When she says jump, you better say How high?
Desert Lynx: When she says “Jump!” you better say “How high?”

First we had word that female police officers (armed with lip balm and sun tan lotion) were going to take the lead in implementing the Gaza evacuation. Now it turns out that the Desert Lynx unit (Caracal), the IDF‘s first mixed infantry brigade (70% female) is also going to participate. The women in this unit are all volunteers but do three years of army service just like their male counterparts (women usually serve in the IDF for 2 years).

Slightly weighed down by their battle fatigues and strapped up with combat belts, Leah and Khen, both 20, sling an M16 over their backs and clamber into an enormous jeep before setting out to patrol the Israeli-Jordanian border … Her face dotted with freckles, Khen is behind the wheel, while Leah gets in the back to take charge of the machinegun.

Three companies monitor the Jordan / Israel border and one company is stationed in the Qalqilya region in the West Bank. However, this summer, all 4 companies will be relieved by reservists as the battalion heads to where the action is in Gaza to lend their assistance.

So the obvious question is, what gives? Are the authorities counting on traditional Israeli macho attitudes that would preclude hitting a woman? Or is the concern that men leading the evacuation would be more likely to lose their cool and resort to violence against recalcitrant settlers? Will this estrogen fuelled withdrawal actually be made easier by the presence of so many women? I guess we’ll see, huh?

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About the author

ck

Founder and Publisher of Jewlicious, David Abitbol lives in Jerusalem with his wife, newborn daughter and toddler son. Blogging as "ck" he's been blocked on twitter by the right and the left, so he's doing something right.

69 Comments

  • Maybe they figure if Jewish mothers are going to be dragged from their homes, it’ll look less bad on camera if the soldiers doing the dragging wear lip gloss and have estrogen. Either that or the male soldiers are more vulnerable to the guilt trips…

  • Hi TM. Israel was the first to use women as soldiers because they had few people of any kind and had to use every single one for their defense. They ended up eating their seed corn and now lament their low birth rate, which may well be the worst threat they face, long-term. What we do to ourselves is often worse than what anyone else does to us. The Nazis took one third of our numbers world wide. But our birth rate is now fifty percent decline. Fifty percent is larger than one third. These days there are women soldiers in various other militaries, as well. That means, in general, men will have to shoot women, thinking of them only as enemy soldiers, not as women. Whether that affects these men’s ability to de-mobilize well later, and be normal civilian husbands, is something nobody every thinks about. Walking around as, or being intimately related to, a man who has shot women is not necessarily nothing. Just another nail in the coffin of Women qua Woman. Women have been de-invented. Of course, biologically female human beings still exist, but they are socially, though not surgically, spayed. Both women and men have been made into Mules. Comely, intelligent, hard working, and charming, but not fertile. A mule is a sterile hybrid. Not that women should be chained to the kitchen and nursery, but a liberal medium would be nice that recognized their right to be who and what they in fact are. They, we, are not built for combat and it diminishes our dignity exactly because of that. The hell with Wonder Woman and her silly, immoral, and totally unrealistic whip. And her immodest leotard, too. “Drive slow, we have to eat the dust you leave behind”. Generations behind. Silence soon follows, TM. Hitler is laughing.

  • Uh, I think most Israeli girls are quite comfortable with their shared identities as both mothers/sisters/lovers/whatever it is you think women are supposed to be and tough girls who know how to fire mortars.

    Hitler isn’t laughing. If Hitler met the girls of the IDF, he would shit his pants.

  • Michael, women do not share with men, ever, the things I wrote. It is hard enough to face when no men are around. You just don’t know. But the facts are there: the babies just aren’t getting born. It’s not all money, either. There is something amiss in the culture. The armed women are NOT functioning well as women, in the sense that there is no arguing with a lamentable birthrate. The reason Hitler has something to laugh about is because the Jews are disappearing themselves, achieving what he could not achieve. Our way of getting rid our ourselves does not hurt, like his way, and takes longer. It makes no noise and we all look so tanned and attractive. So we don’t notice. Michael, nobody wants to see this. It is a taboo subject.

  • No, Michael, I agree with JM on this particular matter. Look, the army is bound to take away some of what we consider feminine if you put women in combat roles. The IDF, as does every military, changes people. It takes people and makes them soldiers who are able to enter combat situations and are trained well enough to function under the stress. Surely, something about the nurturing, motherly aspect of females is changed for a while under this training – there is nothing nurturing about shooting at somebody to kill them before they kill you.

    In the US, the idea of women in combat roles came about from a desire to seek equality in every quarter of society. I have never understood the desire to seek equality where one kills and maims or can be killed or maimed, but it seems to be something many feminists wish to happen. I understand why the IDF is doing it since they have been forced by the courts to offer equal opportunity to men and women in their units, but I don’t understand why it’s being supported by so many and especially by women. Who the fuck wants to have to kill?

    The IDF, however, has little to do with our declining birth rates. We can attribute those to Westernized society, high levels of education which require years to acquire, too many people searching for love in a smaller pool than should be open to them – and when not finding it, remaining unmarried and childless, and a simple desire to offer children as much attention as possible which can be challenging if one has 4 or 8 children.

    If Hitler is laughing, it is that a world that has diminished its antisemitism is doing more for assimilation and destruction of the Jews than his hateful genocide.

  • “Uh, I think most Israeli girls are quite comfortable…”

    I agree with you Michael. JM reminds me of my secular Jewish friends who brush all Haredi women with one brush i.e. unintelligent, unattractive, and depressive. This is false of course (at least the Belz/Chabad women I’ve met).

    There’s really no difference between JM’s apocalyptic posts and my friends bigotry towards religious Jews.

  • And the:

    “Hitler’s laughing…”

    comment, is straight out of the ol’ “Do Jewish because six million died” guilt trip that our grandparents/teachers used with very, very poor results. When my friends say they feel a mixture of nausea and boredom when they think about Judaism, I blame the methods used (at least during the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s) of trying to guilt Jews into doing Jewish things. Feh. Yuch.

  • “Westernized society??” The modern “West” dates from the Renaissance, five hundred years ago. The disastrous, population crash, birth rate is very recent: it has only occured since the 1960’s, meaning Woodstock and the women’s revolution. At least in the 1950’s people had two children, on average, which replaced the parents. No more. Yes, the cost of a square foot of real estate, people’s ever fancier expectations driven by advertising, the artificially high price of higher education driven by foreign wealthy classes who can pay full tuition without financial aid, all that is operating too. There are a hundred hammers, and they are all falling on you, and you are sitting around tanned and smiling and saying, I just looove my freedom. In a very short time the only Jews will be Orthodox, the other kinds just do not reproduce well. Go argue with an empty chair. Survival should be the first test of any strategy, no? Hitler’s method of getting rid of the Jews hurt, was visible, and made a lot of noise. Our method feels great, is invisible, and is silent – just takes longer. All our enemies need is patience as we date ourselves into the grave.

  • I was pitying, not criticizing. My heart breaks for the sweet girls who have to fire mortars. They should not have to do that. I say that even if they don’t mind doing it, and even if they do it very well. I am mentioning time. Arguing with time is like arguing with the sea for being salty.

  • “date ourselves into the grave”

    On behalf of the single people of the world, I thank you for that inspiring image. I understand your point, and I know you mean well, believe me. But we’ve been over this time and again, and it’s just not that simple. Some women can kick ass, and make excellent soldiers, and it doesn’t make them any less attractive to men. (In fact, the chicks with guns thing is very attractive to lots of guys.)

    That we’re not built on the whole for mortal combat is something I agree with. But I wish that mortals themselves (including men) weren’t so combative either. It’s the hippie in me. Who’s at war with the cynic in me. Who’s embroiled in battle with the romantic in me. (Yes, my head and heart are both very crowded places.)

    The point? I think that I resent being referred to as a mule. Or as a baby factory/house chef. Or as a threat to modern Judaism. And I know you didn’t mean just me. But I’m part of the demographic that you’re rebuking, and I have to object, even if the judge overrules me.

    And I believe that Wonder Woman had a Lasso of Truth–Indiana Jones was the one with the whip.

  • I still agree with JM. I don’t know that it’s as easy as she paints it – meeting a spouse, that is – but the whole women with guns thing is just another nail in the demographic coffin. For once I’m in agreement with those Orthodox who avoid service. 😉

  • Men like that image? But do they marry it? A woman who doesn’t need anything from them, supposedly, what a turn on. WAY TOO CONVENIENT! Israeli girls are not sweet? They are, too. Too sweet. If they listened to me … but they are needed, I guess… sigh.

    Evolution has not equipped people to make the decision to have children, because they never had to do that before say, fifty years ago. .

    Sometimes what looks conformist is radical, and what looks radical is really conformist.

    Since I do not know the story, I can plainly see that WW’s whip is a whip. In the story it is called a lasso of truth, you say. You have to believe to think it’s a lasso of truth. I say, no, it’s obviously a whip, it looks like a whip, and the whole thing is a little unclean. But it’s not a patch on what they give little girls today. You poor dears. It must be tough to be young now. It was no joke when I was young, but it has gotten much worse. So yes, I think the only thing to do is run for the moral high ground. Run to Streimel’s friends, the Belzers, or similar folks, with all their flaws.

    OK, I love children. When you love, you can’t figure out why everybody else doesn’t feel the exact same way. I never had as much fun as when I was around them. I miss them. The variety of thought, the purity, and they change frequently too, so you are always challenged. Just when you get the hang of having a two- year old, bingo, all your knowledge is useless and you have to figure out what to do with a three year old, which is a completely different set of skills. Ah..ah…. more fun than a barrel of monkeys. And all the stuff I bought OSTENSIBLY for them but really for me …. I got to play…. ah….

  • “My heart breaks for the sweet girls…”

    JM,

    That’s exactly how my secular friends phrase their attacks/bigotry on religious women. Is it possible that these women are doing quite well, and that religious women lament the freedom that they’ve had to sacrafice to pump out babies? Oh they say they don’t care, but I don’t believe it for a sec.

    Asked my friends wife about this last shabbos. When asked what she’s passionate about…what she truly wants to do, she went into the whole family/child thing (which she has). When pushed to think beyond those stereotyped limits, she states: “I really regret not going to biz school. And now that I have a child, I’m not sure when it’s going to happen”.

    The point is that shabbos is wonderful. Torah is powerful. And that self-actualization can come from many sources (and this is true for women as well). And I believe that women who turn to cooking, child rearing and man pleasing as their only source of passion, are doing a formidable job at repressing parts of themsleves that they feel:

    a) guilty about
    b) will be shunned by the comunity, husband, etc.

    And this is truly a shame.

  • “Men like that image? But do they marry it?”

    Every day…every minute…all over the world. It might not be what you’d consider to be ideal marriages, but I believe those women (many of my friends…with careers…hobbies…) wouldn’t have it any other way.

  • Streimel, I don’t care what or what, as long as there is a future, and there is not. We do not live in the Garden of Eden. There is always going to be the one that got away. The grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence. There will always be something to regret. Life is not a bowl of cherries. What would you have thought of your friend’s wife if she had said, I have nothing to wish for, and my life is totally perfect. That would have been inhuman. Her answer was normal, not tragic. She may do business later. She has a converse: a woman who did a lot of business and never had children. Which is unhappiest? They are both a little happy and a little unhappy, and that’s the breaks. People make their choices and live with the consequences. They also extract meaning from what they are stuck with, whether that is children, or no children. Anyway, I didn’t say anything against careers or hobbies, just mortars.

  • “Anyway, I didn’t say anything against careers or hobbies, just mortars.”

    Today it’s mortars. Last week it was hobbies. Same message, different issue relating to a womens choice to do something besides cook and have babies.

    “Her answer was normal,”

    Her answer was sad. Regret is normal. Hopelessness is not.

  • She is young and intelligent so she can do a bit of everything, making compromises. Business is nowhere near as all encompassing as medicine. Hobbies? Don’t you remember what I said about how we fit reading, travel, painting, writing, study, conversation and other stuff in between diaper changes? The crock pot takes ten minutes to fill in the morning, and there is dinner waiting later. But no mortars. Child rearing may not be for everybody, like lots of things. I am a little shocked at the wholesale absence of, and denigration of, it, however. People really spit on it. How nice is that? And how real? Everybody had to be a child once. Children and child rearing are just plain part of life. What a sanitized world you seem to require. No crying, no spilled juice. Oy. You comfort, you wipe up. No biggie.

  • “The crock pot takes ten minutes to fill in the morning, and there is dinner waiting later.”

    JM,

    My observant friends start preparing for shabbos on Weds and the work doesn’t stop until Fri afternoon. I’m not saying it’s not worth it, I’m saying that once you factor in the children, that’s a lot of work. Not much time for anything else (or so they tell me).

    As a result, men and women share the work these days. Kosher food and Jewish education is expensive. Rent is expensive. And given that Jews live in urban areas, Toronto, New York, etc., is expensive.

    But you attack the innovations that men/women have created. Not just due to outside influences, but because many of us experienced the insipid, role rigid marriages our parents had. So we innovate. Try new things. Sometimes it’ll work, sometimes not. However your need to “catastrophize” and create apocalyptic scenarios due to these changes is baseless, and IMHO, dilutes some of your advice.

  • Uh, Shtreimel, the demographics are in favor of JM’s argument. They are not catastrophic yet, but they are getting challenging.

  • “They are not catastrophic yet, but they are getting challenging.”

    TM,

    I worked for CJA, I know the #’s game. We used it well. Fear, death, assimilation…they all raise lots of money. Alas, they didn’t do much for kiruv (Chabad knows this. Chabad knows that joy, singing, l’chaim’s…these sell). Telling women/men horror stories (again, which are baseless…my dual income friends – many of whom are living in an arrangement where the woman makes equal to, and some more than, the man – seem to be doing quite well), about the career’s they’re choosing, the military service they’re serving, etc., is not going to grease the marriage/baby making machine. It creeps me out. Perhaps I’m the only one. Though I doubt it.

    JM has something to say, and I think it’s important. But she should drop the Stephen King shtick to get her point across.

  • BTW…speaking of catastrophy. In the therapy world, things usually have to get worse before they get better. We’re human, and that’s how we operate. I have no doubt the same is true for our community. It’s the pain of assimilation, that will force our UJA’s, shuls, and individuals to create a Judaism that moves people. Truth be told, I have a hard time selling much of what I see/experience to my secular friends.

    And the same is true for secular types. The “return” is usually preceeded by a strong sense of: “is this all there is to my life?”. And then things may get worse. And the work begins.

  • Is this all there is to Muffti’s life? Are things going to get worse?

  • Even though today looks like an easy historic period to live in, no cossacks chasing us at Christmas and Easter, it may in fact be a very difficult historic period, in ways that are hard to see. Your child-heavy friends are in the middle of the action – I am past it, so I can rhapsodize at my ease. Tell them the view from later on is golden.

    Hard work, hard work. Blah blah. Streimel’s schedule would crush an elephant. He is no stranger to hard work.

    Everything is hard work! But if you raise kids, later you have people. They grow up faster than you can imagine, and then you get your turn to be a genius. Then, if it turns out you are not a genius, it is not necessarily legit to blame that on the fact that you had kids.

    For an awful lot of people, no matter how much else they can do well, the most significant thing they leave behind is nice kids. Geniuses are rare.

    As for gender roles, they bend plenty but they do not break. No mortars.

  • “Is this all there is to Muffti’s life? Are things going to get worse?”

    Your flirting with chicks on Jewlicous. So no. No they’re aren’t going to get much worse. Now run to your local Chabad and do something with your life 😉

  • Uh, we encourage flirting on Jewlicious. There are far worse things you can be doing.

  • Hmmm, I suspect there’s a story here. Christina?

    And Shtreimel, what’s wrong with flirting with the chicks on Jewlicious? Both Esther and Laya are flirtworthy and while I haven’t met her, I suspect JM is as well. Go for it!

  • TM,

    If you’d post a pic, maybe I’d find you flirt worthy 😉

  • TM, are you saying that we should try to flirt with Esther and Laya simultaneously to get them into a foursome with JM? Or is Muffti missing something.

  • E-flirting’s cool, especially if it leads to Jewish continuity. Foursomes often don’t. (Or so I’ve read.) But it’s important to know where everyone stands: TM’s married, so is Jewish Mother (unless she’s Jewish Single Mother, in which case I’d like to interview her for an article), and The Muffti’s writing checks his stamina can’t cash. Just sayin’.

  • Esther, I ain’t flirting cuz I’ve done some flirting in the past and now look at me. However, I am all for encouraging others to do so. And don’t worry about foursomes, start with twosomes and see where that goes.

  • Muffti wrote: yeah, ck, like Christina.

    Jesus muffti… must you? Which reminds me:

    I miss Christin …….. a

  • Stamina can’t cash?

    That’s it. Muffti is going back to the shiksehs. 🙂 All y’all are far too mean.

    CK, that jokes was on my mind, like, the whole time.

  • Tee hee. I’m ribbin’ ya. Your stamina is legendary in at least two states (inebriation and confusion). Sorry, there I go again. Last night’s evening out at the comedy club still in my bloodstream, I guess. (“And that’s my time! Good night!”)

  • (Mumble mumble. Marriage becomes betrayal of group, defection from de facto “family” which a group of mature unmarried friends becomes; does not matter if a member marries another member of same group, or an outsider; group dynamic is injured. Survivor guilt also kicks in: “why am I happy when the others are left single”. But TM is married. But he is only one member of group. What if they all got married, would group survive? Potential spouses must compete with the group, in sense that they must provide more happiness and fun than the group provides, a tough hurdle. Sterility being price of platonic friendships with opposite sex. Ouch. The Torah is right; it enshrines woman in home, places mechitza in synagogue, so woman is not shut away, but sexes are firmly defined in own territories and friendship between them is close to impossible. This preserves sexual order and sexual feeling. It is sad that full freedom of association massacres gender difference, and also massacres gender functioning! Who knew? Guess the ancients weren’t so stupid after all. Life is not a bowl of cherries. Guess these limitations were less painful when people had plenty of brothers and sisters, and therefore cousins, and did not need friends of the opposite sex, for that reason. Maybe the two-child family after WW II caused all this, by cutting off the numerous brothers and sisters who provided sexless company of the other gender. Mumble mumble. Oh, it will all work out. )

  • Jewish Mother – yell louder, lady! You are on the mark!!!!
    All that cleaving is supposed to be man to wife – not man to group of mo friends with issues about Orthodoxy and secretly kissing and more when no one but Hashem, their other goofy friends and Jsirpicco is looking!

  • “full freedom of association massacres gender difference…and gender functioning”secretly kissing”

    Halevay.

  • that was clearly supposed to be two comments:

    “full freedom of association massacres gender difference and gender functioning”
    My gender is different and functioning despite my freedom to associate with men, so I’m not sure what this means. “preserves sexual order and sexual feeling”…no idea what you mean.

    “secret kissing”
    Halevay.

    And BTW, I think “Estrogen Fuels Gaza Withdrawal” may be the new “Orthodox Attempting to Address Pre-marital Sex.”

  • Black coffee, thank you. What a beautiful cake. Yes, I would love some. The strawberries look so colorful. Oh! A lovely fresh fruitcup. This is so nice.

  • Michael, please don’t crack me up when I am drinking hot coffee. Splerf. Erf.

  • Yasher koach, Michael, for steppin’ up to the funny. And JM, “Splerf, erf” is catchy…could be sweeping the nation in no time…

  • I’ll be the first to admit that if Jewish Mother wrote a book, I’d buy it, and read it (and then probably return it to Chapters, but that’s the kind of guy I am).

  • TM,
    Jeez, I meant that as a complimet. She’s one of the brighter posters in the Jewish blog world, and puts an interesting twist on most of her ideas.

    Re: Returning books. Damn right. The way I figure it, Chapters implemented the 3 wk return policy to corner the retail book market, and I exercise my consumer right to return any book that I’m not satisfied with (and I define satisfied by not needing the book beyond my 1st read). Alas, I save much more money this way. My being cheap is no reflection on JM’s wisdom.

  • You do the book, all of you. Use anything I wrote; I do not want to be credited. I will buy at least one copy, retail!

  • Oh, there we go. You children do the book. You can use anything I wrote; I do not want to be credited. I will buy a copy, retail.

  • “You do the book, all of you. Use anything I wrote; I do not want to be credited. I will buy at least one copy, retail!”

    Jewish Mother,

    With all seriousness, why don’t you put together a top 10…20…, hell you pick the number, of advice you’d give to single Jewish folk. Advice about:

    What to do if you’re not sure you compatible, and how does this relate to marriage anyway?

    Income issues.

    Sexual issues.

    Etc.

    Put together a brief, witty and wise list, and it’ll make the rounds on the Net. You’ve already got some street cred on this site, so we’ll help spread the msg.

  • Blocked as well. Hmmm, perhaps it was the word “hell”. Next time I’ll use sheol.

  • Has G-d stopped the rain? Is this a punishment? We must fast, in terror, as Queen Esther decreed in the Purim story. We have a Queen Esther here. Not from food. From each other. Miss each other. For one terrible week, all, everywhere, agree to not phone or IM or email anybody at all. They would be married in two months.

    Adam reviewed all that lived and there was no companion for him… so…

    Oh! he said. You are Life-a! I can see right away. You have a life support system that takes up almost all the real estate between your collar bone and your knee cap. Oh! I am nothing like that. I am King of the Hill. I mean, Made of Dirt. King of the Hill sounds better, doesn’t it? Why are you like you are? You are so strange. Life-a! How? Why? What? What, what, what? Oh, are you ever strange. Do we really need this one? Oh! Is she ever strange! She? a new pronoun? What am I saying? What do I do now?

  • Not to begrudge a fellow would-be author, but if JM gets a book contract before me, I’m jumping into the Hudson River.

  • I am not a would-be author. You do the book. You seem to like what I have to say so put it out there. Everybody to their trade. Esther is right. The book is not ready yet. We are writing it together. The professionals among you will figure out how to make it. I have been dropping a lot of very radical advice such as, don’t date, don’t worry about whether food is organic, don’t worry if a potential spouse has a modest income, spruce up your appearance to the hilt, revive gender roles particularly the magic of home-made food. I posted as LL, Mowgli and Eleanor Roosevelt. I advocated a four-date rule to prevent the horror of dragged-out almost-relationships, the most corrosive thing in the world. I advocated artificial scarcity, meaning, withholding the precious commodity of excellent company from anyone who is not willing or able to prize it at its right price, and take on marital responsibility. I have noted that life is not a bowl of cherries, a fact often forgotten in the suburbs. I have firmly asserted the religious underpinning of marriage; the need for something Above the two people and their mishagos, which enforces humility, gratitude, perspective and duty. I have remarked in sorrow that too much gender blurring seems to cripple gender functioning. I have gone as far as to say that fully expressed gender functioning means marriage and children, in most cases. (Pace, Jane Austen et alia.) I have affirmed that an unmarried Jew who goes to shul is not as good as a married Jew who does not go to shul. The Kohen Ha Gadol HAD to be married or he could not enter the Holy of Holies, a huge truth. Aaron’s two fried sons were crushed by G-d, in part, because they had decided not to marry, says the midrash. I have affirmed the dignity of the Lady of the House. I have affirmed that women have not always understood with enough penetration where their real interests lie. I will never forget the photographs of the men carrying women in their arms through the ruins of the World Trade Center; although it was entirely possible that the women were their bosses, and may have had four times as much education as the men who were carrying them. I remember the stewardess yelling, I need help, and the men airplane passengers bound the would-be shoe-bomber with their belts, and stayed standing up around him. The photograph shows that, and it shows no women standing. Even very skinny men were standing up, in case he got out of hand again. I remember the story from the Holocaust where the women threw the men their bread because they looked so poorly. The women have a fat layer the men do not have, they could handle it better. Women don’t win wars, so, the can’t lose them, and miilitary defeats are not posted to their account. The Holocaust was a military defeat that still hurts, hurts the men especially. The Jewish man survived a thousand military defeats because he was a king in his home and at shul: only he, even the lowest, could complete a minyan. This kept him alive as a man. There are still women who understand this, at least there is still one. I have dealt with what it means to be a modern-thinking woman who bears a child, and guess what. The child is one of Them. Male. Now what? It came out all right. Because some things should be done in a very ancient way.

    We are doing great, let’s keep going.

  • More like a word monsoon. “Us” and “Them”–sounds like war, which means casualties, so I’m not a fan of the dichotomy. This is almost poetry, in that I read it and find myself moved and somewhat nauseous, and I’m not sure why, or if I understand it at all, or if all the words are just spinning around, confusing me and making me even more introspective than usual, which is some trick.

    Rereading, I just comprehended that Life-A is Chava. (Slow, but special. That’s me.)

  • (Job’s task was to love G-d when the usual incentives had been removed. Maybe this generation’s task is to marry, now that the usual incentives have been removed, as an act of religious affirmation.

    G-d: look how Job loves me
    Bad Guy: Sure he loves you. You’ve made it easy and logical. What if it was hard and defied logic? Would he still love you?
    G-d: That is perverse, but I will try it just once.

    G-d: Their marriages are a sweet perfume for me. Even when they don’t go to shul, their dinner tables are my altar. I love them so much.
    Bad Guy: But it’s easy! They basically have to marry. Everything supports it, and it’s obviously the easiest and most logical way to live. Big deal. Why don’t you see what happens when it is the hardest way to live, not at all necessary, not logical, and nothing supports it? Ha ha ha!
    G-d Grrrrrr My children can do it. And it will mean more to me in the end. Grrrrrrr)

  • Sorry to be stupid. It’s the money.

    Here is a link to the horror:

    I have been involved in this from both sides of the bassinet. My own mother went back to work when I was a month or so old, and when my turn came, I did not go back to a full time job until mine were almost three years old. It is amazing what you can do without, financially and materially, and how much more children mean than nice restaurant meals, travel and stuff.

    The awful truth is everybody is a lot poorer than they feel. I apologize for missing this obvious fact, and blathering on about broken culture. The broken culture is horrible, but it exists to distract people and make them feel better about not having the money to marry and have kids. That does not mean you guys are poor! No! It just means the cost of raising a child has ballooned past all reason, unless one has a rent controlled apartment, old fashioned expectations, and a good public school district. How easy is all that?? So the culture conveniently breaks. How convenient. Singles crisis, my foot. It’s the money. You guys are so creative. Maybe you can think of something. You are going to have to be selfless, focused and tough to get your collective inalienable right to descendants. Our ancestors raised nice kids in tenements, with strong personal discipline, modest expectations and some values. C’mon CK, some leadership. Streimel. Michael. GM. Esther, somebody is going to put a hammerlock on you. And others. But it will be ok.

    It is so important that parents know how to pass on the torch, and not resent the changing of the guard. Here is mine. Raise it high. Who will be Jewish Mother when I am gone?