I’ve always had an odd relationship with NCSY. I was chapter president of Springfield for 4 years – 2 Junior and 2 Senior – but that was mostly because there was no one else around my age to do the job. At the shabbatons themselves I found myself somewhat marginailzed, due to a combination of adolescent awkwardness (read: geek) and having an alternative hashkafa which emphasized independent thought.
This past shabbat there was a Senior NCSY shabbaton in Springfield. An old friend my high school NCSY days, is now the regional director of some sort – despite swearing repeatedly that, “I am *never* doing NCSY when I graduate.” Aside from him, I knew a maximum of four other people who were involved with the shabbaton.
Anyway, it got me thinking back to my days as an NCSY’er. Since I’m home, I dug up a poem I wrote for the yearbook.
This was my last year in NCSY. I was outgoing Sr. President of Springfield, and my sister Esther was advisor of Juniors at the time. The Etz Chaim region has a thing called the “Torah Fund,” where they hit up the chapters for arbitrarily assessed amounts – loosely based on membership. This money went to the usual causes of supporting students for Israel programs and getting nice things for administrator’s families.
Fortunately, a chapter could fulfill its requirement by purchasing ads in the yearbook, and Springfield’s was so low that we were able to cover it by getting two ads. Esther and I decided to split one of them for Juniors and Seniors and I knocked out the following poem in roughly 15 minutes (she can vouch for that).
One editor of the yearbook was so offended by it she almost didn’t let it get published. In the end, she let it go through, but only after she mangled the meter on most stanzas. I don’t care enough to fix it right now, so you’ll have to deal with someone else’s horrible editing of a high-school senior’s 15 minute poem.
I present, now with additional annotations,

The NCSY Shabbaton Experience

Of the positions in the orthodox rabbinate, perhaps the two most noticeable and influential are those of the Rav and the Rosh Yeshiva. The Rav is more commonly known as a “pulpit rabbi” and is employed by a community to oversee and establish religious policy for his congregation.¹ The Rosh Yeshiva is not necessarily the “head of the school” as its title translated,² but rather is a Torah scholar who often teaches those who will eventually become Rabbis.

In contemporary halakhic disputes, it is not uncommon to find these two groups on opposite sides – especially regarding modifications to existing practices or customs. A Rav may wish to innovate, and a Rosh Yeshiva would wish to preserve the status quo. The real question is not the nature of the new or modified practice, but who has the real authority to promote change in normative Judaism.

This is what would have been part one of the comically misnamed Rabbi Week. Yes, I’m back writing, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to get everyone out in a week’s time. Many apologies for the delay. I might even write something at a later point about it, but it does get somewhat personal. At any rate, better late than never.
Let the fun begin.

I finally read the entire Kol Magazine over Sukkot.
“A wife is for eternity, a size 8 is not.”
However, all major social changes need to start somewhere,

The Moscow Times is reporting about a wave of Russians moving back from Israel. What’s really ironic is that they’re moving back for economic reasons as well as social and religious acceptance. Some stories are unfortunately old:
“One of them is that most highly educated immigrants have to take blue-collar jobs in Israel. “Doctors, physicians and mathematicians were cleaning the streets,” Gorin said.”
Personally I find the social and religious tensions more upsetting. I heard a line once where a Russian said, “When I was in Russia, I was a Jew. When I was in Israel, I was a Russian.”

Another reason for returning was what Dzhadan called the “sectarian” structure of the society. In order to rent an apartment or find a job, a person has to operate through members of his party or immigrants from the same country or area.
“I didn’t like it,” he said. “I’m used to operating in an open society where people don’t ask you to what community you belong.”

In another context, I once complained that for all the efforts put in to people making aliyah, there is relatively little effort in maintaining the people who are actually there.
Think about how bad it is when someone can seriously write, “Russia’s capitalist economy ‘allows you to exist regardless of your religious beliefs.'”
“Olam Hafuch Ra’iti” – (B. Pesahim 50a).

If you’re Jewish and single, odds are you’ve been hit with one of the most annoying brachot ever invented:
“Im yirtzeh hashem (God willing) by you” (IYH)

Some go through comical measures to avoid this phrase. For her younger sister’s wedding, Sarah made a T-Shirt saying, “No No, Im Yirtzeh Hashem by YOU!” From what I recall her telling me, it worked nicely.

When I was in Gruss, my havruta got engaged and I had to endure my share of IYH’s. Noticing my apparent disapproval, one kollel wife said, “Oh, you should be happy! It’s a bracha!” Not wanting to discuss the matter, I nodded, smiled, and went on my merry way.

Not long afterward, I was at a shabbat meal with the same kollel wife. Somehow in the context of the conversation, I said IYH regarding someone having children. ¹

Instead of accepting this bracha, the incredulous kollel wife said, “You know, you really shouldn’t say things like that.”
“Why not? Isn’t it a bracha?”
“Yes, but you don’t know…maybe there’s a reason why they don’t have kids.”
“Maybe there’s a reason why I’m not married.”
“Look, you just shouldn’t.”

I could have countered that if IYH is indeed a bracha, then it should be welcomed in all cases. I was not nagging, “nu, when are we going to have some nachas,” but “if God wills it, it should happen” – a perfectly “frum” theological blessing. However, by this point in the year I had learned not to engage in logical arguments with the typical YU kollel wife, so I dropped the subject.

Since then, I’ve asked several people if there is a difference between saying IYH to a single person looking to get married or a married person who is trying to have children. Both deal with highly personal and emotional struggles, yet IYH is socially acceptable in one context and apparently reviled in another.

In this highly unscientific study, I found that most women instinctively see a difference, but few could articulate what that would be. One person related to me stories of friends of hers who have struggled with miscarriages and fertility clinics, emphasizing the myriad of problems that couples face. Since one never knows what a couple goes through, even an IYH could prove to be traumatic.

I do not wish to minimize the struggles that people go through in either area. My problem, and one of my biggest pet peeves, is hypocrisy. If you truly believe that IYH is a bracha and will be accepted as such, fine. If you find it offensive in some cases, then that would indicate that you don’t really believe it’s a true bracha. I suspect the latter to be true in most cases.

For some reason, many are under the impression that singles have no feelings. We can mockingly throw out an IYH with little regard to what a person goes through. It’s like a cultural hazing process that only ends when you get married. Apparently, it’s only then where a person’s private life is “off limits” from the teases of the community.

So before you throw out another IYH by you – even as a joke – first to think about how it’s going to be received by the other person. It’s possible they might not be offended, and it’s possible that they might accept it wholeheartedly. But it’s also possible that you could strike a sensitive nerve and add more to a person’s anguish. If you’re not sure yourself, think if you would personally say it to a married couple who is trying to have children.

The point is that maybe it’s time to reevaluate commonly accepted phrases. Maybe we’re actually hurting people with words which aren’t as well intentioned as they sound. Maybe we should take the time to think about how our words affect other people, even when they’re socially conditioned. Maybe if we can do this, we can try to reverse the mentalities of what caused the hurban in the first place.
Im yirtzeh hashem by us all.

1. I don’t remember the details if it was to the specific person there, or about someone else not at the table.

Everyone seems to have different opinions about the shidduch “system.” Women blame men, men blame the women, everyone blames everyone. About the only thing people can agree on is that the situation stinks. Some of you may be familiar with Chananya Weissman’s www.EndTheMadness.org which attributes the problems to misguided perceptions of dating and improper assumptions of Jewish law. Following his impression, Chananya provides general solutions and even formulated a covenant for singles to follow to break the cycle of “social insanity.” While there is much truth in Chanaya’s analysis and solution, I find that his construction of the problem does not offer practical alternatives for singles. It is an important first step in fixing many of the horrible misconceptions that Orthodox Jews have about dating, but it alone will not help. Furthermore, as this post will show, his assessment is limited to a certain type of stupidity when the problem is with how people view dating and relationships in general.