Ask Pardes 7b: Good Man in Orthodox Judaism
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): PardesSeleh.com
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/11/03
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What makes a good man in Hasidic Ultra-Orthodox Judaism?
Pardes Seleh: According to Ultra-Orthodox Judaism, the purpose of a man is to study the Torah as much as possible in the living hours that aren’t sleeping, eating, and fulfilling basic survival needs.
It is not the toiling in Torah study. It is not that that’s a means to apply it to your life or becoming more of a Torah-inspired person, but that is the goal. The toiling itself is the goal. That is what makes you e better, stronger, virtuous person.
Someone that earns the highest regard in the world to come. A good man in Orthodox Judaism is someone who toils in the Torah.
It is expected that is will come with the application and the good deeds. Somebody in the scripture will be knowledgeable of things.
But the purpose of a woman is to help her husband in the Torah. She will help him raise the kids and will have a job, usually, that’s the case. It becomes their full-time thing. The wife will often get a job and work.
If she can’t work, for whatever reason, they usually get support from other people. It’s the family member or the community, where the man toils in the Torah. There is a central bank that distributes money.
It was a system to help with the arrangement of the man toiling in scripture all day and his woman helping him. His duties to his marriage and wife are to treat her kindly and respect the marriage.
Basically, it is to treat her well and study Torah. It is pretty simplistic and similar to how every other culture of how a man should treat a woman, but his primary goal in this Earth is toiling in the Torah.
The things he does in practice are to protect his Torah study. He won’t watch pornography. He won’t look at naked women. He won’t look at things in the street, signs in the street, billboards, won’t listen to secular music.
All to keep himself holy in order to study Torah.
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