less than a dog

 https://twitter.com/i/status/1586525562885005312

If a dog has feelings, if a dog can feel love, can't a baal teshuvah? But they treat us otherwise. Between yeshiva and shiduchim - I'd rather be a dog. 

demoralized

 

Isn't this what happens to BTs?

 Jennifer Lawrence confessed that she “lost a sense of control” early on in her career due to her meteoric rise to fame.

“Between ‘The Hunger Games’ coming out and winning the Oscar, I became such a commodity that I felt like every decision was a big, big group decision,” the actress, 32, said during a “Screen Talk” at the London Film Festival on Saturday, per Variety.

In 2012, Lawrence made her debut in the “Hunger Games” franchise, which saw a record-breaking box office release.

The same year, the movie star appeared opposite Bradley Cooper in David O. Russell’s film “Silver Linings Playbook” — which later earned her her first Oscar win in 2013.

“When I reflect now, I can’t think of those following years, [because there was] just a loss of control,” Lawrence added at the festival.

Show me a BT that doesn't happen to. You walk in thinking you are making a choice and then your choosing stops. Everybody chooses for you. You are met with more super-dominating people than you ever thought could exist, and those people demean you all day long, they insult your intelligence, they tell you that you are not equipped to make decisions about your life. You must find a leader to lead you, you must join a group that will lead you. You are swept away by a rip tide and find yourself at sea trying not to drown. 

The things you get told

 "The things you get told." Ryan Leaf

"I tell people all the time when I speak. Money changes you. People go no it won't change me, I grew up poor. I grew up in a very frugal family that budgeted and everything. Money can change you. What it does is if you have character defects that exist already they are exacerbated with money. That's what money does. It can be so helpful. But if you are not ready to have it and do the right things with it, be the right person in it, you are not going to have it for long. You are going to blow right through it. And that's exactly what I did." Ryan Leaf

Find a link below to an amazing interview with Ryan Leaf. "Leaf spent his college career with the Washington State Cougars, where he was a finalist for the Heisman Trophy after his junior year. He was selected as the second overall pick by the San Diego Chargers in the 1998 NFL Draft after Peyton Manning, but his career was shortened due to poor play, bad behavior, injuries, and struggles with his work ethic and ability to stay focused. An episode of NFL Top 10 ranked him as the No. 1 "draft bust" in NFL history." He became addicted to prescription drugs and even went to prison for walking into a house to steal drugs.

Leaf reflects on his mistakes, Guy has some real wisdom. He talks about the perils of money and being prepared as a young man for the future, how you have to take care of yourself. He talks about how the NFL is not going to protect young players. They have to find a way to do it themselves. He talks about how he looked into the mirror and didn't like himself and what that did to him. He talks about the pressure of trying to live up to expectations. He talked about a guy like him who died in a hotel room all alone and how horrible that is. All of this happens to many BTs. He says it takes humility to look in the mirror and be OK with what you see, flaws and all, in the face of the pressure to be superstar. I think of BTs who get ripped to pieces by the BT yeshivas and the BT scene and let themselves be treated like garbage. The pressures destroy you. People just using you all over the place. You can't let that happen. You have to protect yourself and make smart choices. How many BTs do that? Choice is taken from them. You have to hold on to your free choice. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y5g9UfCVnI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlB3wvZSUuo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRSnw8GWNcw

lithuanian Jewry

 There were never more than 250,000 Jews in Lithuania. In 1800, it was 10% of Jewry. In 1900, 2.5%. 

http://www.truelithuania.com/tag/historical-maps-of-lithuania

At one point Lithuania covered Belarus too. 

Vilna Gaon
Sialiec, April 23, 1720 – Vilnius October 9, 1797

Sialiec (Belarusian: Сялец, Russian: Селец, Polish: Sielec) is an agrotown in the Biaroza rayon of the Brest Voblast of Belarus.

Lith. 1800