Project Inspire Presents: MindFlex - Ask the Rebbetzin: Issues that Matter to Women, Part 1

p.m today we're here with our ask the rabbits and panel and we're joined by robertson laurie palatnik who's the founding director of momentum formerly the jewish women's renaissance project um welcome laurie from yerushalayim thank you rabbi um we're here with uh mrs rocky covell who's of cleveland ohio and the jfx the jewish family experience out in cleveland who's actually currently in lakewood new jersey you shouldn't think that's such a nice greenery out in cleveland though and i'm kidding uh i'm sorry uh welcome welcome very clean it's beautiful it is beautiful welcome and uh we're joined by uh shoshana k sushana k is the regional director of philadelphia or pennsylvania more philadelphia philadelphia as well as the national program director of mikvy usa i appreciate you taking the time and everyone's different time zone here to be with us um and to continue this wonderful series uh of course asking the robertson is a new level so here we are i'm going to ask questions and i know and i'm going to say this this is you know we're airing live here is that many of the questions we're asking you rebecca have given entire classes about and maybe even series of classes but the purpose of the panel is to be able to touch on these subjects in a way that's meaningful without with full disclosure that not everything is going to be covered in every answer that we're giving these are all you know hot topics and full of uh you know full of a lot of information so i'm going to answer i'm going to ask the question you'll you'll excuse my rudeness if there's any you know if we have to you know switch back and forth they'll cut you short but uh we're we're live on air so uh everything that any any part of me that's being rude is going to be live on here anyway here we go here we go um we're going to cover uh numerous questions a lot of them dealing with women's issues some of them dealing with women's roles in judaism and as well as contemporary issues that women specifically and families are facing and we hope to be able to cover that within the two-part session that we're covering today so i'm going to jump in i i've bunched i know we've had questions that have come in i've bunched questions together in categories um and so a lot of them if you can ask me to repeat questions feel free to do that as well but here we go i have four questions that are along the same topic um and i'd like to hear uh lori if you don't mind i'll i'm gonna go to you first because you've been you know sort of the veteran here of uh of all the uh of the rebins out there and a spokesperson for women in judaism and so uh so i'm going to go to your veteran sounds old rabbi i know so i i said that i i said that to robert alaska he's like veteran baseball player it's like you know most wise not not veteran wise no you know what if there was a hall of fame for reverendson's okay like that's fine that's right yeah that's right the coopers town of cooper stand for evans you know okay here we go the the first bunch of questions are along the same uh same line here looking from the outside from the outside in looking from the outside and orthodox judaism seems to be patriarchal religious a patriarchal religious system that places men in power and puts women in a subservient position how do you react to this statement or this view that people have about orthodox judaism be of that is why can't women become rabbis c of that why aren't they allowed to study talmud and have no mitzvah to learn torah no commandment to learn torah and for d of that is why can't we be counted we women be counted in a minion or stay kaddish after a loved one so again it's sort of a category of questions uh where people are questioning or wondering about women's roles specifically when it comes to these um commandments of torah study etc with it within judaism lori flora is yours okay so i'm not going to go through a b c d but i'm going to address some of them and i i'll start with from the outside in it looks patriarchal yes it does yes it does and i was raised i actually didn't grow up observant i was i grew up in toronto uh jewish you know but was basically a dreidel dreidel dreidel you know uh kind of uh judaism and it really in my early 20s i started my jewish journey and from the outside in it really did look like a patriarchal ritual ritualistic system and i was raised by a very strong feminist and this was not for me at whatsoever from the outside in that's what it looks like from the inside out it's a whole different ballgame so first of all if you study because really you know where the jewish people who were the people of the book but very few of us read the book we all saw the movie the ten commandments thank you cecil b demille but the book is always better than the movie when you read the book in tanakh in the torah in the the five books in the prophets in the writings not only are women in there they uh women rule as my kids used to say like boys drool women rule and it really is true it is if you just look at every every hug look at every holiday and if you understand it if you study it if you celebrate it in a meaningful way in a knowledgeable way like we just went through shabu alt okay she wrote it's like so so this you know if you study the the it's the giving of the torah of god tells moshe revenue moses to give the torah to the jewish people so first of all what was going on the jewish people were were building a golden calf building an idol but the women did not participate in the build in the in the golden calf which was com is considered to be a huge sin it's like one of the major no-nos of the jewish people to the point where we're almost going to be wiped out the women did not participate god tells moses to give the torah to the women first before the men right the women of the torah first this is the stuff they never taught you in hebrew school when we went and then you move on towards the this is you know you talk about pesach and the passover story the jewish people we are finally got to the border and the men were afraid to go in they put they sent in spies they came back they spoke badly about the about the land of israel the women did not participate in the sin of the spies of the original people who came out of egypt it was only except for a couple of exceptions only the women merited to go in that the jewish women have a special love for the land of israel and that's why momentum the organization i run really focuses on the women because even god understood when he told moses to give it to the women first because if the women are in okay then everybody's in right if the men are in and the women are in it's not going anywhere if the women are in and the men are not in we're going someplace okay so in general so let me just skip to um you had a couple of issues going on there what was d like rabbi there was d was why can't be counted in a minion you know ten people oh yeah so this is good so this is a good uh or caddish for a loved one yeah so it's connected to what uh the story i just told because again when you study and you understand that so what's the whole idea of minion so when the when when the men were afraid to go into the land of israel they said one man from every tribe 12 men went in came back 10 out of 12 gave an evil report which caused the the uh the jewish men to say we don't want to go in god says you don't want to go in now you can't go in and they change their mind no and now they have to wander for 40 years why so a whole generation of men can can will die out so this is one of this is the source of minion like why 10 men because of these 10 men i remember so what happens is that that now that minion became a rectification for the sin of the spies ten men came back to take the people away from god torah in the land of israel and from now on ten men have to gather in order to bring people closer to god torah in israel so when my daughter who was sent to a very strong jewish school when i said to her i said to her at one point i said you know there are people today who want to count women as part of a minion she goes how insulting that wasn't our mistake that was your mistake so so many things from the outside in look like a put down to women it's actually completely the opposite completely opposite and i do have to say that women can say kaddish they are not obligated to say cottage because it is a time-bound mitzvah but women say i know many women who say kaddish and uh this is not something that is is um is prohibited excellent i mean it's interesting that you're looking at minion as sort of this rectification where it's sort of like it's not necessarily this privilege it's sort of like you got stuck doing this because because you messed up it's not that you got stuck doing it is that this is something this is a rectification you're not stuck with it this is part of you earning your way back to to all these things to god torah and and israel and this is and this is something that that women didn't women didn't do so you see that so many things uh it's maddening to me can i say can i mention another one like wearing a keeper so why do like you see women putting on a keep on like why why does a man wear a kippah it's actually it's not from the torah it's rabbinic that became law that why does he wear it where because he has to remember there's a god above him can i tell you a quick story so years ago i was in i we were living in toronto and it was heir of shabbat it was friday afternoon and there was like a street festival and uh and so when we my kids wanted to go so i brought my little it was my my two not my two at the time a girl and a boy and we went on to the street festival and there was a woman drawing caricatures and she said and my kids were like can we do this and it was free i'm like great so my daughter sits down she's drawing her in a funny way and she's you know what do you like to want to be like i like to read books you know then my son sits down and my son at the time was like i don't know like he was four years old and she says take off your beanie and my son's like this okay and he's and she says she and i said no no no we're religious jews and and the boys the and the men they come they they wear those oh she was very respectful because she wasn't jewish and then she's like i don't understand why does she have to wear one why doesn't she have to wear one but he has to wear one so what am i going to tell her so i said a man with uh i said it's to remember there's a god above you i said a man without this thinks he's god she goes oh i got a guy who should wear one of those so lori i want to piggyback on what you're saying because i think a sort of overarching idea here is that the torah obligates us to do stuff that we wouldn't think that we wouldn't do on our own that are hard for us to do on our own right anything that the torah says thou shalt not fill in the blank right and sometimes you're like ew who would do that but the only reason the torah told us the only reason god had to command us not to do it is because for some human beings that's their natural inclination the torah doesn't have to tell us to do things that we're all going to do anyway right so like i think about momentum right formerly the jewish women's renaissance project and if you think about how many women typically go in a year and how many men typically go in a year women are just naturally i think this is true like across faiths across races ethnicities women are naturally moved to get together in social groups and do spiritual things that's just a fact you can call it yoga you can call it a book club i don't care what you call it women do that stuff men don't they parallel play they go bowling and they go golfing and who do they have kids i don't know are they real i don't know are they jewish maybe right so torah has to obligate men to do stuff that they wouldn't typically do on their own you know and in terms of what laurie mentioned about time bound meets vote you know for anybody who has read cheryl um sandberg's book lean in about how you know women in corporate america need to stand up for their rights and say no women are not the same as men women need allowances for their womanhood and they need different kinds of bathrooms and they need allowances for child care and they need allowances for pregnancy and pumping at work and all that kind of thing like the torah was so ahead of the curve the torah said way back you know what women your exempt from time bound meets votes because we want you to allow if you can and you have the ability and it's your time of your life to do this we want you to be able to plug into your family without feeling a shred of guilt that's so progressive when you think about it and for women who are not in that stage of life or who do not have children whether not by choice or by choice that's okay go ahead and do those meets vote they're not disallowed they're simply exempt can i add something else that the torah is way ahead of their time like that if you think about the ketubah which is the marriage contract so what it say what is akatuba chances are you haven't read your ketubah lately and if you do it's in aramaic i don't know how your high school aramaic is but it talks about a man's responsibilities and obligations to his wife and if it doesn't work out this is what she owes him okay if he doesn't fulfill his obligations she can she can divorce him and i have to tell you it's a prenup okay before jane fonda married ted turner this is to protect women like like as rookie is saying the torah is so ahead of its time in terms of money that they're like framed on the dining room you know framed in the dining room you're like here's your prenup just in case it doesn't work out guys you know what's interesting i i'm coming from a different perspective because you ladies are working with women so my college students will often say to me like that is so misogynistic that is like so sexist why can't i be in a minion aren't i a good college student right don't look like i'm 18. yeah yeah oh yeah my queen doesn't know what to say with himself like his he's going to say yeah you look like you're like poor man i told you ignore me don't they look like i'm a teenager okay so they'll be like that is just so you know so typical that's so typical so i do um on our shabbatons i give a class like judaism on census uncensored or judaism up close and personal and we always discuss this idea of many and it's so interesting that i too like lori grew up in toronto and i was so offended by the fact that i was barred from all of these things that men could do but what really what we're doing is we're harming ourselves as jews because most of us have college education level education and intellect but we're coming into judaism with like a kindergarten level knowledge of what is our torah our instruction manual and the facts matter when you look at minion that's exactly what what laurie said about the spies it's a crazy thing because you know i'll never forget a few years ago our students especially at temple university loved it's very difficult to give anything with today that has political analogies so when i used to speak about this president or that president it was much easier so now i'm not even going to go into politics i'll speak even if there were no questions about politics on this path no questions about politics but i would ask the students tell me something let's pretend there was like a school an elementary school board meeting and it had 10 parents at this board meeting and that night the most important person at the time so who would you like it to be you want us to be oprah you want to be michelle obama whoever you desire who would you be so the students would come up with very different interesting answers so think about whoever that person is that you think wow if they came to my school and i could ask them for anything they would come to this board meeting and they show up and there's only nine parents and this person let's say it's oprah winfrey a mother's a mother's um a mother's evening and even though she's not a mother or some significant let's say it's lori palotnik coming to you know the shul meeting of ten women and only nine women show up and each woman had to be voted in and she was there for a purpose could nine woman and lori pass a new bylaw regardless of how unbelievable laurie is absolutely not because each person there is there for a specific reason so often as women we look at judaism and say that is so unfair but really the truth is if we come to understand it our you know when you drive ladies i don't know if you have it but near us you know when you drive to a drive up banking and you hit the button um that's right like the lazy banking of today you hit a button it goes up a shoot and there goes your banking so really jewish law tells us that for a man to have the same level of efficacy of a woman's prayer he has to be in a minion to be to to create a reparation for what lori said but when i'm praying alone at any place in my house or on the street or on the beach my prayers are like the drive up banking i hit a button and go if a man prays alone his prayers sorry robert friedman i'm sorry to tell you this but your prayers ignore me they'll get to the same place but they're going to go and and you know that's the magnificence about judaism the more we learn the more we come to understand whoa well i i i think that that i had was not correct right i think i think that that's the that's really the common denominator really in the answers given here is that that really if people are looking outside into judaism as a patriarchal system delve in a little more come from the inside out and recognize why it is the way it is and you'll recognize that really it's not such a patriarchal system inside you know it's it's bigger than that too rabbi because i think that this is something i call the great synagogue mistake you know laurie calls it looking from the outside in i think a lot of jews who didn't grow up so connected and involved judaism was defined by what happens in the synagogue in fact judaism was often outsourced to the synagogue the rabbi is the one who knows what to do i don't know what to do the rabbi is the one who knows how to read hebrew i don't know how to read hebrew so if you're going to come into religion and only look at what's happening in the synagogue you know you're going to be like oh my gosh the men run the show that's so sexist and misogynist you know and as laurie says you would it would be understandable for you to view things that way but judaism the synagogue was never meant to be the central locus of your judaism and your spirituality the home was and you know i don't want to make the mistake of saying oh women are awesome let's throw the men under the bus they're the ones who need this that's not true either judaism says simply that there are male and female energies in this world and that men and women each carry different strengths into this universe and that we need to mutually support one another you know in this synergistic approach to achieving spirituality and making a difference in this universe so i think a big piece of it is looking at judaism through this myopic view of synagogue synagogue that's right absolutely i totally agree with you do you know why that the synagogue i might i would meet people sometimes and i remember in toronto meeting people when my kids were young and they would find out i'm a rabbi's wife and they immediately start confessing i don't know if people do that to you guys i always say i have a sign on my forehead that says confess to me yeah yeah so they say they would say i'm such a bad you and i always say confession is a different bad yeah but they start confessing and they start saying like you know like being very apologetic like i hardly ever go to synagogue and i'm such a bad jew and i would say and i would say to them the definition of a good jew is not somebody who's sure going so rookie why did it become that the synagogue suddenly became like if you go to shul you're a good jew okay why did the synagogue suddenly become the center of the jewish community why because the definition of a good christian is somebody who's church going and i explained to them that that's not judaism that's not duty of them because they would say to me you know i hardly ever go to synagogue i go you know i hardly ever go either they're like what i go yeah like i got little kids or this and i said thank god i don't have to go like that that thing is also christian that whole confession thing so i yes and i found the idea of judaism being like so um hierarchical like only the rabbi knows what to do that's not a jewish idea at all the jewish the torah was given in the desert because it's ownerless it's everybody's so what's the goal so i say to them so what is the definition of a good jew it's not you don't have to go to shul to be a good you it's your relationship with hashem is your relationship with god do you have a relationship with god do you understand what that relationship means do you understand your responsibilities in that relationship and you understand what your role is to play in this world that's the goal so once you've got that down because if you don't know what your goal is what your what your job description is you can't achieve the job so now that i know that that is my job now how do i as a woman how do i as a man how do i as a child how do i as a professional how do how do i fill in the blank achieve that goal excellent okay i want to move on to the next question if you don't like this i think that some of this is going to be you know what we'll touch on within other questions as well i'm going to go to you rook and kaval for this one because you did touch on some of this as being a mother the mother role of in judaism etc the next two questions bunched together are as follows feminism started in large part as a reaction against the traditional role of women as mothers and wives doesn't this rule keep women from self-actualization and be of that is modern feminism post posits that women that that women should be allowed to express their femininity without being told how to act dress what positions they can or can occupy traditional judaism seems to fly in the face of this philosophy since it bars women from doing many things that they may choose as an expression of self meaning how do we how do we balance that again you touch them in terms of like you know women having you know not being bound to time bound mitzvahs etc because they because judaism and torah recognized that women need that role how do you balance that in in light of what you call progressive uh thinking today okay so it's interesting that feminism was largely created by jewish women right think about the book the feminine mystique by betty friedan um honestly i think the book was a lot more about dissatisfaction than about womanhood and i think that because you know as i mentioned before not every woman is a mother not every woman is a wife um and and there was no framework for that you know it was all very 1950s and women were feeling very um choked by that and so jewish women who by definition are agitators thinkers ambitious you know world changers as we should be again that is a spiritual gift gifted to us by god for a purpose they were looking around and they were saying what is the meaning of life is it really just about starching dresses and oh my goodness the answer is no but because these women were not strongly jew you know jewishly educated many of them didn't even think to look into judaism for meaning and so it was about you know yeah i mean honestly i have i mean thank god seven kids bless their souls i love them all but if my whole life was just about caring for their physical and emotional needs i would have burnt out a thousand years ago it's only because i have this spiritual goal in my mind i am raising human beings who are going to carry my values to the next generation i'm creating eternity and honestly while some women feel super fulfilled by being stay-at-home moms and i respect that enormously you know and as a woman i have imposter syndrome so sometimes i look at those moms and i'm like those are real moms okay another talk for another day but i do have a need to make a difference in in a larger or i wouldn't even say larger in an alternate arena and that's why i do do what i do and i need to use a different part of my mind because that's how god made me and i don't think that makes me you know a better mother and a worse mother and all of that you know feminism stuff as you were mentioning but i can honestly think of no framework that is more self-actualizing for women than the framework of judaism the idea that i and i'm not saying this to the exclusion of men the idea that i have a god-given soul that i was put into this universe to make a difference in this world that god loves me personally i have a personal relationship with god that is not connected to a husband that is not connected to children that is not connected to my job that is not connected to my rabbi just me woman daughter of god i i'm like getting emotional because it's so beautiful and it's so special i ache for more women to know this that's why i'm involved in momentum and laura's amazing amazing project and the dress i just want to touch on the dress for a moment you know again judaism has expectations of men and women are they the same expectations they are not because we are wired differently and so when it comes to physicality to sexuality to objectifying women which is such an important buzzword in our culture important and rightfully so the torah teaches us this men have to be more careful with whom they objectify meaning men have to be really careful about how and what they look at and women and i know this is a very unpopular opinion today so if you want to edit me out do so but women have to be really careful not to objectify themselves and this is different and it's important the way the torah teaches me to dress to dress in a dignified manner because my soul is is the most important part of myself and because i don't want to misrepresent myself i want to retain my self-respect no matter where i go oh my goodness what a liberated idea i'm going to stop you we are because we are going to touch more on this you know in a question going forward specifically about dress and objective you know we'll get to that in a second but i think the point is is extremely well taken in terms of knowing who you are as a jewish woman your connection to god as a daughter shashana kay you know you're you're dealing with students who might not be maybe as mature as a lot of the women that you know that laurie and andre cavallo are in touch with in terms of the trips etc you know how do they view this in terms of you know how do you express this to people who ask this it's really interesting because i'm actually coming from the corporate world so when i became more observant i was looking at things from the lens because i also thought you know that judaism the big expression that i had in my head the buzz phrase was like barefoot and pregnant that was my perception that religious women are in the kitchen having lots of babies one time my husband came home and i was barefoot and pregnant i was pregnant and i'm like you know how many times my husband came home and i was barefoot pregnant in the kitchen i'm like i am an actual cliche okay so you know that was so interesting and actually um when i started learning in within thornhill back in the day you know five years ago when i became religious just when i was 25 um so a couple a few decades a couple decades ago i was amazed to see what a real liberated empowered woman looked like and it just so happened that god orchestrated what we call you know a divine providence hashtag practice that each woman that i was introduced to was work they seemed like the super power super woman that we speak about which today is actually interesting that i don't i don't i think that's almost dangerous today but that's that's a different a different conversation but anyhow that what i discuss with my students a buzzword is equality everyone's equal today and um i asked them you know tell me about the torah do do you think that torah believes in equality and they're like well yeah because if you keep telling us about this torah that's an instruction manual and that we can take ownership of it and be empowered by it of course judaism believes in equality and i told them if i i always say if anyone tells you judaism believes in equality they are lying to you because we don't want to be believe in equality equality means i am the same and my job in this world whether it's me against a man a man against a woman a woman against a woman i cannot live in this world comparing myself to anybody compare this bear if if i am going to strive for the sense of equality especially in the genders then i am without a doubt minimizing what my own unique potential is judaism believes the torah teaches us that just like an apple and an orange the both fruits they have both have their own significance if i make an apple orange a gmo apple orange i'm not going to get the best quality fruit my job in this world is to do the best that i can with the gifts that i am given and if god has created my soul in the form of a female therefore i have the ability to become the best version of a woman that i can and it's not relative to a man it's relative to me and it's dangerous equality is a dangerous thing judaism teaches that each of us have the unique ability to actualize our own potential and lori i just want to go to you on this because equality is a big word out there and it's a you know it it's it's a it's a hot topic you know your thoughts on on shashana k's um equality um comment with regard to women doing it that way now my breviton always says like don't settle and be like a man like be a woman okay like why settle so it reminds me of uh like you see like even with a forget about men versus women like men versus men you know sometimes somebody comes from the the tribe they're a cohen and so there's certain responsibilities they have and certain privileges that they have they're called to the torah first and when you're when you're when you're doing the grace after meals they lead it and all these things that they get to do and if you're a lady and uh so there my husband tells my husband's a rabbi so here's here's here's our here's a rabbi joke rabbi you're gonna love this okay it's a rabbi joke so i gotta go you know you know me well i love rabbi jokes yeah i'm sure the rabbi the guy goes to the rabbi the congregate goes the rabbi and he says rabbi i i need you i want you to make me a cohen he goes i can make you a cohen he says rabbi really i want to be a cohen he says i can't make you a cohen he says he says you know i'm going to give a million dollars to add a new wing to the to the synagogue if you'll make me a cohen and he goes he goes saul why do you want to be a cohen he go because my father was a cohen my grandfather was a cohen and my great-grandfather was a cohen he goes okay you're a cohen okay so obviously that's he was a cohen all along so it does cohen's not better than a lady and ladies not better than a israel and and a woman's not better than a man a man's not better than a woman we as as shoshanna was saying and as he's saying we're unique it's so fantastic you are you there is nobody like you and the torah is saying that there is an avenue again to the goal of being not not just actualizing the best woman and the best man of achieving the goal of having the ultimate relationship with god and realizing your unique potential who you are and i have to tell you i came from the world of advertising you know shawna says she came from the corporate world i used to work i worked for leo burnett i was a copyright i worked in advertising so i always said that that person i'm still in advertising i just have a better product but in advertising in advertising i never straight line laurie thank you so as as i was as i um as i told you i was raised with a very strong feminist mother and she would have consciousness raising groups and like i knew as a little girl i had to say consciousness okay and the women would gather once a week and my mother said when everybody started leaving their husbands she sort of got out of that because she was not into that women like women trying to be like men or women hating men she was she the feminism she gave me was people treating people like people and and and as rookie was talking about about uh being objectified because in the world i never saw the feminism my mother gave me actualized in the world of academia or actually where's this tremendous glass ceiling and in the world of of advertising oh my gosh like okay like woman with sexy hair buy the car buy the car get the woman okay talk about being objectified in in that world and it was a shock to me shock beyond shock that when i walked into the traditional jewish world and i was tiptoeing in this is where i saw the actualization of that feminism and the way we dress as part of it it's like because i am dressing in a more dignified way then it helps a man to see me to not objectify me and to see me for my mind and my soul as opposed to the world you know a friend of mine told me that she had a friend who was going for a job interview and the night before this very very major job interview she was like going through with a closet and and she was asking you know our mutual friend to help her pick out an outfit and so my friend had become like more observant and and she pulled out a really sexy like go to the nightclub outfit she goes why don't you wear this she goes are you crazy like i i would never wear that i want them to to respect me for for who i am for my mind and i don't and so the the point was to take him the point was taken so there was a book on a best-seller list because there's another the next question really segues into this because you know both you and rookie covell mention you know that men you know have to be more careful about looking at things women you know in terms of in terms of you know how they dress et cetera it's it's a hot topic and a lot of people are asking all right rob i just want to interrupt you it's not just about how they dress i said objectifying yourself you can objectify yourself with a look and a giggle totally i i i know i'm said wait oh and be very immodest god i'm i'm exactly i'm i'm segueing into this next point because many people feel that you know oh so you're telling me how to dress because it's for the men it's like to prevent men from from stumbling etc like that's why i need to dress that way like is is that really is that true is that a misconception people feel that like you're you're you're you're setting the set of rules for us not not because of us intrinsically but it's because of what other how other people will view us you know your thoughts on that laurie even just in segwaying you know you're you're i think i'm gonna i'm gonna let you shana shoshanna was uh wanted to take this go for it my cleaning lady is vacuuming can you hear the vacuuming oh yeah yeah can we wait or should i just keep going welcome to our house everybody okay okay send her to my house next please yeah okay um you know it's interesting because if you look at a torah scroll how is a torah scroll dressed do when when we're in synagogues coming back to the the synagogue it's wearing this beautiful like the the torah is is clothed in this beautiful silver and velour and people spend a lot of money to sponsor this it's a very interesting thing and um you know if you ever look at a man that has any kind of torah knowledge you never see them walking around in like flip-flops in a tank top and it's in shorts you just don't right so what is this idea from the age of 12 it is incumbent on a jewish woman to dress a particular way is it really for the men that were doing this am i dressing a certain way if if i'm as as a jewish woman we have three very strong jewish women here every day i get dressed to think i get dressed i think to myself well today i need to look attractive not attracting god forbid because of this man or today i need to feel like a royal princess so that no man looks at me that is clearly not the way we are raising our daughters or raising ourselves for that matter so it's an interesting thing that really the way we dress is because the more spiritually attuned something or someone is the more we have to protect them and dress them for what they are like if there was a magnificent new diamond that was put out at tiffany's they wouldn't just put it out on the counter come all to look at it they would shine light in a certain way and they'd make sure there's beautiful velour and then they would every night package it away to make sure it's safe and kept sacred so too with each and every one of us why did i bring in the torah and and men because it's an unbelievable thing we often come and think about it from a second class or or a a a backward positioning that compared to men men can do anything and we can't no the fact of the matter is that any jewish woman from the age of 12 is already carrying the same spiritual potential as that of a torah of that as a torah scholar or a torah itself anything that has spiritual weight to it has to be dressed has to be packaged in the way that is commiserate with whatever spirituality is i don't i don't think that that's like just true of women because again i don't you know i don't want to be like well men are not spiritual they don't have to be as covered i just think what we don't realize and um it's alison joseph's from jew in the city who i think highlighted this expression something called the skin gap if you look at how a man or a woman is dressed on a beach right a man is wearing these loose trunks they go down to his knees and the woman is wearing this super skimpy bikini you go to um you know a black tie event right the men are wearing more clothes than they've ever worn in their lives and the women are wearing less clothes than they've ever worn in their life look at jeans look at men's jeans versus women's jeans everyone's like oh women's clothes never have pockets yeah that's because they're so skin tight that if they had a pocket you couldn't even get anything in or out of them right but not even like women and men are starting at the same level and now you're like oh my gosh judaism makes women dress so much you know why there's so much less of a difference between orthodox men and non-orthodox men because men in general are always allowed to wear more clothes i you know what i mean that's where i think that's coming from like a a societal perspective i'm speaking even though we lost jesse yes he's still here that's okay without the rabbi we don't need them it's okay i'm talking about the fact that i should view it as something that's a gift for me you mean i know i i hear you as a as a when my daughter is 12 years old she has the same spiritual potential as that as a as a as a torah scholar and i just think that's a societal misnomer that that women like you said are objectified and put in a situation that they feel a need to dress this way or if their their femininity is only expressed if i'm the less close that i have and take one look at instagram from the inside i want to see what you really are i want your your essence to shine outward right take a look at you and see it from the the outward inward i mean what's going on on instagram and snapchat with teens and even preteens the pictures that they feel they have to post about themselves the pictures that they're sending sixth grade girls to sixth grade boys they feel that they have to do this to prove something it's so sad you know and like i mean thank god i'm so grateful and i don't take any of this for granted but my 17 year old daughter okay who will not be seen in front of guys in a bathing suit she only swims with other girls she was buying a new bathing suit this season and she sent me a link on amazon because that's how we talk these days she sent me a link on amazon she's like mom is this bathing suit too sexy you know what did she mean too sexy too sexy for other girls she's not taking any pictures of herself in it she's not showing herself for herself she felt a sense of dignity yes she's wearing a bathing suit because she's going swimming and yes certain body parts are showing that don't usually show but even within that you know it's like it kind of it's kind of like what you're saying shashana that it's like there's a certain sense of dignity i am a dignified human being you know you can wear a bathing suit and you can wear a bathing suit you can wear a tank top and you can wear a tank top you can wear shorts and you can wear shorts you and to your daughter obviously that she recognizes her reality she recognizes what she is i mean i don't know about you ladies but i grew up with such insecurity especially being a chubby kid hello my whole life forget it it was like a social nightmare okay that's a crazy thing it's my it happens to be that my girls have all different shapes and sizes but i don't want my girls being raised based on what they look like physically they're magnificent each and every one of us are so magnificent and society told me as a young child that like you're less than because of your physicality no ways each of us have so much to our essence and that's that's what we learn from the magnificent torah that once we take there's so its essence is in the torah itself not in the externalities and i just think it's so important i want my college students to be able to create a reparation for themselves to see girls you're so magnificent it's not worth it i think girls are afraid to set personal boundaries because it's so counter-cultural and it takes so much guts and courage to say i don't have to be that girl i don't have to show my body that way it takes so much courage but you know just coming from the other side of things because i was raised observant and i was raised this way and i went to you know an orthodox jewish day school i mean i'll be honest with you when i was 16 and 17 years old i didn't always love the fact that i wore skirts and i i i was like oh my gosh wouldn't it be fun to wear leggings and wouldn't it be fun to wear a tank top i craved that right that was me on the outside looking in that looks like fun that looks liberated that looks free you know so i'm not gonna pretend that like oh i'm always in love with dressing modestly i'm not okay and when i lead trips in july in israel on momentum i am hot not that kind of hot be like 100 degrees kind of hot okay and you know what as i become you know as i continue to grow and mature and become like the greater human being the more wisdom i see so it's not it's not that it's always convenient it's not that it's always fun because judaism is a religion of self-discipline and transformation and nothing that requires discipline and transformation is gonna always be easy or fun or convenient but that's how you become something amazing that you didn't use to be that's how self-actualization happens can i throw something else just a bonus go ahead i want to get to one more question they really i think that rookie and shoshone like they they spoke about the essence of it very beautifully but just a bonus to this now that i'm not so young anymore and i'm not a robux instructor anymore and i've had five children i like it and i see amongst the thousands of married women who struggle sometimes in their marriages and who are trying to keep their marriages strong i like it that my husband does like runs in us in circles where he doesn't see women like you're saying on the beach in bikinis okay and he doesn't see women who look in in in a way that maybe we don't look that way anymore because you really you create this sacred space within yourself and within the most primary relationship that you have and you protect that space i just have to say something when i'm on an israel trip not momentum maybe one day but my more israel trips with my college students and we go through like the very religious neighborhoods and the girls will come back and be like that is so disgusting that man wouldn't even look at me he turned away when he saw me and i'm like disgusting girlfriend are you serious he understands what your what your own spiritual sensual sexual potential is he's not looking at you not because there's something wrong with you he's not looking at you because he's protecting his own ability to see his wife in a certain way and he's not looking at you because of the fact that he understands the power that you have that's the jewish woman the it's not coming from a negative place and i think the most important thing as jewish women is when we don't grow up with it we almost have a negativity towards it we see it from a a lens a very small lens i just wanna i just wanna comment you know that i don't have that many comments but just to that point is that that same man that same man that you're describing if his daughter would bring this girl home as a friend for shabbat in their house would be the most warm nice thing here is home and his life right because i i rabbi i i i don't want to white watch this okay i agree i'm going to push back here so i'm pushing back i don't want to whitewash this because there are men who i know very religious men that when i'm talking to them and i'm dressed modestly okay i think i'm modest in my demeanor are looking very modest laurie you've gotta tell me like hello like you look at me like this that's not comfortable i'm not i'm not saying that many times and i've had this because there are many people who you know whether it's what you know people come to my house and say oh we ate last night by so-and-so's house and i'm saying to myself really that person walks down the street literally their glasses off and their face covered how was it and they'll describe the most amazing experience that can happen but i don't i just want to say something judaism believes that every good value and every good character trait can get radicalized and modesty can get radicalized and i think it's very important to call that out we don't believe in covering our faces unless you're wearing a mask for corona in which case coverage um you know we don't believe in like we believe that men that everybody should be friendly and you should greet each other you walk down the streets of jerusalem and you say shabbat shalom to man and he ignores you sorry i'm going to call that what it is rude okay and no but even like the not looking there's a 14 year old boy who's not looking at a momentum woman walking down the street i'm not talking about if she's dressed modestly or not i'm sorry he's not seeing you know the potential in her whatever this particular example aside i just want to say that every good thing can get radicalized and modesty can be used to silence women and it should not happen that is not a jewish value there's no question i just want but i'm pointing out the flip side is that it also has to be respected like mentioned that the fact that people do not want to have to see everything that there is to see in the street i agree and part of that is cultural you have an american young woman particularly from a college campus who's like literally coming from the hookup culture and she's walking through maya sharim and you know what i mean it's so beyond foreign so some of that is cultural i grew up like i said orthodox my whole entire life i never saw a man not look at a woman until i got to israel okay so part of that is torah and judaism part of that is cultural and part of that is radical and and you'll also have to be able to take each child we teach we teach that we each child has to be educated according to ray i know in my house myself i have a 16 year old son right now i have a 13 year old son each one is so different i know my 16 year old is going through a very major like spiritual growth stage in his life first and if depending on who's in our house he is the friendliest cutest like nicest boy but he is working very much on protecting what goes into it like what he sees now is he he would always be so respectful my my other child who's completely opposite to him would be like hanging out next to the girl you know and that's okay as well each for each child and i will support my oldest son in in and if any of our students ask like i noticed nothing's not really looking at me i would be honest and say you know what he right now he's really working on his own spiritual but they will tell you they'll be like he's the cutest thing he's so polite he's so when he's having a conversation but he's trying in his own i i i i think that rookie i was just pointing at balance and not being radicalized totally so i think it's important like as laurie said about not whitewashing you know i am often put in a position where i'm asked to defend jewish values and that's fine that's cool that's what i do professionally but i will not defend the indefensible there are orthodox people who do wrong things 100 and neely always says neely always nearly cousins always would say momentum you know major you're you're you're in love yeah yeah so you want to always that was like a big famous place do not judge judaism by the jews okay wait i'm gonna push back on that to this point but for this segment there's one more question are you having fun moderating these women totally it's like uh by the way i have i have six daughters you know so um any son the prince himself you know um okay