Q&A: The Tragedy of Yavne and the Secular Approach
The Tragedy of Yavne and the Secular Approach
Question
Akiva Novick:
The tragedy of Yavne is a major point in favor of the religious approach. There are things that are better done separately, without sexual tension, and a personal training situation is definitely one of them.
Uriya Shilat:
Akiva isn’t saying here that religious people don’t cheat, that they are inherently more moral people or more self-restrained. He’s simply saying that keeping the boundaries of Jewish law (so long as this involves men and women who are attracted to one another) helps prevent such cases from happening, because a married or unmarried woman who follows Jewish law would not train alone with a man, would not touch him, and would not be alone with him. I didn’t understand why everyone jumped on this. Yes, there are religious people who cheat—what does that have to do with it?
Haim Levinson:
What nonsense. As if the fitness instruction is the issue. So someone who’s looking will go with the settlement secretary—why is that anybody’s business?
…
The very situation in which you go to the office to inquire about preschool registration [my addition: is a recipe for trouble].
Dov Morel:
I’m pretty sure most trainers don’t do this in a secluded room, and if a woman chose to have a workout with a trainer in a secluded room, maybe it didn’t really bother her and maybe she actually wanted it. You [Uriya Shilat] and Akiva are assuming that they were drawn into this without having any information at all to support that assumption. Especially since we’re talking about dozens, doesn’t it sound far-fetched that women heard from other women how amazing it was to have sex with him and went there precisely for that reason? On the contrary, the fact that we’re talking about dozens actually strengthens the opposite assumption, and therefore pulls the rug out from under your claim.
In your opinion, is Dov Morel right? In this respect, is the secular approach not inferior to the religious approach? And overall, weighing the advantages and disadvantages as a whole (for example, the list of costs that Tzipi Lavi lists here https://x.com/tzippylavi/status/1884585162844840122)?
Answer
This question will be deleted, unless you formulate some specific argument here and a concrete question.
Discussion on Answer
At the moment it appears that we are not talking about dozens (but only a few), and not about married women (but rather single and divorced women).
You assume that the purpose of separation is to prevent forbidden acts. But in Jewish law its purpose is also to prevent forbidden thoughts, and perhaps it also has intrinsic value. This is a question of social norms, and those vary from society to society, so I have no general answer on the matter. In my opinion, Haredi separation is hysterical and unhealthy. But it is clear that in their norms, a small degree of mixing can arouse thoughts more than it would in a mixed society.
Is striving for separation (“the religious approach”) a positive social value, one that is worth adopting even in secular society?
Is it correct to say that separation reduces socially indecent acts, even though there is apparently no evidence for this?