Women excel in many activities previously dominated by men. Women are found in mathematics, physics, symphony orchestras, soccer, and yes, even NASCAR race cars.
However, one area that appears to be conspicuously short of female talent is the field of stage magicians and illusionists. While women predominate as magician assistants, it is hard to find women making tigers vanish or causing coins to pass through glass panes.
I have arrived at two explanations. One, generally women relate better to reality than men. Fraud is perpetrated more by men than by women. Perhaps women don’t feel they can convincingly persuade someone of something that they themselves recognize as unreal. This is partially why, once they overcome the unpleasantness of rejection, women do well in sales.
Therefore, getting up in front of an audience to perpetrate what is essentially a fraud, though for entertainment purposes, just doesn’t suit the nature of most women. It would be like Einstein fooling around with model rockets.
I was led to this explanation by my basic framework of reality. It tells me that men and women are fundamentally different. It guides me to reject unisex clothing, unisex bathrooms, and unisex sex.
In ancient Jewish wisdom, one word for a basic framework of reality is an OHEL, commonly translated as tent.
It seems a ghoulish and macabre ritual when Isaac brings his young bride into the tent of Sarah, his long-dead mother.
And Isaac brought her (Rebecca) to the tent of Sarah his mother,
and he took Rebecca as his wife and he loved her…
(Genesis 24:67)
Before marrying Rebecca, did Isaac really have to terrify this young girl by bringing her into a dark, gloomy, cobweb-strewn shrine to a dead lady?
Nothing of the sort. Isaac introduced his new bride to his late mother’s basic framework of reality. He wanted her to understand the worldview he wanted in his own home and only when she absorbed that, did marry her.
Many mistakenly assume that in the Bible, tents are merely the primitive precursors to houses. This is not so. There are many references to houses previous to this chapter and many later references to tents. One of ancient Jewish wisdom’s keys to understanding Scripture is recognizing that when HOUSE is used, we are talking about a fortress-like structure which nurtures people and ideas. TENT refers more to a particular worldview, a blueprint for how you relate to life. Possessing such a worldview is a prerequisite for growth and progress.
The Hebrew word for tent, OHEL, reveals this meaning.
It is made up of the 2-letter word EL,
meaning “toward,” with the letter “Hay” in the middle. In Hebrew, words that comprise the EL word with another letter in the middle are usually words which lead towards something. The letter “Hay”” is one letter of God’s name and has a spiritual aura. Any successful journey “toward” a worthy goal needs to take God into account.
An OHEL or a tent represents a specific worldview with God in the center that radiates out to all aspects of life. Such a basic framework of reality provides the vision and confidence necessary for the brave and bold steps that so often bring reward.
This Torah-based framework of reality has never let me down. I have failed only when I have abandoned it. For me, ancient Jewish wisdom transforms stories and tales into tips and tools; it converts rules into life strategies.
Oh, and my second explanation for why so few female magicians? Perhaps because men have larger hands making it easier to conceal cards and coins which is the starting point of sleight-of-hand.
