --> 01:07:57.039
<v Speaker 3>Nun and I was the only person there that wasn't

1158
01:07:57.039 --> 01:07:57.400
<v Speaker 3>a nun.

1159
01:07:58.039 --> 01:08:00.239
<v Speaker 5>And they were talking about a friend of theirs who

1160
01:08:00.239 --> 01:08:04.039
<v Speaker 5>had joined a monastery, and they were talking about how

1161
01:08:04.079 --> 01:08:08.119
<v Speaker 5>fancy the monastery was, and then one of them said,

1162
01:08:09.119 --> 01:08:11.000
<v Speaker 5>you know, and that he had taken a vow of

1163
01:08:11.039 --> 01:08:12.360
<v Speaker 5>poverty and now suddenly he.

1164
01:08:12.400 --> 01:08:17.439
<v Speaker 3>Was rich because he lived in this incredibly fancy monastery.

1165
01:08:17.479 --> 01:08:21.399
<v Speaker 5>They are gossiping about some dude they knew, and one

1166
01:08:21.439 --> 01:08:25.800
<v Speaker 5>of them says, if that's poverty, give me chastity.

1167
01:08:28.239 --> 01:08:29.479
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, And I was.

1168
01:08:29.520 --> 01:08:33.479
<v Speaker 5>Like, wow, Wow, I'm glad to be on the inside

1169
01:08:33.520 --> 01:08:34.319
<v Speaker 5>of this conversation.

1170
01:08:34.399 --> 01:08:36.159
<v Speaker 3>But I'm not one hundred percent sure I know what

1171
01:08:36.159 --> 01:08:36.720
<v Speaker 3>I'm marrying.

1172
01:08:37.399 --> 01:08:43.199
<v Speaker 5>So they were joking about chastity and what to make

1173
01:08:43.239 --> 01:08:45.359
<v Speaker 5>of that? Who knows except that I would say that

1174
01:08:45.479 --> 01:08:47.439
<v Speaker 5>our understanding of testy, what does that mean?

1175
01:08:47.479 --> 01:08:51.680
<v Speaker 3>No masturbation, no physical intimacy at all with another human being.

1176
01:08:56.079 --> 01:08:56.800
<v Speaker 4>So different.

1177
01:08:56.920 --> 01:08:59.479
<v Speaker 5>And also there are just people who, you know, lack

1178
01:08:59.600 --> 01:09:04.159
<v Speaker 5>the desire a sexual or a romantic And we now

1179
01:09:04.239 --> 01:09:08.159
<v Speaker 5>understand that the spectrum of sexuality is huge, and maybe

1180
01:09:08.159 --> 01:09:12.199
<v Speaker 5>it encompasses something like a what could be called a

1181
01:09:12.279 --> 01:09:14.640
<v Speaker 5>satisfying celvacy. Yeah.

1182
01:09:14.680 --> 01:09:21.960
<v Speaker 1>And also I think sexual desire unfulfilled can be quite

1183
01:09:22.840 --> 01:09:27.720
<v Speaker 1>an electrifying feeling. And in our society where sex is

1184
01:09:27.760 --> 01:09:33.720
<v Speaker 1>so casual, I think it has removed some of its intensity.

1185
01:09:34.159 --> 01:09:37.520
<v Speaker 5>Well, I mean sex has this odd form, which is

1186
01:09:37.520 --> 01:09:43.119
<v Speaker 5>that it's most exciting before it's fulfilled, exactly. And if

1187
01:09:43.159 --> 01:09:47.720
<v Speaker 5>you write and if you prolong that excitement, then the

1188
01:09:48.199 --> 01:09:50.560
<v Speaker 5>you know, this is I guess the principle behind tent

1189
01:09:50.680 --> 01:09:51.760
<v Speaker 5>to sex sex.

1190
01:09:51.800 --> 01:09:56.680
<v Speaker 3>But you're actually like moving against you know, the.

1191
01:09:56.680 --> 01:10:01.880
<v Speaker 5>Great sexual experience by getting too fast to the you

1192
01:10:01.880 --> 01:10:03.039
<v Speaker 5>know zero.

1193
01:10:04.640 --> 01:10:06.760
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, very interesting.

1194
01:10:07.279 --> 01:10:09.640
<v Speaker 1>And then people go and get married in city hall

1195
01:10:09.760 --> 01:10:15.079
<v Speaker 1>and they make it all so banal and and no,

1196
01:10:15.159 --> 01:10:19.279
<v Speaker 1>I'm just I'm really being tongue in cheek.

1197
01:10:19.319 --> 01:10:21.960
<v Speaker 3>I'm not get write about it. And that could be

1198
01:10:22.000 --> 01:10:22.720
<v Speaker 3>satisfying too.

1199
01:10:23.159 --> 01:10:24.399
<v Speaker 4>That's true. That's true.

1200
01:10:24.479 --> 01:10:26.760
<v Speaker 1>Thank you so much, Nomi. Last question and then I

1201
01:10:26.880 --> 01:10:28.880
<v Speaker 1>let you go. Have you ever had a black and

1202
01:10:28.880 --> 01:10:29.640
<v Speaker 1>white cookie?

1203
01:10:31.720 --> 01:10:33.840
<v Speaker 5>I only like the white part of the black and

1204
01:10:33.880 --> 01:10:35.960
<v Speaker 5>white cook really, I.

1205
01:10:35.920 --> 01:10:39.520
<v Speaker 3>Know it's perfect because everybody else likes the the black.

1206
01:10:40.520 --> 01:10:44.920
<v Speaker 3>I mean not to be too you know, white nationalist.

1207
01:10:44.399 --> 01:10:47.520
<v Speaker 4>Or you know, do apologize.

1208
01:10:48.399 --> 01:10:50.840
<v Speaker 3>And usually the white part is a little bit smaller

1209
01:10:50.840 --> 01:10:51.479
<v Speaker 3>than the black part.

1210
01:10:51.520 --> 01:10:53.880
<v Speaker 2>Do you notice, No I have not?

1211
01:10:54.439 --> 01:10:56.239
<v Speaker 3>Well, I have because I'm the white part.

1212
01:10:58.439 --> 01:10:59.239
<v Speaker 4>That's very funny.

1213
01:10:59.239 --> 01:11:01.920
<v Speaker 1>All right, next we meet, I'll split a black and

1214
01:11:01.920 --> 01:11:02.800
<v Speaker 1>white cookie with you.

1215
01:11:02.840 --> 01:11:05.199
<v Speaker 3>I'll have the podcast. I'll look for one where the

1216
01:11:05.479 --> 01:11:06.239
<v Speaker 3>two sides or.

1217
01:11:06.239 --> 01:11:09.920
<v Speaker 1>Even okay for sure for you, Okay, I'm gonna link

1218
01:11:10.000 --> 01:11:12.359
<v Speaker 1>your book in the video description. Thank you so much

1219
01:11:12.399 --> 01:11:15.079
<v Speaker 1>for this extremely fun and satisfying conversation.

1220
01:11:15.960 --> 01:11:16.960
<v Speaker 3>It was the blast.

1221
01:11:17.479 --> 01:11:20.000
<v Speaker 4>Yeah you same, Thank you everyone. Also, who is