Re: Sublimation?

[Sam Weiss <samweiss...>]

[re: Eyshes Chayil]
I wrote:

     >>It fits into the kabbalistic scheme of
     >>reciting Shir Hashirim before Mincha on Friday
     >>[as Chassidim still do], singing to the Sabbath
     >>Bride before Ma'ariv, and bidding farewell to the
     >>Sabbath Queen after Havdalah. (They had an
     >>interesting way of sublimating their sexual urges.)


To which Robert Cohen wrote:

     >Oh, really? Well, maybe they did--maybe much
     >or all spiritual or creative activity reflects some
     >such sublimation--but, in terms of the connotations
     >that may or may not have meant here--and have
     >certainly been made explicit in other postings--for
     >highly sublimating folk, they sure had, and have,
     >zillions of children--far *more* than more religiously
     >liberal Jews. This feeds into the same stereotype that
     > had one ignorant poster a while back ...
    

Rest assured that no connotations were meant. (Which of course, makes it 
hard to know which connotations you mean.) In any event, since you are 
feeding my remarks into a stereotype, I should point out that in the 
heyday of the Tz'fat mystics European Kabbalists would leave family (or 
never establish one) in order to travel to Israel to do what Kabbalists 
do. In later times the Chassidim would regularly abandon their wives and 
zillions to live in the town of their Rebbe, returning occasionally for 
domestic visits.
So sublimating still had its place.

....................................................................................

Robert Cohen also wrote:

     >I'd rather go by the feelings of Jewish
     >*women* as to whether they feel patronized.

My wife used the term "condescending."

     >I certainly know, and know of, many, many beautiful
     >Jewish women--I mean, of course, beautiful in
     >spirit and on the inside; who finds or doesn't find
     >them beautiful on the outside is irrelevant--who
     >*don't* find it so--but who do feel patronized and
     >dishonored by having men tell them they *should* feel so.


You make it sound as if I am telling someone how to feel, when I am only 
reporting how I feel. I wrote my posting, you will recall, in response 
to Winston's call for comment on his own reaction to Eyshet Chayil. He 
did not specify that only women should respond.

______________________________________________________
Cantor Sam Weiss === Jewish Community Center of Paramus, NJ

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