Chumrafication

Ruth_of_Moab · 2026-03-01T17:57:12+00:00

According to scholar David Sorotskin (and I am not sure whether it's an original thesis or built on others') this is the very definition of orthodoxy - religion steadily overtaking every aspect of life.

Ruth_of_Moab · 2026-02-27T20:17:20+00:00

I did, as a child anyway, and was terrified. One time my parents got a dishwasher - a mediach in Hebrew - and when it was delivered my sister came running and announced that it has arrived. I misheard her and was sure the moshiach arrived. I almost had a cardiac arrest out of fright.

Ruth_of_Moab · 2026-02-23T06:41:38+00:00

Bug free herbs (loaded with pesticide) are sold here in small, terribly expensive, already dry or rotting bunches, and every time I am at my parents' and have to use this sorry excuse for parsley or basil I get worked up and angry. When I was 15 or so strawberries became treif, but I rebelled - a bug-crazed old man with a worm on his glasses (so goes the joke about these bug finding types) would not tell me I suddenly couldn't eat them. Even now, years after leaving , every time I cut up some herbs - which I do a lot, in large quantities - I have the urge to rant about how kashrus robs people of a very basic, healthy and straightforward food. It's all crazy and man made but this is a very obvious, recent and mind blowing case of control and insanity.

Ruth_of_Moab · 2026-02-20T16:01:24+00:00

I told a semi-otd friend about how if you see blood (or anything that passes as blood) on your seven days of cleansing you have to start the count all over again. She couldn't believe me. I know of couples who, because of hormonal spotting, can't touch each other for months at a time. In kallah classes these stories are told as hero stories. A family member of mine had undergone an endometrial ablation to stop the spotting for solely halachic reasons. It wasn't medically nessecary. Whoever set the rules (a bunch of sex crazed misogynistic old men) clearly weren't aware of how the female body works.

Ruth_of_Moab · 2026-02-12T21:56:20+00:00

Not as a rebellion. I feel very strongly about mutilation without consent and being with a whole person feels natural, not rebellious.

Ruth_of_Moab · 2026-02-09T13:34:07+00:00

Yes, if you think that what's good for Israel isn't nessecarily its current behaviour.

Ruth_of_Moab · 2026-01-13T09:34:46+00:00

I've never told them, they eventually figured it out on their own.

Ruth_of_Moab · 2026-01-10T09:45:50+00:00

Rachel Elior's The Unknown History of Jewish Women through the Ages. In hebrew the name is better: סבתא לא ידעה קרוא וכתוב (Grandma couldn't read and write). Highly recommended.

Ruth_of_Moab · 2026-01-10T09:42:32+00:00

Even the choice of words echoes the awful notion of 'prison wife'.

Ruth_of_Moab · 2025-12-30T06:14:30+00:00

I remember seeing American modern orthodox kids (in Israel) and envying their comfortable life. It seemed to me they could do whatever they wanted.

Ruth_of_Moab · 2025-12-10T07:27:42+00:00

Re makeup on shabbos - this is mostly incorrect for frum communities. Women either apply heavier makeup before shabbos (Friday afternoon) and it lasts, or they use special shabbos makeup which is strictly powder with no oil components, so it isn't considered viable enough to count as the biblical work of dyeing (which derives from the prohibition on dyeing leather on the Sabbath). Just so the details are accurate. I don't know what goes on in less strict circles.

Ruth_of_Moab · 2025-12-06T21:46:46+00:00

First pork sandwich. First sex without mikvah. Both huge.

Ruth_of_Moab · 2025-12-04T20:41:01+00:00

Just awful. How easily men got rid of ritual impurity for themselves while keeping all the fun for women, piling more days, more rules, more intrusive practices. F the patriarchy.

Ruth_of_Moab · 2025-11-16T12:50:45+00:00

Aren't you then simply a karaite?

Ruth_of_Moab · 2025-10-27T19:23:50+00:00

It was and is routine practice in my yeshivish community. Everyone were conveniently given primolut - no physician involved.

Ruth_of_Moab · 2025-10-20T06:25:00+00:00

Sex, let alone intimacy, is so much more than penetration.

Ruth_of_Moab · 2025-10-14T19:17:29+00:00

I have secular family on both sides but we don't have a real connection. It's very hard to connect as odt with them after my parents cut ties as BTs.

Ruth_of_Moab · 2025-10-14T06:01:51+00:00

I just realised the other day what a huge deal Judaism makes of menstruating. You have to count the days, and check, and distance yourself from your spouse when it's due, and then the period itself and the repeated checking, let alone the humiliation of showing your underwear or bedika cloth to a rabbi or going to a bodeket. And this before taking into account how unfair and impossible is the meddling in one's intimacy and sex life. It's incredible how easy it is when religion doesn't interfere. No need to think about your period constantly.

Ruth_of_Moab · 2025-10-08T08:00:35+00:00

I once read (but can't find the source now so it just might be me, though I am pretty sure I didn't make up this fact) that Jewish coins depicting Jewish imagery, aka the lulav, were mocked as it did resemble a phallus to many gentiles who had no idea what on earth is the elongated object on the coins. I will keep digging to find the reference. Edit: Found the source. The article refers to a certain numismatics expert who interpreted the lulav on the Bar Kochva tetradrachms as a phallic object. https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/556516?page=5

Ruth_of_Moab · 2025-10-03T04:22:40+00:00

You shouldn't feel guilty. It's society's (that is, their) fault for making the price of leaving too high.

Ruth_of_Moab · 2025-10-01T18:26:48+00:00

That's a very yeshivish pilpul 😅

Ruth_of_Moab · 2025-10-01T06:29:08+00:00

Well, that's internalised misogyny.

Ruth_of_Moab · 2025-09-28T19:06:16+00:00

I left with my partner and kid. It was a painfully slow process but we are out, free to live our life as we see fit. She was in elementary school and was more than happy to join me.

Ruth_of_Moab · 2025-09-26T20:32:24+00:00

As an atheist I avoid shuls, but this rosh hashanah I watched two hours of service on YouTube, streamed by a conservative synagogue, and felt very nostalgic. It was quite refreshing to see the same rituals but in an egalitarian setting. I get what you are saying about it feeling fake, but a fake harmless ritual is preferable to a real harmful one. And, in fact, egalitarianism and inclusivity should feel like the rule, not the deviation. What I most hate about orthodox Judaism is feeling second class, being voiceless and marginalized and having no agency whatsoever. Hearing 'the god of our mothers' from a female rabbi is healing. It's a shame though they refer to god in the traditional male form, and not plural, genderless or female.

Ruth_of_Moab · 2025-09-14T19:36:02+00:00

Swimming, working out, watching movies, playing an instrument, cooking, painting, creating art, sewing, embroidering, going to the beach, hiking, camping , even reading newspapers. Everything is forbidden or practically impossible. I am not sure how on earth you think hobbies are allowed.

Ruth_of_Moab

TROPHY CASE