You have probably heard more than one rabbis say that each of his children is different from the others. Yet strangely, recognition of the differences between people is barely acknowledged on any practical level in the yeshiva world. Women are allowed slightly different choices in wardrobe (striped shirt versus solid) but they are all to be kollel wives living in Lakewood. Men aren't allowed any choices in wardrobe other than color of tie. Is your mind different from that of other people? Ask your rav about that, they'll say. Think what he tells you to think.
I recall my days in yeshiva as an extended stay in a pressure cooker of conformity. It wasn't just that the rabbis didn't value individuality, they seemed to relish extinguishing it, as if they were stamping out evil. We are going to teach you the yeshiva way. That was essentially the attitude. What is the yeshiva way? To them it meant that there's no you. When there's no you, you have attained it.
Many rabbis try to sniff out any traces of original thought or feeling. They do this not to cultivate it but to crush it. They see their job as talking you out of anything you want to do. Even if you want to study Baba Matzia they'll say, "Why not Kiddushin?" If Kiddushin then "Why not Baba Matzia?" If you say, "I want to start shiduchim." They'll say, "Why not 'learn' more?" If you say, "I want to 'learn' more," they'll say, "What about shiduchim?"
I put question marks at the end of those sentences, but they aren't really questions. They are edicts delivered with shame. The question marks are ridicule marks. They indicate questions that you aren't allowed to answer. If you try, you risk a slap of some kind.
Dump your friends, stop talking to your family, drop out of college, study Torah but not kabbalah, not chassidus, not halacha, not grammar, not history, not even Mishnah as its own subject. We'll allow a tiny bit of commentary on Chumash. 15 minutes at the most. Study Gemara, but only certain chapters and with certain commentators. Crazy as it sounds, that's what it was like.
If you stay long enough under a regime like that you can lose yourself completely. You lose the ability to make decisions, which is a big problem because life is full of decisions.
Where you might dream of meeting a really cool woman who inspires you to flee from all this, shiduchim generally makes the problem worse, at least for men. The rules for shiduchim are set up for the woman. She likes restaurants, but not parks. She likes parks, but not restaurants. She wants to be called three times a week. She wants to be called once a week. What? You didn't know the rules for this particular woman? Shame on you. Obviously, you aren't one of the good guys. You might even be a potential wife beater and get withholder. The man becomes a car service and waiter, tending to the client. He may lose his sense of whether he even likes the woman. His entire focus is on keeping the customer blissful. Many a marriage follows this sick precedent.
I know BTs who approach the entire religion as a death threat. Do this, don't do that or you will be punished.
Is that why you chose to join? Is that what the kiruv person told you? Certainly not. There it's all love bombing and fantasy talk, much like army recruitment. "Be all that you can be." "See the world." "Learn a trade and get paid for it." Then they ship you off to Iraq. Kiruv works similarly. One minute you are having dinner in the biggest house in Monsey hearing talk from a successful lawyer about the joys of Shabbos and how "anything you do well now you'll be even better at." The next you are in a hovel in Jerusalem being told to obey your rav.
It doesn't have to go this way. It's up to you to be brave and fight for your life.
No comments:
Post a Comment