WELCOME BACK, IHJ!!! So glad you had a great trip!
Judaism is a very sexy religion. Remember back when I was trying to get Honeypot to read Kosher Sex?
I took a course a couple of years ago called "Men, Women, and Kabbalah" at the local Chabad House (very orthodox). We learned in there that it is a Jewish belief that the place you get the closest experience of the face of God and God's presence is in physical union with your beloved. In the ketubah (the marriage contract, which BTW is for the WOMAN'S benefit and protection) it states that it is grounds for the woman to divorce the man if he refuses to have sex with her.
I read an article recently, maybe it was in Reform Judaism magazine (but maybe not)... the reporter went to visit one of her friends who had moved to Israel and observed the Jewish laws, one of which is that married women keep their hair covered. The reporter said that the friend and her husband had several children (the Jewish "laws of family purity" are structured such that pregnancy is practically inevitable, with abstention from IC during the period and seven days after.... hel-LO! you wind up having sex during the most fertile time), but the children were not allowed in the couple's bedroom. The bedroom, she said, was this sanctuary of intimacy and... well, SEX. It was clearly where the husband and wife went to BE together. The reporter asked if she could see her friend's hair, which had always been long, blonde, and beautiful, but the wife said, modestly but seriously, "My hair is only for my husband." The reporter was shaken by the blatant sensuality veiled by the rules, orthodoxy, and family life. But I think that is part of the Jewish way of looking at it. Sex is so powerful that you put a protective fence around it, but within that fence, explosions, fireworks, and volcanoes are not only permitted but encouraged.
(Of course, this is THEORY... in practice, hangups, etc., get in the way...)
