Tuesday, June 01, 2004

Bridal classes by dummies

According to the Jerusalem Post, the Reform movement is mounting a legal challenge to that ongoing embarrassment which is the pre-marital Bridal Classes offered by the Israeli religious councils.
It’s hard to think of one single other institution which turns secular and traditional women off Judaism as much as these obligatory classes. It’s not that they’re unnecessary; on the contrary, it is important for Jewish women and men of all streams to understand something of traditional Jewish attitudes to marriage and sex before they stand under the chuppah. But there’s no use telling a woman who’s never heard of ‘family purity’ (or any woman, for that matter) that she’ll never conceive, or will fall ill, because she does not check herself properly during her menstrual cycle. And I know too many secular women who still recoil when they remember being given advice on how to ‘keep their husbands happy’ straight out of the 1950s.
Unfortunately, many haredi people simply do not know how to talk to secular people; their lives and realities are so far removed they cannot even begin to understand them. The result, in the Bridal Classes at least, is teachers whose condescension and ignorance are legendary, and students who are turned off Judaism, perhaps forever.
The religious councils have had more than enough time to fix these widespread and well-known problems. If they haven’t by now, they never will. And yet, unlike Reform, I don’t want these classes to be cancelled; again, it's important for people to understand what their own heritage has to say about one of the most important steps of their lives.
The solution is to allow secular and non-Orthodox groups to run their own pre-marital courses. While they might include important discussions about expectations in marriage, good couple-hood, the Jewish marriage ceremony etc., they would also cover an agreed core syllabus about family purity. And perhaps finally, the subject could be taught in ways appropriate for a diverse population.

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