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The love rabbi | page 1, 2
For example, Boteach paints a halo around the traditional woman's role while proclaiming his feminist ideals. He has said he believes that "women can be everything men are, and more," but deplores what he calls the "masculinization of women" and suggests that women's "nurturing, healing warmth" is best suited to keeping the home fires burning. His defense of feminine modesty, mandated by Jewish law, echoes that of last year's media darling, Wendy Shalit: That which seduces must be kept private. In an interview he announced that women "do not serve in overtly public roles in Orthodox Judaism because God has given them the beautiful gift of the feminine mystique that makes them the object of male desire." And as Boteach told one synagogue group, according to Jewish law, "women aren't allowed to sing [in public] because the voice arouses. What a beautiful concept!" Kosher Sex By Shmuley Boteach
Dating Secrets of the Ten Commandments By Shmuley Boteach Doubleday, 285 pages
In a single chapter Boteach condones some sexual exploration, then explains that Judaism "insists that amid the various experimental sexual positions, there should be one principal position." (Can you guess which one?) And when it comes to masturbation, he doesn't invoke the biblical Onan to back up the prohibition. Rather, he cautions that when a man masturbates, "it has grave consequences for his marriage." (The logic is that if he masturbates, he won't be sexually dependent on his wife, so a special bond will be lost.) As for homosexuality, Boteach's readers will find no mention of "sin" or "abomination" here. Instead, he voices the vague expectation that with sufficient godliness, the practice will simply wither away: "In the godly system, the disparate parts come together to form the greater whole," he said in an interview. "Men and women create life through marriage. Homosexuality is dismissed in favor of heterosexuality. Sameness is said to be lower on the rung than difference." A few more rules to watch for when you're trying on Boteach's sex code for size: pornography out, S&M out and lights ... out. Where did this unlikely love prophet come from? Lubavitch, the subculture that produced him, is one of the largest international Orthodox communities in the world. Headquartered in Crown Heights in Brooklyn, N.Y., Lubavitch has since World War II run aggressive outreach campaigns directed at Jews throughout the world, sending thousands of emissaries to revive Judaism everywhere from Azerbaijan to Zaire. In 1989, Boteach was one of them. Residents of major U.S. cities may have seen these missionaries on the streets, young bearded men in suits and hats who ask dark-haired passersby, "Are you Jewish?" and then, if the answer is affirmative, hand out a Chanukah menorah or some other paraphernalia of Jewish observance. Some areas are blessed with a large recreational vehicle, labeled the "Mitzvah Mobile," that barrels down the street, its P.A. system blaring, inviting Jews to participate in religious life. (A "mitzvah" in Hebrew is a good deed, more literally a commandment.) Lubavitch has outposts on many college campuses as well as in the farthest reaches of the globe. What the group is promoting is the most strict observance of Jewish law, but as in the case of Boteach, the sell is soft, at least at first. Unlike many other ultrareligious communities, Lubavitch Jews welcome strangers into the fold. So you've never kept kosher? Don't be ashamed. Lubavitch will teach you. Not sure you want to be religious? Don't worry. Just light one candle. Outsiders are often invited to celebrations in the tightknit community, as opportunities to experience the bliss of a Sabbath without work or to observe the blessings of a Lubavitch family. It's all a way of easing the initiate into Orthodox practice. Lubavitch respects how hard it might be to adopt all 613 commandments that make up the basis of Jewish law, and it's understood that you can take a good long time to learn them. But the group's tolerance does have its limits, as new members gradually learn. You can't take forever to get into full compliance, and you can't pick and choose which commandments to obey. Eventually, you'll have to shape up. As one spokesman said, "We must reach everyone, no matter how far an individual may have strayed, and awaken their inherent connection to the Torah, which God, in his infinite kindness, endowed and entrusted us with as a blueprint for life. It would be gravely misleading to 'change' it, to 'water it down,' for the sake of expedience, for it is not ours to alter." Twelve years ago, when Boteach was 21 and his pregnant wife 19, he was sent to Oxford to recruit secular Jews to the Orthodox way. Boteach, however, has taken Lubavitch's strategic openness to another level. He stands on no clerical ceremony. He has dispensed with the modesty of his Lubavitch peers, and as a result of his iconoclasm he has been rejected by his community as well. It also seems that he has lost the moral authority to bring the Jews he attracts into compliance with Jewish law. The 23-year-old president of Boteach's outreach organization (it's a volunteer position), Arash Farin, says he feels no pressure to conform to the Orthodox standards Boteach lives by. The rabbi, he says, encourages him to date Jewish girls, but "he doesn't tell you how to live." Farin speaks almost proudly about this, highlighting the basic contradiction of Boteach's position. The rabbi long ago recognized the spiritual strivings of a population raised on individuality and self-determination. He also recognized his own ability to bend their ears, to transform the imperatives of Orthodox Judaism into a recipe for personal growth that they could swallow. In part he learned this from his Lubavitch mentors; in part he has gone his own way. In a quiet moment Boteach tells me, "My professional split from Lubavitch was extremely painful and continues to be so, because of my love for Lubavitch. It's like I'm a man without a community." And he is. He lives his Orthodox life among the secular, trying to lead his secular followers to Orthodoxy. If he takes the hard line, he's likely to lose them. And if he takes the soft line, it doesn't do much for his belief that Halakha, Jewish law, is "the truth for the Jew." "He doesn't tell you how to live," said the young president of Boteach's organization, praising the rabbi for his restraint. But then, one wonders, what does he do?
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