Written by Yahalom. Yahalom is a first-time Jewrotica writer. Feel free to clarify any unfamiliar terms in the Jewrotica glossary.
I meet “Q” on a freezing Tuesday in January.
The most banal of meetings: a blind date, stupidly arranged for the first day back to school after winter break. It’s 10 degrees outside. I have 140 midterms to grade, and little inclination to fake-laugh at some guy’s jokes.
He texts that he is wearing a black hat, and I envision some terrifying cross between hipster and hasid, a fear dispelled in fifteen seconds of first-date conversation.
“I’m a classical musician,” he tells me. I cross “possible hipster?” off my big, prefab list of Reasons Why It Won’t Work Out.
As for his hashkafa: no issue here. The man is not a Jew.
This, I think with some measure of satisfaction, will never last.
Except, for some reason, it does.
I suppose no one ever “intends” to fall in love. That old chestnut: That’s why we call it falling, yuk yuk yuk. The not-badness of our first date is so revelatory that it takes a few more dates for it to register that I am enjoying this. Not sighing in relief at the absence of badness, or shrugging a noncommittal “meh” when he asks me out again, but actually having fun. Pretty soon there are long late-night conversations, and public hand-holding, and dinner-making, and gooey feelings, and I’m in way, way over my head.
II: A Necessary Interlude
So, interfaith dating.
Though I was raised frum—K-12 Modern Orthodox education, a hilariously unsuccessful half-year of hippie seminary—I’ve been wandering Off the Derech for over five years, longer than I spent getting torah guidance at my Modern Orthodox high school. My deviation from the Orthodox party line is, I suspect, no more radical than your average rational person’s, but it’s hard to shake off 20-odd years of family practice, not to mention a 2,000-year-old cultural identity.
The labels are irrelevant, but they boil down to this: Despite some spiritual low points (two years of out-and-out atheism, flavored with whatever nihilistic apikorsus I was reading that week at secular college), I’ve carved out a derech for myself. It’s not the Judaism of the OU, and it doesn’t have to be.
In another time, the Powers that Be might have called me Acher and dispensed with me; in 2012, I’m very much a part of a religiously literate, if not ortho-prax, culturally and spiritually vibrant Jewish conversation. Before “Q,” I imagined myself ending up with a post-Orthodox guy who, like me, had had his fun crossing all the lines in the sand during his rumspringa, and was looking for a way to embrace, if not halakha, then its spiritual cousin, “cultural practice.”
Somehow, I found myself dating a man who had no relationship to Judaism whatsoever.
Celebrating 10 Years & Marking the End of An Amazing Project
Celebrating 10 Years & Marking the End of An Amazing Project
Jewrotica is a great way to ask interesting questions about the interplay between sensuality and Jewish wisdom. Check it out.
Learning about sex and what’s right and wrong when it comes to sex from a Biblical standpoint was an eye opening experience. I completely enjoyed it and think something like this could be a very cool thing to bring to even high school aged Jewish youth groups.
Jewrotica was everything I had dreamed of and more: sexy attendees, tantalizing confessions, and well-written literature to boot! More importantly, it empowers us Jews to reach inside and own our sexy selves and heritage!
I’m into Jewrotica. I went in for my second circumcision.
Bedside Reading with Jewrotica was funny, sexy, and hot all at once. The readings were honest about all kinds of sexuality, but the highlight of the evening was definitely the confessions, written by audience participants. Nobody knew who wrote them, and most were tell-alls that would make your bubbe blush. Unless your bubbe was very, very cool. Then maybe she’d make YOU blush!
Such an amazing experience! The Sarah Lawrence Jewrotica workshop was more than I could have ever expected – a comfortable, safe, sultry environment where participants clearly felt good about sharing or listening to each other’s intimate experiences and relating them to sexy stories from the Torah. From the moment the workshop began, Ayo had a sweet presence that was kinetic and spread around the room; her storytelling abilities had everyone enraptured and made the conversation topics relata… Read more
I’m Heshy Fried from Frum Satire and I am very, very frum. And I completely support Jewrotica – it’s doing a service to the frum community. We need some sort of kosher sexual education. Jewrotica even has a system that allows frum filters to filter out certain things to make it PG for us. It’s mamish Torah. It’s like The Little Midrash Says for sex.
I’m so glad that Jewrotica is represented here at Jewlicious! It’s bringing voices that need to be heard in the Jewish discussion and Jewish climate environment.
The people behind Jewrotica are quite quality! I have confidence that any project these folks take on will be equally quality.
The Jewrotica event “Evening of Jewrotica: Bedside Reading” was awesome. As Master of Confessions, I got to read the deepest, darkest secrets of people in the room out loud… It was scintillating, titillating, and – yes – even educational!
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