Q&A - How do you convey a positive connection to intimacy? Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz

yes this is a a very interesting question uh a little controversial question a little bit and that is uh you know the basic message of uh Orthodox Jews before they're married is you know we don't have uh intimate uh connections with women we don't hug them we don't kiss them Etc uh we kind of separate and the question is how do you convey a positive uh connection uh to marriage and ultimately intimacy if it's something that's such a taboo subject something that we totally avoid and then they're of course getting counter messages from General society that involve a coarseness and debasing attitude and how do we counteract that without as it were crossing the boundaries that religious Jews don't cross is that a paraphrase of your question okay yeah so it is a very good question so uh first and foremost you have to understand something that although marital intimacy is considered to be holy sacred and beautiful it is really an expression of love and relationship so consequently let's assume we have a married couple right and we have children so I'm not going to talk to my children about sex I mean at some age I might but I mean I know they're 5-year old or sixy old I'm not going to talk to them about uh how beautiful sexual relations are that wouldn't be an appropriate message but if they see that the relationship of father and mother of husband and wife is one as one of love one of respect one of really caring for each other so then they understand when they get older that the intimacy is a an expression of that love and that love is something that they can absorb even at a very young age so people ask me for example and this is maybe I'm going on thin ice a little bit uh is it appropriate for husband and wife to like hold hands or even you know kiss each other in the presence of their children or do you totally keep it private so I would say this again some people would disagree with me you know obviously kind of the ravishing you know hug and you know hugging that you'd have as a Prelude to intimacy you know that's not necessarily appropriate in front of your children but the notion of holding hands the notion that kids should absorb the fact that ABA and IMA love each other and care about each other I think that's a very good message and I think children should see that and children should be aware of that and uh children should understand that a husband respects and loves his wife as a wife hopefully respects and loves her husband so I think if there's enough of those positive interactions you don't necessarily have to talk a lot about sexuality in explicit ways now again at some age when kids are adolescence you may have to have conversations about various things but I think overall if they absorb the the correct healthy attitudes in an emotionally stable home that will be a very very good preparation now the problem is of course that a lot of our homes are not emotionally stable um you know even if you come from a religious home who keeps mitzvos let's say that's the best case scenario sometimes husband and wife don't get along so well and then the question is you know uh how do kids pick up proper attitudes that that's a real challenge but that's a challenge really uh whether you're religious or not religious but but if you're asking me what what can I as a parent do to convey that positive view I I think it's primarily in the relationship that my kids see between my wife and myself