Through humility, we can find things that we didn’t know about. Our self-centeredness get in the way of good “vision” Rabbi Yonah Bookstein Based on a Dvar Torah of Rabbi Eliezer Kwass in the Darche Noam Daf Kesher email We read in Parsha Shelach that when Joshua and Caleb returned from spying out the Land […]
While the NY Times’s article about a prominent Orthodox sex therapist Bat Sheva Marcus,”The Orthodox Sex Guru” 1/22/15, neglects to include what the Sages of the Talmud really say about women and sexual pleasure (extremely sex-positive, promising women sexual satisfaction in marriage, only permitting consensual sex, etc…), the article is worth reading. Marcus is helping many couples find happiness and closeness after years of marriage. She’s doing God’s work, so these people can work for God.
The fact that men and women in chareidi communities are denied proper sex-education, and that in the name of preserving sex’s holiness, sex became taboo to discuss or enjoy, means that something is broken and needs to be fixed. Hopefully, we can have more of Marcus spreading the good news that God wants men and women to enjoy sex – and she can help teach them how.
Below her brown bangs, Marcus’s eyes fill with tears sometimes when she talks about how Orthodox Judaism — and above all the most restrictive branches of Haredi Orthodoxy — can quash female eros by imbuing a physical shame and a nearly apocalyptic sexual terror, by teaching that if the laws of tzniut, of modesty, are broken, calamity will come. One Haredi rabbi I met likened eros to “nuclear energy”: Sex could bring disaster to the world, but, he said, “the careful regulation” of it can connect a couple to God and beckon “transcendent experience.”…Marcus, though, sees more repression than transcendence….
Rabbi Yonah and Rachel Bookstein’s Pre-Marriage Class
Creating the Foundation for a Healthy Marriage
A Class for Engaged Couples and Newlyweds
Sun. June 2, 16, 23 at 8pm Free
Mazel Tov! You are engaged to the love of your life, you are walking on cloud 9 and have to slap yourself twice a day just to be sure you are awake and not dreaming! Rabbi Yonah and Rachel Bookstein and JConnect present this 3 part class to help you build towards the successful marriage you want and deserve. This course includes three, ninety-minute classes with Rabbi Yonah, PLUS a one hour one-on-one counseling session w/ Rachel Bookstein for each couple.
So why are you asking yourself these questions?
Who gets to make decisions about the wedding?
How do we resolve differences?
What does honoring my spouse mean?
Why is being engaged so hard?
What is marriage for anyway?
Is there such a thing as work/life balance?
Will we still have fun after we are married?
Will I loose myself to my partner?
How do I talk about intimacy without hurting feelings?
What do I call my in-laws?
How do I integrate Jewish spirituality into my marriage?
When do we talk about kids?
and MANY more topics…
Don’t let the stress of planning your wedding make you forget that it is every day after the wedding that counts. If you are spending hours each day thinking about flower arrangements, or weighing the benefits of Ivory over True White for your china, or you might consider spending time on the questions that will fundamentally make a difference in your life in the long-term.
This class is free, Suggested Donation $180
Make checks out to “BETH EL”
Space is limited