Why do Gentiles assume they should follow the ten commandments?

[waitasec]

Approached how? And by whom?

lets keep this simple...sexually by her husband

I'm sure He did.

During the times that a husband and wife are permitted to each other, lots of sex is encouraged. It's good to be discreet, but other than that...

The idea that making sex happen when would be good for a guy to enjoy, and a girl isn't feeling disgusting, slimy, and bloated...

I would imagine that PART of the idea is for both marriage partners to enjoy the experience.


Or, perhaps, it took the woman's feelings into account.

Serious care is taken, in Jewish law, not to embarrass either men who cannot perform (ie. have crushed testicles, or something equally physically or emotionally painful), and not to embarrass women, whose bodies do weird things all the time.

Believe it or not, the rigidity of the law regarding a woman's "forbidden time" was constructed by women's practice, and became hardened into Jewish law as a custom that was adopted. The laws that discuss this in Leviticus involve fewer days of Tum'a during a regular flow, but women have held to the strictest situation mentioned (and it became Jewish law) in order to protect a woman's feelings when she might spot and show blood irregularly, and to lessen the emotional blow for someone whose body refuses to "be regular" with regularity.

But I'm not sure you are all that interested in how Jewish law develops, and customs that come about and how and why.

Orgasms may also help to relieve period pains which are the result of the endometrial lining of the uterus being oversensitive to the hormone-like substance, prostaglandin. "These nasty hormones have a way of making the uterus go into spasm, triggering pain- inducing nerve fibres," explains Dr Roy Levin, a lecturer in Physiology at the Sheffield University, England. To cut a long story short, just do it.
Sex & Love : 10 Reasons Why Sex is Good for You

but of course god knew that too
:sarcastic

 

[Harmonious]

lets keep this simple...sexually by her husband

Ah. Just checking.

Orgasms may also help to relieve period pains which are the result of the endometrial lining of the uterus being oversensitive to the hormone-like substance, prostaglandin. "These nasty hormones have a way of making the uterus go into spasm, triggering pain- inducing nerve fibres," explains Dr Roy Levin, a lecturer in Physiology at the Sheffield University, England. To cut a long story short, just do it.
Sex & Love : 10 Reasons Why Sex is Good for You

but of course god knew that too
:sarcastic

I say that this is interesting, but this section is also severely counter-intuitive.

Maybe it's just me, but the majority of women I know DO feel icky during their periods, and would prefer to have love expressed in a way that isn't only physical during the time that they can't stand their bodies.

But you know... For as many studies that say that sex everyday is a major bonus, I've also read things (I don't know all the sources, so forgive me for not bringing them) that say that if you get something every day, people get bored. A physical separation gives a sense of renewal when you get together again.

It is a way to keep it fresh.

Obviously, you disagree, and since I haven't done the research myself, you can probably bring all kinds of studies and whatnot. I remember learning about other studies that said the exact opposite.

I'm not expecting you to believe my lack of evidence, but you know, it is possible to believe that when the laws were created, someone took a look at how to fine-tune a relationship in mind.

Is it possible to believe that the sex laws that some believe were God given might not have been created with malicious misogynistic intent?

 

[Nakosis]

It's not a matter of justifying it to every Tom, Dick, or Harry. It is a matter of someone asked a question (not very nicely, but nonetheless), and I like to provide an honest answer.

I wouldn't have answered Roberto at all, except that I thought that someone who was following along might have been curious about the answer to the question he asked.

Waitasec's question was a fair one, though. I think.

I assumed it was honestly asked, and so it was honestly answered.

As I said, it is a matter of, "The question was asked, and so I answered." Otherwise, Taharat Mishpacha, or the laws regarding sex and other marital issues, are not usually the choice of topic I would openly broach with non-Jews.

Heck, I wouldn't generally openly broach the topic with Jews who are not engaged, married, or are otherwise truly interested in learning.

And again, my goal was not to rationalize anything, but to explain the answer to the question asked, how ever disrespectfully the question was asked at the time.

Alright, I was just expressing my views. I won't pick at it.

There is no empirical evidence to support a belief unless you witnessed and photographed a miracle. And even then, not everyone would believe it.

Have you at least witness a miracle?

 

[Harmonious]

Alright, I was just expressing my views. I won't pick at it.

Cool.

Have you at least witness a miracle?

Yes. I've witnessed many of them.

Some have been as complicated as what might otherwise have been a comedy of errors that ended in a very private exposure to exactly what I wanted to experience on Yom Kippur when I was in Israel, or as simple as a lack of ability to speak my mind when I realized later that I was entirely in the wrong, and was glad for events that happened as they occurred.

Some are just more personal and otherwise wouldn't make sense to try to explain.

And those were some that I witnessed personally, with my five senses.

 

[Harmonious]

Waitasec, you seemed to have missed the part of the post where I said this:

Or, perhaps, it took the woman's feelings into account.

Serious care is taken, in Jewish law, not to embarrass either men who cannot perform (ie. have crushed testicles, or something equally physically or emotionally painful), and not to embarrass women, whose bodies do weird things all the time.

Believe it or not, the rigidity of the law regarding a woman's "forbidden time" was constructed by women's practice, and became hardened into Jewish law as a custom that was adopted. The laws that discuss this in Leviticus involve fewer days of Tum'a during a regular flow, but women have held to the strictest situation mentioned (and it became Jewish law) in order to protect a woman's feelings when she might spot and show blood irregularly, and to lessen the emotional blow for someone whose body refuses to "be regular" with regularity.

But I'm not sure you are all that interested in how Jewish law develops, and customs that come about and how and why.

 

[Levite]

Levite , I love your "three faces"...... but could you say if Yahweh ever intended for some Jewish women never to fall pregnant ?

I mean, was it not the instruction of Yahweh .......Go forth and multiply ?

Was this instruction given only to some women or ALL women ?

Hopefully you shall uderstand by reading this :

............................................

The halakhic condom – a solution for Orthodox women?

Orthodox women who are “halakhically infertile” cannot conceive because they adhere to Jewish laws about when they can and can’t have sex with their husbands.

These women abstain from sex for five days during their periods and then another seven additional days, after which they visit a mikveh, or ritual bath, and rejoin their husbands. Most Orthodox women have no trouble getting pregnant with these restrictions—as evidenced by the high Orthodox fertility rates.

But for women with shorter cycles, ovulation occurs before they go to the mikveh, and they can’t conceive. Even though they’re technically healthy, Jewish law has rendered these women “halakhically infertile.”

Read more about this situation here >>>> The halakhic condom

................................................

This is really a red herring. The necessity of the commandment of procreation is of foremost importance in Jewish Law. The way that the laws concerning menstrual purity and impurity are interpreted in the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) communities today (for the last century or so) is far narrower, stricter, and more inflexible than it ever has been in the past.

There is nothing in Jewish Law to suggest that a Jewish couple needs this sort of ridiculousness to do IVF or IUI, or surrogacy, and there is even respectable precedent for altering the number of extra "clean days" required after the period ends, if advised by a physician that doing so is the only way likely to result in conception.

However, we also understand that while the commandment to be fruitful and multiply was given to all human beings, one can only do what one is able to do. We do not hold the infertile responsible for their infertility, and we assume (as we assume with pretty much any commandment) that the unspoken corollary to "be fruitful and multiply" is "if you are physically able to do so, if your health permits."

I don't know how many times I need to say that it is a waste of everyone's time to criticize and attempt to deconstruct Jewish Law when you don't actually know how it works.

 

[roberto]

This is really a red herring. The necessity of the commandment of procreation is of foremost importance in Jewish Law. The way that the laws concerning menstrual purity and impurity are interpreted in the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) communities today (for the last century or so) is far narrower, stricter, and more inflexible than it ever has been in the past.

There is nothing in Jewish Law to suggest that a Jewish couple needs this sort of ridiculousness to do IVF or IUI, or surrogacy, and there is even respectable precedent for altering the number of extra "clean days" required after the period ends, if advised by a physician that doing so is the only way likely to result in conception.

However, we also understand that while the commandment to be fruitful and multiply was given to all human beings, one can only do what one is able to do. We do not hold the infertile responsible for their infertility, and we assume (as we assume with pretty much any commandment) that the unspoken corollary to "be fruitful and multiply" is "if you are physically able to do so, if your health permits."

I don't know how many times I need to say that it is a waste of everyone's time to criticize and attempt to deconstruct Jewish Law when you don't actually know how it works.

Hey you brought it up for discussion and when I responded you Orthodox immedietly felt the urge to attack and make it personal [again]. ie. Discredit the source as well as the person.

I merely pointed out why goi pick and choose instructions as a reply to your discussion here >>>> :

Great question. Welcome to the forums!

I also have to say, I think it is interesting when, for example, non-Jews will vigorously cite the prohibition against homosexuality in Leviticus, but will be utterly unmoved at the fact that the same language that is used to condemn the behavior described in those verses is also used to describe eating non-kosher animals, wearing shaatnez (mixtures of wool and linen), planting kilayim (two different crops in the same field together), failing to observe the laws surrounding menstruation and intercourse, worshipping in ways forbidden by the Torah, marrying a person that you have previously been married to and then divorced, and dealing dishonestly in business. Similar but not exactly identical language is used to describe eating blood, failing to tithe to the poor, failing to care for the poor the orphans and the widows, failing to be kind to the stranger who dwells among you, oppressing the laborer by working him unfairly or withholding his wages, taking unreasonable collateral for loans, charging interest on loans, and various other important commandments.

It seems to me that if anyone is going to cite the Torah's commandments and say that everyone ought to follow them, and not to do so is despicable in some way, that person really ought to actually be following all the Torah's commandments.

And if Christians want to say that Jesus came along and obviated the need for following the commandments (fine by me, since as non-Jews, the Christians were never responsible for following the commandments in the first place), then it hardly seems reasonable that somehow, a couple of commandments slipped by him, that everyone still has to follow, and we can randomly pick whatever commandments seem interesting to us to say are compulsory. Seems to me either Jesus lets them off the hook for all the commandments in Torah, or he didn't, in which case, maybe they ought to start keeping kosher, checking for shaatnez, observing niddah (the laws of menstrual purity and impurity), and being kind to the strangers among them-- to say nothing of not taking interest, not taking unreasonable collateral in loans, not cheating people, not oppressing laborers, etc.-- before starting in on condemning folks for who's shtupping who.

But do you not think that something fruitful came out of the discussion ?
I do, and thank you both for your replies.
.

 

[roberto]

Having read the article, I get it.

Good and thank you for reading it.

You know, not all Orthodox Jews follow the position being described.

Why not ? I thought rules are set by the majority and not the minority.

 

[Harmonious]

Good and thank you for reading it.



Why not ? I thought rules are set by the majority and not the minority.

The Chareidim described in the article do not have the majority opinion.

 

[roberto]

The Chareidim described in the article do not have the majority opinion.

But why then do all "Jews" wear kippah ?

 

[Levite]

Hey you brought it up for discussion and when I responded you Orthodox immedietly felt the urge to attack and make it personal [again]. ie. Discredit the source as well as the person.

The source had credibility problems. And you are consistently using misrepresentations or misleading and decontextualized material in order to engage in baiting of Jewish posters. This discredits you, not anything I do.

I merely pointed out why goi pick and choose instructions as a reply to your discussion here

What you posted had no relevance to what I said, in that you took a particularly lurid example of ultra-Orthodox fundamentalism and presented it as though it were exemplifying mainstream Rabbinic tradition, which it does not.

I choose to presume that you do this more out of ignorance than out of malice, because I believe it would really be a shame if someone came to this forum purely to engage in deliberate misrepresentation for the sake of slander. But regardless, it once again goes to show that one cannot understand what goes on in Jewish culture or religious scholarship today without the foundation of knowing how Jewish text and Jewish Law work, and something substantial of Jewish history as well.

But do you not think that something fruitful came out of the discussion ?

I have no idea what in this discussion-- and I use the term lightly-- could reasonably be called fruitful. Dismaying, perhaps. Unfortunate, certainly.

But why then do all "Jews" wear kippah ?

What on earth does wearing a kippah have to do with how the halachic system does or does not employ majority and minority rules, or in what situations?

 

[roberto]

...
I have no idea what in this discussion-- and I use the term lightly-- could reasonably be called fruitful. Dismaying, perhaps. Unfortunate, certainly.

Wow, but you are on a high horse heh ?

 

[waitasec]

Ah. Just checking.

I say that this is interesting, but this section is also severely counter-intuitive.

Maybe it's just me, but the majority of women I know DO feel icky during their periods, and would prefer to have love expressed in a way that isn't only physical during the time that they can't stand their bodies.

how? if we were to teleport ourselves back in time...how could a woman have love expressed to them when they are out of the camp since they are not approachable....

But you know... For as many studies that say that sex everyday is a major bonus, I've also read things (I don't know all the sources, so forgive me for not bringing them) that say that if you get something every day, people get bored. A physical separation gives a sense of renewal when you get together again.

that isn't the point...the point is...women are only to be approached when they are fertile. that to me is a sign of a misogynistic society.

It is a way to keep it fresh.

to each their own...and really why would god care?

Obviously, you disagree, and since I haven't done the research myself, you can probably bring all kinds of studies and whatnot. I remember learning about other studies that said the exact opposite.

I'm not expecting you to believe my lack of evidence, but you know, it is possible to believe that when the laws were created, someone took a look at how to fine-tune a relationship in mind.

i think we need to come to an understanding of what you mean by "relationship"

Is it possible to believe that the sex laws that some believe were God given might not have been created with malicious misogynistic intent?

yes. there is no intent in ignorance.

 

[Levite]

Wow, but you are on a high horse heh ?

It's funny how I can become humorless and not laid back when people are baiting me by misrepresenting my religion. Go figure.

 

[waitasec]

It's funny how I can become humorless and not laid back when people are baiting me by misrepresenting my religion. Go figure.

for whatever it's worth levite, i don't see you that way

 

[Nakosis]

Cool.

Yes. I've witnessed many of them.

Some have been as complicated as what might otherwise have been a comedy of errors that ended in a very private exposure to exactly what I wanted to experience on Yom Kippur when I was in Israel, or as simple as a lack of ability to speak my mind when I realized later that I was entirely in the wrong, and was glad for events that happened as they occurred.

Some are just more personal and otherwise wouldn't make sense to try to explain.

And those were some that I witnessed personally, with my five senses.

Are you able to accept this type of experience is not limited to your religion/belief? I've look into various religions because of these type of experiences but have come to the conclusion that no one religion has any particular authority over them. If Judaism helps you to understand such experiences great. It's just not necessarily the only ideology by which to seek a better understanding of them IMO.

 

[Harmonious]

how? if we were to teleport ourselves back in time...how could a woman have love expressed to them when they are out of the camp since they are not approachable....

Not every type of Tum'a got a person removed from the camp. Death did, and Tzara'at (wrongly translated as "leprosy") did. A woman with her period, no.

Who said the husband couldn't bring her flowers or jewelry? Or maybe he could arrange to make her favorite meal.

There are lots of ways to show love besides hugs and kisses and sex.

that isn't the point...the point is...women are only to be approached when they are fertile. that to me is a sign of a misogynistic society.

This is a mistake in your interpretation.

to each their own...and really why would god care?

Because marital peace is the most important thing in God's book.

Love and consideration are very important. Peace between a husband and wife is all that and more.

There are all kinds of proscriptions in Torah law on behavior, such that we shouldn't use words to hurt our fellow humans. Words are only the tip of the iceberg of Torah law defining how people (particularly Jews) should behave.

The person easiest to hurt is a spouse, because a person shares secrets, intimate details, and vulnerabilities with their spouse. One of the most sensitive areas people are touchy about is sex and sexual performance.

Considering that marital sex is the holiest activity humans can engage in, God is VERY concerned about this type of thing.

If divorce becomes necessary, it is considered a tragedy. Rabbinic literature says that even God weeps in sadness when it happens. (It's a paraphrase.)

But a remarriage afterwards (eventually) is celebrated as a blessed thing.

i think we need to come to an understanding of what you mean by "relationship"

The entire partnership of marriage.

 

[Harmonious]

Are you able to accept this type of experience is not limited to your religion/belief?

Of course. Jews aren't the only people miracles happen for.

I've look into various religions because of these type of experiences but have come to the conclusion that no one religion has any particular authority over them.

Authority?

I don't understand what you mean about authority over miracles.

If Judaism helps you to understand such experiences great. It's just not necessarily the only ideology by which to seek a better understanding of them IMO.

Okay... I guess you are saying that religion is the lens through which we understand and interpret miracles.

Miracles wouldn't make me change my belief system, but I have no problem believing that people who have different belief systems also experience miracles.

 

[Nakosis]

Authority?

I don't understand what you mean about authority over miracles.

Just to claim what is and isn't a miracle.

 

[Harmonious]

Just to claim what is and isn't a miracle.

Miracles can happen. That doesn't mean I will necessarily assign importance to it.

In Deuteronomy, we are warned against false prophets who would try to dazzle crowds with miracles or wonders. The proof of the veracity of a prophet's words is the message being delivered.

But miracles that aren't tied to a prophecy in any way happen all the time.

Sometimes, they are so personal that no one not in the know might not acknowldge them as miracles.

Who am I to judge whether or not someone experienced a miracle? I may or may not agree with the conclusion someone makes because of that miracle. But was it a miracle?

I wouldn't argue either way. I might be very willing to believe it might have been.