Eric McBride Response for Rebecca Davis

I was also disappointed by Prof. Davis' presentation. I understand that issues of religious and racial identity are complicated in our modern, changing society, but the presentation lacked substance and did not make strong points. Taking a sociological view on religion and marriage practices can strengthen one's understanding of religion, but in a class on Jewish studies, it must be tied more to Judaism than social practices in 20th century America. I think it would have been helpful for Prof. Davis to focus more on the Jewish institution of marriage on its own rather than the context of American marriage. She did begin to discuss Rabbinic marriage counseling and use of Biblical texts and languages and I would have liked her to expand on that. Her two case studies were thought provoking, but they did not seem to be resolved. She did explain some of the goals of Jewish marriage well, including the idea that stability, as opposed to the Christian notion of survival, is the purpose of marriage and personal and sexual relationships are very important. Her focus seemed to dwell on Rabbis as marriage counselors and the social aspect of Jewish marriage rather than the Jewish aspects of marriage, as I was expecting from the lecture's title.