A BT Can Relate

 https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/born-on-the-fourth-of-july-1989

Read this movie review of Born on the Fourth of July about a Vietnam Veteran. I dare say that a BT can relate. 

Shalom Auslander

 “Yes, maybe I would write a book someday. I had always possessed a certain facility with words; when I was very young, my brother teased me so badly that one day I threw a knife at him.

—No, said my mother.—Use your words.

I did. I told him how selfish he was, how he was tearing our family apart with his stubborn belligerence, how he was becoming everything he hated in our father and worse.

—Okay, said my mother,—don't use your words.”
― Shalom Auslander, Foreskin's Lament

secular studies

  From Making of a Gadol

My father related that he was told by someone whose oldest son had just reached school age that he had decided not to send the child to a school with secular studies so that the boy would be able to devote all his time to learning Torah. My father protested, "But your son will be unable to read even the street signs to know where he is standing." When the unbending father replied, "R' Hayyim Soloveichik also did not read Russian," our protagonist, who felt that the child's development would be impeded altogether by the abnormal education his father was charting for him, argued, "Yes, but R' Hayyim had a shamosh who knew Russian and read the signs while escorting him through the streets. Do you expect your son to have a shamosh when he grows up?"

 It is noteworthy that when asked as an octogenarian whether young students at a Monsey yeshiva may be permitted to read light English literature (which would pass faculty censorship), my father- with the caveat that he would be "considered a leftist" for the ruling - referred to this experience of his own to prove that such reading is not harmful. He mentioned that he read Russian translations of such classics as the science fantasies of Jules Verne and the Sherlock Holmes stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle :. He added that the licentiousness of present-day society and literature mandates that contemporary secular books be carefully screened before being put onto a permitted-reading list. The principal of the secular department in Mesivta Torah Vodaath, R' Moshe Lonner, reported d that my father suggested students study certain plays by Shakespeare "because in olden times there was less reference to topics to which yeshiva bahurim should not be exposed", and referred to his own reading of these classics in the Russian language. (He added at the time that we should not think that people of the Elizabethan and Victorian ages were better than those of latter times - "there was simply more ,nr, [shame] then".)

 Also like my father, R' Aaron Kotler dabbled in secular studies at this time. He was more interested in literature than in the sciences which attracted my father's interest. My father stated to his son-in-law R' Yisrael Shurin that R' Aaron was proficient in all of classical Russian literature'L This was corroborated when, during a visit with a young, intellectual protoge of the Hazon-Ish who headed a yeshiva in Ramlah, R' Aaron blurted out, "This was expounded by Aleksander Pushkin" - as reported to this author by the yeshiva head '. The Ramlah Yeshiva was visited by R' Aaron Kotler, R' Shmuel Graineman and the Kopycznitzer Rebbe, R' Avrohm-Yehoshua' Heschel, in the summer of 5714 (1954). At the same time, Moshe Bar-Sela', director of the Labor and Social Affairs Ministry and a Pushkin buff, dropped by for a glass of tea and a chat - people were wont to stop off in Ramlah on the then long drive from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. When Bar-Sela' quoted a line from the poem Yevgeni On'yegin without naming the author, R' Aaron reacted as reported. (Pushkin was a Russian author favored in Jewish intellectual circles. This author came across an interview of French Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas by Francois Poiri in "Emmanuel Levinas, Qui etes-vous?? ''° which has the thinker relating, "A few years ago an Israeli born in Eastern Europe paid me a visit. Upon entering my home, he noticed that I had the complete works of Pushkin on the bookshelves. 'You can see right away,' he said, 'that this is a Jewish home.'"

Daas Torah - Issues of Jewish Identity: The importance of secular studies

Costanza or the honey badger

"Elaine, bald men with no jobs and no money who live with their parents don't approach strange women."

George Costanza, Seinfeld

Elaine had suggested that George go up and talk to an attractive woman who had looked at him. George explains that he is in no position to do that because essentially he lacks the qualifications of being a man.

Did George just describe an adult male who is in yeshiva? Let's think about this. The rabbis at the yeshiva forbid going out and earning a living, even part-time, or even getting job training. They forbid going out on shiduchim. So, you have no job and no woman. Yet, on Shabbosim you will go out to a stranger's house and be seated across from his wife for a three-hour Shabbos meal. You feel ashamed for feeling jealousy and lust. 

You are living not on your own but at the yeshiva, which is worse than living with your parents. At yeshiva, you are in somebody else's house, a stranger's house bound by their rules, rules that you are not used to. You are not sleeping in your bedroom where you grew up with your mementoes around you but in a broken-down room with three strangers, sleeping on cots. And unlike with your parents, the yeshiva rabbis have no compunctions about throwing you out on the street, and they enjoy threatening to do so.  Most of the rabbis don't care if you live or die. Come back in twenty years to say hello and see if they even ask one question about your life. They don't even know that you are alive. Parents usually have some love for their children. 

But there's more. In yeshiva, you are regularly humiliated and insulted, taught to hate the world, hate yourself, and to feel stupid. How are you going to survive in a horrible world if you are stupid?

Even more emasculating, decision making ability even about your own life is taken away in yeshiva. The rabbi who knows nothing about you or the world and doesn't care about you will decide without contemplation or research what you will do with your life. 

George is bald, and you are out of shape because there's no exercise in yeshiva. That's bitul Torah and goyish. Your muscles have withered away. You eat white flour and sugar. Your clothes are wrinkled. In a sense, you are bald all over.

George Costanza is telling us that he is not a man and therefore he can't approach a woman. And the yeshiva guy is even less than George because George does have a sense of humour, and yeshiva guys have none usually. That's beaten out of them as well. How many rabbis do you know who have a sense of humour that consists of anything other than derision of others?

It's even worse for baalei teshuvah who have been told to stay away from their families and old friends. They have nothing but the yeshiva which is depriving them of any vestige of masculinity. Since they once had a sex life, being celibate now is far more painful than it is for FFB yeshiva guys. Since they were raised with dreams of careers, the prospect of never being able to earn a parnassah or do work that they like is particularly emasculating. 

Let's say that by chance you do run into a rabbi who has a sliver of sense and suggests that you go on shiduchim. Now the real fun begins as you are forced to humiliate yourself on dates, doing all the work, the calling, driving, thinking of things to do, paying, and proving yourself according to rules that are set by rabbis and stuck in the heads of young women who rarely question how one-sided it all is. There will be no kiss goodnight at the end of the date. Your date has been taught that she is superior to you, more spiritual, on a higher plane (it's nonsense but that's what she has been taught), and she buys it happilly. How's that for emasculation?

If you question any of this you go on the bad list, and then there's no shiduchim for you since you need references from rabbis who control this entire game and sit at the top of the pyramid. So, forget everything that I have written here. Pretend we never had this conversation. Stay in yeshiva until you are broken, schlep to shiduchim and prove yourself with what’s left of you. Then get married and find some way of coming up with $200,000 a year, which is what you'll need to support a family in the Orthodox world (in New York), to pay for expensive housing, fancy clothes for the wife, yeshiva tuition (at subpar schools) whose price is elevated because of all the kollel families who don't pay tuition, and for all the nedavah requests that come to you from the very same rabbis who wouldn't let you get job training. If you get a notion to move to Israel to spare yourself the tuition costs prepare to spend 6x the price for housing and to be completely crushed by the military and that's before they send you or your sons, heaven forbid, into death traps to get revenge for their failure to guard a fence from hooligans with hang gliders. 

Or, buck the system and start thinking for yourself, get job training, leave yeshiva, study on your own, live in a part of the country that you can afford, and marry a nice woman who uses her brain and isn't looking for a slave. That option is available if you summons the courage to take it. 

I introduce you now to the Honey Badger. It is one of the fiercest creatures on earth. "The honey badger is a solitary animal that can be active at any time of day, depending on the location. It is primarily a carnivorous species and has few natural predators because of its thick skin, strength and ferocious defensive abilities." (Wiki) It is not large, but it is not to be messed with.

Become the honey badger and save yourself from the leopards. It's that or be eaten. Your choice. Don't let anybody ever tell you not to be a man. Don't let anybody con you into handing over your manhood for promises of anything. You'll wind up with nothing. 

"Ain't it hard when you discover that, he wasn't really where it's at, after he took from you everything he could steal. How does it feel?" Bob Dylan

27 Nissan Yarzheit of Rav Avigdor Miller

 

27 Nissan Yarzheit of Rav Avigdor Miller

Thursday night to Friday

We take this time to express our gratitude to HaKadosh Baruch Hu for guiding the life's work of our Rebbe HaGaon HaRav Avigdor Miller zt'l and our love and admiration to the Rav for his holiness, truthfulness, righteousness, and courage.

27 Nissan Yarzheit of Rav Avigdor Miller

27 Nissan Yarzheit of Rav Avigdor Miller

Thursday night to Friday

We take this time to express our gratitude to HaKadosh Baruch Hu for guiding the life's work of our Rebbe HaGaon HaRav Avigdor Miller zt'l and our love and admiration to the Rav for his holiness, truthfulness, righteousness, and courage.

What is wrong with us?

 

Fine was born in a Jewish family in Tucson, Arizona

------

BREAKING: Early this moring in Ypsi, Michigan the FBI/police raided the homes of Univ. of Mich. Pro-palestinian protestors, including a @CommunityMvt Builders member. They refused to show warrants, seized electronics & personal items. Temporarily holding 8 people. Updates to come

Nessel was born in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan, the daughter of Martin and Sandra Nessel.^[4][5] She is Jewish.^[2] 

-----

Now this guy who portrays himself as a conservative American with his hunting cap

and his beard and his t-shirts and his deep voice seemed Jewish to me, especially with comments like this.

Lo and behold

and he's homosexual too

and he assaulted an old woman

Jews without mitzvos

 Can you explain in simple words what happened with WeWork?

A company based off of primarily hype and no substance mixed with a psychopathic founder named Adam Neumann. That's what killed WeWork--The whole thing was built on sand. They took office space, made it pretty, then rented it out short-term.

¶Called it revolutionary. Called it tech--But it wasn't tech. It was just real estate with free beer and nice couches--Neumann sold a dream--Got investors drunk on billions--SoftBank threw money at him like a drunk sailor.

¶The company was valued at $47 billion at its peak--Pure madness--But the numbers never added up--The more money they got--the more they spent.

Neumann bought a private jet--Trademarked the word "We" and charged his own company millions to use it--Real snake oil stuff--Then came 2019--They tried to go public--People finally looked at the books--The emperor had no clothes--Losses were massive.

Billions gone--The valuation crashed.

Neumann got pushed out with a golden parachute worth hundreds of millions.

The workers got nothing--The final blow came during COVID--Empty offices. No tenants--Bankruptcy in 2023--From $47 billion to nothing. That's all she wrote.

¶The company still exists--but it's a shadow--A reminder that you can't build a real business--on bullshit and kombucha--The numbers always catch up. They always do.

Neumann was born and raised in Beersheba, Israel.^[11] His parents divorced when he was seven, and he had lived in 13 different homes by the time he was 22.^[12] His younger sister Adi Neumann [he] is a model and former Miss Teen Israel.^[13][14] He has dyslexia and could not read or write until he was in third grade.^[15]

In his teens, he lived on a kibbutz in southern Israel. He served as a junior officer in the Israeli Navy.^[3] He has spoken of observing Shabbat with his family every week^[16][17] and the role Judaism has played in his personal and professional growth.^[18] 

Rav Avigdor Miller on Ruach Hakodesh and Mistakes

  https://torasavigdor.org

Rav Avigdor Miller on Ruach Hakodesh

Q:

I hear people saying that the Gedolei Yisroel have ruach hakodesh. Can you explain that to us?

A:

Well, it’s not the same ruach hakodesh that’s said about Megillas Esther for example. There’s absolutely no comparison! אסתר ברוח הקודש נאמרה – The Megillas Esther was said with ruach hakodesh means that it was inspired, it was a form of nevuah, of prophecy. And that form of ruach hakodesh no longer existed after the beginning of the second Beis Hamikdash.

The term ruach hakodesh as applied to our great men, means that Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives them inspiration. He gives them siyata dishmaya. He gives them help from Heaven so that they should be able to arrive at conclusions much more rapidly and much more correctly than ordinary people.

But it does not mean that they cannot make mistakes. Absolutely not! They can make mistakes with this form of ruach hakodesh. The Rambam says that when Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave His spirit to the Shoftim, like Shimshon, it says ותחל רוח ה׳ לפעמו בקרבו – The spirit of Hashem began to beat in him. That doesn’t mean the spirit of prophecy. It means a spirit of siyata dishmaya. It means that Hashem helped him. The Rambam says that Daniel had that as well. And yet, the Gemara says that Daniel made a mistake. And it’s written in the Gemara the mistake that Daniel made. So you can have siyata dishmaya and still make a mistake.

The truth is that Moshe Rabeinu also made a mistake. He made more than one mistake. And it’s openly mentioned in the Gemara, הודה ולא בוש – He was big enough to admit his mistake. He said, “I was wrong.” Now that’s something! Isn’t that a tremendous statement to make? The Gemara could have concealed that. The Gemara didn’t have to mention that. The Gemara could have said that Moshe Rabeinu was infallible. But instead the Gemara says that he erred. So what’s the story? The truth is this: When Hashem spoke to Moshe, that’s תורת ה׳. No mistakes in the תורת ה׳! But when Moshe spoke on his own – and Moshe no doubt had plenty of ruach hakodesh of his own, more than Rashi had – then he could make mistakes.

Moshe was הודה ולא בוש. He admitted his error. Because our Torah is a Torah of אמת, of truth. It’s not a Torah of propaganda chas v’shalom. And that’s why it says about our greatest leader הודה ולא בוש. Those are glorious words. These words are the honor of our nation. Moshe Rabeinu made a mistake. We want a Torah of אמת, truth. That’s the greatness of the Jewish people.

(March 1976)

afraid of risks

 

I talked earlier about how the yeshiva world forces a young man to have 'no job, no woman, and to live with his parents.' IOW, it emasculates him. Here's another aspect of that, to teach him to live in fear. The world is to be feared. Fear goyim, fear college, fear leaving the yeshiva, fear secular studies, fear moving to another city, fear changing jobs. Fear yourself. Result: you never take risks and you become a wimp. That's what yeshiva does to you. And yet:

More Jews without mitzvos

Steven Seagal vs. Chuck Norris

"Chuck Norris is exactly how you think he is. Friendly, humble and a badass martial artist. I have known Mr. Norris for 25 years and worked with him on 50 episodes of Walker: Texas Ranger. I was his stunt double for a highfall on the Blood Diamonds Episode and jumped off a 7 story building for him. He has a memory like a steel trap so don’t say anything to him that you don’t want him to remember. His stunt double, Kinnie Gibson, may he rest in peace, was one if my best friends. Chuck Norris is the real deal."

"Long long ago, I met Chuck Norris. It was the mid-1980s and Norris was just getting into his own acting-wise. And no one and I mean no one seriously doubted his martial arts expertise and skill. But to talk with the guy, you’d have thought he was “just got his Brown Belt” guy in a room full of black belt masters. Norris was totally nice and largely ego-less. I am sure if anyone pressed him as to his level of skill, he’d name 15 guys in Japan who were much much better than him. Steven Seagal is the exact opposite of Chuck Norris. He always acts like he is the best and most skilled guy in the room. Blowhards in the world of combat martial arts are found out rather quickly. And no, there is not a bigger fake tough guy than him."

What is Steven Seagal like in person?

"I’ve never actually met him but have been “in his presence” just a few feet away a couple of times. He used to come in to the shooting range where I used to teach to do gun transfers. He would stand back in shadows and his assistants would handle everything except for him signing the 4473 forms and taking possession of the guns.

The only person that was “allowed” to speak to him was the counter guy who was handling the transaction, and even then it seems only because it was required by law for him to actually sign the form and take possession of the firearm. He never spoke at all that I heard. His assistants (multiple) did all the talking.

I have an acquaintance that saw him a few times where she worked. I won’t go into any details but employees were not allowed to even acknowledge his presence, much less speak to him. Only the person who was “allowed” to speak to him was the main person who was helping the person he was there to see.

That’s my only experience with him so, draw your own conclusions."

What is it like to work with Steven Seagal?

Michael Caldwell

 · 

Follow

Ex-military, Yale Law.9y

I've had the misfortune of working with him on a number of occasions and found him to be incredibly self centered, obtuse, and boorish as well as a pathological lier. No matter what topic may come up in conversation he seems to always have a story to one up everyone. I'm not sure if his obsession with being the center of attention at all times is as pathetically obvious to others as it is to me but I can tell you that he doesn't have many friends outside of those with whom he has financial entanglements. I suppose to put up with his company for an extended period of time you'd have to be getting paid.

Jeez, I'm sure I'm coming off quite harsh, but I really can't find anything good to say about the man. There must be one positive thing i could say about him... I suppose you could say he appreciates a good drink. There."

 

Well guess what?

Seagal was born on April 10, 1952, in Lansing, Michigan,^[17] the son of Patricia Anne Fisher, a medical technician, and Samuel Seagal, a mathematics teacher. His mother was of Irish descent, while his father was Jewish.^[18] His paternal grandparents were Russian Jewish immigrants.^[19]

Not actually Jewish but having a Jewish father is enough.

And Chuck?

Norris was born in Ryan, Oklahoma, on March 10, 1940,^[2] to Wilma (née Scarberry, 1921–2024) and Ray Dee Norris, who was a World War II Army soldier,^[3] mechanic, bus driver, and a truck driver. His mother was of Irish descent and his father of Cherokee descent.^[3][4]

Every single time. 

A primary problem with dating

 "We only respect men we can't manipulate. It doesn't matter about his bank card. It doesn't matter about his height. We only respect men we can't manipulate." Sadia Kahn

So what do you say about frum dating where the man is turned into a servant, racing around trying to make the woman comfy, and happy and thrilled, and satisfied that he passes all the tests? If he lives in the data mecca of New York and she in Boston, he must go to Boston. If she is in Baltimore, he must go to Baltimore. I went to Toronto four times for one woman. She convinced me that it was my job. They all assume this, that it is the man's job to do everything. I once asked a woman after 5 dates if we could talk about the relationship. She said that was my job. It was my job to have a 'conversation' about a relationship. 

And if he displeases her in any way she reports to the shadchan who chews him out. Frum dating is like divorce court which as a friend reported to me made him feel like a Jew in Nazi Germany. "The judge is a woman, the bailiff is a woman, the lawyers are women, the clerk is a woman, the social workers are women, the psychologists are women." 

The whole thing causes women to not respect the man, which leaves her without interest in him. So she says no and they force the next man to go through the same routine. While we in the frum world love to brag about how we are smarter than the entire world. We do things to right way, they the wrong way. In actuality, our methods are the strangest and least effective of all. So there's a crisis. And the solutions proposed are never deep, never insightful. They always favor the women. What's the latest solution? It's not to change how dating works but to lower the age gap between men and women and have the men date at a younger age. We should have been doing that anyway as the Talmud advises and the Mishnah prescribes. But there's another solution. Stop the setup where the woman can only lose respect for the man. 

On board, I'm the captain

 It's a little bit like this song of encouragement from Styx, lyrics by Dennis DeYoung

I'm sailing away

Set an open course for the virgin sea

'Cause I've got to be free Free to face the life that's ahead of me On board, I'm the captain So climb aboard We'll search for tomorrow On every shore And I'll try, oh Lord, I'll try To carry on I look to the sea Reflections in the waves spark my memory Some happy, some sad I think of childhood friends and the dreams we had We lived happily forever So the story goes But somehow we missed out On the pot of gold But we'll try best that we can To carry on A gathering of angels Appeared above my head They sang to me this song of hope And this is what they said, they said Come sail away, come sail away, come sail away with me, lads Come sail away, come sail away, come sail away with me Come sail away, come sail away, come sail away with me, baby Come sail away, come sail away, come sail away with me I thought that they were angels But to my surprise We climbed aboard their starship We headed for the skies, singing Come sail away, come sail away, come sail away with me, lads Come sail away, come sail away, come sail away with me Come sail away, come sail away, come sail away with me Come sail away, come sail away, come sail away with me Come sail away, come sail away, come sail away with me Come sail away, come sail away

New York Jews without mitzvos

Is Barbra Streisand as rude as she seems?

The town I resided in at the time has a “health retreat” in the desert, on a long dirt road.

Babs went to it and did not want the “local hicks” to know she was coming. Naturally, in such a small town, everyone knew someone who worked at the retreat, so word got out.

A limousine came through town one day, and, well, it had to be her. People gawked and stared. Then - a SECOND limousine came from the opposite direction. (There was one highway in and out of town.) Both went down the long dirt road. After a few days, both limos were seen leaving and left town in opposite directions.

Then the horror stories started to trickle out. Whenever SHE wanted something, she would snap her fingers at the staff. She was generally rude and unpleasant to everyone there. And the two limos? She was so worried that a “local hick” might follow her, a body double was hired to enter/exit when she did so nobody would know her true identity. (Yeah, right?) I find it laughable now. Imagine paying someone to be your double for a health retreat? This was in the late 80s, for context.

Contradicted into oblivion

A friend in yeshiva once commented to me about the guy who ran the place that it's difficult to talk to someone who argues with everything you say. Yeah, it sure is difficult, and also it's unhealthy. And I have experienced this with many Jewish people, particularly New Yorkers and yeshiva people. A guy recently asked me how I was doing. While usually I just say Baruch Hashem or fine, not meaning it, I wanted to answer more truthfully, and since I know this guy to be a follower of the Bnei Yeshiva/Eitz movement and highly critical of the state of Israel, I said not great. He said why. I said, look at this place, nodding in the direction of the street. So rather than say, I hear you brother or I know what you mean, which is what I generally do, which is what most gentiles do, he said "You prefer America?" I answered yes, to which he said coldly, "The grass is always greener." That's a line you can use about any complaint, meaning you can never complain without being contradicted. So much for the teaching that one can unburden himself by confiding in a friend. A typical gentile wouldn't do this. He'd say, oh maybe you should go back. He wouldn't just contradict automatically and in a way that really was a criticism of the other person. 

Another example, I'm in Lakewood with a rabbi on a fund raising trip. I see a Chinese restaurant and liking Chinese food and not having had any in five years, I said just happily, hey Chinese food. So rather than say, oh you like Chinese food, let's get some, rather than that he says, something to the effect of you are not supposed to get excited about goshmiyus. So said this man who smokes cigarettes, takes taxis or gets driven around and never takes a bus.

Or I complement the city of Detroit to a woman (originally from New York) who lived in the area and she contradicted me by criticizing it. Later in the conversation, I said something critical of Detroit and she contradicted me by praising it.

A rabbi gave me a lift. He said, what have you been doing. I said mitzvos. He said Torah and mitzvos. He could have just said, that's great. But he had to oppose me in some way.

A man ask me what work I'm doing. I said I just got a job with the city. He said, you'll never get rich like that.

This happened to me several times on dates where I said things like I'd really like to be a college professor. "You won't make enough money that way." Or I said that I was interested in cooperative work environments. Same response. These women of course barely worked but also weren't willing to become dutiful wives.

I can think of a 1,000 examples because this goes on all the time. But much worse than these conversational oppositions, are the ideological ones. For example, a baal teshuvah trying to convince himself that secular studies are all nonsense, that gentiles are all evil, that the state of Israel is always right and the world is wrong and anti-Semitic in its criticism of Israel even in its turning of Gaza into moonscape. 

Or that "you are a chutzpah" not showing respect if you dare question a rabbi in anyway. If you take him at his word and try to believe something that's not true about yourself, your mind gets flipped like a pancake and that is unhealthy. This can create a kind of psychological auto immune disease where you start to argue with yourself and talk yourself out of every thought, idea, or instinct that you have about your life.

Another example, I find it ridiculous that the men do all the work in shiduchim, particularly when dating older women who have spent a decade or more rejecting every man that schleps to their doors. In my view, such women have lost the priviledge of chivalry. Not only that the imbalance hurts the date because the women take the men for granted and even see them as pathetic. To keep doing this when it feels wrong hurts the brain. It overturns one's sense of right and wrong until his own sense of morality and justice gets warped. But the frum world won't budge on this just like they don't budge on anything. 

It's not just the yeshiva world. Modern Orthodox women do it to. I was trying to arrange a date with an attorney who lived in Teaneck and was traveling to Trenton to appear in court. I lived in North Philadelphia and told her I could meet her in Trenton. She said no, she wanted me to travel to Teaneck. So here's an attorney who is bold enough to appear before a judge, which would terrify me, but I have to schlep an hour and a half to her each way when she was going to be in a place where I could meet her. I once asked a gentile woman at work, if somebody was setting you up with a guy who lived in New York and you were living in Pennsylvania, would you expect him to travel to you or would you meet him in the middle. She said, meet him in the middle of course.

A different MO woman who lived in Boston and went to Maimonides school (so she was very Modern) refused to meet me in Connecticut. She insisted I travel from Trenton to Boston for the date. This seemed to me so unfair and unproductive, but the pressure was immense to give in because I needed to get married, and they felt that they had time, so they had the upper hand. Giving in meant overturning my sense of right and wrong. Very unhealthy.

Sometimes, they contradict simple requests. I was trying to be part of a shul and asked if I could buy lockers to store tefillin. The gabbai told me no. I asked him if we could move the Hirsch chumash down one level of shelves so I could reach it. He said no. People being difficult about simple matters also overturns the mind. 

Then there's the countless stories or rabbis stopping plans. The kid who wants to read the tikun on Shavuous and the rabbi wants him to study the yeshiva's mesechta, even though the Ashkenazi custom earlier on was to do only the tikun. There's the yeshivish rabbis who talk you out of being Chabad or Breslov. There's the Chabad rabbis who tell you that you must read the Tanya every day or take a mikva every day.

Then there's the usual talking you out of leaving yeshiva even if you are 30 years old, unmarried and broke.

I had a rabbi (a New Yorker) who used to contradict everything I wanted to. I called him during my return from a visit to Cleveland saying I was considering moving there. Rather than encourage he said, "you want to be in a place that's growing." He just contradicted. He didn't discuss the factors, such as affordable housing or nicer people. And as it turns out, Cleveland has grown tremendously.

I have been talked out of moving to other decent places such as Los Angeles, Manhattan, and France. I have been talked out of going to graduate school to change to a profession I like on two occasions.

The frum world is one big argument, one big contradiction of a person, a continuous battle. You wind up where you are not even a person anymore, you can't think, you can't act, you have been contradicted into oblivion.