Ruchi on Sheryl Sandberg's Book

[longskirts]

outoftheorthobox.blogspot.com/2013/10/sheryl-sandberg-and-me_13.html

Ruchi believes her patriarchal religious views don't hinder her from being a feminist. I'm not convinced--this is the person who won't allow her 19-year-old daughter to go away to college, even to a Jewish college, because it might lower her "standards".

She's worried about men and women in business falling in love. Also briefly alludes to some of her more fundie beliefs, like no hugging/kissing before marriage.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Thanks for the link.

I thought her post was interesting, and somewhat refreshing.

Ruchi is pretty clear about who she is - she's a frum-from-birth Orthodox Jewish woman, she follows a lot of rules and those rules include no physical contact between unrelated adults of the opposite sex (subject to certain exceptions like medical necessity).

What I found refreshing was that she read a secular book on female readership, admits that she expected to hate it, but then shares "text to self and text to world connections" (as my kids' literacy teachers call them). In other words - she RELATES to the book, even though it comes from someone outside her circle.

And that's why, Sheryl, I haven't really taken your message head-on, as I thought I might before reading it. Because I realized as I read how much we have in common. How much our messages jive. How your voice in this book is honest, real, and humble. So you keep leaning in, Sheryl, and so will I. I'll lean in to religion and to my career and to my husband and to my family, and you keep leaning in where you need to lean in. And let's support each other in that venture - as fellow Jews, fellow women, and fellow leaners-in. - See more at: http://outoftheorthobox.blogspot.ca/201 ... VqIis.dpuf

That, for me, was the real non-fundie part of the post. You can find a ton of fundie of all religious stripes who will gear their messages toward those who are not religious - preaching is nothing new. Those relationships, though, tend to be pretty one-way. It's all about how the more religious person can teach others and tell them what to do. Here, though, she's taking a non-religious book, reading it and taking in its message, and responding to it in a way that not particularly negative. She's not dismissing all outside ideas as evil. She's recognizing that she and Sandberg have things in common.

[longskirts]

Eh, that's a fairly common kiruv technique--take some area of life or subject and explain how it's compatible with Judaism or teaches similar things or makes sense to an Orthodox Jew. Aish HaTorah does that with Malcolm Gladwell books and other best sellers all the time.