In this week’s post about a BT’s Recipe for Raising Healthy Kids, the author wrote:
The frum world may be crazy, but it’s the best society we have – embrace it, but don’t buy into the craziness, maintain your independence. Better a frummer school and we parents are the open minded ones, than a less frum school and we parents are the closed minded ones.
Do you think the frum world is full of craziness or have you made efforts to understand why many things are not as crazy as they seem?
Are you making Bar Mitzvahs and Weddings below the community spending norms?
Will you be heavily involved in finding spouses for your children when the time comes?
Do you stretch your financial resources to try and pay as much tuition as possible?
Do you find that there are always significant differences between school norms and family norms?
Do you think the correct default choice is the frummer school over the less frum school?
What are some examples of craziness that you have found?
What are some examples of craziness that you have seen are not so crazy?
Community expectations have developed their own illogical momentum taking them far beyond Torah norms. More community rabbis ought to lay out the differences between community expectations and the right thing to do, in vivid detail—and not only about bar mitzvah celebrations.
I’m waiting for a bar-mitzvah at Metlife Stadium. There will be one, you know it.
I have a longtime nonreligious friend named “Jeannie” (not her real name, but it will be OK for this comment). When her son was about to have his Bar Mitzvah years ago, “Jeannie” looked only to do what was considered “normal” by “everyone.” She was not out to “keep up with the Cohens,” nor was she remotely interested in hosting the most over-the-top, garish, knock-your-eyes-out celebration. She and her husband just wanted to do what was “normal” in their community.
“Jeannie” and her husband wound up choosing a well-known (nonkosher) party hall that others recommended which charged $100 per person (perfectly usual). They decided on hiring the “house band,” one consideration being that it charged, as “Jeannie” told me, five thousand dollars less than the other bands she listened to (I only got the comparative, rather than the absolute, numbers). There was also the DJ, the photographer and the videographer. Being that “Jeannie” and her husband were not at all religious or even connected to any synagogue, there was no additional cost for hosting a Kiddush or collation that Saturday of the celebration, so she saved on that aspect of the event. Two hundred people were invited to the Bar Mitzvah, a low number considering there were many family and friends to put on the list.
“Jeannie” is a public school teacher and her husband is an accountant. They are middle-class, not millionaires but doing well enough. Of course, they did not have the burden of Yeshivah tuition, sending their son to public school all his life to save money.
I started adding up in my head the cost of “Jeannie’s” son’s Bar Mitzvah. Yes, I understand it’s not right to judge others on the way they choose to spend their own money, and I admit I’m being crass and unfair. Yet when all was said and done, the cost of “Jeannie’s” son’s Bar Mitzvah came to forty thousand dollars.
Forty thousand dollars. Blown on one night’s party. By a nonreligious household that eats nonkosher meat because Glatt Kosher meat is “too expensive,” and sends the only child to public school because it “can’t afford” Yeshiva tuition. By people who expressly did not want to outdo anyone, who only strove to do the “normal” thing that “everyone” else was doing. By people so far removed from Jewish observance that they don’t even go to shul on Yom Kippur and don’t have a Passover seder, yet they felt obligated to host a party for their son’s Bar Mitzvah that cost the equivalent of someone’s whole yearly salary, or the price of a new car, for one night’s celebration.
And THAT is deemed to be “normal.”
Much of the “crazy” issues can fall under a more general “crazy” issue: Isn’t it crazy how we don’t listen to our gedolim?
They shout from the mountaintops to not spend so much on simchas or houses or vacations.
They cry about budgeting more in for tuition payments instead of paying for unnecessary things.
They scream about admitting more kids into school even if, as some administrators or other parents of the school say, “they’re just not like us” or “maybe this kid will be a bad influence on my kid because of his family background (said in a whisper)”.
They yell about how families should lower their ridiculous standards so there won’t be so maNy singles amongst us, and to stop denying beautiful neshamas from finding their soulmates because of age or color of their shirts or kippahs.
AND WE DON’T LISTEN! WE DON’T CARE, BECAUSE WE KNOW BETTER! Yet, we say we want to follow them and they are our role models.
NOW THAT’S CRAZY!!!
Oh, and Bob Miller summed it all up very nicely.
Kol Hakavod.
Over twenty years ago, we chose to send our kids to a “frummer” school than where we were holding at the time. We ourselves have grown in the process. We chose to “augment” rather than “supplement” and we are not sorry.
Our kids are holding in different places hashkafically, both from each other and sometimes us. However, the depth of their knowledge remains.
While we still can’t say we agree or strictly practice everything the school stands for, we definitely don’t undermine school policy. Our kids have not received mixed messages.
In my experience and from previous comments, what I see is that communication & education are the most important factors in defining (& sometimes eradicating) “craziness”.
Let us remember anyone can take on a chumradik position but it takes a true gadol to be meikel.
We also need to distinguish among these other dimensions of “crazy”:
1. Crazy is what Halacha doesn’t allow
2. Crazy is what proper middos don’t allow
3. Crazy is what is grossly inappropriate in a given situation
4. Crazy is what to call ideological opponents
5. Crazy is stark, raving nutty
“The Rav would always respond with the same three words…Just be normal.”
From “Hagadas HaKehilas Yaakov”(Hebrew, pgs. 74-75), as translated at the end of Dr. Benzion Sorotzkin’s “The Pursuit Of Perfection:Vice Or Virtue In Yiddishkeit”(available online):
כל ×–×” × ×›×•×Ÿ – ×בל! ×בל יש דבר ×חד ×©×”×•× ×™×¡×•×“ כל היסודות וגובר על כל ×”×©×§×•×œ×™× ×”×חרי×: להיות ×ד×
× ×•×¨×ž×œ×™!
“The Steipler heard of a bochur who was trying to emulate the Steipler’s diligence by staying to all hours of the night learning and thus developing a schedule that turned night into day and day into night. The Steipler asked to speak to the bochur. At first, the Steipler cited chazals and stories from gedolim that actually supported this type of behavior and the bochur was elated. But then the Steipler reproached him: All this is true, but… – But there is a factor that needs to be the main consideration and trumps all other considerations – to be a normal person! In the past, explained the Steipler, this was normal behavior for serious learners, but today this is no longer normal, and therefore all your arguments and justifications are irrelevant and if you persist the end will be tragic!”
Judy, you’re consistent. But we shouldn’t get too hung up on semantics. Jewish behavior is meant to remain within societal “norms” as long as that behavior is within the broad range that halahca allows. So this “craziness” we’re discussing definitely has a “time and place” component and since we’re all in different places with different norms you get a lot of this “I’m normal and everyone else isn’t” stuff. But though it may be hard to define, you’ll know it when you see it. At it certainly does exist.
To Menachem Lipkin #27: Having once been the unhappy target of the word “crazy,” I would never use it against anybody else. IMHO, use of that word should be asur, prohibited (and if it’s a case of genuine mental illness it should be described clinically).
My youngest married daughter lives in Bet Shemesh with her husband and three children. She covers her hair and observes Hilchos Tzenius, but she definitely does not wear a Burqa!
If you look at my earlier comment #5, I made the observation that it’s human nature for people to see themselves as the definition of “normal,” calling those who are more religious than themselves “fanatics” or “crazies,” and calling those less observant “frei.”
I would be in agreement with Bob Miller #29: the insinuation seems to be, “I’m OK, you’re not OK.”
Typically, “normal” is what anyone thinks he is, while “crazy” is what he thinks certain others are.
See also:
http://azamra.org/Essential/grain.htm
Shades,
The Kaminetsky’s are a rare breed. I had one of R’ Yaakov’s grandsons as a Rebbe a few years ago while I was learning at Shappell’s. On a fairly regular basis one of the newer BT’s would ask the Rav about the latest “craziness” he heard about. The Rav would always respond with the same three words… Just be normal.
Judy said:
“Frum women who choose to wear sheitels to cover their hair are looked at by the wider world as if they’re clad in burqas.”
So, by implication, are you saying that the growing number of women here in Bet Shemesh who ARE clad in Burqas are “crazy”?
Tesyaa, you’re missing the point by nitpicking on Post Docs. It was an example. Let me try again.
There are thousands of America who are effectively learning for a living. Many of them take government money.
The US Government budget gives a lot of money to a lot of Americans and you would be hard pressed to classify much of it as safety net.
If the person is not breaking the law in receiving government funds, and they want to spend some of their life learning G-d’s Torah, I think it’s hard pressed to call that crazy.
R. Yaakov Kamintesky discussed “crazinessâ€, at least in theory, in this article in Hakirah(available online). I would argue, to put it in context, that one should ask a competent Rav what is “crazyâ€, rather than labeling anything one disagrees with as such, and that one should “Seek First to Understand” as mentioned above.
This is the quote from Hakirah, Vol. 4(“Are Our Children Too Worldly†by R. Aharon Hersh Friedâ€):
I began this article with a conversation with Reb Yaakov Kaminetsky ztzâ€l; allow me to end it with another. This one was had by my Rebbe, Reb Dovid Kalman Drebin, ztzâ€l, and Tibadel LeChayim his rebbetzin , who lives in Toronto ad meah v’esrim. At the time, they had come to ask Reb Yaakov a number of questions regarding strictures that people were trying to introduce to the Bais Yaakov school where the rebbetzin was the principal. The rebbetzin saw these strictures as a novel form of possibly unnecessary excessiveness and sought Reb Yaakov’s opinion on them.
In answering them, Reb Yaakov referred to the halachah which says that in forming a group for the korban Pesach it is required that at least one member of the group have been born Jewish. In other words, a number of individual geirim (converts) cannot constitute themselves as a group for the purpose of eating the Korban Pesach. Reb Yaakov explained that the reason for this is to protect the group from adopting strictures which will result in their transgressing major halachos. Thus he said, for example, an overly zealous ger-tzedek may decide that he feels unsure and is unhappy with the frumkeit (piety) of the Kohen who was assigned to shecht (ritually slaughter) his korban, lamb, and he would therefore rather not eat the korban. Thus, his chumrah, stricture, will result in a tremendous transgression, one that carries the punishment of kores. For this reason it is important that the group have at least one born Jew in it, so as to “keep the things in perspective.†Reb Yaakov then turned to Rav Drebin and his rebbetzin, and said:
We live in a generation of converts (ah dor fun geirim). You both come from a long line of committed and learned Jewish families. You are seeking a “normal Yiddishkeit.†I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. You’re simply “out of style.â€
Please see the “Lost in Kollel” blog for more information. It is a “frum” blog.
In addition – there is a difference between government funds made available for postgraduate education and welfare programs intended as a safety net.
Most postdocs delay marriage and certainly children while they are receiving their small stipends, so fewer of them need to take advantage of the safety net.
Finally, most postdocs are using their studies to increase their future earning potential. Unfortunately, there is not enough demand for kollel students as mechanchim to make kollel a viable means to a career path.
Mark, I’m sure you realize that most post-docs are required to publish their research, and may be subject to examinations, or they lose their funding. If kollelim ran by the same standards, you would be making a fair comparison.
>> Craziness is living off of government programs if the family has able-bodied members who are able to find work.
Is it crazy for a secular person to pursue a post-doctorate and accept government money that supports such an endeavor, when he can go out and get a job and not accept government money.
If you don’t value learning, it’s crazy. If you do value learning and you live in a country where the government will help support people who have made a decision to learn, than possibly we can hear a viewpoint where it not so crazy.
Crazy, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
Frum women who choose to wear sheitels to cover their hair are looked at by the wider world as if they’re clad in burqas. The whole idea of modesty is mocked, and decently dressed women are derided.
No doubt the pre-Passover chaos in most households and changing dishes seems insane to outsiders, as might the Erev Pesach bread burning and paying twenty bucks a pound for flat crackers.
I think parachuting and ski jumping are crazy, but those activities have plenty of (not dead yet) enthusiasts.
Diff’rent strokes for diff’rent folks.
Note that “crazy” plus one million dollars turns into “eccentric.”
It’s disingenous to say that when people talk about “craziness” in the frum world they’re talking about the siyum hashas. IMO, craziness is creating a culture that makes a young woman feel like a poor nebech if she’s single at 23. Craziness is living off of government programs if the family has able-bodied members who are able to find work. Craziness is buying goods and services one can’t afford in order to send certain signals in the community.
Choosing to spend one’s leisure time learning and attending a siyum, even in the rain, is certainly not crazy.
Judy Resnick-you merely pointed out the obvious-As someone who attended the last three Siyumim, and has been a long time Giant fan,the stadium in question is a wonderful venue for all sorts of people to make a statement as to how they spend their time.
To Steve Brizel: 93,000 Jews did just that on the night of August 1.
But when 75,000 people gather in the same stadium on a freezing night to watch the New York Giants play football against the New England Patriots, that’s normal.
I think that Mark is right – context is critical. After all, how many people do you know who would sit outdoors with a very strong chance of rain and wait for for scholars to discuss the readings of ancient Greek scholars?
I’ve unfortunately been the recipient of the word “crazy,” which was used deliberately to humiliate me. A prime example of Onaas Devorim (hurtful words) and “whitening someone’s face” (embarrassing someone in public). It’s just too easy to condemn somebody else in this manner.
I’ve heard divorced men describe their ex-wives as “crazy” and / or “not frum,” which is their way of blaming the other spouse for the termination of the marriage. Of course, if you spoke to the former wife, you might get a totally different story (like how the former husband one night broke her nose with one hard punch of his fist).
The word “crazy” should be asur (prohibited) in our vocabulary, especially when used against a fellow Jew, no matter how unusual that person’s actions seem to be. Someone who is genuinely mentally ill can be described clinically, and someone who is just different from the norm does not deserve to be insulted.
How do you cope with craziness in the world of Orthodox Judaism (and the world in general)?
By paying more attention to what the great Torah books say, and less attention to what ordinary people say.
If you want to pay more attention to what the great Torah books say, then become a member of the yahoo group called DerechEmet, which I moderate :-)
“Do you think the correct default choice is the frummer school over the less frum school?”
It doesn’t matter what I think; the answer is almost three thousand years old:
×—Ö²× Ö¹×šÖ° ×œÖ·× Ö·Ö¼×¢Ö·×¨, עַל-פִּי דַרְכּו – ×’Ö·Ö¼× ×›Ö´Ö¼×™-יַזְקִין, לֹ×-יָסוּר ×žÖ´×žÖ¶Ö¼× Ö¸Ö¼×”.
My experience is that people routinely label things as crazy, without thinking about contexts in which it might not be so crazy.
Mark: Thanks for the examples. In order to determine whether something is crazy, I think one has to be more specific, and I will use two of your examples to illustrate this.
1) Spending $20,000 or more and a ton of time for a 5 hour party otherwise known as your daughter’s wedding. (In the abstract not crazy, but if the person cannot afford it, crazy.)
2) Wanting a son-in-law who will learn in yeshivah until he’s 30. (Not crazy if that is what the daughter wants and the young man is otherwise suitable, but if learning full-time is the sole criterion or it ends up preventing his daughter from finding a mate, crazy.)
So to the extent that there is craziness, I would suggest that it is thinking that and/or acting like those or other choices or preferences are requirements, or that everyone has to make the same choices.
Here are some examples of seemingly crazy behavior, which on closer inspection may not be so crazy from particular vantage points.
1) Spending $20,000 or more and a ton of time for a 5 hour party otherwise known as your daughter’s wedding.
2) Wanting a son-in-law who will learn in yeshivah until he’s 30.
3) Maintaining a household where there is little or no Internet access, despite the Internet’s benefits.
4) Not firing teachers who could be replaced with better and less expensive younger teachers.
I don’t think the stuff we just kvetch about here (I plead very guilty) is the “crazy” referred to in the post, or at least that’s not how I read it.
I read it as “off the reservation crazy” — stuff, usually unprecedented, that’s really far out, embarrassingly nutty stuff that only we seem to come up with.
No, I will not give examples.
Can anyone give some examples of “crazy” behavior (or putative crazy behavior that turned out to be not so) that was intended to be the subject of discussion of the original post? I had very little idea from the original post what was intended, although it seems that everyone else knows without stating it.
Chaya, I think there is a big difference between individual (and small group) behavior and sanctioned communal behavior.
It’s easy to find pockets of people in our community who act inappropriately, maybe we all do it on occasion. Some bloggers and individuals think it’s important to always loudly and publicly condemn this. I think a person needs to use seichel to determine when to condemn publicly, or to our children.
In terms of sanctioned communal “crazy” behavior, you have to be very careful. It probably makes sense to pull out the 7 rules of relating Loshon Hora including “Make Sure You Have Your Facts” absolutely correct. That means no inferences of sanction, rather an explicit clear sanctioning from a recognized leader of the “crazy” behavior.
My Rav related a case of a Torah teacher in Israel saying something in the name of a great Rabbi. It was not the Rabbi’s real opinion on the matter and he was unhappy about the situation. If he let it go, then this misinformation would be spread, and if he reprimanded the Torah teacher, his otherwise well deserved good reputation would be diminished in the eyes of his students. My Rav said these no-win situations are often brought before Poskim and the public is not usually aware of all the factors, which is why unfortunately great Rabbis are routinely criticized.
It may sound counter-intuitive but seek to understand the crazy behaviors, it’s probably what the Torah has in mind.
Okay, some of the crazy is not actually crazy, fine. But what about real issues? Hypocrisy, pieties at the expense of core Torah mitzvot, chilul Hashem, excessive materialism and so forth?
I think it’s important in these situations to clearly condemn the behavior and still have compassion and love for the people involved.
I live in the center of Jerusalem. There is a group of men who protest Shabbos desecration outside businesses that close late or open early. I find their behavior annoying: they bleat in whiny voices while I am trying to bless my kids and relax into the beginning of Shabbat. And I find it ineffective: I don’t think they are bringing anyone over to the beauty of observance. I also think it’s parochial and coercive: they are often still yelling at passing cars after the first zman for havdala has passed.
But I still love these men on a basic level and believe they think they are doing the right thing. I love them the same way I love the Jews keeping their businesses open and driving on Shabbat. That love doesn’t stop me from condemning their behavior or davening that they will change, and when my kids are older I will be open about those feelings. But I have to hold both the love and the condemnation at the same time.
We should always strive for the middle ground, for moderation in whatever we do. The problem is that it’s only human nature to view oneself as normal: those more religious are “crazies” and those less religious are “frei.” Some of that unfortunately tends to rub off on kids.
We as a group are behaving far less crazily than other cultures, even in our communal state of disorganization. But what should really be our basis of comparison, them or our ideal Torah-compliant selves?
“Crazy” makes news and gets our attention. I have no idea whether we have a higher percentage of craziness than the rest of the world, but outfits such as the New York Times make it their business to make sure the rest of the world hears about what craziness we do have. Sometimes these stories are newsworthy, but frequently they are sought and printed because reports of “disfunction” in the orthodox world vindicate the biases of their culture and that of their readership with respect to our way of life.
Unfortunately this is true as well regarding many who publish on the Internet and identify themselves as Jewish, and even frum.
Although there are certainly areas which most intelligent adults would define as crazy, I think in many situations it is our lack of seeing the whole picture from different perspectives which leads to the craziness label.
As BTs we have an additional disadvantage of not growing up and being a part of frum society from birth and we should be even slower to paint with the “crazy” brush. This would also hold true when you are looking at a frum sub-community in which you do not have direct experience.
I think better advice would be “Seek First to Understand” before you label something as crazy.
While there is plenty of “craziness” at the fringes (!) of the “frum” world, I think it would be incorrect to say that it’s “full of craziness”. Believe me, I could go on and on about craziness I’ve seen (I’m not inclined to give examples here and now), but by and large I think most people are just people and just want to live “normal” lives. That’s not to say the “craziness” isn’t a problem and that it’s not affecting our overall image, it is. And as such it’s vitally important for normal “frum” Jews to publicly distance themselves from it, to show the world that it’s not part of us.
Regarding the issue of education, the “default” should be as close to your hashkafa as possible. You want to avoid being in a position of undermining school authority (or them of yours). But the “default” should be just that, a place where you send your kids first, when they are young. Beyond that, one should never get “stuck” on a particular school and should always do what’s best for each individual kid. For one it might be stronger “learning”, for another stronger secular studies, for another a more vocational direction. One might need a stricter environment, while another a more worm and nurturing place. You must put your expectations aside in deference to what’s best for you child’s OVERALL development.