NEW YORK, Nov. 12 (JTA)
For most of his 19 years of marriage, Dovid Schwartz has struggled to square his Orthodoxy and his aversion to monogamy.
"I want to prove and show that halachah," or Jewish law, "is humane," and stretch it to empower guys who have the spiritual need to be with more than one woman, Schwartz said at last week's Conference for Orthodox masculinity, through tears that reflected a life of spiritual turmoil.
Schwartz finally can consider himself validated as a new interpretation of halachah is breaking barriers for Orthodox men who like multiple women.
Hooking up is standard for members of non-Orthodox communities, of course, and most Orthodox long have accepted that men can fool around before they are married, as long as they don’t touch in their engagement pictures.
But Jerusalem Rabbi Shraga Mandelbroit helped pave the way for one Israeli synagogue, an Israeli minyan and three New York prayer groups to adopt a new model of Orthodoxy that permits men to fool around with, and maybe even marry, several women at once.
In a controversial article published last year on the Web site of the modern Orthodox group A-duh, Mandelbroit debunked the traditional Orthodox position that polygamy would diminish the community's dignity because it wasn't accepted by anyone except "the morons in Utah."
Mandelbroit began researching the subject of multiple hookups before he spent a weekend on the set of ‘Sex and the City’ three years ago, and came away confident that the tryst "was on a halachically sound footing."
At the Jewish Orthodox Swingers' Alliance (JOSA) annual conference in New York last weekend, plenaries on the topic proved popular.
"The impact has been quite extraordinary….. everyone who has participated in polygamy reports on the experience of how natural it feels and how continuous with the tradition it feels, rather than violating traditional sensibilities."
A group in Teaneck, N.J. is discussing starting a group marriage service that permits multiple marriages on one day to cut wedding costs. An Orthodox congregation in Manhattan, Kehilat Orach Sarah Rivka Rachel V’Leah (KOSRRL), currently is considering a resolution to accept bigamists as Torah readers. If it accepts, the synagogue would become the first in the United States to do so, as well as the first to set up an orthodox honeymoon suite in its adjunct youth hostel.
In other U.S. Orthodox circles, resistance appears stiff, except for the sephardic communities who have been openly practicing polygamy for centuries.
"I'm truthfully not aware of any acceptable halachic authority who has granted permission for men to participate, said Rabbi Arye Dworken, executive vice president of the Comedic Council of America, the standup arm of mainstream Orthodoxy.
That’s precisely the problem Sarah Fryers faces at the predominantly monogamous Orthodox community at the University of Maryland Hillel.
“Look, Avraham had 2 wives and Yaakov had four (referring to the patriarchs in the Pentateuch) so I could rebut these arguments but it would get me nowhere” said Meyers, 17, who began a polygamous sorority house this year in her Orthodox neighborhood of Potomac, Md. "Hey if there are no single good looking orthodox guys on jdate, married guys will do fine, and hey, they are a lot more experienced too." She said with a wink.
Others say it’s old-fashioned to seek a rabbinical imprimatur.
Sharon Nealstein, 27, an NBC producer who studied at the Yeshiva of Flatbush in Brooklyn, said she doesn’t “need a rabbi in his 60's to give us approval." But later added "Early 50's will do. SWM Non-smoking, no pets, fun loving rabbi in 40's would be preferred."
Ivana Shluff, a doctoral student in Talmudic Loopholes at New York University and one of the founders of the Parkay Not-Butter Minyan, backs the grassroots initiatives but calls on rabbis to incorporate such changes into their own nuptual services.
It “pains me” that the drive for bigamy acceptance had to develop outside established synagogues, Schulff, 28, said in a speech at the Jewish swinger conference.
“Go out and see the exuberance of a 50-year old man who spent his first night with a new woman in 30 years two weeks ago,” Schluf said. “Go out and see the pride of an eighteen-year old girl after she becomes wife #10 of her new 75 year old husband."
Yet changing established norms will be difficult, said Rabbi Adam Duritz of Manhattan’s Wink N’ Stare Synagogue, who spoke at the conference of the competing congregational needs that rabbis must balance. "We will have to pluralize Eshes Chayil, write up multiple kesubas and gets. This is so exciting! Finally I can use the term 'maidservant'." Rabbi Durtiz also noted that due to the halacha establishment, he recently added himself to Jdate.com and the newest polygamy dating website JShifcha.org
The president of the convention, Green Bluberg, hopes that this new bigamy trend will be percieved as "These and these are the living words of God,’" a Talmudic expression that basically uses the word "These" a lot, used primarily so no ones feelings get hurt, and, added Bluberg, in case there are lawsuits.
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