I would be amiss if I did not explain the kind of damage that religious teachers do to homes and families in exactly the same way as outlined in this article

See these links: Dalrock

original post

Written by my husband, Ken Alexander

Lori's recent viral post struck a chord where women on both sides of the issue lined up to voice their agreement or stark disagreement over a husband's responsibility towards household chores. A few days later, it made it to the Daily Mail news source out of the UK titled Blogger is blasted over 'outdated' advice for a happy marriage as she urges women to 'do your housework cheerfully'. The reason it struck such a viral cord is twofold: First because it did not fit with the progressive women's agenda when Lori teaches that a wife married to a husband unwilling to meet her expectations should just take the high road and love him anyway. Second, because this is one of the hottest sources of frustration for most wives in the modern world. 

In my early years of marriage, Lori was often frustrated with me as her perception was that I was not doing enough to help her. I was at the time struggling to build a consulting firm and my head was stressed to its max as I raced across the US and Europe seeking success and security that comes from a good reputation. Hardly was I focused on housework after working a sixty hour week, and to be honest, I really detested household chores. But I had no issues caring for the kids, or cooking meals, and vacuuming. But dishes and cleaning was not my idea of my role in the relationship. 

Too often the root of this frustration came to Lori after talking to a family member or friend who helped to create the heart of the unmet expectations. I recall having a wonderful weekend with my wife, enjoying each other and the kids, and walking along in harmony together. I left on a trip and just after I got the the hotel in New York City, I grabbed the telephone and dialed the woman I had just spent a great week with. Looking out over Central Park from the 18th story with the lights surrounding it and darkness at the center, Lori answered the phone.

How's it going babes?

Oh, I'm fine?

Did you have a good day?

It was fine.

Well I had a good trip out, and my client put me up in a really nice hotel room overlooking the Park. It's way too expensive, but a really nice view. I wish you were here to share it with me!

Ya, you know Ken, you really don't help me enough around the house. We have four kids now and you know my stomach is not well. You really need to help me more.

Oh, WOW! Where is that coming from? You know I help a lot with the kids, and when you are sick I often cook the meals and take care of things. I don't get what you want from me? What happened between the time I left you this morning and I landed in NY?

I was talking to a friend today and she told me that you really should be helping me more. What I need is more help. My friend's and sisters' husbands help their wives more. 

Wait a second. You are telling me that when I kissed you goodbye today, you were doing great with our relationship and fine with how much I was helping around the house? Somehow between that moment and now you have talked to someone and you are upset over our relationship?  I don't know what to tell you, but I don't understand how your friends have anything to do with us and how we live out our marriage together.

Therapists  are the agents of the Sitra Achra [the Dark Side]. The Satan found it difficult to destroy marriages and families all by himself so he set up his agents to help him in his work.

Nationalism really comes down to a debate between Kant and Hegel. I am on the side of Kant in this, but I think Hegel also had some good points.  I am not sure how to reconcile them. You can see the side of nationalism in Howard Bloom's, The Lucifer Principle. But the draw backs of the system in the USA was brought to print by Allan Bloom's masterpiece, The Closing of the American Mind.

[I should say here that I tend to be on the ide of the Kant-Fries school of thought that you can see in the blog of Kelley Ross] And I also think that my very good impression of Hegeli more based on my  reading of his Logic of the encyclopedia. That is a masterpiece. But the way he elevates the "State" in the Phenomenology is really hard to digest.

I knew  some people that were prime examples of what a man is supposed to be.
My Dad as a father, a husband, a scientist. My teachers in school,: Mr Smart the music teacher, my two Roshei Yeshiva, Reb Freifeld and Reb Shmuel Berenbaum.

I would like to go into detail about each one and what I learned from them. But this minute it is hard to do so because excellence is hard to describe. And what makes it different from mediocrity. Still, God willing I would like to go into detail perhaps in a future comment.

Each one had a great sense of balance and responsibility.

Each one was focused on what they could give to others-not what they could get from others.

I have described my Dad a little in this blog beforehand but he remains the greatest mystery to me.
His major principle was self sufficiency. Do it yourself.  Many people have made it their way of life to collect charity from others and that would have been for my Dad the lowest of the low.

Mr Smart had an amazing sense when it came to music and how to instill appreciation of great music into his students. He got his amateur high school orchestra into a state of excellence. I have no idea how. It was just some kind of excitement about him when it came to music and conducting the orchestra.
Reb Shelomo Friefeld  had a grasp of what Torah is supposed to be about and a way of instilling that into others.

And Reb Shmuel really needs to be understood together with his wife Rebitzin Berenbaum. As a team they made the Mir yeshiva in NY into the most phenomenal kind of place I have seen. The spirit of Torah just permeated the place.

But in the face of these really great people, I am at a loss to describe what it was that pushed them over the line from average into greatness.

Today it is hard to find good people, much less great people. But the main thing about each of the people I mentioned is they loved what they were doing, and they were extremely competent, and  had a tremendous excitement about them in trying to instill this into others.

[Sadly enough I knew a great number of con men that acted the parts, but had no substance. It took me too much time and experience and suffering to realize this. To understand the world you live in it is no enough to have great teachers. You need to experience terrible people also in order appreciate the good ones. And book learning can complement this but it does not replace it.

Sitra Achra (Dark Side) and graves of tzadikim

כישוף witchcraft and occult are  areas of Torah Law that are largely forgotten. Amulets, going to graves of tzadikim, doing different rituals to gain spiritual powers seems to be part and parcel of the cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on. This is to some degree a surprise because these things are expressly forbidden in the Torah.
These things get to be called doing  a mitzvah in the context of the cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on

To gain mystic powers would seem to be just what Bilaam was about. He was open to God but also open to the Sitra Achra (Dark Side).

The way this is made to be kosher is by a slight of hand. They do not call it כישוף but rather "תיקונים" But the idea is the same. Instead of doing God's will in the Law it is to gain spiritual powers.
And often it works. People would not be having shamans and rituals of this nature for thousands of years if there was not some effect.

People that you expect will stick up for you, never do. The people you least expect help from are the ones that stick their necks out for you.

Sephardim in America were descendants of the Jews that were thrown out of Spain. 

The original Sephardim in America came from Amsterdam. Sephardim means Spanish Jews. These were what would be called today Ashkenazim-- European Jews not from N Africa 


That is not the same as Sephardim today that got mixed with Jews from North Africa. 





The Jews from N. Africa were intermarried with Arabs from the beginning of the Arab conquest of the Middle East. That is the reason Jews like Maimonides from those areas used the term ס''ט ספרדי טהור To show that they could trace their lineage to Jews. [Or to be a little more exact the term was used to show they use trace their male lineage to Jews. The distinction came about because in the beginning of the Arab Conquest Jewish women were taken as wives by Arab men.]

This is also the reason you find the letters  ס''ט after the signature of people like Bava Sali .


i would not make a big deal out if this if not for the fact that Sephardim make a very big deal out of their claim to be the only true Jews.  This seems to be a case of projection.