Our Biggest Problem?

The purpose of this blog is to turn the Friday night dinner table inward. Please print and share (+ like it, tweet it, forward).

 

How did you do on last week's "5 Thanksgiving Questions"?

Current events have brought up a long-forgotten memory.

In college I spent a semester in Rome, the so-called "Eternal City".

Every day we had a field trip to some part of the city or around Umbria, to look at something Classical or Baroque.

On our big trip to southern Italy, this incident occurred on a bridge in Naples.

We were waiting for the bus to fetch us when a couple of Italian guys came up to me and wanted to negotiate a price for being intimate with one or two of the women in our group.

At first I assumed they were joking and so I played along with it.

But then one of the women became suspicious and asked me what they were saying.

Only then did it dawn on me that they were actually serious.

And that it didn't really matter.

What mattered was that, the entire premise of the conversation, joking or not, was highly offensive. But it was so absurd that I played along with it...."guy talk".....

Q1 for your table: That kind of "guy talk" is bad, but how bad?

And let's flush this out with a few random comparisons.

(Q2 for your dinner-table conversation.)

We all have limited time and attention spans, so we should focus on the most urgent problems, right?

Therefore, what's worse?

Guys talking guy talk, or guys like Matt Lauer having a secret button?

Guys like Matt Lauer, or plastic choking our ecosystems?

The steady destruction of marine ecosystems, or the loss of young people to opioid overdose ?

The opioid epidemic, or the technology-depression-suicide epidemic?

It is interesting that Judaism addressed some of these issues thousands of years ago.

For instance, there is a millenial-old prohibition against a man and woman who are not family to be secluded together. Even to touch each other beyond a formal handshake.

This is not the path of "orthodox" Judaism. It is Jewish wisdom. Just like you don't have to be "religious" in order to decide not to speak lashon hara and to practice shmirat halashon, you also don't need to be religious to practice shmirat hanegiah and save your hugs and kisses for your family.

But don't we live in a culture that expects hugs and kisses at every social gathering?

We also live in a culture that honors lashon hara.

Think about it.

They said the following story of the late Dayan Erintroy - he was once visiting a factory in Germany for a kosher food inspection. The manager was a woman who extended her hand. He said, "I'm sorry, the only woman I touch is my wife."

She smiled and said, "If my husband had had that attitude, we'd still be married!"

Q3: Maybe some habits simply too engrained to make it worth the fight?


Shabbat Shalom

PS - Counting down the days to Channuka? Have you seen our recommended books and toys for kids of all ages?

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