Activities

What rituals/traditions do you hold as most sacred/important?

I found an answer on your site that says mixed swimming is forbidden. I want to share my feelings about that. For I do not believe mixed swimming is sinful and have no regrets that it’s something I do. I have always seen myself as an Orthodox Jew and never would consider anything else. I wear a kippah, daven three times a day, put on tefillin, keep fully kosher, and observe Shabbat. At the same time, I have always engaged in mixed swimming. Not just that, but I met my wife, also an Orthodox Jew, at the side of the pool while going mixed swimming. Soon after I graduated from college, I was hanging out on the pool deck when a beautiful young woman I had never seen before was laying in a bikini right next to me. I had only planned on spending up to an hour there, but I struck up a conversation with her that lasted all day until the pool’s closing time. A friendship was born that led quickly to romance. What attracted me to her was not her looks or her bikini clad body, but all the things we could relate to about life and how comfortable we felt with each other. I started talking to her because she just happened to be the human being who was sitting closest me that day. She turned out to be the purest soul. We were meant for each other and although we married almost a year later, we actually became a couple that very day. Today we have been happily married for over 40 years and we are now grandparents. We have never stopped mixed swimming and we continue to swim mixed to this day. We took our kids to the pool and beach throughout their childhood and now we do the same with our grandkids, all at the same time they go to Jewish day schools and have some of the finest Torah values. I have nothing to apologize for mixed swimming. Had I not gone mixed swimming, I would never have met my lovely wife and we never would have had so many beautiful children and wonderful grandchildren who are all fully Torah observant Jews and such an important part of the Jewish people. I have always remained faithful to my wife and she has always been faithful to me. She is still the same lovely woman as she was the day I met her on the deck of the pool. Mixed swimming has never caused me to stray and has not put my fidelity at risk. Had either of us deprived ourselves or mixed swimming, some really wonderful lineages in the Jewish people would not exist and the world would be a much darker place.

I am a young man who recently learned a new hobby from my aunt: crochet. There is a social club in my town where people meet weekly and crochet together. With my aunt’s encouragement, I came for the first time last week and there were around 20 women and I was the only man. All the women were very welcoming to me and want me to come back. One of them is a middle aged orthodox woman who claims there is no problem in Jewish law with me being there. But she is not a rabbi. I am just curious, what is your opinion as a rabbi about a man being in a social club that is otherwise all female?

Is it permissible to attend a rodeo show?  

Shalom aleichem Rabbi Lauffer. Thank you for answering my last question. Regarding the book “Scientific Creationism,” which was written by a non-Jew but sold by Rabbi Avigdor Miller at his shul for five dollars, would that book be permitted to read in the bathroom? Thanks a lot.

Dear Rabbi, I recently hired a magician for my son’s birthday party only to be told by a well-meaning friend that doing magic tricks is questionable according to Judaism. Is this true?