I have three things in my life that set me apart from almost everyone around me -and the moment you hear them, you’ll probably lose all respect for me.

1. I’ve never read Harry Potter. (Sorry .)

2. I’ve seen Monster’s Inc. more probably than any of you. (My brain just can’t figure out how those doors work!)

3. And - I know, this one is the worst - I’ve never watched a single full episode of Seinfeld. Not one. (Sorry Jerry. And other Jerry.)

Last week, one of my more colorful chavrusas IRL had a fascinating idea that intrigued me for a whole lot of reasons.

For those who are somehow even less culturally informed than I am, here is a chatGPT summary (promted around the idea my chavrusa had):

Seinfeld is often described as “a show about nothing.” It takes ordinary, everyday situations and magnifies them into absurdism. The characters are obsessed with tiny social rules, misunderstandings, etiquette questions, personal grievances, and perceived injustices. Someone cuts in line. Someone fails to return a favor. Someone violates an unspoken social norm. A trivial annoyance spirals into a major dispute.

My balebatishe/goyishe chavrusa was watching Seinfeld, and he found himself pondering about the halachic side, who actually is right? Is there an issue of mazik, gezeila, ona’ah or geneivas da’as? Would Beis Din side with anyone involved, or would they just tell everyone to stop being so ridiculous?

My chavrusa thought that since I am an interesting mix of being a halacha person and a fun person (go me!), I might be the right person to analyze these situations through a halachic lens.

So, are there any bored people interested in collabing? (I wouldn’t do more than a post weekly or biweekly - depending on how busy my schedule gets.)

I would need a volunteer (or several volunteers) who actually knows the show. The job would be to summarize the relevant episode or scenario, present the facts and the dispute, and formulate the question. Also important: to have smarts to know which things will be interesting, juicy halachic queries, not just summarize everything. I would then try and analyze it from a halachic perspective and write up a response in a fun way. In other words: you bring the Seinfeld and I’ll bring the Shulchan Aruch.

The results could be entertaining, obviously educational, and hopefully sometimes shocking.

(Thinking down the line, maybe we could eventually turn this into a book as well, who knows? And this can be done with Seinfeld, Larry David’s Curb, and plenty of other movies and TV shows - the opportunities are endless!)

I’m not a fan of promoting pop-culture, especially when there are inappropriate scenes all overs, and to bring that world into the beis midrash is unholy and wrong. To the contrary, my objective is for those already in that culture, to bring the fascinating world of the beis midrash to them! Basically, I hope no one watches any extra TV because of this series (if it even happens), but I do hope people will learn more halacha than they would’ve otherwise.

Emails, DMs or just comments here are all fine.

PS - Also, looking for good titles for this series. I think “Making Something Out of Nothing” is good (maybe “Nothing in Halacha” or “Halacha about Nothing”), but I’m open to better ideas, and different ideas.

PPS - Look, I know we’ve all declared bankruptcy from supporting the undisputed King of Frumstack, , so I certainly don’t expect a dime from you!1 And full disclosure: I don’t even drink coffee. Any support here will probably fund more books to make me wiser, or - if we hit the jackpot - a gift for my wife, which will definitely make me wiser (and ensure I survive to write another post).

I have paid subs turned on - feel free to upgrade - but if you’d like to show a little love, you can throw a few coffees - or whatever you’re comfortable with - my way as a one-time thing. Consider this my shameless, lighthearted plug for your support!

To be clear, writing this goes against every core value I hold dear - except for the fact that I love money, and it’s completely blinding my judgment :/

https://buymeacoffee.com/shulman

Before his frozen dead body was discovered next to the Canadian National Railway tracks, Chanie Wenjack was an innocent young boy - who once had a good sense of humor - trying to get home safe, away from the monsters who were abusing him.

In 1963, Chanie had been placed in the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School in Kenora, Ontario. He and three sisters were forcibly taken from their home in Ogoki Post at nine years old “in order to receive a better education.” For three years, he was caged away miles from his parents, in a severely racist, church-run institution whose sole purpose was to strip these “un-Canadian” children of their language and identity.

Their hair was cut, they were punished for speaking their own ‘evil’ languages, they were beaten, humiliated, starved, malnourished - food and water were weaponized - sexually abused, and subjected to horrific living conditions.

A child who had been torn away from his mother wasn’t allowed to hug another frightened child; they were punished for comforting one another; comfort itself was a danger.

Three years in this hell, where every warm memory of home was systematically erased.

On October 16, 1966, Chanie ran away.

He was twelve.

He embarked on his journey into the scary, frigid Canadian winter, carrying just a light windbreaker and a few matches. He was to follow the Canadian National Railway; his destination was Marten Falls, his home, hundreds of miles away. He was wholly unequipped for the bitter cold and probably had no real idea where he was going, but it was warmer and safer than the hell he was in.

For six days, he walked. And his bruised, cold and starved body was found alone beside the railway tracks near Redditt, Ontario.

The idea of focusing on gender differences in society can be dangerous, because they can very easily lead to women being objectified. And that’s awful for two reasons.

First, historically women are, and always have been exploited for their beauty in so many terrible ways.

And second, even when there isn’t outright exploitation, if a man sees a woman as a “beautiful thing” rather than for who she really is, he isn’t really having a relationship with her. He has substituted the person herself for the external. And as much as she may love being beautiful and attractive to him, she wants to be seen as a person even more. Her husband shouldn’t be so blinded by her beauty to lose the woman underneath it.

Each of these is an important topic in its own right, and I think the second one may help clarify some of the confusion from my previous posts and maybe get us all on the same page.

1. Women have been exploited

This is true in oh so many ways. Obviously r*pe, meaning men using women’s bodies against their will to pleasure themselves. And I mean this even within marriages. She is a human being with feelings, not a toy. Nothing should ever be done without her consent, which should be obvious, but too often isn’t.

And women haven’t just been exploited for their bodies. They have been exploited for their vulnerability, for their kindness, for the fact that they would do almost anything to protect their children, and even for their willingness to protect their marriage. to try again and again and make it work despite his selfishness. History is full to the brim with terrible stories upon horrible stories upon appalling stories of men abusing women for their pleasure and selfishness.

I don’t believe that The Patriarchy™ is inherently evil, but I do believe that we should do something about a system that can be used to justify such terrible things. (I take more of a Locke “Tabula Rasa” position on people.)

A single woman getting hurt because of a system is enough reason to examine the system that allowed it to happen, and the number of women who have been hurt in these ways is beyond staggering.

According to the latest estimates of the International Labour Organization (ILO), Walk Free, and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), around 6.3 million people are trapped in forced commercial sexual exploitation worldwide on any given day. Women and girls account for 78% to 99% of this - estimated at 4.9 million to 6.2 million female victims daily (including over 1.7 million children forced into sex trafficking).

And besides active trafficking, global health data shows that lifetime severe sexual violence is much worse - approximately 1 in 5 women worldwide (around 800 million) experience completed or at least attempted rape at some point.

Even the terrible injustice a few of those millions of individuals daily whose lives are shattered, broken and abused because of the rampant evil should consume you with rage and chill you to the core, and make you think again if you thought people are crazy for calling The Patriarchy evil.

Obviously fighting ideas that easily lead to male entitlement and female subordination is an important part of fighting this abuse and exploitation.1

But that doesn’t mean that gender differences themselves are the problem, or that the answer is to pretend men and women are the same. In the context of marriage, I think understanding those differences actually helps spouses love each other better. And that brings me to what I think is the more important issue here: even when a man isn't exploiting a woman, he can still fail to see her as a whole person. He can see her beauty without really seeing her.

2. Substituting “her” for “her beauty”

A husband has to be very careful because as much as beauty is a big part of marriage for both sides of the union, it has its place. Being beautiful for someone else is a very vulnerable thing to do (or at least it’s supposed to be). But she will do it, and happily, for the man whom she respects. She’ll want to. She’s attracted to him and wants to be his beautiful woman. But again, it’s vulnerable, and it has its place.

Basically, the way I have it in a sentence: it’s true that his relationship with his wife is not supposed to be platonic, but it also needs to be.

When a guy first falls for a girl, it’s never platonic at all, and if it is, there’s an issue. He is “heels over head”2 gaga over her and just wants to spend more and more time with her, his beauty, his light. And if she reciprocates and falls in love back, either emotionally or because she feels he is the right person to be vulnerable with, it’s because she wants to feel beautiful from him in a way others won’t and can’t make her feel. There is beauty and romance in the air!

But as life goes on, a certain level of platonic, ordinary friendship comes along. They need to pay the bills, take care of the kids - life gets super busy. A marriage needs romance and sexual attraction, but it also needs friendship. He needs to be someone she can talk to, someone who listens to her day and cares about its ups and downs, someone who will help her when she is overwhelmed, someone who will sit next to her on Tuesday night and just be there.

In a good marriage, they work on keeping the spark alive. He cherishes her, they hug and kiss, they make time for intimacy, and they respect each other in a way only a husband and wife can. But he also needs to be there for her in the completely unromantic parts of life. While they are frantically trying to deal with the busyness of life, he needs to be there for her as a friend - practical, helpful, and caring. Because ’s post (like and subscribe!) - if he doesn’t do his part in making her load easier, he isn’t really respecting her as a person. He is enjoying the pretty parts while leaving the person underneath out. She won’t - and shouldn’t - want to be vulnerable with him if that’s the relationship he is offering her. She wants a guy who will love her romantically and sexually, but who will also love all of her. Who will help her weather life’s storms, who will listen and care about her day and its ups and downs, who she will feel understood by in every way.

Basically if the entire relationship is about the attraction part, that misses the point; but at the same time, if the relationship is only platonic, you’re in trouble the other way. A proper marriage synthesizes the two. On the one hand, she is your princess, your light, your love. This is the attraction part of the relationship, and it should be there every second until they die. But she is much more than a romantic partner. They are partners in every aspect of their lives (so long as they don’t lose their individuality, not for now). They each have goals and aspirations and hobbies and desires. They each have other friends and social circles besides each other, jobs, responsibilities, and different things they are trying to accomplish. If they truly love all of each other, they will support each other in all of these things, beyond the passionate love that binds them together.

In fact, that love is the bedrock of every second of their day. The desire to make her feel truly cared for and cherished, supporting her in whatever she is and wants as a person, is all an outgrowth of the passion that pulls them together. The love between a husband and wife who truly care for each other, not just in a passionate way but in every way, pours through everything they do together. While he’s at work, he has a spring in his step and her kiss on his cheek all day. Even if he gets busy and isn’t focusing on her specifically, she is his home no matter where he is. She is where he will go back to after the day is over, with the fruits of his labor, the funny stories from his day, and probably more stories of all the ups and downs of hers.

And for most women, marriage occupies a large part of their mental and emotional world throughout the day as well. They may be physically apart, but they are still thinking about their husband, their children, their home, their responsibilities, and everything else that makes up their shared life.

When he helps out, listens, and truly cares for all of her, he’s not leaving the romantic relationship on the side, to the contrary, he’s expressing it. And if he truly cares for all of her, then she actually wants to be beautiful to him. In a sense, she wants to be “objectified” by him. She wants to be desired - yes, sexually - by the man who knows her and loves her. That’s not a problem in a good marriage. It’s what she wants. The problem is when he only objectifies her and loses her as a person. Then he killed the relationship in which her beauty was supposed to be only one part of it.

basically, the answer to objectification is not be to stop seeing women as beautiful. And the answer to traditional gender roles cannot be to pretend that men and women are interchangeable. The answer is to put everything in its proper place.

She is a person before she is beautiful. She is a person with a mind, a personality, dreams, fears, responsibilities, and a whole inner world. Her husband needs to love her, not just the way she looks.

But she is also his woman. He should be attracted to her. He should think she is beautiful. She should feel beautiful in his eyes. That isn’t a contradiction to seeing her as a person. In a healthy marriage, the two things reinforce each other.

She doesn’t want to just be a beautiful object. She wants to be a beautiful woman who is deeply, completely, and personally loved.

Ultimately, when I talked about gender differences and the choreography of marriage, the goal wasn’t to put women in a box. It was to explain the different ways men and women complement each other, while never losing the fact that underneath all of it are two human beings trying to love each other well.

Love all of her.

I started writing a comment but it was getting long, so here is post number three. Parts one and two are here and here. And if you thought I was being dicey before, wait ‘til you read this!

A major critique I have seen in different forms is that I am simplifying things too much; that women are much more complicated than I am making them out to be; that it should be left to the women to write about gender, at least about their gender. Someone else said no one should be writing about gender; every case is so specific and nuanced and, basically, let everyone figure everything out for themselves.

Many people have expressed something along these lines - you know who you are - and I want to defend myself here.

My response (which I started writing as a comment): Absolutely not! That’s not true at all. I think many, many people can benefit from my analysis.

Of course gender is complicated and extremely nuanced. And everyone is different. But you know what happens when we leave everyone to figure it out for themselves? Men don’t understand their wives - extreme frustration. Women can’t understand why their husbands can’t understand them - more frustration. Women, dare I “mansplain,” often don’t understand their very own selves - even more frustration in a marriage, because if they don’t understand what they want, how can their husbands even try?1

I never (I would’ve thought, obviously) meant to imply that things are simple. Rally, are people ever simple? I did write a “simple sentence” in the beginning but then spent the entire rest of the article explaining it, and then another post beyond that (and I wouldn’t be shocked if I ended up penning a third at this rate and here’s the third!).

Apparently certain premises were obvious to me, but not to some readers, which I guess makes sense with such a sensitive topic.

So, adjustment Number one: this whole gender discussion begins only in the context of a loving and thriving marriage. Anyone can do or be anything they want, and there are absolutely no prescripts. But, if you want a happy, healthy marriage, these ideas of masculinity and femininity are wholly central. (True in gay marriages as well from what I’ve read and seen on that, but I’ll leave it to those who know to verify.)

My point in this whole (what is becoming a) series exists only within the context of the union of marriage - and a marriage is supposed to start after the two partners’ personal individualities are clearly defined. I spoke briefly about this in my post on morality, “My Theory of Morality” which I’ll quote:

Each of us has more than one “identity”:

• as an individual,

• as a family member, [in our case, as a spouse]

• as a community member,

• as part of mankind.

Even once someone gets married, their individual identities are very much supposed to stay, and in fact be cultivated and utilized to make their larger marital identity what makes it unique from another couple. For this reason no two marriages are at all alike; no two homes are the same, and for this reason in every couple, each spouse needs to “learn up” their particular partners and create the marital identity around that.

But at the same time in a good marriage, there are actual general scripts called gender that can and should be talked about, because they are the bedrock of the attraction which, in turn, is the bedrock of the marriage, and the home at large.

And at the end of the day, what differentiates the woman from the man and is the root of his attraction to her is that she is is beautiful. And again, I mean that in every sense of that word, not just the shallow.

And vice versa, he is a man, built for practicality, problem solving, getting out there, and her attraction to him comes from that (nuance aside).

I (appropriately) used the word capable, because that is what his innermost desire as a man cares to be. Does this mean men don’t care about looks? You don’t call a man ugly either, that’s just not nice. Many men are extremely bothered when their wife says something to imply they are physically undesirable, because that is all part of the female attraction as well, and he knows it. And because we are all human - even more than we are specific genders and no human wants to be perceived as ugly for obvious reasons.

Conversely, many women care about capability in the very sense I used it to define men: they want a career and to fix the world, even in a masculine way. Heck, everyone human wants respect and everyone wants to make a difference in the world.

But at the end of the day, there are major gender difference which are extremely important in a marriage. Women generally won’t feel fulfilled without spending time with their kids and building a family, which is at the very least what I call a full-time-part-time job. Adding a career means juggling even more. Meanwhile, a man is thrilled to be out all day doing that job he loves and to be home only to say hi and “show up,” to spend time with his precious kids for a few minutes.

And again, there is nuance and a spectrum and every single person and every couple is different. But it’s still fair to say that generally, most women, and men, would benefit greatly from appreciating the points I’m making. A woman who is not in touch with this part of herself because of a million reasons will still be miserable that her husband isn’t giving her the darling attention she wants from him.

And yes, if he would treat her to a sparkly diamond, she’d love it. And to clarify what apparently wasn’t so clear: I’m not saying that he should hand her money so she can just buy the pretty earrings she wants. He should make it a relationship piece. He should take her out and treat her and spend the time and make her feel special. And she will feel special. A man who treats his wife this way will make his wife happy, and the marriage will thrive and blow up to heights you can’t imagine possible. Instead of the frustration, which is just hell, because the highest of heights creates the potential for the lowest of lows.

We can keep this topic taboo and not discuss it, and I don’t think anyone will be better off.

But wait, there’s more. (This is the dicey part which I’m in over my head...)

A woman whose husband does not do these things, who does not make his wife feel special in that feminine way - she has no control over him and it would seem she is stuck where she is. She can still be happy as a person, of course, but she will never feel that “taken care of” thing people talk about.

So, first of all, that’s why I’m ultimately a man writing to men that they should wake up and treat their wives like a wife, a princess, deserves to be treated.

But many women are reading this - and I’m more than happy that they are - and if one of them reads my articles and her husband isn’t treating her like a princess, what is she supposed to do?

Often women in that situation tell themselves it’s okay that I’m not a princess. What an immature thing to think anyways. I’ll find fulfilment in my children, validation in my job. And she then becomes “the male presence” in her own life, protecting herself and taking care of her own needs.

Mind you, she has to do this on top of all the other responsibilities she was given by the culture, and more: she has to keep her home running because at the end of the day she will often be a complete martyr to make sure her children have a running and “happy” home. Which, btw, is exceedingly wise of her. Many bad men in history have used her children as ransom to keep her chained to his awful will. And nine times out of ten she’ll be mature and keep her head up and the home running, despite not getting to feel like a pretty princess in return.

She’ll obviously be miserable and either doesn’t fully understand why, or she does understand clear as day what she is missing but just has no way out of this hell. She may not even realize it’s hell because she’ll tell herself in a million ways that it’s okay. But she’s not happy. At all.

If you read my article and didn’t like it, this may be you.

I know I can’t say that, right?

And of course no one has to or should speak up publicly about this - this is like literally the most private thing one can tell the world: “Yah my husband isn’t doing his job to make me feel like his princess.”

I don’t mean any commenter specifically meant any of this c’v. No one said anything to make me think they were reacting to a specific personal situation. There are a million factors at play, a thousand different reasons why a woman may not feel in touch with her femininity, including but not limited to: cultural influence, past experiences, just haven’t been married to a man yet, and even difficulties in life that force a certain masculine-type mission upon you. All that besides that there are just outliers.

And if this description is you, your experience is valid. You can absolutely feel fulfilled as an amazing mother and through success in your career. But you will not unlock the joys of marriage if you keep this part of yourself buried.

So what can she do?

The only reason I’m daring to say any of this is because, at least most of the time, there is a way out: she should communicate to her husband that she is miserable and she is missing something in her life. Missing what? Missing being made to feel like the princess she is.

And she is more than welcome to show him my article.

The truth is that most husbands actually want to make their wives happy. He wants to make his wife - the woman, the beauty, the light of his life - happy. Honestly, truly and really. But men are often confused about how to deal with their wives. They can’t figure them out. They are told that marriage is amazing and the bedroom is supposed to be amazing. And they try all kinds of things and it doesn’t work and their wives are still miserable. Women are from Mars and they are an enigma and we just have to put up with their craziness. often, they lose hope and feel like things are broken. And they even stop trying, because one of the biggest motivators to continue pursuing something is seeing fruits, and here they just see frustration. They don’t know why their wives are so miserable, and they may think it’s just “women are miserable” or that their wife is broken.

If he would know his role and if he would know what she wants, he’d do a much better job at what he already wants to do anyways.

So, good advice: have him read these articles! Especially the first. He should understand how she wants him to make her feel. She should communicate that she wants (and expects) to be treated like a princess, however that plays out for her. That he should make her life easier, more breathable, and that he treat her like the princess, the angel, the woman she truly is.

Or… don’t show him the articles at all and pretend they’re your own ideas. Point is, just let him know you want him to make you feel like a princess. Happens to be, hearing it from a guy may help, using my “guy language.”

And you can tweak it to what you like. If you don’t care about earrings, figure out what you would like. And he wants to do this! He wants to make her happy. (- In most cases. If not, it’s beyond me; go see a therapist. And unless he just needs some time to adjust, I would say stay away with a ten foot pole if he’s actually not interested in making you happy, and even toy around with the word divorce. But she may sadly choose to keep up the facade for the sake of her children).

They may save a long and difficult, possibly unhelpful string of therapy sessions.

Now, I understand that this is a random article on Substack; I’m a rando anon blogger guy, not even a therapist. I’m a caring, thoughtful guy fwiw, but at the end of the day, I’m just a random guy, a nobody, and anyone else here can say whatever they want. I’m sharing my thoughts, things I thought about long and hard over many years. My only credentials are simply that I’m married, I read and think a lot, I’m usually considered to be a clear, sane thinker, I do have some experience with couples, and I’m just really good at ‘people.’ Not a professional, not a therapist.

Because of that, I should make it clear that I am not preaching or prescribing anything. I’m thinking out loud, and if it resonates, great. if not, think along with me and help me tweak. If I’m wrong, please speak up. I really appreciate those who have spoken up until now - I’ve gotten a better perspective from many of you, if only in how to talk about the topic with the right sensitivity.

Also, even if you think I’m wrong, keep this in mind as food for thought; let it sit a while. Let it brew. As is known, femininity can change over time when a woman is allowed the chance to “get in touch” with that side of her. I just found a nicely written note from which I’ll use as an example, although plenty of others echoed the same sentiment:

…being married is actually a fairly important qualification for having an opinion on this topic. I’m not sure my wife or I would have agreed with this take before we were happily married. She actually told me that, as a liberal-leaning teenager, she would have thought this was silly and disagreed with it. I think I may have thought the same way. But as a married couple, it all checks out. She became much more in touch with her femininity, which is pretty much in line with what shulman is saying.

So even if you don’t agree, keep these ideas in mind and see if they come true after the femininity is allowed to flow. Just another thought.

And I apologize if I’m wrong about some things, or even if I’m correct, but people feel hurt. I promise I’m not trying to hurt anyone, but discussing these sensitive topics can bring out a lot of unchecked pain.

I’m probably way out of my league for even touching any of this.

But no one else is. No one is saying these important things out loud.

And - especially with the topic of gender roles - as Chazal tell us, when there is no man, be the man. So I’m trying. Thanks for coming along for the ride.

My latest article got more flak than any other post ever. I think it also got more traffic in the first twenty-four hours than any post ever.

I’m used to being a relatively sane voice, if you will, so it was fun to be the one under attack for once, to have a rare L take (in people’s eyes; honestly, it’s still a W). As I always say, I don’t like an echo chamber, and I’m here to learn, so it was refreshing for me, to be honest. I thank everyone for their feedback, and I would like to respond, because honestly, I’m a little confused by what I found.

I think there were two main critiques. (Well, besides the silly (IMO) critiques that I’m a man explaining how women work (I guess “mansplaining”), and that I’m religious - I’ll write a small footnote here about these.1)

1. I entirely left out that women are human beings, and all I am caring about is their beauty.

2. Women are adults, not children, and I’m infantilizing them. I should use the word “queen” instead of “princess.” Repeating that they like “sparkly things” sounds demeaning.

These are separate problems, and I’ll deal with each individually, but there is major overlap. For starters, with both of these, I must apologize if I came off as demeaning. That was not my intention.

But I also think some context is important.

I’ll start with that I made it sound like all that matters is the beauty. And that’s not true - women are much more than their beauty. See Gayil’s well written(as always) comment, to pick one from many. But honestly, this is part three of a series. Part one of the series was very clear, and was specifically a part one, that women are definitely people first and women second:

I apologize for my rare AI use in that article, but I think what I wrote there stands strong: women are people first, women second. (I also focused on the regal aspect of womanhood there, as opposed to the “princess-y aspect; see what I wrote about the “Abuela” and so on.) My mistake was not linking that article right away and explaining that that is a prerequisite to this. So yes, women are people first, women second, and must be treated such in every which way.

But they are still women. And they want to be. And not wanting to be is not going to make them happier.

That was the premise going into this article. My focus in this article was on the relationship between man and woman. And in that regard, I still have to say that, besides perhaps the fact that I could have worded some things a little differently, I haven’t seen any substantial arguments against the core of what I was saying.

In fact, I think the criticism about my usage of the word “princess” gets to the heart of the disagreement.

I used the word princess instead of queen. Emily Rose responded:

My main issue as a 32 yr old woman was with the continuous use of the words “doll”, “girly”, “sparkly” and “princess”.

There are different genres of beauty (emotional and physical).

Princess is one. Girly, young, innocent, glittery.

But another is the Queen. Regal, intelligent, aware, graceful.

And I agree with her distinction, there are different genres of beauty. But “queen” can exactly miss and lose the entire point I was making and focusing on.

Of course queen fits better to describe a woman in general; it implies intelligence and grace, it sounds mature and dignified. But the point I was making actually is the lightness.

The girliness, the princessiness. Yes, at the risk of people getting angry, the superficiality, the frivolity.

A woman should be respected for who she is. She is a person, full of insane accomplishments, and she is much more than a girl who likes sparkly things. But I don’t think people have a problem respecting women for who they are. What’s missing in many marriages actually is this girliness.

A woman doesn’t lose her love for sparkly things. Does that make her a child?

I don’t think so. I think it means she is a woman.

maybe it’s an uncomfortable question, but: what does femininity actually mean?

I invite all the haters to put forth a definition that would make them happier.

It’s almost a fact that women like pretty things. Again, people first, women second and a woman does not need to like sparkly things just like a guy does not need to love a drill if he doesn’t. But most guys do. And most girls love sparkly and pretty things.

They enjoy getting diamond rings. They enjoy a manicure. They enjoy having a beautiful home. To deny this is silly. (I don’t think most commenters denied this.)

And there shouldn’t be any shame in that; it’s nature.

If it seems shallow, maybe ask yourself if “being shallow” is necessarily a bad thing.

And being shallow in this sense absolutely does not mean women are stupid or incapable of getting degrees and being rocket scientists. Many women are way smarter and more capable than many men. I thought this was “Duh.”

But even when they are, their femininity (at least in a marriage, the background for the whole concept of gender roles, what the post was about) is essential in everything they do.

If she is a brain surgeon and he marries her, he will be proud of her accomplishments. He will love and respect that aspect of her too - but in the context of the fact that she is a woman. He didn’t marry a brain surgeon who happens to be female. He married a brain surgeon who is female. said it well:

I read the post clearly as this being part of the beauty which a man finds attractive. Part of her beauty is her accomplishments, and these may include being a member of Knesset (I’m exaggerating). And if her fulfillment comes from outside the home, that is 100% part of her femininity. I see this practically with my married children. Not one husband minds doing the dishes. Not one wife wants to stay home and only be a mother/maid. It’s all combined.

Her femininity matters a lot; it is literally why he married her. That she is an accomplished, successful person is all part of the package she is. And another - big - part of the package is that she is a woman and that she brings prettiness into their life.

And I should clarify, when I say pretty, I don’t mean just external beauty. It is her warmth, her softness, her personality, her femininity. It is actually all of her, like Gayil says. And furthermore, she can be a strong businesslike CEO, but she still wants to be his princess. She still wants to be wearing a pretty diamond ring (and from him at that).

Similarly, she can be in pajamas, with no makeup, her hair a mess, and she is still his princess. She can be sad about whatever, her mascara smudged, and she is still his princess. The point is not that she always has to look pretty like a doll. She wants to be seen by him as beautiful, even when she isn’t trying to be. Actually, that’s really what I was trying to express when I said that she is his princess. (I agree the word “role” probably wasn’t the best choice; I was actually going for the vibe that it she should be happy to just “be” in a sense. I thought women would like that - I guess I was wrong and I do apologize.)

But back to the point, does the fact that she loves pretty things mean women are kids? No. It means they are women. I don’t see the problem in expressing this.

I think these topics can be uncomfortable, because it gets dangerously close to ideas of submission and shallowness and other feminist (good “rights feminist” issues), but denying the reality is not going to help anyone. I want to hear the hard truth, and I want to see if your final definition is really so different from mine.

I wrote, for example, that women treat window shades like they’re the most important thing. A female commenter rolled her eyes as if I’m insane.

But the truth is, I’m not insane at all. My eyes are wide open. Any woman who buys a home and has to put up with ugly window shades, and is embarrassed to have people walk into the house because it looks messy, knows what I’m talking about. Sure, there are women who don’t share these standards of living - good for them - and are perfectly fine with junky window shades. Fine, window shades are a cultural thing, and I know many people like don’t care. But, I almost guarantee it, they will have other things they care about just as much.2

A woman shouldn’t be embarrassed on Substack to say she loves a beautiful diamond ring, or a pretty dress. It’s your nature, and it’s important to you.

And heck, I’m correct. Anyone who has been around women in the world knows this: you never insult a woman’s looks. She cares to be pretty.

And it has nothing to do with being religious. We can discuss it from a secular evolutionary perspective as well, as I mentioned at the end of the post regarding mating for offspring. He needs a nurturing and soft personality to enable healthy children, and she needs a strong guy to keep them safe.

Women, and men, who are in touch with their specific gender strengths are happier. And I never meant to imply that a woman is only her beauty.

I would have hoped that, if you’ve gotten to know me, you would know that I think women are people first, women second.

But to deny that a woman lights up a room - and to deny that this is something she wants - is very strange to me.

I actually thought, against my better judgment apparently, that a woman would be happy to hear that someone understands that she wants pretty things. Of course she wants to be respected for who she is. And if I said anything to make you think otherwise, that is simply not the case. But I even purposely used the word princess and not queen, because I think the “princess mode” is what is ignored very often.

Btw, men are far more childish and infantile in many ways. But their childishness is actually a negative for the most part. For a woman, I don’t think it’s supposed to be forgotten.

She can be a brain surgeon. She can be a CEO. She can be smarter than her husband. She can accomplish things that would make your head spin. But she can still like sparkly things. That’s was my point.

So here is what I actually want to ask all those who didn’t agree with my article - or, “Attn Women of Substack”:

Explain to me, in your terms, what femininity means to you.

And then let’s see how different our definitions actually are.

I’m here to learn, and even if my wife agrees with me on this one, I don’t ever want an echo-chamber on Substack. And btw, my wife is smarter and wiser than me and she is absolutely not an echo-chamber, and whenever we disagree she’s almost always right (always, if you’re reading this dear;). And, I’m proud to say, she’s in the corporate world, and very successful at that. But still, I’m open to hearing other POVs, and I’m looking to learn and grow and if i got something wrong, besides tone which I can work on, please speak up. But I need complete honesty.

A few weeks ago, a woman emailed me with a specific question and as I was responding, I managed to formulate a lot of it really clearly within one lone - albeit long - email (so proud of myself!). So while it still is a bit messy and rough, here is the email I received verbatim, and my response lightly polished up for Substack.

Hi Shulman,

I just need to say, I really appreciate your blog, especially the breadth of topics covered. Most of all, for me personally, I used to resent my culture, the “Charedi” culture—I viewed them as lazy and fundamentally unproductive. For context, I’ve been an avid reader of Slifkin for years, but reading your articles has actually softened my stance just a wee bit, and I find myself hating them just a little less now.

I’ll admit I don’t care much for your posts on atheism or philosophy. (Sorry.) I’m certainly no philosopher, nor do I consider atheism a viable path. But your sporadic posts on marriage and commentaries on culture are a real breath of fresh air, and I’m grateful for them.

I’m writing because I’d love to hear your thoughts, any thoughts, on an issue I struggle with on “Women in Judaism.” Just to be completely clear at the outset: I love being a woman, and I also don’t believe men are inherently selfish or malicious. But I do struggle with a certain dynamic in our culture, and I hope you can shed some light on it.

I love being a mother. Don’t get me wrong, it’s exhausting and arduous work. But nothing in life brings me greater joy than my children. What I struggle with is being a wife. My husband is a good man who treats me well, so this isn’t an indictment of him personally. It’s about how women as a whole are treated in our society.

To give you an example of what repulses me: a coworker was sharing a story recently and mentioned, almost fondly, how her husband pointed out the dirty dishes in the sink and mentioned how much he dislikes seeing them there. She thought it was cute, oddly enough (good for her, I guess?), but it made my stomach turn. Why did he voice that grievance to her? So that she should clean up? If the sight offends him so much, why not just wash them himself?

If that were an isolated case, I’d let it slide, but this mindset is so pervasive! I know so many couples where I see the husband feels an unchecked entitlement to his wife’s services. He’ll just sit there at the kitchen table and ask her to make him a coffee. He’s made his own coffee for years—every day—in yeshiva, but suddenly marriage grants him a maid? Why are we expected to absorb the brunt of his laziness? Why are we the maids? Is that what a wife is? I didn’t sign that contract....

It feels like a very consistent cultural pattern. Men are the primary, and women are expected to honor and serve their kings. I love Judaism and want nothing else, yet I can’t help feeling a tiny pang of jealousy when I see how other cultures prioritize basic equality for women. I don’t think other cultures are sublime either, and my issue, in any case, isn’t external so the details don’t matter. But internally: why is this imbalance an acceptable and understood status quo in our world?

I hope I’m not coming off a rambling complainer, and I’m purposely keeping it brief, despite having plenty more to get off my chest. I would really appreciate any thoughts or insights you might have.

“Shevy”

Hi Shevy,

Thank you for your kind words, and I appreciate the candor.

I’ll be honest, I feel like I’m missing a piece of your actual story (these things tend to really bother people when they have some personal occurrence) - you absolutely do not need to share! - but I can talk about the points you’re bringing up on their own merit, personal story aside.

First of all, you are correct: women are not maids. I would like to show where this attitude comes from in a moment, but it’s still important, especially for men, to know that their wives are not maids. If the kitchen sink is full of dirty dishes and it bothers him, he should roll up his sleeves and get to it. And if not, he should at least bite his lip and not dare make a silly comment about his wife not doing her job. And with the coffee as well, he’s been making coffee all his life; marriage does not magically make his wife an espresso machine.

So yes, I agree that this is a problem in our culture.

But I think part of the problem comes from not having a clear picture of what a woman’s role in a marriage actually is. So allow me to “ramble” a bit as well (you did say any thoughts!). I’m basically going to pull together a bunch of notes I have and centralize them here to answer your question. I’ll use headings to make it smoother.

The three roles

In my setup, a woman basically has three roles in marriage:

1. Mother

2. Princess

3. Supporter

Obviously, these overlap and work together, but they are still distinct.

“Mother” is her role as a mother. This deserves its own elaboration, but is unnecessary for the point being made here; I’m including it only for the sake of completion (perhaps we’ll touch on it lightly later). “Princess” and “Supporter” are the two sides of her role as a wife.

Put simply, Princess is what she gets out of the marriage, while Supporter is what she contributes to the marriage. And both are necessary for understanding the choreography of marriage, and for understanding the distinct roles of men and women. For this, I want to back up a second.

Men and women

Men and women are very different. I’ve seen this explained in many different ways, and most of them never quite satisfied me. If I had to put it as simply as possible, I would say: Women are beautiful. Men are capable.1 Of course, men must care about their appearance, and women need to be competent. But these terms point to how men and women experience both themselves and each other, and this is the choreography of marriage, as we’ll explain.

What women want

When a woman is told - whether outright or implied (even if the implication is really only in her head) - that she is not pretty, that is an attack on her very sense of self. Her beauty, as a woman, is a big part of her self-worth.

And when I say “beauty,” I don’t mean only physical beauty, although obviously that is part of it. I mean her distinctly feminine essence: softness, warmth, emotional lightness, the way she experiences life and expresses herself in it.

A woman doesn’t need to be a conventional “ten,” or even a “mid” (my deepest apologies for even mentioning this stupid culture). Even when she is not a model in the conventionally sense, there is a feminine presence that is itself beautiful.

(Of course, a man shouldn’t marry a woman he isn’t attracted to. She should be his ten, because to him, she actually is. Out of all the women in the world, she is his entire “world of woman.” But what he is attracted to isn’t only her body or her lips. It is also the femininity behind those things.)

I’ll add one point about beauty, loosely based on (I guess more “inspired by”) Miriam Kosman’s opening idea in her book2: a woman simply is beautiful. She doesn’t need to earn her beauty. It’s in her looks, her laugh, her soft voice. It’s in the fact that her pretty window shades are the most important thing, and that she loves how her diamond ring sparkles. The way she sits there enjoying life without a care in the world is beautiful. It’s her whole being, the entire aura she carries and exudes.

It’s hard to explain this perfectly, but anyone who is a girl, or is married to one, knows what I mean. He enjoys her pretty face and body, of course, but he also genuinely enjoys her - her femininity, her girliness,3 the way she makes a room feel lighter, the way she brings life and beauty into the ordinary day - all of that is an extension of the beauty that she is.

A woman wants to feel beautiful. From inside out.

What men want

When a man is made to feel inept or incapable - whether outright or implied - that is an attack on his very sense of self. A man is a builder, a doer. He wants to accomplish things, build things, provide things, master things. He wants to feel competent. He wants to feel that he can actually do something.

And just like there is no actual universal standard for beauty, there also isn’t a universal standard for what competence means and one man’s accomplishment is not another’s. It depends on the strengths and values he was given. Some are intellectual achievers, some more action-based. But as everyone knows, if you want to insult a guy, strike him at his competence.

What men want in a woman

Fascinatingly, the same way a woman wants to feel beautiful - she wants to be a doll, a princess, a light in the world - a man wants a woman who will be his beautiful doll, his princess, his light in the world.

A man without a woman, as he comes of age, lives in this darkness and depression that he may not even be able to explain. He has a yearning, a void to fill. He wants his dull, male life to be filled with girly light and warmth. He marries that girl who will bring that girliness into his world. A girly who cares about frivolous things like glittery objects on her wrist and the details of the picture frame moldings on the wall.

He wants a home which is entirely lit up with her girliness. We all heard the idea that the home is the extension of the woman. I think generally people think this means that she feels her competence judged by how she keeps her home. But it is actually much more: what this means is that she, with her distinct taste, manifests herself into her entire home and she permeates every corner of the home with her light and beauty. She cares about the stain on the wall and the color of the couch because that ugliness and darkness that is something that belongs in a BMG dorm, not in a home that she imbues. IMO, it’s not really her competence as much as her essence, much like her looks.

A man wants a woman who is beautiful - not just physically, but in the broader sense described above. He wants a princess, a doll, a girly light in his otherwise dull male world. A woman who carries a feminine frivolity, levity and even silliness to an extent. He wants to laugh with her, to enjoy life with her, to play with her. (This doesn’t mean women aren’t serious or that she shouldn’t be taken seriously - we’ll get to that later bl’n.)

What women want in a man

I’m not a woman, and this may be the hardest for me to understand (why the heck does my wife love me so much? ;). Also, I think this actually is the most complicated part of the equation in general. Even from women, you’ll find different answers given when asked what makes them attracted to their husbands. Some will say he’s so kind, some will say he’s so strong, some will say he’s so hot, some will say he’s so confident. The truth is that unlike men who just want beauty (both physical and emotional, as above), women want more of a package. This package includes his appearance as well. He’s got to look presentable, he has to be some sort of handsome in her eyes. He also has to be soft, kind and warm. Warmth and looks are not exclusive to what a man wants in a woman, but it is also what a woman wants in her man.

The difference is that this warmth has to come from his manliness, his masculinity, as follows:

He is a man, true. He is stronger, taller (if not, he is richer or smarter), and he has a male aura of strength and capability. She wants that. A man she can respect. She wants to look at her husband and see a guy who has his act together. That she can rely upon. That he is going somewhere. That he is capable.

But many books or speeches or articles on gender and marriage will get this wrong and waaay overgeneralize the masculine aura of confidence and capability. “She wants the alpha man!” They’ll hugely downplay the kind, sweet and safe guy as the beta-male, desired only because of our perverse world where gender has been toyed with.

The truth is that of course she wants a man she can respect, a man that is capable, a man she can rely on. But warmth, kindness and looks are a very big part of female attraction as well. Only that the male warmth and kindness actually comes off as a strength, as masculinity. Him, with his deeper voice and strong bone structure, softening his voice and demeanor to take care of her, to show her kindness, warmth and love. It’s almost like his hulk-like, beast-like nature is tamed toward her.

To say this more clearly, the vibe he is supposed to give is that he is channeling his manliness, his strength, his masculinity into protecting and cherishing her. Like he will take on the world, but for her. She doesn’t want unbridled strength; she wants strength that is consciously softened for her; strength that is channeled to make her feel safe.

Some women will be attracted to his kindness, his softness, but what they really mean his male kindness, his male gentleness.

(I wrote this entire section a little messy on purpose so you can follow my thought process - where the complexities lie and where people often go wrong, and ultimately how it all comes together. Hope I made the right choice and it is clear...)

The choreography of marriage, where it all comes together

Here are the four things we discussed (with a small addition which I’ll put in italics):

1) A woman wants to feel beautiful. She wants to be beautiful in everyone’s eyes. She gets dressed to go out, she tidies up her home when a guest is stopping in. She wants to be that adorable pretty doll everywhere. But she particularly wants to be adored by her husband, on a whole new level. She wants to be his princess.

2) At the same time, what a man wants his wife is her beauty. He wants her to be his pretty princess.

3) A man wants to feel accomplished and feel a purpose in life. He wants respect and admiration from everyone, that everyone see he is [insert specific accomplishments and communal standing]. But he especially wants to feel that his wife admires him and respects him for his mission. He wants a beautiful princess whom he can love and who, in turn, respects him enough to admire him and believe in him.

4) A woman wants a guy who is confident and accomplished. She wants him to be her goal.

What I’m really saying is that both a man and a woman want her to be a beautiful princess. And both a woman and a man want him to be accomplished, capable and respected.

And herein lies the fascinating, slightly complex and extremely beautiful choreography of marriage: She wants to feel adored by the guy she respects, so she allows him to become the person she respects. And conversely he wants to be admired by the woman he adores, so he showers her with love and makes her his princess.

In other words, each person gives the other something that reinforces the very thing that person most wants to be.

This is an insane creation, the creation and bond of man and woman.

It’s a delicate play and a beautiful choreography, one that has been misunderstood, subverted, and misused in many different ways throughout history.

This is the necessary background - and I thank you greatly for the podium to express myself - to understand where your original issues crop up, which finally brings us to the Supporter role.

The Supporter

“Supporting” a husband and “serving” a husband are completely not the same thing, and this distinction is exactly your issue.

When a woman makes the home beautiful, keeps life organized, cooks dinner, takes care of the little things, and makes sure the family runs smoothly, this does not make her a maid. She is not doing these things because she is somehow lower than her husband and therefore exists to serve him. She is doing them as his wife.

Let me explain the difference.

A wife wants her husband to be capable and successful - that is the very person she wants to be married to. And likewise, he wants to be capable and successful. So she is more than happy to help him get there. In fact, she takes pride in the fact that she is married to such a man. His accomplishments are their accomplishments. His mission is (to an extent) their mission.

She keeps a clean kitchen, cooks, prepares and serves supper, organizes the home from A-Z - all these things that make his life easier; these are all part of that role. She is helping create the environment - the home - in which he can go out into the world and accomplish what they both want him to accomplish.

There is nothing inherently demeaning about a woman making supper for her husband.

The issue starts when he doesn’t see it as something she is lovingly giving him, rather something he is entitled to.

He is not entitled to have another human being serve him supper. While he sits at the table waiting for the food to magically appear.

If she offers to make him a coffee because she enjoys doing something nice for her husband, that’s beautiful, and that’s a part of marriage. But if he sits on his chair and says, “Make me a coffee,” because apparently marriage has transformed his wife into a Keurig machine, that is disgusting. Even if he asks nicely.

If she keeps the house clean because she takes pride in her home and wants her husband to appreciate her femininity and homemaking skills, wonderful. But if he notices a dirty sink and announces that he doesn’t like looking at it, implying in any which way that somehow she failed to do her job, I’m as ashamed and nauseated as you are.

The physical acts themselves are not themselves degrading or demeaning. The difference is (a) why she is doing them, (b) how he understands what she is doing. If he thinks he is entitled to her services, she has been disgraced, humiliated, and most of all, completely devalued.

But if he sees what she is doing for what it is, then her service becomes a beautiful gift. An act of love. An act of love that says I respect you and your mission. Not at all taken for granted.

In fact, that actually increases his love for her. She lovingly served him supper for no reason - he now wants her to take it easy whenever he can make that happen. And he makes sure she knows it. He treats her like a princess in return, and she feels pretty and special and taken care of. And because she feels so loved, she wants to give more. It becomes a beautiful, never-ending cycle of two people trying to be there for each other and love each other.

In this context, her acts of love are extremely dignified and beautiful.

Of course, this all sounds very idealistic and beautiful. But in reality, marriages are messy. There are so many factors that can throw off this beautifully synchronized dance. For example, life gets busy. He is out a lot at work or kollel or whatever, and she feels ignored. She is exhausted. She feels unappreciated. She tries to express this and he interprets it that she doesn’t find his mission worth supporting and feels his capabilities attacked. The fight has begun. Which leads to unmet needs and expectations; now the stupid little things that irk each other come out, the downwards spiral has begun. Once the balance gets thrown off, things can get messy very fast.

But if he understands the secret, he knows what he is supposed to be working toward: He needs to make her his princess again.

Practically…

What does it mean to make her feel like a princess?

It means buying her gifts when he can. It means finding time to watch the kids so she can go get a manicure. It means taking her out to eat because you want to spend an evening staring at her beauty from across the dimly lit restaurant table.

Every woman is different, and every couple has different circumstances. If money is tight, he shouldn’t be buying her expensive gifts all the time, but he should budget towards something like that. The point is that she should feel cherished. She should feel that her husband looks at her and thinks, this is my princess, and I am lucky to have her.

Two caveats

As we said before, even the smallest things can throw the perfect choeography off balance. There are two common conditions that can make things broken before everything even starts.

1. Modern feminism

2. The kollel lifestyle

It’s worth sharing a few words about this before continuing.

In the feminist world, women also want success (though of course women always wanted success… just like guys also care about looks). This can throw things off balance because if she is a career woman, she is, at least in part, taking care of the finances. She is providing. If she is providing, she is doing his job, instead of or alongside him.

And once the delicate balance is thrown off, the marriage can suffer.

Usually the biggest problem is that after her long hours at work, she is still expected to take care of the house and supper and appointments and clothing for the kids and making sure there enough paper towels; her list is long. And even if he chips in, she will be doing most, or the house will fall apart.

The kollel lifestyle exacerbates this even more. He is not working at all, he has crazy long hours, and on top of all that, he is often taught that he is holding up the world and she is expected to run herself insane so that he can learn. After all, learning is the most important thing.

Not to mention when there extended hours in the coffee room, or even if he is learning well, but he doesn’t become the talmid chochom she expects to support because he is learning the first eight blatt of Yevamos again (i.e. he isn’t really following a goal). These have their own issues, and I’m not discussing them. I’m talking about the really good guys whose wives are actually really proud of them. Even then, in this environment, it’s unfortunately natural that he’ll feel entitled. He’s been put on pedestal his whole life for his learning, while her role is not taught with anything close to the same level of appreciation. Her role is even devalued in the face of learning.

And meanwhile, she is doing a million times more than she should be - besides doing her own job (which these good girls usually do well), she is also taking on the bulk of his job. And they have less money at the end of the day to show for it, so she can’t get all the pretty things she’d love. And is schedule is insane.

He is being told, in effect, that his learning is the most important thing in the world, while she is invisibly carrying an enormous amount of the actual burden that makes his learning possible. Even if she is happy to do it, and even if she genuinely wants him to learn, that does not make her contribution any less enormous, or any less deserving of appreciation.

These are two major issues where the choreography of marriage is already thrown off-kilter from the start.

The response is that if the dance is off, he needs to steady the rhythm. Bring the step back on beat.

She may really want him to learn. That is truly what she values. She’s incredibly proud of him and proud to be supporting his learning. But he better not take a single second of her arduous work for granted. She better feel 100% appreciated. He better make a major effort to make her feel extremely special. In fact, he better quadruple his mission of making her feel like a princess.

And he better not dare ask for a cup of coffee if he can get it himself. He better not make a comment about the dishes. He better not look at everything she does for him as simply part of her job.

Fwiw, this was the main point of my post, “How to Love Your Wife,” which every husband should read, especially if his wife is working.

And just for the sake of completeness, I’ll add how motherhood - and fatherhood - fits into this picture. Her nurturing self, her warmth, her beauty, her light: all of these are perfectly suited to motherhood. A guy is attracted to his wife partly because her femininity that is so central to raising children is the very thing he is missing. He can’t provide that same nurturing, dedicated warmth; he finds it in her.

And likewise, she wants a strong guy - not unbridled or aggressive strength, but strength that is channeled into love, softness, and protection for her. That is precisely the qualities she needs in a partner to help protect and provide a safe environment for their children, something her softness can’t provide.

The roles of husband and wife are really about being partners in raising a beautiful, healthy, and safe home, where both bring their own specific masculine and feminine strengths to the table.

Okay. Whew! I hope I didn’t go on too long over here (I mean, I know I did😬) but let me know if this answers your questions satisfactorily, and if my various points resonated as true.

Best,

shulman

There’s one more piece I want to add, to put the bedroom in the context of all of this. I think I’ll leave this post as is, and write that as a separate one.

It will be paywalled for tznius reasons, but heck, it’s only $5, and it’s for sure worth that.

Anyone like me (i.e. only mildly handy) who has assembled IKEA furniture has probably experienced that moment when you become convinced the instructions are wrong. You’ve followed every step perfectly and the pieces just don't seem to fit together. It may be of the most frustrating experiences ever, especially since I was alone. Then, after ten minutes of staring at the diagram, I realize I attached one stupid board backward.

The nice thing about furniture, though, is that it doesn’t argue back and tell you that you’re an idiot. It also doesn’t misrepresent your position. That’s why I like a guy like , awful jokes notwithstanding (iykyk). He’s not furniture, true - he’ll argue back if necessary, but he’s polite and he appreciates another worldview.

He had this fun idea that we trade books which best represent our position and we can each review/critique each others book, fun for us, (hopefully) fun for readers.

Before getting into the specifics, I owe an explanation why I would agree to this book swap in the first place. As BZW pointed out in his email, why would I willingly engage with pure kefirah? It is clearly prohibited according to halacha.

Honestly, though, I had no qualms about participating, because for me, these arguments are mostly review. Years ago I spent a considerable amount of time reading all the classic kefirah material. Whatever - basically I had a bunch of neighborhood friends who were going OTD and they had some challenges, and that prompted me to get involved in these topics. Whether that justifies anything or not is a separate question, but facts - I did it.

Revisiting those ideas now and explaining which questions and challenges I find compelling and which I am simply unimpressed by is something I’ve been meaning to do for a while now. I think can actually be productive for others. People here do seem to think I’m a reasonable human being (I do try) and perhaps hearing how I worked through these issues may help some who are struggling with similar questions.

But I just want to make it clear again: reading kefirah is forbidden. And before anyone starts going off about how bad thought control and propaganda are, understand that I completely reject that premise. Thought control is not inherently bad. Bad thought control is bad. Good thought control is actually good.

If it turns out the world is actually godless, then religious thought policing is wrong. But if Judaism is true, then the prohibition makes perfect sense, and I’ll prove it: look how many people go OTD after being exposed to kefirah.

Of course, this is kind of circular because we are essentially discussing whether Judaism itself is true. But within its framework, Judaism assumes itself to be true (like any worldview), so given Judaism’s premises, the prohibition is entirely coherent.

As a believer, I would absolutely not advise another believer to start reading kefirah books, and no one should be drawing the wrong conclusion from my participation. All I’m saying is that I already read those books, I was ultimately unconvinced by them, and I am comfortable engaging with these ideas now (especially in an era where information is available to anyone with an internet connection).

Ironically, my reservation was not reading BZW’s book, it was actually giving a kofer like BZW one of mine.

To understand why, it helps to understand my perspective on belief.

I happen to think contemporary kofrim are far more reasonable than many believers are willing to admit. Some actually believe the atheist position is logically untenable (and they’re not crazy - like the something from nothing problem), and others just don’t want to give legitimacy to a dangerous worldview. But while that dismissive approach may work within certain circles, in the information age it’s harder to maintain. ’s old blog, ’s book, ACJA’s point-by-point analysis - this small list from many is in the open for everyone to see. Besides the New Atheists’ books, their YouTube debates, and the hundreds of atheist podcasts. It’s very easy to get into the mindset of an atheist and it’ll feel rational and logical. Maybe in an insular yeshiva environment one can caricature atheists as irrational or unserious, but with online exposure, many want real answers and discussions.

Now, in my experience, to the chagrin of many believers, I consistently find atheist authors and debaters presenting themselves pretty well, while on the other side, I find many of the religious responses... disappointing. Maybe I just chose the wrong books and speakers, but much of what I read seems to me like apologetics, not intellectual honesty. For example, I remember watching the Dawkins–Sacks debate and feeling that Rabbi Sacks’s performance was abysmal, resorting to his Jew-victim card far too quickly. Dawkins was certainly playing games, but Rabbi Sacks fell right into them. And I find many works defending Judaism apologetic.1

My own approach is somewhat different. I do not believe every question must be answered, nor am I going to say every question has an answer. Of course, if we just had a pile of evidence in favor of atheism and nothing else, I’d go with the evidence. But I think we must first understand what Judaism has in its favor.

Basically, if our foundations are weak and the objections are strong, intellectual honesty demands concession and I’d be an atheist. But if our foundations are stronger than the unresolved questions, we can openly admit that we don’t know, while still being confident in the broader structure. And, by the way, in that framework, (some) apologetics do kind of have a role - not as definitive answers, but as possibilities for questions we have already acknowledged we don’t know; the apologetics are like patches in the cracks of an already sturdy building. The distinction is important, because if the apologetics are there to build the tower in the first place, the tower doesn’t structurally hold up.

Because of this, the only works I feel comfortable recommending are books that actually explain Judaism itself - what I like to call “Higher Judaism.” Even that phrase requires explanation, but for now I mean books that I would hesitate to call books at all. They are seforim. The Rambam’s Moreh Nevuchim, Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi’s Kuzari, the Chazon Ish’s Emunah U’Bitachon. These works are not primarily defenses against critics, but articulations of what Judaism really is.

Asking an atheist to review one of these kinds of books is much more unsettling to me than me reading his kefirah books. To him, these are simply books and the authors are historical figures like any others and any review will reflect that.

I thought about this at length before agreeing. Ultimately, I decided that BZW would treat the material respectfully, as he usually does.

And that’s what brings us to our book review swap.

His choice was Joshua Bowen’s The Atheist Handbook to the Old Testament, Volume 1. This book is a great introduction to skeptical scholarship on the Hebrew Bible, and unlike the militant style of the famous new atheists, this reflects BZW’s style: He doesn’t mock the believers in that provocative way, and he doesn’t have this arrogant style of writing.

Like furniture.

My choice: I settled on the Kuzari, a sefer which really impacted me. It’s a complicated sefer, seemingly tedious at times (kudos to BZW for making the effort!), but it wasn’t all those details that got to me. The main thing was his shocking description of philosophy (primarily in Books 1 and 4). It turns out philosophy is this “pursuit of perfection,” a path towards mind over matter, spirit over body. I always thought philosophy was thinking about life and ruminating over the questions of the universe, life and meaning, but it actually is very different (which I’ll obviously have to explain in a later post). This completely changed how I understood both religion and secular philosophy, and much of my current thinking traces back to that very insight.

I am particularly interested in hearing BZW’s feelings and thoughts about this observation.

Bowen’s book is supposed to present some of the strongest arguments against traditional understandings of the Torah. As mentioned, BZW said it was one that “best defends his positions,” so I approached it expecting the range of classic challenges on the authenticity of the Torah, and it didn’t disappoint. (Because always start by saying something nice about the book…)

2. Book Review

I. Backround

The goal of the atheist handbook is to explain different arguments to the already atheist and allow the conversation with a believer to flow. By definition, this is a more respectful setting then the books trying to prove atheism, besides that in a conversation respect is an obvious tool.

The book was written for a general audience rather than academics, and he tries to provide readers with enough background information to have discussions with believers from an informed insider’s perspective. As such, Bowen aims2 to supply the textual and contextual foundation necessary for such conversations. If a believer raises an argument or responds with contextual jargon, the atheist reader should be equipped with the relevant information to address those points confidently and without being caught off guard by appeals to context or the like.

To this effect, he begins with three chapters of groundwork. He first summarizes the story of the Torah itself, then places that story within the broader context of the ancient Near East - one needs to understand the world where the Bible fits in, and last he explains a bit how archaeology and historical reconstruction work. These chapters are more practical than anything and mostly non-controversial. Whether you ultimately agree with Bowen’s conclusions, these chapters are the background necessary to understand the debates that follow.

II. Textual Inconsistencies

The real argument begins in Chapter 4, where Bowen turns to alleged contradictions and inconsistencies within the Torah. He provides many of the classic examples: the two creation accounts in Bereishis; the flood narrative and its differing numbers of animals entering the Ark, and the confusion over the dates of the Mabul; the question of who sold Yosef into slavery; Yaakov naming Bethel twice; and the identity of Moshe’s father-in-law.

To be honest, as you may know, these sorts of critiques are extremely unconvincing to me. Not because these pesukim are easy to read, but because there are plenty of reasonable explanations available. I won’t go through each one; you can take a look at the “pashtanim” on any of those sources and they do a perfectly acceptable job, or better.3 Bowen presents these examples as overwhelming problems, but to me they carry little weight.

III. Daniel

Chapter 5 turns to the Book of Daniel and the question of when it was written. Daniel is not a book familiar like Bereishis or Tehilim, but in Biblical scholarship, it is a big topic of conversation, because of the questions of its dating. The traditional view, obviously, is that Daniel himself recorded the events and prophecies during the Babylonian exile, including some prophecies about the future.

Bowen summarizes the several standard arguments for a later date: (1) linguistic evidence (mix of Greek etc.); (2) the historical figure of Belshazzar is claimed to be the last of the Babylonian kings, even though Nabonidus was the last official Babylonian king; (3) the absence of Darius the Mede from all known historical records; and (4) Daniel’s apparently detailed knowledge of events leading up to Antiochus IV Epiphanes but faulty and ambiguous knowledge of events after that.

If Daniel were written later, all of these questions largely disappear, which is Bowen’s conclusion, obviously.

Of these, only the Antiochus issue strikes me as noteworthy. The first few are easily answered by the classic commentators:

Like the first question of Greek loanwords, the “pashtanim” (some who were particularly skilled linguists, like Reb Saadia Gaon) explain that the empires were very interconnected, through trade routes and mercenaries, way before the Hellenistic expansion of Alexander.

As for Number 2, the Belshazzar problem, he was famously proven to be real (through the discovery of the Nabonidus Cylinder and other inscriptions), and when Nabonidus “self-exiled” to Arabia, his son Belshazzar became the de-facto ruler (although not ‘officially’ king) over Babylon for a while. (Although, see Megillah 11b regarding Evil-Merodach, not for now.)

And the Darius of Mede problem (Number 3), Rashi already presents him as a transitional ruler who governed alongside Cyrus during the transfer of power. Although this is historically speculative, it means the absence of an independent record for Darius is not, by itself, an objection to the biblical account.

The final issue of Daniel’s accuracy - that he is remarkably accurate in describing events up to the reign of Antiochus IV, but it becomes less clear afterward - even here I do not think it’s decisive, but if one is going to challenge the traditional dating of Daniel, this is where the action is.

See however Rashi and many other commentators - backed by very strong inferences in the text itself - who explain that the final verses over there are not referring to Antiochus, rather to the ‘end of days.’ Others like Ibn Ezra, Abarbanel and Josephus explain it more simply. I’m not immediately in love with these approaches, but they aren’t awful either, and upon further examination the inferences to their end build up nicely, making it far from simple.

IV. Slavery

From Bowen’s writing, it seems his most passionate chapter in the book is Chapter 6, which addresses slavery in the Old Testament. Unlike his alleged contradictions, this is a moral problem (which probably explains his particular passion).

I have little interest in defending slavery.4 You can peruse the ‘pashtanim’ at the beginning of Mishpatim who, in their reading of those pesukim, almost unanimously emphasize the Torah’s negative view on slavery (some rishonim say that “being owned by another human being is equal to death,” pre-echoing the famous “give me liberty or give me death”; and other similar variations).

As Bowen himself notes, the Torah seems more okay with slavery when it comes to non-Jews/enemies (unlike those pesukim at the beginning of Mishpatim dealing with fellow Jews).

So the more important question isn’t really about slavery per se, it’s more about Jewish elitisms. And while this establishes the Torah’s objection to slavery, it creates an entirely different question. I’m not sure which one is morally worse, but it is definitely different.

I think reviewing what he discusses in his second volume, the issues of genocide in the Torah, will more be the place to discuss this elitism problem. But we obviously can’t just kick the can down the road and ignore the issue, so my preliminary response, to be largely elaborated on later, is that moral judgments must take historical realities into account.

I’m sure you heard some version of this before and rolled your eyes, but I’m going to propose a more cogent version of this:

If one lives in a world where the enemies enslave or annihilate those they defeat, it is not obvious that responding in kind constitutes elitism. Elitism would be if Israel alone were granted permission to enslave outsiders while every surrounding nation already upheld the modern consensus that slavery is inherently immoral. In that hypothetical world, the Torah’s distinction would present a far more difficult moral challenge.

But that was not the world of the ancient Near East. The surrounding nations regularly conquered and enslaved one another, for political and religious domination (those were usually indistinguishable). Against that backdrop, expecting Israel to fight according to a uniquely elevated moral code - one that its enemies neither recognized nor reciprocated - would not have been morally superior. It would have actually been morally stupid, actually, having the Jews bear the costs of ethical restraint while facing adversaries who showed none. (Something we are familiar with unfortunately.)

I find this a far more satisfying response than the usual ones you hear. Simply saying the Torah was “a product of its times” never sat well with me, because if the Torah is divine, it should be better than its times. (Presumably, those who make that argument mean something closer to what I’ve suggested here, but they don’t spell it out.)

Likewise, the claim that slavery was “better than the alternative, death” hardly constitutes a moral justification - just don’t kill them or enslave them!

Nor do I find it sufficient to argue that this wasn’t “real slavery.” While it is certainly true that the Torah imposes considerable restrictions that distinguish it from surrounding cultures, undoubtedly an upgrade, the underlying question still remains.

There is more to say about this, and I hope to return to this in a later post, but far from the reader to say I didn’t do ample justice here.

V. Ezekiel & Tyre

Chapter 7 explores Ezekiel’s prophecy against Tyre (Tzur), another frequently cited example in debates about biblical prophecy. Ezekiel predicts that Nebuchadnezzar will conquer Tyre, destroy it, and leave it desolate. Historically, however, Nebuchadnezzar’s lengthy siege of Tyre did not result in the complete destruction.

Once again, I didn’t find Bowen’s argument so convincing.

My main contention is that the idea that Nebuchadnezzar didn’t win completely over Tyre is evident within the text itself. Maybe I’m stretching to phrase it this way (either way the point will stand), but this makes a textual problem rather than a contextual one. And as I always point out, textual issues are already dealt with to a great degree of satisfaction by the ‘pashtanim.’

Rashi, no less, discusses the old rule that prophesies of doom are always conditional, and here can be one of those exceptions (- Rashi explains how the Tyrians humbled themselves and were spared). I can’t blame Bowen for not knowing Chazal, but nonetheless his question isn’t compelling. There are other explanations (see Radak, Malbim) that seem more apologetic but upon deeper textual examination they actually hold water.

Conclusion

So what did I gain from reading Volume 1 of The Atheist Handbook to the Old Testament?

Honestly, not too much. I wasn’t particularly impressed by the arguments presented here.

That probably sounds dismissive, but I don’t mean it that way. Bowen is knowledgeable, thoughtful, and fair in his presentation. The issue is simply that most of the questions he raises in this volume happen to be unimpressive. The famous textual contradictions are far less devastating than how he presents them, as well as his moral issue. And it so happens that the two historical examples he discusses (Daniel and Tyre) are considerably weaker than he makes of it.

However, at the same time, I do not want readers to get the impression that I am dabbling in reflexive apologetics, equally defending everything I see. I don’t.

One thing I find frustrating in these discussions is that both sides pump up their case - believers pretend every challenge has a simple answer, while atheists pretend every unanswered question is a fatal blow. The truth is that it is more complicated than that.

In this volume, while raising interesting discussions, the questions are easily answered as discussed. But in Volume 2 we will see more difficult (and more interesting) questions: anachronisms, genocide, women’s rights, etc.. Those challenges will bring out the discussion of how a believer should react when confronted with questions that don’t have easy answers. That, to me, is a much more important discussion.

So if I find enough time, stay tuned.

Here’s a short post for you:

I remember in high school having a ‘fiery’ debate with a bunch of other likewise yeshivishe friends about the virtue of being normal. The very premise of if normalcy even matters was under fire.

I strongly believed it very much does matter, and they strongly believed it did not. I don’t remember all of the genius 11th grade formulations or pointed questions from either side - I hardly remember my own - but the gist was that they thought being normal is a purely subjective idea and has no value. If we were part of a different culture, we’d think other things were normal, and whatever is normalin our society is basically meaningless. I argued that while normalcy is not the golden standard for everything, normalcy is important for a whole host of reasons.

And at some point I realized that the entire framing is the confusion.

It’s not really about being normal, it’s about being healthy.

As many of us have seen, this is a huge problem in the charedi/yeshivish/Torah (whatever you wanna call it) world where a lot of very important things are neglected because Torah takes priority Number 1. And Number 2. And Number 3. And all the way to ∞. Until everything else is meaningless.

No, it’s not that it’s normal to care about family,

or a job,

or to exercise,

or to eat healthy,

or to smile at people on the street,

or being able to take a relaxing vacation when necessary,

or to have a hobby,

or knowing how to treat your wife,

or having fun with your kids,

or to go to therapy if needed,

or showering,

or making sure you live as high as your means (yes, you read that correctly),

or to get a good night’s sleep,

or giving back to the community,

or brushing your teeth, or using deodorant,

or taking care of your posture,

or - k, this list can go on for a long time. It’s not that it’s normal. It’s that it’s healthy.

And while Torah (done properly) is the highest priority, it is not the only priority, and if all these other things are neglected, unless you are truly on the madreiga (hint: for most of these items, there’s a 99.999999% chance you’re not), your Torah will suffer as well.

Please be healthy!

Quick addition - ideally it is the parents’ job to teach these things. Long before a bochur steps into the beis medrash, basic well-being - hygiene, emotional regulation, financial literacy, simple self-care etc. - should be normalized and modeled in the home.

Two big issues are (a) when it is not taught properly, i.e. the father himself never exited this yeshiva world culture, or (b) even if the parents do a great job, the message in yeshiva is often to cancel out any other priorities, which can have an adverse affect on whatever normalcy this child had.

Now, I’m not a total anti. Bochurim - teenagers - are often very black and white, and so if an ideal must be idealized, Torah is a very good one, the best one to choose. But at some point, like by 18 already, people have to grow up. They can start appreciating nuance. And we should have more faith in our bochurim. We can give a schmooze about the importance of Torah four days a week, and give another schmooze about the different aspects of being healthy the other three, and I promise the kids will get the right message. They don’t need to to get the message that being healthy and wholesome is the atzas hayetzer. Honestly, with proper love and care (harryish, I know), they will pick up the subtleties and understand what you’re going for.

I’m a big believer that Hashem made all types, and we need all types. Even being normal - and healthy - is not actually for everybody, believe it or not.

But dare I say, being healthy should be the normal.

I want you to see just how similar they are before I reveal the frightening disparity between them:

1. The Supper

The late afternoon sun cast a warm glow across their modest apartment, filtering through the blinds, as Avrumi carefully set down a small, ribbon-tied box on the kitchen table. It was three months into shana rishona, and the initial flurry of wedding planning and move-in logistics were finally settling into that everyday routine.

Shani was coming home from a long day at work in twenty minutes and Avrumi knew how exhausting her Monday meetings were, especially with the added pressure of settling into new routines, figuring out meal plans, and managing a new household. He wanted to surprise her with a gift, but one that reflected that he understood her life.

Beside the box rested a handwritten letter. He spent thirty minutes writing down five specific things he had noticed and appreciated about her over the past week, including: the way she always made sure his morning coffee was ready, her patience when he was late from chavrusa learning, and how her laugh filled the apartment and his heart when they had played Scrabble.

Next to the letter sat a freshly printed menu card. Instead of expecting her to figure out dinner, he had prepared her favorite comfort meal: a steaming bowl of homemade soup, fresh garlic bread, and a small strawberry tart from the bakery she loved near his yeshiva. On the bottom of the menu, he wrote: “Dinner is taken care of, the dishes are my job tonight, and your only assignment is to relax.”

When Shani opened the front door, the dinner aroma immediately greeted her. But it was the letter on the table that really washed over her. Reading his words, the weight of a chaotic day seemed to melt away completely. She felt truly seen, her needs anticipated, and something taken off her plate before she even had to ask, even though strawberry tarts were not actually her favorite.

2. The Reclaimed Hobby

Before they met, Leah had been an avid oil painter, but her supplies had been packed away in storage tubs at her parents’ house since the move. Between adjusting to married life and managing her schedule, she often sighed about how she “just didn’t have the space or the setup” to paint anymore.

One afternoon while Leah was out with a friend - something Tzvi pushed for - he transformed the corner of their guest nook. He drove to her parents’ house to retrieve her easel, bought a fresh set of high-grade canvases and paints at the instruction of his mother-in-law, and set up a dedicated station with a small side table and floor lamp. On the canvas, he stuck a sticky note: “Your creativity makes our home brighter. This is your corner to again be your creative self.” When she returned, she found a piece of her personal identity lovingly restored and given space in their shared life.

These are both sweet stories, and if these aren’t perfectly true in all their details, their are dozens of other variations of the same situation. New husbands, all around good guys, will do some very sweet things to make their beautiful wives feel cherished and loved.

However, underneath, there is a difference in how Avrumi went about it and how Tzvi did, and that changes the entire story, and yes, the entire trajectory of the marriage.

You see, one thing a husband wants is for his wife to be happy. And he seriously wants this, for real.

But there is another thing a new husband wants. In the bedroom.

Let’s be blunt: he wants s*x.2 Especially a young husband who now has the opportunity to be intimate with someone for the first time. (Not to mention unhealthy attitudes (not) taught to bochurim…)

Of course, people are complicated and can have many different emotions at once, but it isn’t uncommon that the reason why Tzvi did this for his wife wasn’t purely because he loves her. I don’t even want to minimize or diminish his beautiful gesture, which was actually beautiful, thoughtful and was done with good intentions. But lurking behind the scenes, he has this picture that because he set up her easel, she will now have a heightened desire to be with him. He may not even be wrong; she may feel more attracted to him now, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he wants that very much.

I’ll tell you the worst part about this: because it’s in the back of his mind, he may not even realize he is doing this. But do you remember our old nemesis: “expectations”? Tzvi has just created, in his brain, this very thing, expectations. He created an expectation in his mind for s*x, and if that doesn’t pan out, he will be chemically disappointed. This most beautiful gesture has subconscious strings attached which can and will often set him up for unpleasant feelings later. And especially if he isn’t fully aware of this, it will come out some way or another and it won’t be pretty.

This doesn’t only happen with large romantic gestures. It can also happen any time Tzvi offers to help and make Leah’s life easier. He’s been taught that he needs to get her in the mood; that it doesn’t just ‘happen’ last second; he needs to create the environment all day. So subconsciously, while he is genuinely trying to make her happy as a good husband does, it is, in some sense, also a transactional gesture. He is creating a reward prediction error, expecting a reward - to whatever small extent that may be in his brain - and when it doesn’t happen, his dopamine levels will drop and he’ll feel a low, which will manifest.

You can have two people doing the same beautiful thing, but one actively3 appreciates that he is doing this just to make her happy, his pleasure and physical closeness notwithstanding, and that gesture will have been a pure and unbridled expression of love, no strings attached. While the other is unwittingly setting up a shalom bayis problem.

The best thing a new husband can do is check his own motives. Strip away the subconscious expectations, throw away the hidden scorecards, and just focus on making your bright wife’s life a little brighter.

And one last important marriage tip I need to share: 'Dinner is taken care of, and the dishes are my job' only works if you actually wash the pots, not just leave them soaking until Thursday.

Ten years ago, recreational drugs simply weren’t part of the frum vocabulary. The biggest issues back then were drinking, smoking, maybe vaping. But today, it’s becoming more and more common. For those who aren’t in the know, for some people it’s now a monthly or even weekly ritual- a classic Thursday night (“leil shishi”) get-together activity. For others, it’s more of a motzei Shabbos thing. (I know a group of guys who meet every Tuesday- that’s just when the expert / sober guy is available.) Edibles by chasunos are more mainstream. And smoking isn’t so cool with teens anymore, unless it’s a joint. (I don’t mean that it’s actually “mainstream” at all, but it’s no longer a fringe issue.)

The list goes on, iykyk.

I am not the type of guy who hangs out with people who do drugs. But over time, I’ve gotten to know people who’ve shared their experiences with me. To be clear, I mean IRL, not just on Substack, which is mostly fringe chevra as it is. I’m talking about the guy on your block, sitting next to you in shul, driving carpool in front of you. And it’s clearly a growing issue.

Just to share one anecdote, I have a friends who, let’s just say, really live it up (and I’m talking about those who can afford to do so well within their means). They will literally drop half a million dollars on a midwinter vacation (no, I’m not exaggerating). These friends - basically good guys who spend a lot - also partake, obviously, in recreational drugs: DMT, LSD, MDMA, peyote, PCP, you name it. I have one close friend in this “chevrah,” normal guy, who has only done psilocybin (“magic mushrooms”). But not as a one-time thing - I’m talking more like at least once a month.

The way I see it, for these guys, some trips are by plane - to Cancún or Zermatt - and some are by mushroom.

And then there are the stories of teenagers. So many stories about teenagers. Experimenting. From what I know, they aren’t doing mushrooms, but marijuana, which is (IMO) much more harmful. Some come out okay. Enough don’t. Generally things are not okay. As I said, I don’t know the numbers, and I really only know anecdotal stories, but the stories are becoming more and more common. And I don’t honestly think that the numbers will shrink anytime soon.

Anyways, here are my thoughts about this whole thing.

First, there is no question that a psychedelic trip changes you. It opens up a new world of perception. It’s fascinating how it works - here’s a simplification: the thalamus, which is the area in the brain which controls which sensory inputs are sent to which lobes (to the occipital lobe for vision, and to the temporal lobe for sound, for instance), is sent everything at once and blocks its ability to make the distinctions between different inputs. Hence, you “feel” and “see” the sounds, and “hear” the colors as everything works together at once. But I digress.

But the main point is that of course:

• There is a difference between if the mushrooms are prescribed, or if they’re being taken just recreationally.

• There is a difference those who are super-strong in their emunah (and even what their specific syllogisms are for reaching those conclusions), and those who are not.

• There is a difference between a teenager, or even mid-twenties, and a mature mid-forty year old with a tiny granddaughter.

• There is a difference between someone with mental health issues, or even possible proclivities towards mental health issues, and someone who seems clean and healthy.

And there are other important distinctions that I am ommitting. Which - just by the nature of the fact that there are so many caveats - it’s obviously better for us, as a society, to stay away.

But, for a spiritually and mentally healthy person, using these drugs as prescribed by a doctor, in the medical setting which includes a couple days in the doctor’s office with specific guidelines, there is actually tremendous benefit to these. I know someone who used it in a medical setting to cure a really severe bout of post-partum depression, and another who used it to cure a different kind of depression, and it’s actually amazing how fast it really helps.

I also know others who used it not in a medical setting and one of them went OTD for at least two years - he was already married with kinds - and is just making things right recently. And there are millions of other horror stories.

But point is that this is an issue that can no longer be ignored. People are taking this stuff regularly, and as a society this a unquestionably a terrible thing. There are too many variables that can make it physically or spiritually dangerous. Kids take it too young, unhealthy people take it unhealthily. I imagine there are readers here who took it earlier than twenty five recreationally, and correct me if it didn’t cause you spiritual harm.

But as it’s uses are increasing recreationally for harm, it is also being increasingly used medically to really help. And as a society, this is something that shouldn’t be taboo when it will really help. So I’m writing a Substack article into the void about it.

I would be very interested in stories of those who used it medically and it helped, if you can DM, comment or email (email is usually best). And if you want to guest post about your experience, I’d be down to work with you on that.

I’d also love to hear stories from anyone, even if used recreationally, about what the actual experience was like in general.

- if his daughter would be interested in sharing her side of the story, and lucky us, she was! Here is the email she sent me earlier today - I capitalized one word, otherwise, entirely her. To me, it was as interesting as the original. Enjoy! - shulman

Dear Rabbi Shulman,

My name is Sara (née Sooreh), and I’m the woman from the story you published a last week. My father encouraged me to reach out and share my side of the story — how I experienced everything from my point of view.1 There are details that can give more perspective, but if nothing else, it’s an interesting story!

Also, thank you for sharing my father’s story. Seeing it published, along with the positive feedback, was quite meaningful to him, besides the ensuing discussions you two had. Maybe one day (with your permission) we’ll try submitting it to an official newspaper or magazine, one which won’t find these kind of stories taboo.

Here is my version of the story:

When I think about how things fell apart between us, I think about being fourteen years old, sitting in my bedroom with a brand-new computer that probably should not have been in my bedroom at all. We were doing construction on our house and residing in suboptimal living quarters, and my father had his computer for work which needed a place to go. He (and my mother) knew very little about technology beyond what he needed for his job. This was circa 2011-2012, when people (of a certain age group) in our community were becoming aware that the internet could be dangerous, but many still didn’t fully understand what it actually was.

I wasn’t initially searching for atheism or anything against religion at all. It was just that the darn computer was so interesting! I found the internet like immediately. I remember searching for the first time. I woke up at three in the morning so nobody would know (my parents were late to bed and late to rise). I was shaking, my hands trembling over the keyboard, but it was such a thrill. My heart was pounding so hard I was sure it would wake someone up. I had never experienced anything like this in my entire life.

Within a few nights, I was pretty comfortable. My door was locked, my Sansa Clip earbuds were in so no one could hear the sound (that precious sky blue Sansa Clip was my favorite gift ever! Of course, at that time it only had Chassidishe music), and I was exploring. I found all the juicy sites. I found this new thing (for me) called social media. I became very busy on Snapchat and Instagram. I followed tons of people. I watched tons of YouTube videos, tons! And who knows how many TV shows? I found Putlocker, and suddenly movies and shows could take up hours of my time. It was all so new and novel, like stumbling into a secret world.

Before that, the world felt small and, looking back, wholesome. Everyone I knew was some variation of the same thing. And beyond my circle, there was this vague entity called “everyone else” that didn’t really mean anything to me. Then suddenly I was spending hours watching girls my age living completely different lives. I studied them the way girls study fashion magazines. I wanted to know what they cared about, what made them laugh, what made them cry, what their ordinary Tuesday afternoons looked like, and who they had crushes on (yes, that was a like a really big part of it).

Most of what I watched wasn’t Jewish, let alone Chassidish. Some seemed happy. Some seemed miserable. Some were smart. Some were idiots. And I didn’t necessarily want to be them. It was just that now they were real. The outside world was no longer just a concept. It was sitting in front of me every night, pulling me in little by little, and it actually became my life.

The cultural changes came long before the intellectual ones. And even the cultural changes started internally first. My idea of what was normal slowly shifted. I started listening to different music. I was exposed to a different (far superior!) sense of humor. The things I found interesting changed. The way I spoke changed, if ever so slowly. I became very emotionally invested in a world that existed far past the boundaries of the one I had grown up in, and my heart was living there.

The questions came afterward. Once you stop feeling fully at home somewhere, you naturally start looking around and asking why things are the way they are. By then, though, my parents were already worried. They saw the changes before I did. I was becoming a stranger to them, and that terrified them. I was angry and agitated all of the time (I always wanted to return to my room to my beloved new companion), and I was not pleasant to be around. At the time, however, I felt like every concern they raised only pushed me further away because none of it addressed what was actually happening inside me. I was living this double life, and everything was bottled up inside.

I felt guilty. I felt torn. And I was exhausted from all the late nights. I even skipped school occasionally to sleep, which was initially true, but then instead of sleeping I was back on the computer. It was an addiction.

Sundays and off-days I was glued to the screen, and I remember the first time I realized Shabbos could be this too. Desecrating Shabbos is usually a massive line to cross, and it was surprising to me that it wasn’t as big of a deal as I thought it would be. Don’t get me wrong, I thought lightning would come out of the sky the first time, but I think my addiction was just so strong that all my love and lust in life was tied to the world on the screen and I was numb to any other feelings. Practically, it was easy to do: I would lash out — that was what the new me did — and storm off into my room and stay there for hours. My parents had no idea what to do, and I knew it. At the time, that felt like freedom. I could do whatever I wanted. That whole period probably lasted close to a year, and they knew almost nothing.

Then they caught me one morning. My door was locked and they knocked. I covered my tracks as I always did and went to open it, but like all good villains, I slipped up. I don’t remember exactly what happened — I think a video was still playing and the earbuds got pulled out of the jack — but that was the moment everything changed. They obviously took away the computer, but by then it was already too late. Within days I bought an iPod Touch, and they were none the wiser. I found the WiFi password. I figured things out. I did things secretly and deceptively, but I did them.

Meanwhile our relationship changed. Now I was exposed. Now I started dressing differently. If I had been angry, irritable and annoyed before, now I was openly angry at something more specific, them.

There was a lot of yelling and fighting after that. I started challenging things. I was defiant. Honestly, most of it is a blur. At that point I didn’t even necessarily need answers. More than anything, I wanted someone to tell me, “We love you no matter what.” I just wanted them to stop yelling and me and work with me, although I didn’t even know what I wanted. But that was never what I heard.

One memory from those years has stayed with me longer than most of the fights. It was a small moment. The big fights all blur together now. The crying, the yelling. Everyone saying things they regretted. Those memories merge into one giant cloud of unhappiness. The memory that stayed with me was actually a small conversation at the kitchen table when I was seventeen. Everyone else had gone to sleep. My father was sitting with a sefer and a coffee, and I remember feeling hopeful because there was no audience. No one needed to perform. Nobody needed to defend themselves. I asked him something that had been bothering me for months. I don’t even remember the question anymore. What I remember is watching him shift uncomfortably. I saw for the first time something other than anger and disappointment: he looked scared. Not frustrated. Not mad. Scared. And seeing that scared me too. The way I interpreted it at least, he didn’t have the answers.

I don’t remember what he said or what happened but I remember that shift where I saw he had no answers, and I turned back to the internet for answers instead. Years later, I can look back and understand that he was trying his best. He wasn’t a bad father. He was scared and didn’t know what to do. And I was a a whirlwind of anger, confusion, and hurt, honestly. But at seventeen, all I knew was that I had walked downstairs with a glimmer of hope to feel understood and walked back upstairs feeling really alone. That difficult feeling of loneliness was a tangible sensation in my stomach, and it stayed with me and slowly grew, and honestly, it was the worst part of it all.

After that, the actual process of leaving happened pretty quickly. It was like a dam breaking. Internally I was already changed, and now it was just a process of making it external. By the time I was eighteen — shiddich age — my life looked very different. In defiance and to join a different culture, I bought a whole new wardrobe, and I dyed my beautiful dark brunette hair to a classic light blonde2 even though I think my dark hair looked absolutely stunning against my blue eyes. My sisters are still trying to convince me to go back to brunette — out of everything, they were most horrified about that life-choice! And they’re not wrong! But blonde looks great too and I wanted to make a statement. It was mostly my way of showing who I really was because I was done hiding.

Maybe now that I don’t need to make a statement, I can be convinced to return to my brunette self, my essence.

I got myself a low-paying but acceptable job, and by nineteen I had moved out into my own apartment. By then I was no longer obsessed with the internet and was much healthier in that respect. Most days I was just trying to build my life and figure out who I was. I paid bills. I worried about rent. I found (read: tried to find) new social groups. I began therapy. I slowly became an adult. Eventually I took out a loan and put myself through school to become a social worker. Sitting with people who feel misunderstood is something I know very well.

My relationship with my parents never completely broke, but for years it existed in a strange frozen state. We still talked. We still saw each other. Nobody formally cut anybody off, and I’m grateful for that. But huge parts of our lives were missing from the relationship. It felt more like they knew facts about me without really knowing me, and I knew facts about them without really knowing them either.

We avoided all the landmines and explosions. Visits, Shabbusim, Yuntif, were all awkward. It always felt like there was a big elephant in the room waiting to explode the second certain buzzwords were mentioned, so we kept those words on the downlow. Much to their credit, as long as I was respectful, they were pretty accepting, at least externally.

I adopted a dog named Rosie. Rosie has unlimited confidence, absolutely no respect for personal space, and a talent for making herself the center of attention. I loved her immediately. (For anyone in a similar predicament, a dog can be a wonderful comfort to cope with the loneliness. It’s not a fix, but it is a something at least. FYI.)

She wasn’t allowed in my parents’ house, yet another taboo subject. We didn’t even fight about this one, which was more like not crying because the well of tears have already dried up, which, in a sense, is even more depressing. Rosie simply became one more symbol of a life that existed outside the boundaries of my family’s comfort zone.

I remember when I stopped feeling hopeless about the situation and just decided to move forward. It was a strange step, admitting that we were no longer really a family. I had officially moved on.

Or so I thought.

Because then, after a few years, my father shocked me.

He called and asked if I wanted to spend time together. Just the two of us. No occasion. No holiday. No crisis. Just a day together.

I remember being very suspicious because that wasn’t our relationship anymore. I was expecting some kind of kiriv speech.

Instead, he told me he only wanted to go somewhere my dog could come because she was family. He used those words.

When he said that, something happened inside me. My heart almost stopped. My throat tightened. I felt like I was going to burst. “Can it be that he’s actually changing?”

My father was a good man, but a stubborn man. Very stubborn. Stubborn like me. I honestly thought I had heard him wrong. This was not the man I knew. This was not the man who had spent years keeping a safe distance from every symbol of my adult life. And besides, he was afraid of dogs.

I hung up and cried.

I thought I didn’t care anymore. I thought I had moved on. But I did care. After all, he was my father.

When we met at the park, Rosie trotted straight toward him. My father completely froze; it looked like someone had pressed the pause button. He had clearly made a decision beforehand that he was going to do this, but now there was an actual dog approaching him and reality was testing his commitment.

Rosie started sniffing his shoes while he stood there trying very hard not to look frightened. Then she licked his hand. The expression on his face was, sorry to say it, incredible. If you’ve ever seen it, there was fear, disgust, determination, confusion, and politeness all happening at once. He looked like a man enduring an colonoscopy.

Then he took a deep breath and reached down to pet her. It was one of the most awkward interactions I’ve ever seen. Rosie, unfortunately for him, interpreted this as the beginning of a great friendship. Within half an hour she was following him around the park. By the end of the afternoon he was talking to her in Yiddish and calling her “a good girl” every five minutes. Watching that transformation was one of the funniest things I’ve ever witnessed!

The thing that mattered most about that day, though, wasn’t Rosie. It wasn’t the arcade either, although watching my father become absurdly competitive over arcade games still makes me giggle. For the first time in years, I felt like my father was interested in my actual life, in me. He asked about my work and listened. He asked about people I cared about and listened. He wasn’t waiting for an opening to steer the conversation somewhere else. At one point I told him about a student I had worked with, a kid who was having a really difficult year, and when I finished, my father looked genuinely proud.

Proud.

Proud.

For years I felt like every positive thing about me came with an invisible asterisk. That afternoon was one of the first times I felt seen as a complete person.

It must have been a sight to see, a very obviously Chassidishe man, and this very secular looking girl, hanging out in the park. I don’t know how my father felt about it, but I thought about every time someone walked by. But even the fact that this didn’t seem to bother him at all - to the contrary, he was proud - was very comforting to me, and to my inferiority complex.

The relationship slowly began to rebuild. The whole family learned to accept me and now I am part of what makes our family special. And Rosie is welcomed and loved to no end! They almost ignore me at this point!

My brother bought a “No Dogs Allowed!” sign, and put a coma after “no,” now reading, “No, Dogs Allowed!”

Brothers.

A few weeks later, my father made a special display in the living room to show his love for me, the precious teddy bear display he described. He did it very diplomatically so no other children would feel jealous. To be perfectly candid, I think he’s just proud he won the teddy bear at the arcade!

And I have the original zoo picture framed above my desk where it still sits today. My father looks at that picture and sees the little girl he almost lost. I look at it and see that my father loves me the way he did then.

Yes, I’m still OTD. This is not a kiriv story with a happy ending. A frimmeh Yid (Orthodox Jew) might wonder why this story matters if I never came back. But for starters, the door is open now. We’re having conversations that, for fifteen years, seemed impossible.

But more than that, I’ve never understood the logic of cutting someone off except in the rare case that it actually helps them change course. If it doesn’t, what’s left is a broken, fractured, unhappy family—and who does that help? By staying connected, I’m happier. My father is happier. My mother is happier. My siblings are happier. Even from a religious perspective, happiness breeds motivation and growth.

And that, really, is the point. I’m not telling this story to argue that one side was right and the other was wrong, or to assign blame for the difficult years. How much was my fault? How much was theirs? Who knows? Maybe I was responsible for more of it than I realize. Life is more complicated than that.

But if on an individual level our differences made life harder, as a family we are stronger. Our family today is a much more open and comfortable place than it used to be. And my parents have guests in their home now who they never would have imagined having years ago.

Guests, who walk into our very classy living room and see an incongruously giant teddy bear sitting there. 😊

First, a nice update, in the next few days (as per my request) his daughter will hopefully be sending me her version of the story; that should be fascinating!

Anyways, I didn’t check just now, but I believe I haven’t come across even a single negative comment in response to Shulem’s story on Substack. Which is a good thing because it’s a really good, positive story. But I did get one lone email questioning why I posted this “negative message.” You can’t win…

His issue was as follows, and I quote:1

“Imagine a teenager starts using drugs. Would a father simply shrug his shoulders and say, “I love you and support your choices”? Of course not. Parents have a responsibility to protect their children from harmful decisions. So if a frum parent believes that going OTD is spiritually dangerous, isn’t it logical that he should fight against it just as strongly? Isn’t it reasonable to treat leaving Judaism as seriously as any other destructive behavior?”

I want to post my response publicly - it was an idea I was thinking of posting anyway. I apologize to my audience that it’s not so polished; this email version was just my immediate thoughts in response2:

Hi, thank you for your email. […blah blah niceties blah blah.]

I think you are raising an important point, but I think you are mistaken, for a few reasons.

Some off the top of my head:

1. I disagree with the comparison. Drugs can permanently damage the child’s health, destroy the trajectory of his life, or even kill the kid (Rl). A parent’s first and foremost responsibility is to keep the children safe and prevent physical harm. Not letting them die.

Going OTD, as bad as it is, even if it is as awful as the parent believes, it is just not the immediate threat like drugs, and people have free will. As such, while frum parents certainly have an obligation to provide proper chinuch and teach their children what we believe to be true, at the end of the day, commitment to yiddishkeit is ultimately a choice. Every human being has free will. Once children become older they make their own decisions, whether those decisions make their parents proud or break their hearts. (Avraham had a Yishmael, Yitzchak had an Eisav.) As opposed to when the child is trying to kill themselves, where the risk is close to immediate, we take every measure we can to stop them.

2. Even in the drug moshol, constant anger and rejection are not helpful. Especially if those responses only push the child further into the behavior, the goal is not to punish, but to to help. Punishments are necessary as a means, provided they will get to the end goal, help. (And it’s important to know when it’s ago, which is often a driving factor for the misplaces and self-righteous anger.)

So you are correct in a way, and it is exactly like the drug story. Here also, just as in the drug case, the attitude when a child goes OTD is to help the child. Years and years of bitterness, of constant fighting, is not accomplishing anything.

This does not mean there should be no boundaries. Healthy relationships need boundaries and parents are allowed to and must have expectations. They are supposed to make rules clear about what they believe and what they stand for.

But boundaries also require a lot of sechel. Sometimes enforcing a boundary helps a child but sometimes it becomes the very thing that pushes them away. When kids are small and “regular,” life is simple. Follow the rules, clean up, listen, and get rewarded; if not, there will be a consequence (I don’t mean just prizes and trips and potches and time-outs; I mean even the feeling of Mommy and Tatty being proud or (mildly) disappointed - those are also rewards and consequences). But when the situation is more complicated, including some younger children with - let’s call it - extra energy; or many children as they get older, we need to use a lot of sechel. Every child is different. Every family is different. There is no universal formula.

This sechel includes a lot of balance, and it also includes picking which fights to battle and when to let the child exercise their bechira, which is either for them to learn the consequence themselves, or for them to not learn anything, and it’s just simply not our job to control our kids.

It would be nice if it worked that if we show enough love, the child will stay, or that if we administer the perfect amount of discipline, the child will stay. But life doesn’t work that way, and children - people - don’t work that way. Also, sometimes the parent balances the perfect of warmth and firmness and it works for five kids, and another child still chooses another path.

Parents are not supposed to be controlling their children. What they’re supposed to do is provide guidance, values, support, and a healthy environment, but the ultimate choice and what the children do with the silver platter3 you hand them, is up to them.

Also, the most important part of this balance is a balance that’s lacking in the world in general. Everyone is allowed to have values and priorities and things they care about. And you don’t ever need to compromise on those values… as values. But values are really ideals, the way things should be in a perfect world. We also must take into account the human side of things. Part of the balance is understanding ideals and then how they apply in the real world.

This goes for halacha itself as well. We all are supposed to follow a certain path, and that is the unbendable law. But if a child slips for any number of reasons, he won’t be ready to keep halacha. This doesn’t mean we forget about halacha at all, and halacha is still the most important guide. But use your sechel: if you’re going to be mad at your fourteen year old for davening after the first zman krias shma (which is only a chumra obviously), and even if he will miss the later zman (actual halachic issue), you better know well where your child is holding before you pick this fight. If you know he’s just tired and this is his struggle and in general he’s on a good trajectory, you can make this a small battle. Which means working with him to overcome the obstacle. But if you’re going to make this the hill you die on, and there are other layers, it’s obviously wrong to push this agenda and ruin his yiddishkeit.

You don’t need to tell your kid you’re proud that he’s waking up late, but you also don’t need to make him feel awful. He has a conscience, help him deal with it. Make a plan, a plan A, and and a plan B for when he fails, which includes letting him know he’s human and it’s okay and expected to not be perfect. This may create a certain liberalism, and you need to work on the balance that it shouldn’t. And you should always be proud and he should feel fully accepted by you as a person in general. Sometimes, subconsciously, that’s all he wanted to see anyways.

When things are already worse, a close to or already OTD stage, two things come up that need to be dealt with. One, the issue that the other kids will be poorly influenced, and two, much bigger infraction begin occurring, like chilul shabbos Rl. But the principal is all the same.

To the first point, the other children can learn that some people make bad decisions, and other people have struggles and we don’t need to judge (if the parent is genuine about this and not just putting on a show, it will shine through). And use the same tools of chinuch with the other children as always. Will this lead to a laxity in the home of Torah observance? Maybe a little, and the parents have to work on that.

And to the OTD child, while you can’t control his private behavior, you are allowed to and are supposed to have expectations of how the home is run, and he must respect your lifestyle, just simply as a human being. Which means in this house we don’t use certain words (I think people can easily relate to that boundary, especially around children). In some cases it would be appropriate that in this house we wear a yarmulka and in this house we publicly keep shabbos. And certain subject aren’t spoken about in front of children.

(Of course every situation requires it’s own nuance depending on where things are holding, I just mean in general. There is often a lot of anger and uncomfortable feelings from the OTD child’s side that you should respect his lifestyle as well, and you are not obliged to do that, but again, a lot of nuance and care must be taken in every specific situation.)

Tl;dr for Point 2 - the proper response is to use sechel, not to cut off the child. I just went off on a little rant on the complexities of using sechel, especially in these situations.

3. If parents want their children to have any chance of following their path, there must be a strong foundation of love. Not conditional love that depends on perfect behavior, but real unconditional, felt love.

When children know that their parents love and care about them regardless of what they do, any boundaries made will be more effective. Difficult conversations will produce better results because they are in context of a strong relationship. A child who feels loved is way more likely to care about what his parents think and far more likely to keep the door open to their influence.

Conversely, when the relationship itself becomes damaged, when a child feels rejected, he will not be inspired to make his parents proud. He’ll grow distant, leading to the parent’s pain growing, which leads to his resentment growing growing more and the vicious cycle continues and the gap between them just widens.

I’ll also add that many (perhaps most?) cases of OTD are not primarily intellectual, at least not exclusively at all, or initially. Of course, there are people with serious theological questions and they go off, but many times the bigger issue is a desire for acceptance.

Granted, that feeling out of place is not always because of the parents. Many parents have loving homes and strong relationships and the child still may struggle because he feels disconnected from the broader community. It may be simply because he doesn’t feel like he fits in the yeshiva system. Not every kid is built to spend thirteen hours a day learning in a beis midrash. (Of course part of a bigger discussion.) Other times, they find friends who feel out of place, and while he doesn’t feel out of place, peer pressure sends him down a path he wouldn’t have initiated.

But regardless of how it starts, a strong relationship with parents remains one of the most important factors in a child’s life, for stability for support, for a sense of worth that can’t usually come from elsewhere.

Cutting off an OTD child is counterproductive. A parent may believe with complete sincerity that the child is making a terrible mistake, but destroying the relationship does not solve the problem. And more often, it actually removes one of the last positive influences in the child’s life.

Of course, this love isn’t supposed to start once the kid is OTD. The entire relationship and childhood should be filled with love, and quality moments of fun and jokes and acceptance, sprinkled with discipline at the proper crossroads. But even if there were issues, the best thing a parent could do, even if the child/teenager/adult is going down a wrong and harmful path, is to still treating his child with warmth, dignity, love, acceptance and more love.

The goal is not to control our children. The goal (chinuch in a nutshell) is to give them every reason to want the life we believe in, while making sure they never doubt that they are loved, even if they choose otherwise.

Now, when we’re frustrated, it looks insane, but we just stare at each other and aggressively blink in Morse code.

Life can get difficult and it’s important to know how to manage your own stress. Besides making your life more manageable, your relationships with others will be affected by your mood.

I want to delineate the different types of stressors that can arise, and how to deal with them respectively.

Expectations

IMO expectations are the biggest monster among all stressors, and the first one to talk about. Having a picture in your mind of how something is supposed to be, and then facing the reality that it isn’t that way, is one of the greatest sources of stress. And when any stress arises, this is often lurking behind, pushing it along.

This is actually neurologically true, based on what we know about dopamine and what’s called “reward prediction error.”

Our brains are wired to anticipate outcomes. Meaning, when you plan for something, or you imagine how it will go, or hope for a certain result, through just that mental trip your brain already releases dopamine, the chemical that fuels motivation and excitement. So dopamine makes you feel good when things go right. But more than that, it actually rises in anticipation of things going right. In other words, your brain gets a little “reward” just for expecting a reward.

But because of that, when the actual outcome doesn’t match the expected one, the brain experiences what neuroscientists call a reward prediction error, which is the gap between what you thought would happen and what really did. If things turn out better than expected, dopamine spikes even higher, giving you a rush of pleasure and satisfaction. But if things turn out worse than expected, dopamine levels drop sharply, which creates a real feeling of letdown or frustration.

For this reason, if a certain food is super-hyped up - you had to book a reservation three months in advance, and your brother-in-law won’t shut up for a second how ridiculously good the food is - and the food comes out… and don’t get me wrong. It’s pretty good. But it’s just that: pretty good. Because it didn’t alter your very understanding of reality itself in its sheer goodness, you’re actually left miserable.

And on the flipside, on a road trip at 11:00 PM you pull up into Berel’s misspelled Bergur Borough in the middle of nowhere, excited to find something to eat, you’re expecting the food to taste like cardboard. When your $6 burger is even just a little better than edible, you’re dancing on a cloud of euphoria.

These reactions are real. And chemical. Your brain literally ‘punishes’ you for unmet expectations. The bigger and more detailed your picture of “how it’s supposed to be,” the bigger the dopamine crash when it doesn’t happen that way.

In life, for the most part, the problem lies with the one holding those expectations, not with the victim not living up to those standards. If coming home to a messy house stresses you out, it’s on you to clean it up, not someone else. Not assuming or presuming things should be a certain way is the best thing to solve unnecessary stress, which, technically, is a problem created solely in your mind.

Outside Aggravators

That said, there are actual stressors that aren’t just created in your head. Many people feel overwhelmed and can’t think straight when the house is messy. Others are particularly flustered by noise. Many by both. And everyone has their own personal ticks/stressors. Some people go to the park and love it but when they get home they have a headache from the heat or wind. Others are irritated by the noise of the AC in the summer, while the smell or dryness of the heat in the winter irritates them. And so on.

When these stressors arise, you will often react with feelings you don’t like, even to things around you that are unrelated to that stressor. You may snap at your kids who are normally adorable- but God knows they can be annoying! When you are stressed because of that AC, your brain will be attuned just to ‘the annoying’ and the poor things are going to be yelled at just for being themselves.

So the first step is to pinpoint the aggravator. It’s not the kids; it’s you. And it’s your job to deal with you. If it’s something you can remove, that’s obviously the first step. Make sure the house is clean. Make sure that loud toy is off and quiet.

But often the stressor can’t be eradicated. You can’t never have AC in the summer (and you can’t currently afford central). Going to the park may still be a necessity for the kids, headache notwithstanding. When these things arise, the key is simply to remember that you have a headache and may be irritable because of that. Your job in this situation is to control your reaction to the stressor, since the stressor itself can’t be removed.

Life

The third category of stressors is - believe it or not - life itself.

Life can bring stress in many different ways: money problems, someone getting fired, getting sick Rl, a person in your life being mean or annoying to you or your wife (Hashem should help that none of the above apply to you), heck - even kids crying can be a stressor - which it actually is neurologically. (Hashem should help that you experience that one...)

But perhaps even more prevalent is that life itself gets busy and the things that absolutely must to get done are numerous, even without any added stressors. You simply NEED to make sure your kids have babysitters for the year. You NEED to make sure tuition is taken care of. You NEED to fill out the paperwork for insurance. You NEED to go to the dentist and make that appointment. You NEED to make sure your kids have what to wear for the winter even though the summer clothing was finally in order. You NEED to make sure to have tin foil when it runs out. You NEED to take care of that leaking sink (enjoy the perks of renting while it lasts). You NEED to fix the window shade. ...Should I go on?

And this is besides for the daily tasks: suppers, snacks, having a clean house, making sure the kids aren’t bored and shopping that needs to get done. Life can be a hamster wheel that gives little time to breathe. (And when/if this all gets to you, that loud toy will get under your skin a lot more!)

It’s important to be able to deal with the stress by giving life your best shot, by limiting and controlling the stressors in the environment as much as possible. The advice here won’t be to get rid of the grievances; you often can’t. Like before, you can’t turn off the AC; you just can’t not do all those things on your plate. But once again, it will help to remember that this is a stressor and try to react as controlled as possible.

But here there is another thing you can do, and that is to take control over all the things in your life that you can take control of and make the environment all that much easier to deal with. And for this, I think it boils down to five things to make sure your machine is run well to manage the hard times- five musts for smooth sailing:

1. Being healthy: it’s important to be healthy in general; it’s just a smart thing to do. But its importance doubles for stress management. Eating wrong is bound to make you not feel so great which is an easy stressor and an extra problem in your life which you can (to a large degree) control. And when you don’t feel too good, you don’t deal as well.

I’ll stress again (no pun intended), that a lot of health issues are more in our control than we may think- pouring junk down our hatch is a slow poison. I’m not here to be the health nut, nor do I live up to my own standards, but at least do your research! (Will post on this in the future bl’n…)

2. Getting enough sleep (as per your energy levels): feeling tired is a sure way to not have the bandwidth to deal with life. Main thing, according to most sleep experts, is to get a consistent amount of sleep. Again, do your research.

3. Feeling fulfilled with your life: if you’re feeling bad about yourself, that will depress you and shut you down. On the flip side, feeling accomplished will give you an extra spring in your step which will enhance your ability to get things done and ride the waves of life.

This one is really important, especially since guys are in a system which often doesn’t cater to their specific personal ambitions. Even guys who stay in learning or go into klei kodesh, prioritized by the system, still generally need an individual path and goal.

4. Not feeling overwhelmed: being able to weather the many items on your plate. One piece of advice - organize all the things you have to do in your life, which should include a “to-do list”, but more importantly, on top of that, make your responsibilities a part of your schedule. Have a time in your day set aside for this task and that, in order to compartmentalize the many things thrown your way. If it’s just flying around, chances are it won’t get done.

5. Having positive relationships: there is nothing better to manage stress than happy partners helping each other along. And there is nothing worse for managing stress than the misery that can be created through an issue in the relationship. (As the pasuk calls it, מר ממות.)1

These five items are all very important to be able to confront the responsibilities of life properly. And the opposite (eating unhealthy, not getting enough sleep and so on) will have the opposite effect. So you have to know yourself and “learn yourself” and work on making sure your personal upkeep is okay so that you can limit your stress levels and how you react to things. Each one of these needs to be thought about, and sometimes discovered throughout the years (a lot of things aren’t fully on the table until you’re running your own home), knowing your limits and capabilities and balancing those two properly.

You probably read this and think I’m a super organized guy. I’m not. I’m not the methodical, orderly type. I’m actually a bit all over the place type. And I’m just a normal dude trying to get through it all. These are just some good tips and things to think about.

And oh yah - if you see me in public looking insane staring at my wife and blinking rapidly, don’t worry about me, I’m probably just telling my wife I love her;)

Excerpted - with changes - from:

Hello,

My name is Shulem and I like your substack articles. I read it with enjoyment and I have some questions for you. I wanted to tell you a story from my life. You can share it and give your audience some chizuk. And then I’ll ask you questions. My english isn’t so good but I to talk in English mostly at work so I’ll try because it’s important. (The little red lines and some green lines will be my leader, but some green lines doesn’t say what to do.)

My daughter went off the derech years ago when she was younger. A teenager. It wasn’t one day all of a sudden. It was a long, long process over a lot of years. First small things, then bigger things. Like by many families, there was a lot of fighting and anger and a lot of tears and yelling. Many conversations that didn’t go too good. Sometimes I thought we are not even speaking the same language. (We really don’t because she is speaking in good English and I am speaking in Yiddish.)

Today she is 29 years old and she is not married. She lives by herself with a dog. For people like us, a dog in the house is not the way we think our children become. It’s not the dog that’s not a problem but it shows her lifestyle. She colored her hair and doesn’t dress tzniusdik and looks and lives like a goy.

But I have to tell you also the other side that took me a while to open my eyes and look. She became a very special person. She works as social worker in schools, helping children who go through trauma and difficult things. The schools trust he and the children love her. She is doing important work every day. But I couldn’t see this. I only saw that she looks like a goy and doesn’t care about our family. And I was embarrassed.

We never ended the relationship and she came for some shabbosim and yuntif and other times but it was always awkward and uncomfortable. There was always an big large elephant in the room. I would look to her and only see embarrassment. She looked to me and just sees somebody who never would understand her. There was still some love covered up , and there was also a lot of pain. I think we wouldn’t speak to each other soon if it didn’t change.

A while ago, I was working in my kitchen with the fridge and I found a picture underneath that must a fell there one time. It was a picture of her from when she was a little girl maybe eight years old sitting next to me in the zoo smiling. We were both smiling.

I don’t know exactly what happened, but I just sat there looking at that picture and crying. I love my daughter and I had suddenly thought to myself what am I doing? This girl in the picture, she is my daughter and she is still the same child. She grew up now but inside, she is still my small daughter.

I put my tools away right away and I called her and I told her I want to spend some time together and I want to meet her at the zoo. The one from the picture. And I told her bring the dog also.

She first didn’t answer so I left a message but she called back with laughing (and not a full laugh but a laugh that sounded hopeful) and she said the zoo might not let bringing dogs. She’ll call and ask. She called back me and said they didn’t let dogs in the zoo. She asked if we should go to the zoo without the dog or to somewhere else maybe a park with the dog. I told her we only go where the dog can go. He is family. She said it’s a girl dog (I said he) and I was embarrassed but she saw I’m trying and was very happy.

That day we hugged and talked for a long time on a park bench. Soon we started making jokes (I made some bad tatty jokes which she always groaned from as a kid). We were laughing for the first time in many years.

I asked a stranger to take a picture of us, smiling once again. We had a really fun day spending time together. Just father and daughter. After the park we went to play in the arcade together with tickets and I won a giant teddy bear.

The teddy bear is still sitting in my living room now. Next to those two pictures the one from when she was younger from the zoo and the one from the park, which I made into big pictures. My wife doesn’t love having a teddy bear but she let’s it be there for now.

People come into my house and ask me, Shulem, what is with a giant teddy bear doing here? And my wife is embarrassed.

I tell them what’s the truth. It’s my centerpiece of my house. It is there because my daughter and me won it together. And every time I look at it, I remember how much I love her and how grateful I am that we found our way back to each other. And my wife agrees this is better than being embarrassed about our daughter. It’s better to have a teddy bear than a big elephant.

She is still not on the derech and I am not pretending she is. But today, when I look at her, I don’t see an embarrassment. I see my daughter and I am very proud of her. I am proud of the her kindness and of the work she does and of who she is.

You have to understand that this is not common in our community. Most people are like me before and they are embarrassed of their children’s choices that don’t fit yiddishkeit. And I almost lost her but she was the person ready to stay but I was the person who pushed her away and that was a sad thought.

And this is not my goal but because we stopped fighting and started listening to each other, she started asking me questions again about Yiddishkeit, questions that bothered her for many years because now we trust each other’s love.

And I don’t need to convince her about anything. She knows I will love whatever she does and and she feels that. I think that is why we can talk. Because even worse than her going off the derech, I almost lost my daughter.

I want to share this so other fathers don’t make my mistake. Don’t push away your children away. They are lost in a shvere world and need you, their loving tatty and mommy more than ever. You don’t need to be the same but she is your family and you need to love her.

That’s the story in my life right now and now I have some questions. I told her I don’t know all of the answers and I am looking into it. And she appreciates me being truthful more than if I give her answers. But she still wants to hear answers. And that is where I am asking you.

[At this point, Shulem transitioned from sharing his story to asking several questions about Yiddishkeit that were bothering his daughter. I’m omitting that portion of the email, I just wanted to share the beautiful story. - shulman]

Your friend and a big reader,

Shulem

Sometimes we criticize people because we disagree with their values. Other times, we actually agree with their values but criticize the way they go about expressing them. Personally, I’d much rather be attacked from the second camp than the first.

People find reading these days so annoying. I think it’s crazy how he incessantly posts about the same topic again and again, almost a broken tape recorder. I think this is the loudest critique you’ll hear, especially from yeshivish Americans like me.

Don’t get me wrong, there is definitely content I hard disagree with, and even in areas where I agree with him I think he sometimes says silly things. But I also agree with many of his major takes. His conclusions about Torah and science are generally reasonable. His overall view of the army situation is also pretty reasonable. What bothers me, and the grievance I hear most often, is less what he thinks and more how he presents it.

But that’s not such a terrible review, eh?

A proper analysis of this “bloghorrea” phenomenon is that he fundamentally changed from being a thought writer and is now an activist.

A lot of talented writers, thinkers, and artists end up becoming activists. Instead of focusing on the things that originally made them interesting and famous, they decide their newfound (or oldfound) influence is better used trying to save society from whatever problem they think is destroying it. We see this all the time. Genius X spends the first part of his life producing great work, and then suddenly everything becomes politics, culture wars, activism.

Whether it’s pacifism, socialism, anti-Trumpism, transgender rights, anti-establishment stuff, or something else (#army_issues), it becomes their mission. Sometimes they’re completely wrong and the world would be better off if they stuck to what they were actually good at. Sometimes they’re right and maybe their influence really is helping. But either way, they’re stepping away from what made them interesting.1

And honestly, it’s annoying.

It’s annoying that Einstein and John Lennon wasted so much time later on on their pacifism activism. It’s annoying that Tolstoy became a Christian vegetarian spokesman. And in the same vein (obviously not on the same level, I’m just talking about the pattern) it’s annoying that Slifkin spends so much time fighting these battles instead of focusing on rationality, science, and shiluach hakein. That was way more interesting!

The reason we have post and post after post regurgitating the same points over and over is because he is now an activist. An activist gets fired up by every movement and story in the news and in culture and very time something happens, he shares that same opinion in light of that new thing. If your expecting the old academic-style Slifkin, this Slifkin is annoying.

Incidentally, many appreciate his cause are thrilled he is doing this. And there’s a reason he has a large, supporting audience (which only confirms his reach in his head), because there’s a lot to what he’s doing. We can debate how influential he actually is, but it’s an easy argument that in a world where any dissent is deemed heretical, is silence better?

Either way, notice what my criticisms actually are. My criticisms are that he’s annoying, that maybe his talents could be used better elsewhere. I don’t always like his tone. Not that he’s wrong.

If we discuss his actual positions, we’re often on the same page, especially with the big ones. I don’t think it’s apikorsus to say the universe is billions of years old. And in his today’s rants, I don’t think it’s apikorsus to say that learning Torah full-time isn’t for everyone. I don’t think it’s apikorsus to say that if we have a Jewish state it has to be defended by everyone, and that broad exemptions for an entire and growing segment of Klal Yisrael, let’s just say, raise some difficult questions. I don’t think it’s apikorsus to say that not every bochur is the talmid chacham the gemara discusses “מאי אהני לן רבנן.” I think Slifkin appreciates that we need lomdei Torah, and that everyone should have Torah be a central part of their lives (Natan, correct me if I’m wrong about any of this).

I do have actual critiques on his positions as well, not just on his tone and style. I think he ignores some serious concerns. I’ll list them in a moment, but don’t think for a second that these are responses to his claims, to his legitimate complaints. Not at all.

One (a practical criticism), the IDF is not a great environment for a frum boy who genuinely cares about halachah. That’s a real issue, ignored by Slifkin. This reality needs to be addresses. As I said, this is not a response, just something that needs to be seriously kept in mind when discussing this topic, and not whitewashed as Slifkin (who cares less about personal halacha - again, Natan, correct me if I’m wrong) seems to do.

Also (a political criticism), everything is so politically charged. (Move to America, o poor frustrated masses!) That means that every concession giving a finger can mean losing an arm, so real solutions aren’t as simple as they may seem (unless you think the system is rotten to begin with, cough cough ahem).

This leads to another more important critique (an ideological criticism), that the need to teach our youth the importance of Torah is far greater than how Slifkin portrays it as.

This very difference is what makes it that he is really arguing against an ideology he doesn’t agree to. If he started by talking about how extremely precious Torah is and argued from the POV, that would be a very different conversation. I get the impression he thinks Torah is just “another important thing” among many, not something that deserves to be on a pedestal. If that’s true, what conversation are we really having?

I am someone who values Torah to no end. I think the yeshiva system is one of the greatest things our generation has.

Small tangent which reveals how Slifkin and I differ greatly and why we approach the same topic with basically the same conclusions and yet we are very different: Because of the pedestal I place Torah on, I think people like Rav Dov Lando deserve tremendous respect, even when they occasionally say things I think are irresponsible.

My esteem for Rav Dov Lando isn’t diminished because of a silly comment he made last week. He is a tremendous gadol baTorah and baal middos, a master of Mikra, Mishnah, Gemara, Shulchan Aruch - and sevara.

And he is carrying the burden of leadership during a cultural battle with some really nasty actors. Is everyone in the government and IDF anti-Torah like seventy years ago? Of course not! Things have changed dramatically, despite what many Charedim are taught to (not) think.2 Nevertheless there are loud voices in Israeli society that actually hate Torah and everything it represents (and I don’t mean the Slifkins). Although it’s not like it was seventy years ago, when someone is fighting that battle every day, sometimes they say silly, sweeping, irresponsible things, especially when they once did live that reality. So Reb Dov says a silly thing here and there. That doesn’t erase the fact that this man is bringing the world closer to Torah and Hashem in many ways. A respect worth upholding if that’s what matters in life.

(I should add for clarity, it’s not like the things he said are the type which reveal layers of rot. That has happened with others (who I think did teshuva since, at least privately). Reb Dov’s just saying things that could’ve and should’ve been said with less anger and with more responsible bumpers.)

Anyways, back to the point: I appreciate the fact that we live in a generation where bochurim can learn and avreichim can sit in kollel. Despite all its problems, and God knows there are many, it’s not simple to tear down a system like that. This is an important factor in the discussion as well. Which Slifkin seems to ignore.

However, that said, his criticisms are legitimate and his concerns should be taken seriously. It should be a conversation, not a fight because we all (should) want what’s right. But if every criticism of the system is apikorsus, the conversation is over before it starts.

At the end of the day, my main complaint is not that Slifkin is a kofer (is he even?), or that he’s wrong. It’s that while the activist Slifkin may be right about many things, the writer Slifkin was a lot more interesting.

Here is a Kinnah I wrote a few years ago about this.

There was a time when things were very different.

We walk through our days oblivious to His presence. We are so distant from Him that we imagine Him as somewhere else - far away, not here.

But the truth is He is right in front of us. He is here. He is everywhere we go. He has never left.

And yet we speak about Him - ironically, even as I speak about Him right now - as if He is a presence elsewhere. As if He is an idea, a concept, an abstract, a reality beyond us. But He is not elsewhere. He is here.

I should speak in a way that includes Him. I should speak as though I stand before Him, because I do.

But I don’t. And the painful truth is that my words here reveal the reality inside me: I don't feel like He's here.

There was a time when His presence was clear.

There was a time when we said “Attah” to Him - “You” - and we felt it in our bones. We stood before Him with awareness, with closeness, with feeling.

But now we feel nothing.

We feel so little that many of our own brethren no longer even believe that there is anything to feel. We all feel nothing, they decide there is nothing. But we are all the same: Numb.

There was a time when we were high and mighty. We mourn our downfall.

Is it because we care about our own honor? How long should we care for? Time to stand up, accept our fate and move on!

But no! We sit. On the floor. And we read Eicha about how we were once high and mighty. Why?

We care because our greatness was never ours alone. When we were high and mighty, we represented Him. Our height was His height. Our might was His might. Our glory was a reflection of His glory. Our honor was a testimony to His presence in the world.

And now we are low. Despised. Hated. Dehumanized. Murdered.

And alongside our humiliation is His humiliation. When His people are diminished, His presence in this world is diminished with us.

Cry, soul. Cry.

I know it is hard.

We don’t feel a thing.

Cry soul, cry.

You can’t?

I know.

Sit on the floor. Search within yourself for those dormant feelings that have been buried beneath years of distraction and comfort. Awaken the yearning that once existed. And cry soul, cry.

But alas, we can’t even force out a tear.

We are so apathetic that we have lost even the ability to long for what we are missing.

And that is another reason to cry.

We are not brokenhearted.

We are not sad.

We sit on the floor and we don’t cry.

We sit on the floor and read the cries and wailings of the past. And we just want to pass this awful time.

We are numb.

We feel like we are missing nothing - and yet we are missing everything.

We are missing even the feeling of missing.

It is so sad.

It is so dark.

It is so depressing not even to be depressed.

And we will not shed a tear, because the truth is that we do not care.

And as sad as that is, that is the truth.

And that is the avodah of Tisha B’Av. To try. Even a little. To try and shed one tiny tear. Even if no tear falls. We try to cry. Because we love You. And even if we don’t know it, we miss You…

Okay, so whenever people bring up the Bible Code, there can be two very different things they mean.

The first is the silly Michael Drosnin version: the guy we discussed a minute ago who wrote those really popular bestselling books claiming that the Torah predicted political assassinations, nuclear wars that never happened, and eventually theorized that the Torah was written by aliens who left us a decoding key hidden somewhere near the Dead Sea. That version is low hanging fruit, easy to make fun of. Which I did.

But the more serious defenders of Torah Codes counter, let’s forget about Drosnin. What about the mathematicians?

They are talking about the famous 1994 paper by Doron Witztum, Eliyahu Rips, and Yoav Rosenberg (WRR), which was published in a serious science journal, Statistical Science. These were researchers with serious statistical claims.

Of course if you have a large enough text, you can find hidden words, that's not a chiddush. Their real claim was that related words appear unusually close together. The WRR paper looked at the names of famous rabbis and their birth and death dates and claimed that these names and dates appeared together in Bereishis at rates far beyond what chance would allow.

This sounds really cool - the chances of the words appearing were something in the vicinity of 1 in 60,000! And this is why the Torah Codes are popular in kiruv circles like Aish.

The issue is that the WRR experiment requires a large number of decisions, like which rabbis should count, which spelling of their names in Hebrew should be accepted, which dates should be included, which version of the Torah text should be analyzed, how close do words have to be before the connection becomes meaningful, and so on.

Hebrew makes this even more important because names can be spelled multiple ways. A person can have a full name, an abbreviated name, a version with or without certain letters, and different historical spellings. And there are no vowels. If you are searching through a massive text and are allowed to try multiple versions until something works, you have dramatically increased your chances of finding a match.

If someone claimed they discovered hidden messages about American presidents in Moby-Dick, then you realize they were allowed to try different spellings of names, nicknames, alternate dates, different editions of the book, and different statistical tests until they found a pattern. You’d wonder, no?

Patterns obviously exist. Any enormous text contains a huge number of possible combinations. But those patterns aren’t meaningful if you’re just manipulating the data. That is called data mining or data dredging.

An example would be flipping a coin a million times. Somewhere in those million flips, you will for sure find an incredibly strange-looking streak. Maybe 25 heads in a row. But that is exactly the kind of thing that happens when you look through enough data.

The biggest challenge came from mathematicians including Brendan McKay, Dror Bar-Natan, Gil Kalai, and Maya Bar-Hillel, who examined the WRR methodology. They found that when reasonable changes were made to the experiment, the impressive results disappeared. They also claimed that similar methods could produce surprising patterns in other large texts, including the Hebrew translation of War and Peace.

I hate to say it, but the revered mathematicians fell into the exact same trap as crazy, conspiratorial, circus-man Drosnin. Not as crazy, not to the same level of absurdity, but ultimately, there is nothing special about these codes. Instead of Drosnin’s pure coincidence they were using data manipulation, but it is pseudoscience just the same.

This is not to say the Torah does not contain secrets, and it’s possible there can be some way to find truth in this method, but to me it just the same as “segulaslop.”

Segulas can have value too, when done by really big people who understand the Torah well (i don’t know if we have people in this generation who qualify is what I mean). But when performed like magic shows, using sleight of hand and manipulations, appealing to the undiscerning masses, they are utterly meaningless and yes, foolish. And that is not us.

Long story short, I hate 2026 Bible Code enthusiasm, and so should you.

Okay, so before everyone was obsessed with AI writing weird poems, people used to freak out over this thing called the Bible Code. Basically, back in the late 90s, some dudes convinced themselves that the entire Torah was secretly a giant, encrypted spreadsheet containing hidden messages about the future of humanity. All you needed was a computer and some free time to unlock the secrets of the universe.

Except it was total nonsense.

The whole “magic code” trick - which math nerds call Equidistant Letter Spacing (ELS) - is basically just a glorified word search puzzle. You take an entire book, delete all the spaces, punctuation, and chapter breaks, and dump the letters into a massive grid. To find a “code,” the software just skips every 3rd, 5th, or 47th letter. If you use a computer to run millions of brute-force searches across a giant text file, short words pop up everywhere just by pure chance.

To turn those random words into actual “sentences,” people cheated like crazy. They didn’t find one long, continuous hidden message. Instead, they just hunted around the grid for short words that happened to be close to each other, ignored all the contradictory words floating right next to them, and pieced them together. Like a ransom note.

Some skeptics decided to test how “magical” this really was. They bought a $70 software program called CodeFinder and ran the exact same code searches on Tolstoy’s massive novel War and Peace - and even on completely random files of keyboard mashing. And guess what? If you are patient enough and willing to mess around with the skip numbers long enough, you can find creepy sentences like “I will eat ice cream on Friday” or “DYK is a cool guy” hidden inside literally any text ever written. Entropy dictates that if you look hard enough at a mountain of random text, you’ll eventually find whatever you’re looking for.

To make things even worse, the guy who wrote the mega-bestselling book The Bible Code in 1997, a journalist named Michael Drosnin, completely abused how the Hebrew language works. Ancient Hebrew didn’t really write out vowels, meaning a lot of words can be spelled multiple ways. To find the name of the Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, Drosnin had to use a skip value of 4,772 letters. When your search window is that ridiculously massive, you could literally find the entire script of Moster’s Inc. hidden inside a chocolate chip cookie recipe.

The whole craze started because two real mathematicians published a legitimate paper in 1994 about interesting number patterns in Genesis, purely as a math puzzle. But Drosnin took it, blew it way out of proportion, and got super famous after sending a warning letter to Yitzhak Rabin right before Rabin was tragically assassinated in 1995. Because the warning came true, Drosnin got invited onto Oprah and became a pop-culture icon.

But when Drosnin’s later predictions - like claiming the world would literally end in nuclear war in 2000 and 2006, or that a meteor was going to wipe out Los Angeles - totally failed, he started sounding completely unhinged.

In his sequel book, he literally argued that the Bible wasn’t written by God at all, but by aliens who brought DNA to Earth and buried an alien decoding key in a steel obelisk near the Dead Sea. (If it takes advanced alien technology to make the code work, how did a middle-schooler with $70 do the exact same thing on an old laptop?)

At the end of the day, the whole Bible Code thing is just a classic scam. Drosnin threw out a million wild guesses, got lucky on one tragic political assassination that everyone knew was coming anyway, and ignored every single time he was completely wrong.

Time for a Friday morning rant.

This is, I believe, my first exasperated style culture-rant because Substack is also for venting once in a while.

once asked me why my icon is a pretzel. I think I told him at the time, “so that the children should ask.”

He went on to create a whole fun story about a boat called the system (he used a Rebus Puzzle for the name of the boat, and he called it the “Metsys”1 and I was the super-rich pretzel magnate in the story. We clashed about the picture he used in his post and we corrected it. And we moved on.

But the real reason I use a pretzel as my icon is much better, much deeper, and will absolutely take your breath away. It’s because:

Pretzels are delicious.

Pretzels are warm.

They are complicated-shaped — literally “pretzel” shaped!

But then you eat them and they are so… simple.

And that represents my entire view on Judaism/life/people/etc..

Judaism is delicious, warm, and it seems complicated, but as you taste it, it becomes so… simple.

Life is delicious, warm, it seems complicated, but as you enjoy it, it becomes so… simple.

People are delicious, warm, they always seem so complicated, but as you get to know them, they seem so… simple.

But for real, that was total nonsense. That is not at all why I use a pretzel.

The real reason is super unpoetic: it was totally random. I wanted to use an icon for my Gmail a while back and it was the only one that didn’t seem girly or something, I don’t even remember.

And once I used it for that I leaned into it for my Substack. That’s all.

Anyways, look what I did there! You can find something “deep and meaningful” anywhere. You can find something deep and meaningful in a pretzel icon. That doesn’t mean it is deep or meaningful. Sadly, sometimes it is just random.

Which is why I got frustrated on last night arguing with someone simultaneously about Bible Codes and segulos.2

I have zero patience for Bible Codes. As anyone who has looked into it knows, you can find those same “miraculous” patterns in Shakespeare or Dickens. It’s a parlor trick. It’s just silliness.

If you find personal faith because of things like that, I’m not here to take that away from you - stay religious, do your thing. But if we are trying to use some sense of reasonability or logic about why we believe, please keep your silliness to yourself! It’s not a good look.

And for those who followed that exchange, that dude doesn’t represent me or my beautiful Orthodox Judaism.

We are an עם חכם ונבון, not a group of silly people. I hope even the atheists who extremely disagree with my conclusions can see from me, or from some of the brighter minds on Frumstack, that we (I guess at least some of us) value integrity.

I think this problem of “cheap” Judaism runs deeper than just Bible Codes; it touches on the “segulah culture.” We are not supposed to be a nation which just runs after things that sound deep or feel deep. We are a nation which knows how to think and analyze.

A lot of this fluffiness is just the human condition - we are lazy by nature. But when it seeps into what the mission is, that’s another story, and it’s worth calling it out.

So I am calling it out: Segulos are cheap and are not authentic Judaism™.

And just like the lazy brainrot of today, this laziness is also pervasive. It’s everywhere.

It’s in which ‘gedolim’ people flock to for brachos.

It’s in what folks do when they need a yeshua.

Basically it’s in what much of society looks for to find greatness and spirituality.

I don’t usually even care that much - if you’ve gotten to know me at all, my motto is live and let live (for the most part at least). Heck, I “condone” atheists.

But this, to me, is more disturbing because it’s a total lack of self awareness and feels like it’s filling that void. I guess it’s kind of like the mesilas yeshorim’s complete dark vs. almost dark analogy.

So I am venting about it. And we can be mad about it together and complain how stupid the world is by the shabbos table.

Besides the dude I encountered pushed me to write a post explaining my position so I started, and even though he seems to have retracted his position since, my post was already almost done. And my blood didn’t cool off yet.

I oscillated between segulos and Bible Codes, but to summarize my rant:

Phooey Bible Codes!

And phooey to every other attempt to replace real with gimmicks.

And since no Daas-Yochid-style-rant is complete until Calvin & Hobbes join in, here’s one to ponder that will change the way you look at the world:

Two prefaces so I don’t get annoying comments:

• For those who hate the use of AI (like myself), I wrote this originally without AI but it did not sound academic. I asked AI to help it sound more academic, and I found it too AI - and way too academic - for my taste, so I went over it myself afterwards and made hundreds of changes. But if you detect any AI, 🙋🏻, guilty as charged.1

• I thought of this specific concept in high school but never got around to producing it. It is a parody ridiculing the DH. Even though the Torah is fragmented, most scholars - and I mean secular - agree that Julius Wellhausen’s DH is mostly ridiculous. It’s full of conjecture and mistakes. And besides, this idea of mine is still pretty funny (IMO). So here goes:

  

New Questions in Berenstain Studies

Source Criticism, Canon Formation, and the Theology of Bear Country

Abstract

The present study challenges the traditional view that the Berenstain corpus (B) emerged from a unified literary tradition. Building upon recent advances in Pooh Studies2 and the recent Eric Carlein Criticism, I argue that the received text is best understood as the product of multiple competing bear communities whose traditions were subsequently harmonized by a late redactor. Particular attention is given to the so-called “Papa Problem,” the role of Mama Bear as a wisdom figure, and the reconstruction of the elusive Ur-Bear tradition (U), fragments of which may survive in the margins of several early texts.

I. The Crisis in Berenstain Scholarship

Few subjects have generated more controversy in contemporary children’s literature than the historical reliability of the Berenstain corpus.

The traditional position, inherited largely from nineteenth-century Bear Romanticism, and driven strongly by nostalgic attachments and early affective conditioning associated with the text, held that the narratives preserve a substantially accurate account of life in Bear Country. According to this view, Papa Bear was a real historical figure, Mama Bear was his spouse, and Brother and Sister Bear were their offspring.

Such assumptions can no longer be maintained.

As early as the pioneering work of Dr. Arthur Bellingham3 (1887), scholars noted that Papa Bear appears in fundamentally irreconcilable forms. In some passages he is an experienced woodsman and respected authority figure. In others he becomes trapped in his own inventions, falls from ladders, mistakes basic household objects for advanced machinery, and requires rescue by family members possessing normal levels of consciousness.

No serious historian could attribute these traditions to a single individual.

II. The Four Sources

The modern consensus identifies four principal documentary strands.

J (The Junk-Food Source)

The earliest layer, J, derives its name from the central role played by junk food, bad habits, and preventable mistakes. J depicts Bear Country as a morally unstable environment in which characters repeatedly encounter lessons that would be obvious to an attentive turnip. The theology of J is straightforward:

This doctrine would later become foundational for all subsequent Bear traditions.

P (The Papa Source)

The Papa Source preserves memories of a heroic ancestor. Here Papa is competent, he understands tools, he completes projects, and he occasionally makes it through an entire book without humiliating himself.

Many scholars once dismissed P as legendary. However, archaeological discoveries at the site of Old Stump Hollow have uncovered evidence that at least some bears possessed basic motor skills, lending credibility to the tradition.

B (The Buffoon Source)

The Buffoon Source presents a radically different figure. In B, Papa serves a ritual function; specifically, he demonstrates what not to do. The Buffoon community appears to have believed that wisdom could best be transmitted through increasingly elaborate examples of paternal error.

Thus we encounter narratives in which Papa:

• ignores obvious warnings,

• overestimates his abilities,

• purchases unnecessary equipment,

• creates avoidable emergencies,

• and learns lessons previously mastered by the target readership.

The source reaches its mature form in the Late Power-Tool Period.

M (The Mama Source)

The Mama Source is distinctive in that it contains almost no narrative tension whatsoever.

A typical M text proceeds as follows:

1. Mama identifies the problem.

2. Everyone ignores Mama.

3. The predicted disaster occurs.

4. Mama explains the lesson.

5. Everyone agrees Mama was correct.

The repetitive nature of this material has led some scholars to propose that M originated as liturgical literature.

III. Reconstructing the Ur-Bear

The most exciting development of the last century has been the partial reconstruction of the lost Ur-Bear tradition (U). Using advanced comparative methods, scholars have identified traces of an earlier narrative underlying all extant texts.

The reconstructed Ur-Bear may be summarized as follows:

Although only fragments survive, many researchers regard this as the oldest recoverable layer of the tradition. Some extremists argue that every Berenstain book is merely an elaboration of this single original text. Their position is difficult to refute.

IV-a. The Sister Bear Interpolation

One of the most famous debates concerns the arrival of Sister Bear.

Earlier texts know only Brother Bear. Then, quite suddenly, Sister appears. The redactor offers no explanation; no birth narrative survives; no census records exist. One volume ends with one cub and the next contains two.

Traditional scholars attribute this to the natural expansion of the family. Source critics instead recognize a classic interpolation.

The simplest explanation is that an independent Sister tradition (S) became popular among Bear communities and was inserted into the corpus by a later editor. This theory explains why Sister often demonstrates greater common sense than established characters despite apparently materializing from nowhere.

IV-b. The Alleged Recovery of The New Baby

Recent decades have witnessed the sensational discovery of a purportedly lost manuscript entitled The Berenstain Bears and the New Baby, which many initially hailed as the missing link in the Sister Bear tradition.

According to its advocates, this text resolves the central problem of the Sister Interpolation by providing a narrative account of Sister Bear’s arrival into the Bear family. The manuscript appears, at first glance, to preserve a long-lost birth tradition omitted from the earlier corpus.

However, critical examination has revealed serious difficulties.

The text contains vocabulary, narrative structures, and moral emphases characteristic not of the early Bear communities, but of the much later pedagogical period. The excessive concern with preparing Brother Bear for siblinghood, the suspiciously modern psychological framing, and the remarkably convenient resolution of all family tensions strongly suggest that the document is a later theological expansion rather than an authentic early source.

Furthermore, the manuscript displays none of the characteristic ambiguity found in genuine early Bear traditions. Ancient texts tend to preserve confusion, contradiction, and unresolved tensions. The New Baby, by contrast, answers every question with suspicious efficiency.

No serious Berenstain scholar accepts the text as original.

The current consensus is that The New Baby represents a later attempt by the Bear community to retroactively fill a gap in the tradition. In other words, rather than explaining Sister Bear’s historical arrival, the text reveals something far more interesting: that later editors recognized the same problem modern scholars now face and attempted to solve it through literary invention.

The fraud is therefore instructive. It does not preserve the history of Sister Bear. It preserves the history of bears attempting to create history.

V. Eschatology and the End Times

Recent scholarship has increasingly focused upon the late religious texts.

These works reveal a heightened concern with ultimate questions:

• What is right?

• What is wrong?

• What happens when bears refuse to share?

• Can a bear enter the kingdom of good manners while chewing with his mouth open?

The answers vary, but the overall trajectory points toward an increasingly developed moral eschatology. By the latest period, ethical infractions are treated with a seriousness previously reserved for invading armies.

VI. The Great Mandelian Schism

No issue has divided scholarship more deeply than the spelling controversy.

The manuscripts unanimously attest the reading: BERENSTAIN

Yet millions of readers insist upon: BERENSTEIN

Several explanations have been proposed.

• The Scribal Error Theory - Widely regarded as inadequate.

• The Collective Memory Theory - Plausible but unsatisfying.

• The Parallel Universe Theory - Increasingly influential among undergraduates. This model posits a catastrophic branching event in which two textual realities diverged. Most serious scholars reject the theory.

VII. The Historical Mama

The quest for the Historical Mama has yielded remarkable results.

Unlike Papa, whose characterization fluctuates wildly, Mama displays striking consistency. Across hundreds of texts she remains:

• patient,

• wise,

• reasonable,

• emotionally regulated,

• and almost unfailingly correct.

This degree of stability is unprecedented in children’s literature.

Some scholars therefore question whether Mama should be classified as a character at all. An alternative interpretation views her as a literary force analogous to gravity. Things simply move toward her correctness.

VIII. The Redactor R

The final redactor, conventionally designated R, possessed extraordinary editorial gifts. Whenever conflicting traditions threatened coherence, R solved the problem through the addition of a Moral. This technique proved astonishingly effective. For example:

P: Papa is competent.

B: Papa is incompetent.

R: The important thing is that we all learned something today.

Contradiction resolved.

The genius of R cannot be overstated.

Conclusion

The old certainties have vanished. We can no longer speak naively of “the Berenstain Bears” as though a single, unified tradition ever existed. Instead we confront a vast and complex literary landscape: competing bear communities, rival textual schools, interpolated cubs, redactional layers, wisdom traditions, and the shadowy figure of the Ur-Bear lurking behind them all.

The task for future generations is immense. Much remains unknown. Was Papa ever historical? Did Sister originate independently? Can the Stain and Stein traditions be reconciled? The answers await future scholarship.