Jews Waiting For The Moshiach

Nadene Goldfoot
                                                                           

The world is, according to Jewish history, 5,779 years old.  We use that on our calendars.   We're all Homo Sapiens who go back farther than written history over 100,000 years ago, but we feel that a special spark entered our mankind about this far back. We people are all connected to each other through our mothers who were but a handful of women living  tens of thousands of years ago.  It was only about 10,000 years ago that mammoths ruled the lands with cavemen and women.  They now say that Jews come from 4 unrelated women as well some time ago.  

One of the greatest movies I remember was   10,000 BC which is now   a 2008 American epic adventure film from Warner Bros. set in the prehistoric era, about the journeys of a prehistoric tribe of mammoth hunters. 

I love books by Jean M. Auel like THE SHELTERS OF STONE

Biblically:  
"First, we know that the entire human race consisted of eight individuals at the end of the Flood, around 2350 BC. (This was about 4,369 years ago.) This was one “family,” but four were women who married into Noah’s line. So the maximum number of family lines who brought their genes onto the Ark was five (four potentially unrelated women, and one line of men. 
                                                       

Landed on moon 50 years ago
in 1969

We're at the height of the world's technical inventions and intelligence.  We've been to the moon, have sent a space ship to Mars, can give a person a new heart if his has worn out, such capabilities!  Yes, but the world is in desperate need of Messianic redemption.  So many belonging to Judaism, Christianity and Islam are waiting and expecting THE MESSIAH at any time now as this is considered THE END TIMES.  Maybe it's because things can't get any worse along with these great inventions.  We've got not only the atom bomb but the hydrogen bomb where we could blow up this lovely planet or at least harm it for centuries and make it unlivable.  

People are at the point of hating each other though these 3 religions are meant to foster love and care for each other.  What is lacking, here?   What seems to be man's base nature, anyway?  Religion is supposed to make them better people.  The United States has been at each other's throats with an impending Republican Democrat Civil War.  The Middle East is constantly unsettled, now with Iran trying to take over the world, and Russia is involved with Venuzuela!  What a love affair that is turning out to be with the electric lights continually going out in this South American country.  
                                                     

Israeli doctors at Gaza fence giving medial aid

How are we to help the coming of the Messiah?  The best way is to love all humanity generously, and this already proves to be impossible for the whole world to follow.  Jews are also told that we need to keep the mitzvot of the Torah as best as we can, and to encourage others to do so, as well.  Perhaps the 10 basic rules are those to work on.  They are still hard to follow, even after Moses gave them to us about 3,300 years ago.  Our math skills may be great but not our inner empathy skills that separate us from our Neanderthal genes.
What other explanation can I give and still be nice?

The qualities of the Messiah as seen in Jewish literature  will be:
                                                       

1. Born to human parents, have normal physical attributes like other people.  No supernatural qualities like Superman and will not be a demi-god as seen in Greek narratives.  

2. Genetically, from his father's side he will be descended from King David.  This means to me that his Y haplogroup will show he is of the Cohen gene, a J1 or J2 .  It's only now that we can tell for sure just what the line of Kind David would be, and even that is not 100% to be trusted.  We have not sampled his body's cells to find his haplogroup.  We are trusting in the fact that at least half the Jewish men today carry this haplogroup.  The fact is that most men of the Middle East also carry this haplogroup, which gives credence to the Torah saying that there was Ishmael who was a son of Abraham and that Esau went off to live with Ishmael's people instead of staying with his twin, Jacob and his father, Isaac.  This makes them our cousins.  
                                                   

Rabbi Samson Wertheimer

Right now, genetic testing is not used to declare anything legally.  How one can prove someone is of King David's line without it would need quite a well developed tree to remain readable with the care that the Torah has had.  There are such trees, but continuing on to this day is rare.  There is one on Rabbi  Elijah ben Solomon-who went by the name of THE GAON OF VILNA.  His parents were Rabbi  Shlomo-Zalman who died in 1758 and wife Treina.  Another was Rabbi Samson Wertheimer born 1658 in Worms, Germany.  The tree of RASHI is still in existence and may be the one used.  Rashi -Rabbi Solomon Yitzhaki ben Isaac-born in Troyes, France in 1040 had a tree that did go back to King David and this was well known and well-used.  RASHI was about the best known commentator of our Bible and is still quoted in our prayer books.  Rabbi Wertheimer connected to Rashi as many others did as well.  In biblical days,
your genealogy was very important.  Serving in court systems depended on it.  I connect to this same Rabbi Wertheimer as many others do, too.  

 He will be a rabbi in that he will lead the Jewish people in full Torah observance.  Anyone coming to change the Torah in any way will immediately be identified as a false prophet, and we've had our share of those in more than one claim in the past.  
                                                    

3.  Prophetic passages in the Bible speak of a descendant of King David who will rule Israel during the age of perfection.  This Messiah most likely will be a citizen of Israel.  We will recognize the Messiah by seeing who the King of Israel is at the time of complete universal perfection.   Therefore it will have a lot to do with who the president or prime minister of Israel will be then, or king for that matter if reverting back to kingship should happen.  

4.  What is his duty?  Role?  Messiah or Mashiach simply means the anointed one, a person in G-d's service who was anointed with oil as the initiation.  This is an ancient practice for every king and high priest was initiated into service with this prelude.  Prophecy from our prophets included a promise of a future age of perfection that would be of universal peace and the recognition of G-d.  This is because without G-d, the people would run amok and do wild things like sacrifice people in the hope for better weather, better crops, the appearance of herds of animals for food, and go wild during earthquakes with fear.  Today we again have many atheists who believe they have no need for the concept of a G-d in control of the world.  They have no concrete yardstick of measuring their behavior, which is something religion gives to others who do.  They have no answer to questions such as why do right or not do wrong other than their own civilization's rules.  The Mashiach's duty would be to establish the ushering in of this special period of universal peace.  
                                                  
  A.  He is to build the 3rd Temple.
                                                   

B.  He will gather all Jews back to the Land of Israel.  (This has been going on already with the Israeli government.  We still have yet to bring in some Pashtuns from Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of India.  It may be that there are Christian groups from nearby neighboring states of Israel who also have a claim of being part of the Lost 10 Tribes or from the Babylonian Judaea, Benjamin group.)  Even the Palestinians may also claim to be Lost Tribal members.  The question is, do they want to become followers of the Torah?  Those that have already returned are.  Israel is a teeny state.  Need I say more?  I'm waiting on the Mashiach for that.  If some are left out, he is to do it. 

C. Usher in an era of world peace and end all hatred, oppression, suffering and disease.  That is one big order.  It would have to be of the END OF TIMES for that to be fulfilled.  Involved would have to be a melding of politics, psychology, sociology, the medical profession, and science.  We're getting close.  

For it says:  NATION SHALL NOT LIFT UP SWORD AGAINST NATION, NEITHER SHALL MAN LEARN WAR ANYMORE.  We can thank Isaiah's prophecy for that.  

D. The Mashiach is to spread universal knowledge of the G-d of Israel, which will unite humanity as one.  As it says, "GOD WILL BE KING OVER ALL THE WORLD--ON THAT DAY, G-D WILL BE ONE AND HIS NAME WILL BE ONE.  The prophet Zechariah said that one.  This covers the fact that Jews have not prophesied at all, were not permitted by the laws of the new Roman Christian church.  Since then, every religion under the sun has been busy proselytizing to us Jews!  We haven't  appreciated this one iota since it hasn't shown any respect for our religion, which happens to be the parent religion of both Christianity and Islam, by the way.  So this last position on the Mashiach's list of to do's makes even me nervous.  I have a Christian friend who has been doing just this; and he follows Judaism, the Torah, studies it with a group, and remains a Christian.  He's a great person.  Perhaps this is what the Mashiach is to do, what his end goal is to be.  We cannot expect more.  I have a lady friend nearby who is also of the same belief.  So people are starting to inquire about the Torah and respect it.  I don't think we could have found even 2 people like this 100 years ago.  

It will not be easy to find the Mashiach.  If an individual fails to fulfill even one of these conditions, then he cannot be THE MASHIACH.  

The Mashiach we await will be the greatest prophet in our history, 2nd only to Moses.  This causes problems.  Prophecy can only exist in Israel when the land is being lived in by a majority of world Jewry, a situation which has not existed since 300 BCE.  Right now there are 6 million Jews living in Israel.  
                                                      

We have about 6 million in Israel and 6 million in the USA and 2 million elsewhere in the world, many of which are still in Europe.  During the time of Ezra when the majority of Jews refused to leave Babylon where they had been taken to by the Babylonians in 597 and again in 586 BCE, prophecy came to an official end upon the death of the last prophets-Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi.  

Conditions today as far as anti-Semitism goes, is very bad throughout the world.  Europe again is the scene of a great deal of serious anti-Semitism.  The UN is one of the greatest producers of this thinking.  This is why such a little teeny state has gained such interest to people.  It's one reason why some people care what is happening to 0.02% of the world's population-the Jews. 
                                                           

One apparent sign is that the Jewish people have returned to the Land of Israel and made it bloom again.  A major movement is  that of young Jews returning to Torah tradition.   I've seen this happen in my own city and even in my own family.  I myself had made aliyah to Israel in 1980 and was able to stay for over 5 years.  As Jews become interested in their religion, hatred and accusations are developing such as in our own USA Congress against Jews and Israel.  
                                                   

Judaism is not a belief in miracles.  It's the history of the personal eyewitness experience that our ancestors had, all the men, women and children who stood at Mount Sinai 3,300 years ago.  What happened there were no miracles.  Our belief is not in miracles as then we would have lingering doubts.  Miracles can be performed through magic tricks.  What one might consider a miracle that he pulled in the desert he did because of necessity-and using some kind of basic science, and not as proof of his prophecy. We're a people who have been discouraged from believing in such things as miracles that are used as a base to cause a belief.  
                                                     

 This comes to us through Maimonides, who was MOSES BEN MAIMON who was born in 1135 and died in 1204.  He was a philosopher, halakhist and medical writer.  Born in Cordova, Spain, he would be a Sephardic Jew.  He and his family escaped the Almohade persecutions.  See, anti-Semitism way back then in Spain was happening.   He arrived in Palestine in 1165 at age 30.  One thing he studied was logic;  our thinking skills.  He established a list of the 613 Precepts.  He suffered from the Crusades, kept from  settling in Palestine, so he and his family went to Egypt and later became the physician to the viceroy of Egypt.  He died at age 70 and was buried in Tiberias.  All his life he was a writer about Judaism.  

I remember reading about several rabbis who were walking about looking at the small children, and asking themselves if this could be the Mashiach.  One never knows.  

Resource:  The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
The SEVEN DAUGHTERS OF EVE  by BRYAN SYKES
http://www.aish.com/print/?contentID=48892792&section=/jw/s, Rabbi Shraga Simmons, 5 pages.  

Where is Love in the Jewish Religion?

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                     

There are people who think that Jews do not emphasize love in their religion.  They've known and expressed love perhaps in a way that others have not understood, but it's been there, and is loud and strong.

Jews do many things to remind themselves of the presence of the Lord.  They use these reminders to remember His commandments that keep us ethical and loving, and of our duties to Him in return.  Some people feel this intuitively, but many of us need the help.  It doesn't hurt.  That's the first to receive of our love.

Doing these acts of reminders are called mitzvot, which is the plural form of a mitzva.  To do a mitzva is to do a good deed.  We try to do some form of mitzvot daily.  The highest level of a mitzvah is to save a life.

The first call we have been given is to love G-d.  It's like our command to obey Him.  We repeat an affirmation of G-d's unity or oneness 2 times a day by saying: Hear O Israel, the lord is our G-d, the Lord is One.  This is the start of the Shema (to hear).  We say this when we are dying, as well.
                                                                          

The reminder that follows is: And you shall love the Lord your G-d with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.  For these words which I have commanded you this day upon your hearts, to love your G-d, must be diligently taught to the children.  It must help to mold one's thought and action when arising and when going to bed, and when walking on the street and going about one's affairs.  Bind them as a sign upon your arm and let them be ornaments between your eyes.  And write them on the doorposts of your house and upon your gates.  

Shema Yisrael Adonoi, Elohenu, Adonoi echad.  

We need reminders, so they must be placed where we can see these reminders and so we have them around us.  They are on one's hand and head, and upon the gates and doorposts of one's home.

 They are in the shape of tefillin, phylacteries, which are a 2 little black leather boxes fastened to leather straps that sits on a man's forehead when he prays in the morning and afternoon that contains 4 portions of part of the 5 Books of Moses:  Exod. 13:1-16;  Deut. 6:4-9;  and 11:13-21. They are in the shape of the wrapping  the straps on the forearm while doing their morning prayers which is the other piece of tefillin.

They are in the shape of the mezuzah that we hang on the right side of the doorpost that contains the Deut.6:4-9 and 11:13-21 which we kiss before entering the house.

 Below you see a man praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem which was a part of the remnant of the Herod's Temple.  The original Holy of Holies, where Aaron would have been in, is at the West end of the Temple so this wall is considered sacred to Jews.  Jews could not come here again from 1948 until after 1967's war as Jordan would not allow it.
                                                                     

They are in the shape of the tzitzit a man wears under his clothing, a set of fringes made of threads that are intertwined with blue cord, as males were commanded to wear this on the corner of our clothing.  Therefore, men wear an arba kanphot (4 corners) or tallit katan (little Tallit) and a large Tallit during morning prayers.  A Tallit is a prayer shawl, traditionally used by men, though some women are starting to use it, also.  It is a 4 cornered rectangle cloth that a man puts over his head.  It's like a miniature tent that gives him privacy to pray to his G-d.  The corners have the Tzitzit that have been knotted into the fabric.  In Israel, a prayer shawl is huge.  I had the privilege of being above the men's prayer service in a balcony in Safed, and looked down to see a sea of tents.  Inside each one was a man, of course, praying, which usually is done in a singing melody in a minor key that reaches every heart.  It was so different from the men in the USA at the synagogues I had attended who in a mixed male female group, wore a very small prayer shawl about their shoulders.  It was still a reminder of what it was all about, however.

The moral lesson here is that all man's material possessions are a gift of Heaven.  This is love.  This is commitment.  We have loved long and hard, ever since being taught by Abraham that there was but one G-d back in the 2nd millennium BCE and then in their advanced lessons from Moses in about 1271 BCE.  It's been an never-ending love affair.

Hillel, a great Rabbi, was asked by a stranger what Judaism was all about, but told to tell it quickly while standing on one foot.  He answered, "What thou dost not like when done to thyself, do not unto others."  It is right in Leviticus, 19, verse 18.  "You shall love your fellow as yourself."  

This shows that if we love G-d, that love is a learned reaction and we will love;  animals, plants, the earth, mankind as well, for how can you love G-d without appreciating where we are as living creatures and what is around us?

This is a deep form of love.  It's different from sexual love, in the sense that that acts as an attraction to get 2 people together.  After the honeymoon wears off you're facing a person, not necessarily a love object standing on a pedestal.  .  Then comes another type of love, a little more like the deeper kind of appreciation as found for our G-d.

Yes, we have always had love in our religion.  You could say that our religion is all about love.  It's what we love that counts.  What we learn here is that this love must be in our heart for starters.  The reminders are just that, reminders to love and appreciate our world and our G-d who created it.  This is something that cannot be taken for granted, but taught to our children.  Once in a blue moon you will meet someone who has been born with such love in his heart, and he or she is a diamond in a box of unpolished rocks, a very special man.

Resource: To Be a Jew by Rabbi Hayim Halevy Donin, page 142, Chapter 8, signs of the covenant:  Love and Reverence
The Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
Tanach,  The Stone Edition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shema_Yisrael

Jewish Women's Rights and Responsibilities

Nadene Goldfoot
Jews came along after Abraham, living in Ur (today's Iraq) in the 2nd millennium BCE , realized that there was one G-d.  Moses (1391-1271 BCE) was from the tribe of Judah and laid down the laws that made us truly Jewish.  From there we have the practices of Judaism that we have followed for the past 3,000+ years that concern both males and females.  .

In today's modern age, some Jewish women in the USA are not only becoming rabbis (teachers of our religion) , but  are even wearing tallit.  They are surprised to find that this is unacceptable in Israel, for a religious observance at the Western Wall, where it was being done, must be in accordance with the custom of the holy site and which doesn't offend the sensitivities of the worshipers.  Women that wear prayer shawls have been deemed unduly provocative because of the biblical injunction against women wearing men's clothing and vice versa.  No transgender clothing.

A tallit or prayer shawl  is a four-cornered robe with the required tzitzit and has become the garment traditionally worn by men during morning prayer services.  It is the fringes or tzitzit on the 4 corners that provide it with its religious significance.  It is one of the mitzvot to put on tzitzit so that you may look upon them and remember to do all the commandments of the Lord.

Chabad, an orthodox Jewish group, says that women are not obligated to wear a tallit because they are exempt from fulfilling almost all time-bound positive commandments, like reciting the Shema.  Women may fulfill all mitzvot if they so desire, but the prevailing custom is that women don't wear  a tallit.  There is not even a requirement for men to wear one.  She is drawing undo attention to herself  by showing  excessive piety in an inappropriately ostentatious manner if she wears one.   What is unusual is that this practice is happening in the Conservative and Reform movements but not in the Orthodox where the men do perform  this act.    On a mystical level, the inner workings of this mitzvah are male oriented and just don't "do it" for a woman.

For women who want to wear one or who are doing so,  Rabbi Moshe Feinstein of the 20th century writes that a woman should wear a distinctively feminine tallit and that this comes from a yearning to fulfill this mitzvah and recognize that they are not doing it out of a requirement and that it isn't a protest, challenging what they perceive as a gender bias in Jewish law.  Then it would not be considered as a mitzvot but to the contrary.

Back in 1981, my neighbor in Safed, Israel, Harry Hazen, explained to me why these certain practices are not for women.  There are certain things that are only for men, and because one held to be only for men means that others cannot be done legitimately.    The wearing of tefillin  is expected just for men.  They are the straps that wrap around his arm and the box he wears on his forehead.    This is worn first for a boy when he is 13 and sets apart the men from the boys.  It is the religious symbol and ritual obligation identifying with becoming Bar-Mitzvah "of age."    A male Jew is testifying to his identification with the Jewish past, its present, and its future.  Whether he prays in the synagogue or in his home, it is a required daily weekday observance and something a woman does not have to do.  For the man, tefillin is a reminder of the entire Torah which he is bidden to observe.

Women are not bound  to the formal prayer service or the set times for the 3 daily services.  They are not required, as are the men, to join in public congregational worship.  This is taking into consideration a woman's primary responsibility as wife and mother.  A woman nursing a child is not expected to drop everything, including her baby, to attend set prayer schedules but a man is expected to arrange his schedule and work to conform to religious requirements.   The law can't distinguish between nursing and non-nursing mothers so this leniency extends to all.  Women are required to pray but can do so at anytime convenient for them and in private if they wish.  They attend synagogue on Sabbaths and festivals but their attendance is not a religious statutory requirement.

Women have had more respect and regard in Judaism than in any other religion.  Wasn't it the women who didn't give up in their 400 years of servitude in Egypt and kept on having children when the men had given up all hope? Mirium, sister of Moses  led the Israelite women in triumphal song and dance and is one of our prophets. She and her brother Aaron even challenged Moses's lone leadership.  For her chutzpah she suffered with leprosy, but it was a temporary condition.   Perhaps that is why Deborah (Devorah) from 1150 BCE roused the Israelite tribes to revolt under Barak against the Canaanite King Jabin of Hazor and Sisera as told in Judges 4:4.  She was a leader, prophetess and a judge.

We remember and respect our 4 matriarchs of the Jewish people, Sarah, wife of Abraham and mother of  Isaac; Rebekah, wife of Isaac and mother of Esau and Jacob; Leah, sister of Rachel and 1st wife of Jacob; Rachel, 2nd wife of Jacob. We also remember  Ruth the Moabite, daughter in law of Naomi and mother of King David, and  Queen Esther who saved all the Jews from total annihilation by Haman's  decree in Persia.  We've had Queen Jezebel of Israel and Queens Athaliah and Salome Alexandra of Judah.  We should not forget Prime Minister Golda Meier of Israel in today's world.  Women have not taken a back seat in our lives.

Back in the Hellenistic times Jewish women were treated in a superior status from Greek women.  A Jewish female was in independent legal personality permitted to own property either as a single or married woman.  .Monogamy didn't happen until about  1000 CE but continued in Oriental Jewries.  Judaism has always looked upon sex as a healthy act and so recognized a woman's dignity.  In Eastern Europe it was the tradition for the woman to work in order to help her husband to study.  Thus they became great businesswomen.  The Hadassah organization came about by women for women and have taken in men today as well.  Wizo (Women's International Zionist Organization)  is another one that helps the community, started by women.

In the USA Jewish women have been called the "Jewish American Princess"  because we expect to be treated royally by our husbands.   Every Friday night a Jewish man reads a special tract from the book of Proverbs 31 by King Solomon "A Woman of Valor" (Eshet Chayil) that speaks royally of his wife.  It also gives a woman something to live up to.   A male cannot but feel likewise if he's heard this all his life at his table as a son.

 Is a person a Jew or not? In orthodoxy  it depends on his mother.  If she's Jewish, he is also.  Not only is this something that could be verified as to where he came from, he is taught and raised by the mother. This is why.

Israel was created to be a democratic haven for Jews.  We have been without our state for over 2,000 years and have been living in Christian and Muslim lands with their laws.  Being we are a small group, 0.02% of the world population, this is the only Jewish state in the world with Jewish laws.  If we lose the taste of Judaism here, there will be no reason to call it a Jewish state.  Soon the population would be wiped..  Unlike any other state or country, Israel does have  rabbis who sets down the rules to be followed.  In fact, the Chief Rabbinate consists of 2, the Ashkenazi Rabbi Yona Metzger and the Sephardic Rabbi Shlomo Amar.  If Judaism is to continue in this world, it is important that our practices are happening in Israel.

There is one thing that rabbinic male Jews have a problem with, and that's in the Book of Proverbs which warns men against female wiles, and we have used them, for sure, I admit.  But it also depicts the "woman of worth" who is the mainstay of her household.  The Talmud is nervously aware of the sexual power of the woman.  Evidently Jewish men are easily aroused by a woman's hair whereas other men might be aroused by our legs, bottoms, or even upper arms as well as our faces.  This is why the Orthodox women cover their beautiful luxurious hair and are modest in their dress which includes covering their arms to below their elbows.   In the Middle Ages when Jews were objects of ownership by gentiles like the Blacks were in the USA's south not too long ago, the landlord would take a woman sexually before she was married  if he were such a cad, and many were.  So in order to turn him off, the young lady would shave her head.  He'd see her and suddenly freeze.  This has really been the basis for head coverings.

Women's rights in Judaism are found in the Mishnah (Horayot 3:7, in which it is stated that in some respects a woman takes precedence over a man and in others a man over a woman. A woman must be provided with clothing from the charity chest before a man because she suffers greater embarrassment.  If both man and woman are captured by bandits the woman must be ransomed first.  If both a man and woman stand in danger of defilement by bandits the man must be freed before the woman because his defilement (by other men) is unnatural.  Wow!  This tells me that raping has gone on ever since mankind including the act of man raping another man.  .

If both are in danger and only one can be saved, the man's life comes first.  I think that this is because of his ability to father more life.  We need the man's sperm to carry on a family line.  There are always very practical reasons for doing things. Could it also be that Jewish men were scarcer to have than women in a community:?  A man in turn was capable of defending more people than a woman was?    If both a man and a woman lose some property and only one of them gets theirs restored, the man comes first.

Quite frankly, I had noticed in Conservative synagogues  that with the change of accepting women in  a minyon  (10 Jews) that are needed at a service, the men were sluffing off.  They might have felt that their showing up was not a necessity to the group anymore.  That is sad.  It's been happening in the workplace as well.  They are being replaced.  I've always felt that Judaism had provided equal roles for men and for women.  I've even felt superior, being a Jewish princess, that we are not expected to show up for all these prayer groups because we are innately superior anyway.  It's the men who need to pray, ask for forgiveness and guidance, etc. We had other just as important responsibilities.

Isn't it amazing  to see  the subjects our Jewish  men have discussed and have come to agreements of what is right or wrong to do and put it all in writing?   It speaks to the mind and imagination and events over eons of time they knew about.  I bet that TV and movie script writers would love to have spoken with them to create more involved plots about life.  The book, "Portnoy's Complaint" by Philip Roth in 1969  goes into dealing with his strongly willed  Jewish mother and puts Jewish mothers in a bad light.  The novel tells the humorous monologue of "a lust-ridden, mother-addicted young Jewish bachelor", who confesses to his psychoanalyst in "intimate, shameful detail, and coarse, abusive language".

I'm proud to be a Jewish woman and love the fact that our religion goes back so far in time with such wisdom.  I'd hate to have our rituals  cast off.  They all make up the taste and flavor of our religion.  These are all reminders of who we are, our history  and what we should be doing and heavens knows we really do need them.  One only has to look at the reasons for these acts and know that there is an intelligence behind our religion.

Resource: Oregonian newspaper, February 13, 2013, page B8,  For orthodox religion, a tradition-modernity clash; Men Holding the Line, by Ruth Marcus on Editorial page.
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/587787/jewish/Is-it-appropriate-for-a-woman-to-wear-a-tallit.htm  by Rabbi Menachem Posner
 To Be a Jew-a guide to Jewish observance in contemporary life by Rabbi Hayim Halevy Donin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Rabbinate_of_Israel
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
What Does Judaism Say About.. ? by Louis Jacobs
http://judaism.about.com/od/shabbatprayersblessings/f/eshetchayil.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portnoy's_Complaint