Simi Lichtman is a contributor to the Forward.
Simi Lichtman
By Simi Lichtman
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Life Giving Thanks, For Selfish Reasons
There’s an episode of “House” that Jeremy and I watched recently. In it, a doctor on House’s team is trying to thank him. When he avoids her, she says to him, “Do you know why people pray? Do you think they pray to him and praise him because they want him to know how great…
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Life Dressing Modestly for Me — Not Religion
Most women would do or pay anything to be that beautiful blonde in the bar, the one getting attention from all the men. And most women probably would not understand being blonde and voluntarily giving it up — covering up the blonde hair with a headscarf, voluntarily shedding the sexy outfit in favor of a…
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Life My 2% Divorce Dilemma
I was talking to a friend once, a woman who’s been married for a few years, and she said, “There will be times when you’ll think to yourself, ‘Why did I marry him? Did I make a terrible mistake?’ And that’s okay.” Out of relief, out of gratitude for her speaking so honestly, out of…
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Life Challah for My Hubby
Baking challah does not seem like a particularly frightening task. Time-consuming and delicate, yes, but not scary. But for many years, I viewed challah as something more powerful than its ingredients. Challah, to me, posed a challenge about love and marriage. In my all-girls high school — a wonderful school, I might add, though at…
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Life How My Marriage Changed My Friendships
I’ve written about the changing nature of finding friends post-college, but I’ve not yet written about how friendships themselves change, particularly friendships with men. My friendships with men shifted before marriage, back when Jeremy and I were still dating. In fact, it was one of the indicators that our relationship was becoming more serious: I…
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Life Orthodox, Married — and For Gay Marriage
As an Orthodox Jew, the first time I ever seriously questioned the validity and applicability of the Torah — indeed, perhaps the only time — was when I thought deeply about the issue of homosexuality. I believe that the Bible comes from God, and I believe in the commandments within. However, I also believe that…
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Life Playing Tug of War
Nearly every week, young married couples make the Great Migration to their parents’ and in-laws’ houses. Your parents, who have raised you since infancy, suddenly forget how annoying it was to house you for eighteen-odd years, and clamor to have you return and spend Shabbat — And holidays, and maybe just dinner? Drop by whenever!…
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Life The Cost of Being Orthodox
As an Orthodox couple, we have even more financial expenditures than the average couple. For starters, there’s kosher food, which is more expensive than non-kosher. There’s the load of money that we spend every week on making Shabbat, which is rather like cooking for Thanksgiving weekly instead of annually. We have to have two sets…
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