Quote:
I don't know if you've seen it, but NCSY recently launched an abstinence based website (negiah.org).
Here's an article in the Jewish Daily Forward from a couple of days ago about it: just-say-no.

Take care.


Hey Rebecca,

I looked at the site (despite my beliefs, I am open minded), and it had some good stuff. For others, it's at "www.ou.org/abstinence"

However there were some real weaknesses for what it was trying to do.

For one thing, the demands it made of teens were extremely unrealistic. This site is seemingly made for non orthodox Jewish teens, yet tells them to do things like stay out of a secluded room with a member of the opposite sex, preferably not even shaking hands.

To give those directions to an average American teenager is like PETA trying to convert the world to being vegan, when they would cause more change simply by asking people to buy free range meats over factory farmed stuff.

Another problem, is that while the explanations from rabbinic traditions given are very nice and thoughtful, the examples from the Tanakh come off as awkward and nearly irrelevant. In all places where they show premarital sex gone awry or nicely avoided, it's something bizarre like an incestual rape, (Ammon and Tamar), or a man getting seduced by his employer's wife (Joseph and Mrs. Potiphar).

To make it even more awkward, the best example they can give of real love is between David and Jonathan! They say it's platonic, but isn't there enough speculative subtext in there already without having to use it as the prime example of what true love should be??

Hopefully they'll come up with some better ways to convince people. Maybe something from the Zohar?

--Dan