I can still picture the pre-teen chubby blonde girl with glasses who looked up at me and asked curiously, "Aren't you hot wearing that?" That is probably what most Americans think when they see Orthodox Jews, particularly women, dressing in long sleeves in the summer, covering elbows and knees and even wearing tights. I remember smiling at the girl, laughing to myself at the sincere shock in her voice, and replying seriously that I was used to dressing this way and was warm, but not dying of heat. The truth is that I remember thinking the same thing when I was a little kid growing up, as I did not always dress this way: How could anyone in their right mind wear anything more than short sleeves in the summer? The funnier part is now I look at the world around me and wonder how certain people can walk around so exposed. Aren't they embarrassed to reveal so much? Every summer I think about my choice to dress in a Tznius way.
Growing up, my family emphasized the importance of modesty, but definitely not the Halachic requirements involved in keeping the laws of Tznius. Pants, short-sleeves, and even shorts were acceptable, though sleeveless shirts and mini-skirts were never part of my wardrobe. As a kid I loved the cold and hated the heat and if you had told me back then that one day I would wear long sleeves and long skirts in the summer I would have looked at you as though you were crazy. So what made me decide to start keeping Halacha? Unlike most people, and unlike the intention behind the Halachos, at first it had very little to do with modesty. The first time I began to thinking about changing the way I dressed was when I saw that my teachers dressed that way. I looked up to my teachers a lot and respected them, and they covered their elbows and only wore skirts and not pants. Why do they do that? I wondered. And why don't I do that?
For me, wearing skirts and long sleeves is about being proud to be Jewish. Guys sometimes think they have it tough since they have to wear Kippot, as it makes them stand out and screams to the world "Look at me! I am a religious Jew!" Some wear baseball caps on top to cover it up. But that is exactly the point- they do stand out. If you pass a guy with a yarmulke on the street, you know he is Jewish. We used to go places on vacation as a family and we would pass frum Jews and I'd think "Hey, fellow Jews," but they would look at me and never know that I was Jewish. Tznius for Jewish women, in addition to being about modesty, is our way of saying, "I am a religious/observant Jew," and it is is our way of identifying with each other. The same way that a Kippah represents that a Jew must keep in mind that G-d is always there above him, and it is supposed to inspire Yirat Shamayim in all actions, Tznius, for me, was a way of keeping G-d in mind always. The way people dress is their statement to the world, and I wanted the world to know that I was happy and proud to be Jewish, and specifically an Orthodox Jew. And so I started by wearing skirts.
Since wearing skirts and not pants was part of the dress code of my elementary school, the first time I wore a skirt on a Sunday, my mother looked at me confused, asked why I was wearing a skirt, and told me to go change. Being very close with my parents, I was worried this would be a source of tension, and although some use "becoming frummer" as way to rebel, I did not have that intention at all. Not knowing what to do, I changed into another skirt. By this point my mother realized what was going on, and being a Baal Teshuva, she was very understanding and told me that if I wanted to just wear skirts and not wear pants anymore, then that would be quite OK with her. It was my decision. Her words and the way she said this filled me with happiness, just knowing that she was OK with my choosing a slightly different path than hers.
I'd love to say that from that day forward I never wore pants again, but that is not what happened. Spiritual growth doesn't just happen. You try, you fall, and then you get up, and then you fall again. I went back and forth with only wearing skirts and then wearing pants again for a while. Later on in high school, once I learned more Halachot I began taking on other aspects of Tznius as well until I reached the day where keeping it was no longer difficult. My reasons for keeping Tznius soon became just as much about modesty as about Jewish pride.
I used to think that those wearing long sleeves in the summer must die of heat, but the truth is that I am indoors with air conditioning most of the time, and when I am not, that extra bit of fabric really does not make such a big difference. I got used to it pretty fast, and the heat aspect was really not a big obstacle. The bottom line is that when it's really hot outside, everyone is hot, even if you're wearing a tank top and shorts. When that girl asked me if I was hot, I smiled, knowing what I gave up, and how easy it was, and how proud I was to be Jewish.
I would just like to note that it is interesting that often when people take on new spiritual goals, they begin with the external, as was in my case. We begin on the outside becase we want to express ourselves in a way that is obvious to all, something everyone will notice so that they know we have changed internally. While external changes may seem more difficult because we face a reaction socially that we then have to deal with, sometimes it is the changes that no one sees that are the most difficult and also the more meaningful. No one will know if you take on something privately, and no one will know if you drop that goal and stop keeping it. It is those types of goals, however, which are more important than external changes such as way of dress, and I have found that they provide a bigger sense of accomplishment as well.
Food for thought: Have you ever made any religious decisions to change how you dress or to wear or not wear specific articles of clothing? What was your reason for making this change? How has it impacted your life?
_
Showing posts with label goals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label goals. Show all posts
Monday, June 27, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
Why I Won't Settle
So, is it just me or is it impossible to date for more than a year or two and avoid being called picky? Maybe it’s just females who have this issue? Maybe it’s just me? Does everyone who doesn’t find the right person right away get called picky? Maybe I am picky. I don’t think so, though.
There have been times when something someone has said to me implied that perhaps I was being too selective and declining suggestions without a valid reason- sometimes before even going out on a date ("How do you know- you didn't even go out with him!"), or sometimes after only a short number of dates ("How can you know after only __ date(s)!"). I have certain qualifications that are super important to me (around five, in case you were wondering) and if a guy fits those, then I will give them a chance. In pretty much all of those cases I caved in and went on the date or on another date, against my better judgment, and as you can see by the fact that I’m still single, I was right.
Alright, alright, I’m coming off my high horse. Let me quickly get rid of the image you probably have in your head right now, in case I’m painting a picture that makes it sound like there’s tons of guys who are dying to go out with me and I sit in a castle with my nose held high dismissing them one by one. Do not think that is the case at all, as that is quite far from the reality. However, this is not a post about the guys who don't want to date me. No one is blaming me for that. I will say that in terms of the guys I have dated, I would say that about one third of the time the guy was the one to end it, about one third of the time I was the one to do so, and one third of the time it was mutual. What irks people, I suppose, is that sometimes everything seems right and should work, but for some reason it does not. Perhaps that makes me picky. Perhaps I am picky. But if I am, let me at least explain why.
My goal is not to just get married; it is to build a home of Torah with a person with who I love, and who loves me. I would rather not get married at all then end up in a bad marriage, a difficult marriage, or divorced, Chas v’shalom. If it is not the right person, then it’s not worth getting married. If this means I have to wait a very long time, then I will wait.
Trust me; I want to get married very, very, very much. So much that it is painful to be single sometimes. But that doesn’t mean that I will ever give up on my dream of finding true love, or finding someone who I can build a life with because we complete each other and can create so much together. Marriage is about creating, building, growing. “May you BUILD a Bayit Neeman B’Yisrael” we wish to those who are engaged.
Tovim Hashnayim Min HaEchad, writes Shlomo Hamelech in Mishlei. The immense potential that exists when two people come together is much greater than one person all by herself. Two people working together accomplish more than just one. I don’t want to be just me; I want a partner in life.
But not a partner who doesn’t share my goals, my values. Not a partner who I don’t respect. Not a partner who isn’t kind, who isn’t committed to Torah and Hashem and the Jewish people. I am looking for someone who I want to be with, who wants to be with me. Someone I can give to, who I can give happiness to.
I’m not looking for Mr. Perfect. I know that whoever I marry, he will have faults. In fact he better have faults, because I certainly have faults and I would feel too imperfect to be with someone perfect. I also know that he probably won’t be exactly like I expect, and that life will surprise me. I know whenever I find him, we will get into arguments and fights, because life is never smooth sailing. We won’t be one hundred percent happy one hundred percent of the time.
I have faith in Hashem that I will find the right person one day. I try to be as open as I can, but at the end of the day, if there is an obstacle stopping our ability to build a home together, we are not right. Perhaps that makes me picky.
To end off, here is an interesting email that has been making the rounds. Luckily I have never encountered this type of attitude personally, though I have heard of people who are like this, obviously on a less exaggerated scale:
Revelations of a Burnt- Out Shadchan .....
It's so hard to please anyone these days!!!
Here is a partial list of my clients .... I couldn't even get them one date, and that is why I am finally quitting and going into the pickle business.
Avraham Avinu: How can you recommend him to my daughter? Wasn't he involved in a family feud with his father over some idols? Then he left home without a GPS or a viable business plan!
Yitzchak Avinu: His brother is an Arab terrorist!!!
Rivka Imeinu: Sorry, she seems nice but did you hear about her mishpuche??? Her father's a murderer and her brother's a ponzi scam artist... .
Yaakov Avinu: Okay, he sits and learns all day... but his brother is a no-goodnik. And anyway, we heard he has a limp..... .
Leah Imeinu: Her father's a con artist, and she has ophtalmological problems. Maybe it's genetic?
Moshe Rabbeinu: Are you kidding? His parents are divorced! And worse.. they remarried! And we hear he's in speech therapy....
King David: How dare you suggest him to our yichusdike family? Our neighbor Yenti told us that his great-grandmother was a giyoret!!!
Chava: Do you know anything about her family? We never heard of them. No one knows where she came from and she can't come up with any referrals!
Please chevra, judge the person for him/herself - you're going to marry the person, not the family. You're getting married to build your home, not to please your neighbors. And finally, remember that if you are in this world, you are not perfect and neither is your spouse.
(Translated loosely from Arutz Sheva)
.
There have been times when something someone has said to me implied that perhaps I was being too selective and declining suggestions without a valid reason- sometimes before even going out on a date ("How do you know- you didn't even go out with him!"), or sometimes after only a short number of dates ("How can you know after only __ date(s)!"). I have certain qualifications that are super important to me (around five, in case you were wondering) and if a guy fits those, then I will give them a chance. In pretty much all of those cases I caved in and went on the date or on another date, against my better judgment, and as you can see by the fact that I’m still single, I was right.
Alright, alright, I’m coming off my high horse. Let me quickly get rid of the image you probably have in your head right now, in case I’m painting a picture that makes it sound like there’s tons of guys who are dying to go out with me and I sit in a castle with my nose held high dismissing them one by one. Do not think that is the case at all, as that is quite far from the reality. However, this is not a post about the guys who don't want to date me. No one is blaming me for that. I will say that in terms of the guys I have dated, I would say that about one third of the time the guy was the one to end it, about one third of the time I was the one to do so, and one third of the time it was mutual. What irks people, I suppose, is that sometimes everything seems right and should work, but for some reason it does not. Perhaps that makes me picky. Perhaps I am picky. But if I am, let me at least explain why.
My goal is not to just get married; it is to build a home of Torah with a person with who I love, and who loves me. I would rather not get married at all then end up in a bad marriage, a difficult marriage, or divorced, Chas v’shalom. If it is not the right person, then it’s not worth getting married. If this means I have to wait a very long time, then I will wait.
Trust me; I want to get married very, very, very much. So much that it is painful to be single sometimes. But that doesn’t mean that I will ever give up on my dream of finding true love, or finding someone who I can build a life with because we complete each other and can create so much together. Marriage is about creating, building, growing. “May you BUILD a Bayit Neeman B’Yisrael” we wish to those who are engaged.
Tovim Hashnayim Min HaEchad, writes Shlomo Hamelech in Mishlei. The immense potential that exists when two people come together is much greater than one person all by herself. Two people working together accomplish more than just one. I don’t want to be just me; I want a partner in life.
But not a partner who doesn’t share my goals, my values. Not a partner who I don’t respect. Not a partner who isn’t kind, who isn’t committed to Torah and Hashem and the Jewish people. I am looking for someone who I want to be with, who wants to be with me. Someone I can give to, who I can give happiness to.
I’m not looking for Mr. Perfect. I know that whoever I marry, he will have faults. In fact he better have faults, because I certainly have faults and I would feel too imperfect to be with someone perfect. I also know that he probably won’t be exactly like I expect, and that life will surprise me. I know whenever I find him, we will get into arguments and fights, because life is never smooth sailing. We won’t be one hundred percent happy one hundred percent of the time.
I have faith in Hashem that I will find the right person one day. I try to be as open as I can, but at the end of the day, if there is an obstacle stopping our ability to build a home together, we are not right. Perhaps that makes me picky.
To end off, here is an interesting email that has been making the rounds. Luckily I have never encountered this type of attitude personally, though I have heard of people who are like this, obviously on a less exaggerated scale:
Revelations of a Burnt- Out Shadchan .....
It's so hard to please anyone these days!!!
Here is a partial list of my clients .... I couldn't even get them one date, and that is why I am finally quitting and going into the pickle business.
Avraham Avinu: How can you recommend him to my daughter? Wasn't he involved in a family feud with his father over some idols? Then he left home without a GPS or a viable business plan!
Yitzchak Avinu: His brother is an Arab terrorist!!!
Rivka Imeinu: Sorry, she seems nice but did you hear about her mishpuche??? Her father's a murderer and her brother's a ponzi scam artist... .
Yaakov Avinu: Okay, he sits and learns all day... but his brother is a no-goodnik. And anyway, we heard he has a limp..... .
Leah Imeinu: Her father's a con artist, and she has ophtalmological problems. Maybe it's genetic?
Moshe Rabbeinu: Are you kidding? His parents are divorced! And worse.. they remarried! And we hear he's in speech therapy....
King David: How dare you suggest him to our yichusdike family? Our neighbor Yenti told us that his great-grandmother was a giyoret!!!
Chava: Do you know anything about her family? We never heard of them. No one knows where she came from and she can't come up with any referrals!
Please chevra, judge the person for him/herself - you're going to marry the person, not the family. You're getting married to build your home, not to please your neighbors. And finally, remember that if you are in this world, you are not perfect and neither is your spouse.
(Translated loosely from Arutz Sheva)
.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Writing, Thinking, Happiness
You know, I thought about starting a blog for a long time before I actually started one, and the biggest obstacle standing in my way of staring one was that I kept thinking, “but what in the world will I write about?” Ironically, I never had any problems writing and I was the kid who almost always had to shorten papers for school because they were always over the limit. Sometimes I feel I could write forever and never stop because I have so much to say. The underlying issue was really “what in the world could I write about that I could share with the entire world on the internet?” That is a somewhat harder question. So I figured I would write about things that I’ve been thinking about, situations that have arisen in my life. Once I’d come up with a few good ideas for topics, I figured it was time to jump in.
Except for the fact that the past week I kept thinking, “What are my thoughts? What am I thinking about?” and nothing seemed to come to me. After a couple months with tons of ideas to write about, I seemed to run out of ideas. Everyone hits writers block at some point, and it was hard for me to even write about why it so frustrating to be able not to write. Writing is just an extension of thinking. Which is say that you need to think in order to write. But I often find that I need to write in order to think. Sometimes my thoughts are completely disorganized and I need to put them on paper to organize them and figure out what I’m really thinking. Writing is expressing, and when I attempt to express a thought and it comes out wrong, it pushes me to dig deeper. I kept trying to write to get the juices going, but nothing was coming to me, until I starting thinking again.
Recently I’ve been thinking about happiness and what makes a person happy. Actually, I should delete the word “recently” since happiness is actually something I think about a lot. I was listening to one of the many songs on my iPod to the words: מצוה גדולה להיות בשמחה תמיד, that it is a mitzvah to be B’simcha always. (As a side note, I once saw an alternate version of this saying that I really liked: שמחה גדולה להיות במצוה תמיד- Being constantly involved in a Mitzvah brings great happiness. What an interesting twist and a great perspective). Anyway, I usually translate the phrase מצוה גדולה להיות בשמחה תמיד to mean that it is a great Mitzvah to be happy, always, but I realized that linguistically, if that was the correct translation, then it would have said: מצוה גדולה להיות שמח תמיד. Using the term “B’Simcha” instead of “Sameach” denotes not that it is a mitzvah to always be happy, but rather that it is a mitzvah to always be, as I would stay, in a state of happiness.
Being happy versus being in a state of happiness are not the same thing. I don’t think (and I think most people would agree) that it is not good to always be happy. There are times when happiness is not appropriate, such as at funerals, on somber days such as Tisha B’Av, and when others are in pain. However, constantly striving for happiness, trying to always recognize the good in the world, and trying to stay positive, is a goal that should be constant, Tamid. B’Simcha literally means “with simcha” or “in the midst of simcha.” To be always happy is not only a goal that is not desired, but it is also impossible. There will always times when you will feel upset, and being told that you shouldn’t be sad, that you should always be happy, can cause a person to feel guilty for not being happy, and perhaps cause them to try to push the negative emotions out of the way instead of trying to deal with them and work them through.
The point of מצוה גדולה להיות בשמחה תמיד is that everyone is entitled to feel negative emotions, and at times they are even required. However, it is important to place those feelings in the context of an overall picture and life of happiness. A state of happiness is a general way of life. Some have argued that it is not an ending point, but rather a journey. Maybe we can’t always be happy, but we can always strive to live a happy life.
Except for the fact that the past week I kept thinking, “What are my thoughts? What am I thinking about?” and nothing seemed to come to me. After a couple months with tons of ideas to write about, I seemed to run out of ideas. Everyone hits writers block at some point, and it was hard for me to even write about why it so frustrating to be able not to write. Writing is just an extension of thinking. Which is say that you need to think in order to write. But I often find that I need to write in order to think. Sometimes my thoughts are completely disorganized and I need to put them on paper to organize them and figure out what I’m really thinking. Writing is expressing, and when I attempt to express a thought and it comes out wrong, it pushes me to dig deeper. I kept trying to write to get the juices going, but nothing was coming to me, until I starting thinking again.
Recently I’ve been thinking about happiness and what makes a person happy. Actually, I should delete the word “recently” since happiness is actually something I think about a lot. I was listening to one of the many songs on my iPod to the words: מצוה גדולה להיות בשמחה תמיד, that it is a mitzvah to be B’simcha always. (As a side note, I once saw an alternate version of this saying that I really liked: שמחה גדולה להיות במצוה תמיד- Being constantly involved in a Mitzvah brings great happiness. What an interesting twist and a great perspective). Anyway, I usually translate the phrase מצוה גדולה להיות בשמחה תמיד to mean that it is a great Mitzvah to be happy, always, but I realized that linguistically, if that was the correct translation, then it would have said: מצוה גדולה להיות שמח תמיד. Using the term “B’Simcha” instead of “Sameach” denotes not that it is a mitzvah to always be happy, but rather that it is a mitzvah to always be, as I would stay, in a state of happiness.
Being happy versus being in a state of happiness are not the same thing. I don’t think (and I think most people would agree) that it is not good to always be happy. There are times when happiness is not appropriate, such as at funerals, on somber days such as Tisha B’Av, and when others are in pain. However, constantly striving for happiness, trying to always recognize the good in the world, and trying to stay positive, is a goal that should be constant, Tamid. B’Simcha literally means “with simcha” or “in the midst of simcha.” To be always happy is not only a goal that is not desired, but it is also impossible. There will always times when you will feel upset, and being told that you shouldn’t be sad, that you should always be happy, can cause a person to feel guilty for not being happy, and perhaps cause them to try to push the negative emotions out of the way instead of trying to deal with them and work them through.
The point of מצוה גדולה להיות בשמחה תמיד is that everyone is entitled to feel negative emotions, and at times they are even required. However, it is important to place those feelings in the context of an overall picture and life of happiness. A state of happiness is a general way of life. Some have argued that it is not an ending point, but rather a journey. Maybe we can’t always be happy, but we can always strive to live a happy life.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Goodbye 2010
As 2011 approaches, it seems like a good time to take a glimpse back at 2010 and think about this past year, and think about what I hope to accomplish next year. The end of 2010 was good for me, but unfortunately the beginning was not quite as great. Though that is sad, I would much prefer it being that way than the other way around. I'd rather have a year that started off bad as long as it ended up good, rather than have a year that started off good and ended up bad. 2010 started off on a pretty bad note for me, as January/February time things were not going so great in my life in general. Part of the reason I started this blog was to explore a different outlet for expressing my thoughts, and it has turned out to be more fun than I thought it would be. I was pretty lost and confused and was generally unhappy and worst of all felt powerless to change things. However, Hashem is in charge of the world, and though things seemed pretty hopeless back in January, I am luckily able to look back now and see how things were for the best and how slowly but surely the year turned around. Sometimes you just never know why things aren't going the way you want them to, but sometimes if you are fortunate then retrospect lets you see things you couldn't see when you were in the moment.
Despite my bad start to the year, my life started to get a little better in April and May. In retrospect June was pretty much the beginning of when things started to get better, but at the time, during June and July, I wasn't quite sure if things were getting better or worse. The last few months of 2010 were much better and have been Baruch Hashem going really well. One major thing I learned from this year is that there are things you can and there are things you can't control. Even if you can't control other things, you can control your mentality and you can choose to be happy, but this isn't as easy as it sounds. I used to think that if I was in a bad mood, all I need to do is tell myself to snap out of it, and I'm good to go. Sometimes this works, but sometimes it takes a lot more patience and effort and a lot of trying and failing to get there.
Another thing I learned in 2010 is that bad situations can always get better. Sometimes I just didn't see how it could ever get better, but that's because I was looking for a fast immediate solution. Change is slow and takes a long time. Just because you don't see it coming, doesn't mean that it's not on its way.
My hope for 2011 is to hold on to this lesson, that some things I can control and some things I can't. To keep letting go and not worrying about the things that I can't control, and taking the right steps to take advantage of the things that I can control. My hope is not only to hold on to this lesson, but to learn new lessons as well. I hope 2011 teaches me new things, that I grow as a person, and that I meet each challenge successfully. I hope that 2011 continues in the pattern of 2010 of getting better and better.
I wish you all a happy and a healthy 2011!
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Despite my bad start to the year, my life started to get a little better in April and May. In retrospect June was pretty much the beginning of when things started to get better, but at the time, during June and July, I wasn't quite sure if things were getting better or worse. The last few months of 2010 were much better and have been Baruch Hashem going really well. One major thing I learned from this year is that there are things you can and there are things you can't control. Even if you can't control other things, you can control your mentality and you can choose to be happy, but this isn't as easy as it sounds. I used to think that if I was in a bad mood, all I need to do is tell myself to snap out of it, and I'm good to go. Sometimes this works, but sometimes it takes a lot more patience and effort and a lot of trying and failing to get there.
Another thing I learned in 2010 is that bad situations can always get better. Sometimes I just didn't see how it could ever get better, but that's because I was looking for a fast immediate solution. Change is slow and takes a long time. Just because you don't see it coming, doesn't mean that it's not on its way.
My hope for 2011 is to hold on to this lesson, that some things I can control and some things I can't. To keep letting go and not worrying about the things that I can't control, and taking the right steps to take advantage of the things that I can control. My hope is not only to hold on to this lesson, but to learn new lessons as well. I hope 2011 teaches me new things, that I grow as a person, and that I meet each challenge successfully. I hope that 2011 continues in the pattern of 2010 of getting better and better.
I wish you all a happy and a healthy 2011!
.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Breaking My TV Addiction: Last Year's New Years Resolution
As 2010 draws to a close, I decided to reflect on last year’s New Years Resolution. I’m not big on New Years Resolutions, and in fact last year- 2009- was the first time I ever made one. I usually prefer to set my spiritual goals at Rosh Hashanah and use that time for reflection. Last year, however, the timing was right, and so I decided to make a New Years Resolution: to overcome my addiction to television. I made this decision not only for religious reasons, but for psychological ones as well. This is not a preachy post, it is not post venting about the evils of TV, rather it is thoughts about my own experience, which perhaps will encourage someone else struggling with the same issue. But before I get to the ending of the story, let me start at the beginning.
Let me start off my story by saying that December 31, 2009, was not my first attempt at giving up watching TV. As a child, I grew up with a TV in my house, but my family did not watch TV very much. Television was an occasional pastime for amusement, not something to be glued to for hours and hours a night. As I got older I watched more TV, and at some point in my early teens I became obsessed with a certain TV show. I would rush home from school to watch episodes and when I couldn’t make it, I would tape it so I could watch it later and not miss anything. Lots of people do this, but at some point I realized it wasn’t good for me to be so obsessed, and I slowly tried to stop. I remember one day, when it was time for that show to be on, and I forced myself to go to another room and not turn on the TV. The entire hour that the show was on was a struggle, as I had the constant urge to go watch even whatever was left. I didn’t just wake up that day and stop, I watched the show again after that, but slowly I weaned myself away from it until I was so firm in my resolve that it would be a struggle to get myself to watch the show. I grew to the point that I was so determined to stay far away from it.
Though I was victorious with that one show, I still watched other shows and movies all the time. Then came high school where I had teachers that spoke out against the evils of TV, and at some point in there I think I successfully gave TV up for a short amount of time, but then went back to it later. The longest I went without watching TV/movies was my year in Israel, and to be honest, I didn’t even miss it, not even a tiny bit. My time was spent doing other things and I never had the urge to watch TV. After I returned from Israel, I was resolved to keep this habit of staying away from TV, but that did not last very long. Although I was in college and away from my house with a TV, there was always my laptop and my friends’ laptops to watch movies, and it became a great way to procrastinate or relax, but it was also a social thing. It also always starts with one movie. “Oh, it won’t be so bad just to watch this one harmless film,” I would think to myself. But it is the beginning of a spiral. Numerous times I tried to limit my amount of TV-watching, knowing that it wasn’t realistic to try to give it up completely because that wouldn’t work. Those attempts were short-lived.
I would like to share my reasons for trying to give up TV. You see, I do not believe that TV is completely evil and that it is awful to watch any TV. In fact, that was a big part of my struggle. In many ways it is easier to fight something that is clearly wrong than it is to fight something that is only sort of bad. I kept justifying my television watching by telling myself that I wasn’t really watching anything so bad, which is pretty true, since most things were not inappropriate or obviously over the line. Watching relatively clean TV is not against Halacha, and since it is not Assur, that allowed me to rationalize that it was not really wrong, and that made it harder for me to stay away from. Finally, when I was able to verbalize my personal reasons that TV was having a negative influence on me and my life, I was able to stop. There are two main reasons, and as I mentioned before, one is religious and one is psychological.
The first reason is the religious reason, and my perspective on this is not the one that I have often heard, so let me explain it as follows. There is right and there is wrong. Pretty basic, not a novel concept that is difficult to understand. How do you know what is right and wrong? “That’s easy,” you might say, “I just know.” But the bottom line is that right and wrong, good and bad, are all determined by G-d and explained in the Torah. In society, especially in American culture, my experience is that morals are subjective and the entire realm of right and wrong is one big area of utter chaos and confusion. Everything is viewed subjectively and each person is left to decide for themselves, which is a task equivalent to trying not to fall down when someone much stronger than you pushes you with a heavy force and crushes you to the ground. If you’re left to fend for yourself to figure out what is morally correct and incorrect, your Yetzer HaRah will crush you. Your desires will take over your intellect. TV represents American culture. That is why it is very tricky.
I didn’t even realize it, but TV can mess up your moral compass. All of the sudden things that should seem outrageous to you seem perfectly fine. You watch people being murdered and violence, even in clean movies. You watch characters speak Lashon Harah, treat other characters in verbally abusive ways, act sexually promiscuous, and commit adultery. And the crazy part is that you’re rooting for these characters, the good guys, to do these wrong actions. And did you notice that most TV characters fail to ever show self control? They want something or someone and they go for it. They seek pleasure and don’t worry about consequences. Sure, there are some very good movies out there, movies that teach good lessons, movies that are inspiring. I have seen plenty of those. But those are not the majority, and it is difficult to know beforehand that the entire movie will be OK.
Entering the world of movies/TV is entering a world without Hashem. Often G-d’s existence is lacking in these worlds of fiction. Although I don’t believe watching TV is objectively wrong, I believe it is spiritually dangerous. Like all risky things, some people handle them better than others. I didn’t like the direction that I was going in with this influencing me. The bottom line of my religious reason comes down to the fact that movies were taking me farther away from Hashem and Torah. Since one of my goals is to be close to Hashem, I realized that watching movies and TV was not going to work for me.
The second reason, which for me was an equally compelling reason to stop, is the psychological one, and that is that I was using TV as an escape. I used to TV not just to relax, which isn’t such a bad thing, but rather I started thinking thoughts such as, “Wow, I had a terrible day. I need to watch a movie now.” I felt like if I watched TV then it would make everything all better. While it is great to be mindless for a little while and be swept into another world where you don’t have to think about real life, it makes returning to reality that much more difficult. While I was actually watching TV I enjoyed it, but afterwards I returned to feeling sad about my bad day. I realized I should live life and not just watch it, that I should appreciate my own life instead of living vicariously through others, and that I had to stop trying to escape my life, but rather deal with it and find the joy in it. There is a thin line between, “I am going to relax,” and “I want to escape my life for a bit,” and I was on the wrong side of the line.
For those two reasons, I decided to stop watching TV, but I had tried so many times before and was not successful, so I didn’t know how to go about doing it, until I had a break through. Most of the time the way to cure a drug addict or an alcoholic is not to tell them to reduce the amount of drugs/alcohol they are taking bit by bit. It is too hard to stop that way because once they have a little they want to have more. The way to stop is to just quit cold turkey. I decided to quit cold turkey. I would have never thought to do this because it wouldn’t be realistic. That goal is just too big; there is no way I could do that! My moment of break through was that perhaps it sounded too big, but I had to take the leap. The worst thing that could happen is that I would fail, but I had to at least try. So I jumped into my plan of starting January 1, 2010 to never watch TV/movies again. The one exception I made for myself is that I wouldn’t give up YouTube videos, because my friends post videos on Facebook all the time, and people email me cute videos all the time, and I knew that would be impossible. Also, I don’t think short 5 minute videos are equivalent to movies/television. The problem is that there are plenty of movie/TV clips on YouTube.
I am proud to say that I have pretty much kept my New Years resolution from last year. I have not watched a single movie since the year 2009, and I have not watched a single TV show, except for once, when I was in the same room as a friend who was watching a half-hour comedy show, which was loud and I was unsuccessful in my attempt to tune out. I also had a few partial slip-ups- times when I watched videos on YouTube for longer than I feel really fits into this resolution. In any case, everyone slips up. Putting those few slip-ups aside, overall I consider my resolution a success.
Interestingly, giving up TV was a lot easier than I would have imagined. It was not hard at all. In fact, all of the partial slip-ups were recently, in the past few months. The first few months, despite what I would have guessed, were actually the easiest. I knew the hardest part was going to be when friends wanted to watch movies with me. One thing I didn’t mention yet is that I only told two people about this decision. It was really important to me that no one know about it since I wanted to be sure that my intentions were pure and I wasn’t just putting on a show. Plus, it was a private decision, (which is of course why I’m writing all about it on my blog! :) - no, but seriously) and it wasn’t something I wanted to share with the world (or at least with people who know me). Which just goes to show you that Hashem helps you out in whatever direction you plan to go, because somehow this year I managed to get out of the few times my friends have asked me if I wanted to watch a movie with them by saying that I was busy. I don’t know how that plan managed to work for a whole year, but clearly Hashem was helping me out. The part of this decision which I thought would be hardest was not difficult at all in the end.
The impact that this decision has made on my life has been significant, but not enormous. While a nice ending to this story would be to say that it had a huge impact, the truth is that the effect was barely detectable. However, I do believe that this change has made me a happier person and the feeling that I accomplished something that I never dreamed I would ever be able to accomplish is a truly great feeling. I like my life better without TV, and I like myself better without it. I recognize that this is not for everyone, but for me, it was the right choice. I could probably write a lot more about this, but I will end by saying that I am glad I made the resolution, and that I took on something so big, and even more pleased with myself that I stuck to it.
.
Let me start off my story by saying that December 31, 2009, was not my first attempt at giving up watching TV. As a child, I grew up with a TV in my house, but my family did not watch TV very much. Television was an occasional pastime for amusement, not something to be glued to for hours and hours a night. As I got older I watched more TV, and at some point in my early teens I became obsessed with a certain TV show. I would rush home from school to watch episodes and when I couldn’t make it, I would tape it so I could watch it later and not miss anything. Lots of people do this, but at some point I realized it wasn’t good for me to be so obsessed, and I slowly tried to stop. I remember one day, when it was time for that show to be on, and I forced myself to go to another room and not turn on the TV. The entire hour that the show was on was a struggle, as I had the constant urge to go watch even whatever was left. I didn’t just wake up that day and stop, I watched the show again after that, but slowly I weaned myself away from it until I was so firm in my resolve that it would be a struggle to get myself to watch the show. I grew to the point that I was so determined to stay far away from it.
Though I was victorious with that one show, I still watched other shows and movies all the time. Then came high school where I had teachers that spoke out against the evils of TV, and at some point in there I think I successfully gave TV up for a short amount of time, but then went back to it later. The longest I went without watching TV/movies was my year in Israel, and to be honest, I didn’t even miss it, not even a tiny bit. My time was spent doing other things and I never had the urge to watch TV. After I returned from Israel, I was resolved to keep this habit of staying away from TV, but that did not last very long. Although I was in college and away from my house with a TV, there was always my laptop and my friends’ laptops to watch movies, and it became a great way to procrastinate or relax, but it was also a social thing. It also always starts with one movie. “Oh, it won’t be so bad just to watch this one harmless film,” I would think to myself. But it is the beginning of a spiral. Numerous times I tried to limit my amount of TV-watching, knowing that it wasn’t realistic to try to give it up completely because that wouldn’t work. Those attempts were short-lived.
I would like to share my reasons for trying to give up TV. You see, I do not believe that TV is completely evil and that it is awful to watch any TV. In fact, that was a big part of my struggle. In many ways it is easier to fight something that is clearly wrong than it is to fight something that is only sort of bad. I kept justifying my television watching by telling myself that I wasn’t really watching anything so bad, which is pretty true, since most things were not inappropriate or obviously over the line. Watching relatively clean TV is not against Halacha, and since it is not Assur, that allowed me to rationalize that it was not really wrong, and that made it harder for me to stay away from. Finally, when I was able to verbalize my personal reasons that TV was having a negative influence on me and my life, I was able to stop. There are two main reasons, and as I mentioned before, one is religious and one is psychological.
The first reason is the religious reason, and my perspective on this is not the one that I have often heard, so let me explain it as follows. There is right and there is wrong. Pretty basic, not a novel concept that is difficult to understand. How do you know what is right and wrong? “That’s easy,” you might say, “I just know.” But the bottom line is that right and wrong, good and bad, are all determined by G-d and explained in the Torah. In society, especially in American culture, my experience is that morals are subjective and the entire realm of right and wrong is one big area of utter chaos and confusion. Everything is viewed subjectively and each person is left to decide for themselves, which is a task equivalent to trying not to fall down when someone much stronger than you pushes you with a heavy force and crushes you to the ground. If you’re left to fend for yourself to figure out what is morally correct and incorrect, your Yetzer HaRah will crush you. Your desires will take over your intellect. TV represents American culture. That is why it is very tricky.
I didn’t even realize it, but TV can mess up your moral compass. All of the sudden things that should seem outrageous to you seem perfectly fine. You watch people being murdered and violence, even in clean movies. You watch characters speak Lashon Harah, treat other characters in verbally abusive ways, act sexually promiscuous, and commit adultery. And the crazy part is that you’re rooting for these characters, the good guys, to do these wrong actions. And did you notice that most TV characters fail to ever show self control? They want something or someone and they go for it. They seek pleasure and don’t worry about consequences. Sure, there are some very good movies out there, movies that teach good lessons, movies that are inspiring. I have seen plenty of those. But those are not the majority, and it is difficult to know beforehand that the entire movie will be OK.
Entering the world of movies/TV is entering a world without Hashem. Often G-d’s existence is lacking in these worlds of fiction. Although I don’t believe watching TV is objectively wrong, I believe it is spiritually dangerous. Like all risky things, some people handle them better than others. I didn’t like the direction that I was going in with this influencing me. The bottom line of my religious reason comes down to the fact that movies were taking me farther away from Hashem and Torah. Since one of my goals is to be close to Hashem, I realized that watching movies and TV was not going to work for me.
The second reason, which for me was an equally compelling reason to stop, is the psychological one, and that is that I was using TV as an escape. I used to TV not just to relax, which isn’t such a bad thing, but rather I started thinking thoughts such as, “Wow, I had a terrible day. I need to watch a movie now.” I felt like if I watched TV then it would make everything all better. While it is great to be mindless for a little while and be swept into another world where you don’t have to think about real life, it makes returning to reality that much more difficult. While I was actually watching TV I enjoyed it, but afterwards I returned to feeling sad about my bad day. I realized I should live life and not just watch it, that I should appreciate my own life instead of living vicariously through others, and that I had to stop trying to escape my life, but rather deal with it and find the joy in it. There is a thin line between, “I am going to relax,” and “I want to escape my life for a bit,” and I was on the wrong side of the line.
For those two reasons, I decided to stop watching TV, but I had tried so many times before and was not successful, so I didn’t know how to go about doing it, until I had a break through. Most of the time the way to cure a drug addict or an alcoholic is not to tell them to reduce the amount of drugs/alcohol they are taking bit by bit. It is too hard to stop that way because once they have a little they want to have more. The way to stop is to just quit cold turkey. I decided to quit cold turkey. I would have never thought to do this because it wouldn’t be realistic. That goal is just too big; there is no way I could do that! My moment of break through was that perhaps it sounded too big, but I had to take the leap. The worst thing that could happen is that I would fail, but I had to at least try. So I jumped into my plan of starting January 1, 2010 to never watch TV/movies again. The one exception I made for myself is that I wouldn’t give up YouTube videos, because my friends post videos on Facebook all the time, and people email me cute videos all the time, and I knew that would be impossible. Also, I don’t think short 5 minute videos are equivalent to movies/television. The problem is that there are plenty of movie/TV clips on YouTube.
I am proud to say that I have pretty much kept my New Years resolution from last year. I have not watched a single movie since the year 2009, and I have not watched a single TV show, except for once, when I was in the same room as a friend who was watching a half-hour comedy show, which was loud and I was unsuccessful in my attempt to tune out. I also had a few partial slip-ups- times when I watched videos on YouTube for longer than I feel really fits into this resolution. In any case, everyone slips up. Putting those few slip-ups aside, overall I consider my resolution a success.
Interestingly, giving up TV was a lot easier than I would have imagined. It was not hard at all. In fact, all of the partial slip-ups were recently, in the past few months. The first few months, despite what I would have guessed, were actually the easiest. I knew the hardest part was going to be when friends wanted to watch movies with me. One thing I didn’t mention yet is that I only told two people about this decision. It was really important to me that no one know about it since I wanted to be sure that my intentions were pure and I wasn’t just putting on a show. Plus, it was a private decision, (which is of course why I’m writing all about it on my blog! :) - no, but seriously) and it wasn’t something I wanted to share with the world (or at least with people who know me). Which just goes to show you that Hashem helps you out in whatever direction you plan to go, because somehow this year I managed to get out of the few times my friends have asked me if I wanted to watch a movie with them by saying that I was busy. I don’t know how that plan managed to work for a whole year, but clearly Hashem was helping me out. The part of this decision which I thought would be hardest was not difficult at all in the end.
The impact that this decision has made on my life has been significant, but not enormous. While a nice ending to this story would be to say that it had a huge impact, the truth is that the effect was barely detectable. However, I do believe that this change has made me a happier person and the feeling that I accomplished something that I never dreamed I would ever be able to accomplish is a truly great feeling. I like my life better without TV, and I like myself better without it. I recognize that this is not for everyone, but for me, it was the right choice. I could probably write a lot more about this, but I will end by saying that I am glad I made the resolution, and that I took on something so big, and even more pleased with myself that I stuck to it.
.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Dieting Challenges
I am quite ready for Adar Sheini. With all of the Chaggim falling so early, Chanukah ended up right after Thanksgiving, and I decided that their unusual proximity was to blame when I hopped on the scale and cringed at what I saw. At least during Tishrei we’ve got two fast days in there to offer some assistance. After all, by the time I finished with leftovers from the turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie and other goodies from Thanksgiving, there were only a few days before Chanukah began, and the next thing I knew there was just so much to eat between the Chanukah gelt (I am a chocoholic), sufganiot, and delicious yet fattening, oily latkes. Although it is probably a good thing that at the time they were instituting the minhagim for Chanukah they had no knowledge of things such as fast food, French fries or high fructose corn syrup. I could only imagine if the story had happened in today’s day and age with the high rates of obesity, that the minhag would be to eat salad with an olive oil dressing to commemorate the oil burning 8 nights. While not as tasty, that would perhaps have been better for my diet. You know, the one that starts tomorrow (as diets always do).
I remember the first time I decided to try to lose a couple pounds. Baruch Hashem I only had a couple of pounds to lose-I was never overweight, though I was never skinny either. I had never considered exercising or dieting; I seriously enjoy eating good food and never liked sports or being active, as I was quite out of shape and would find myself huffing and puffing after anything longer or faster than a 5 minute walk. But in high school for the first time I got my act together and started eating healthier and started exercising. Losing weight is really difficult for a number of reasons, but one reason is that it requires a lot of motivation and perseverance to continue when it doesn’t seem like you are accomplishing anything at all. We often expect to see immediate results, and unless you go on some crazy diet to lose weight fast (which I am completely against because in most cases I’ve seen as soon as people go off of it they gain the weight right back and no one can stick to one of those crazy things forever), losing weight takes time. At least it does if you do it by changing your lifestyle and your eating habits.
I used to be jealous of people who are very skinny, especially those who insist that they are unable to gain weight no matter how hard they try. I always say that if I was super skinny I would never exercise at all and I would eat anything I wanted all the time. Which is why it is a really great thing that Hashem did not make me naturally skinny because then I would be very unhealthy. I realized that if I was born super skinny, I would not have learned some of the great lessons I learned from exercising and dieting. The first main lesson I learned was the one I mentioned above about perseverance, and along with that is patience. This comes in handy in so many situations in life, especially when it comes to working on middot. Sometimes I unrealistically think that I will just be able to change overnight, that I will just decide in my head to abolish a certain negative behavior from my life and that will be the end of it. Unfortunately, things are just not that simple. You don’t lose weight overnight, and you can’t change yourself overnight. Sometimes you might even gain weight before you lose weight. Sometimes you’ll fail before you succeed. But you can’t let that stop you or you will not get anywhere. You have to keep going day after day after day, even if you do not feel like you are accomplishing anything.
Another lesson that I learned is that it is not all or nothing. Just because I broke my diet and ate that piece of cake I promised myself I wouldn’t touch, doesn’t mean I should give up and decide to throw the whole diet out the window. One mess-up doesn’t mean it’s time to give up. The same thing is true for exercising. Ideally, working out for longer is better, but just because I don’t have time to work out for an hour every day, doesn’t mean I shouldn’t work out at all. If I can work out for 45 minutes one day, then that is great. If another day all I have is 15 minutes, then that is what I have and I go for it. I do what I can do and try my best. (As I wrote about before, every drop counts.)
Despite starting out completely out of shape, I started exercising regularly in high school and kept it up. I laugh when I think about how lazy I used to be and how I would get out breathe by walking down the block. When I go for a walk for an hour and feel like I can keep going, I feel great. Additionally, exercising turned out to be a great outlet for me to let out steam and de-stress. It’s a great way to take a break and revitalize. Although there are days when I don’t want to exercise at all and force myself to anyway, most of the time I feel great afterwards. To finish the story, I lost a relatively small, but for me a decent size amount of weight over a long, long time, most of which I kept off, though it’s been up and down.
Now that Thanksgiving and Chanukah are over, the diet starts today. Not tomorrow, today. Even if it is small, even if it is step by step, even if it seems like I’m not going anywhere. Even though I know I’m going to mess up, and won’t stick to my original plan. I will overcome my dieting challenges!
.
I remember the first time I decided to try to lose a couple pounds. Baruch Hashem I only had a couple of pounds to lose-I was never overweight, though I was never skinny either. I had never considered exercising or dieting; I seriously enjoy eating good food and never liked sports or being active, as I was quite out of shape and would find myself huffing and puffing after anything longer or faster than a 5 minute walk. But in high school for the first time I got my act together and started eating healthier and started exercising. Losing weight is really difficult for a number of reasons, but one reason is that it requires a lot of motivation and perseverance to continue when it doesn’t seem like you are accomplishing anything at all. We often expect to see immediate results, and unless you go on some crazy diet to lose weight fast (which I am completely against because in most cases I’ve seen as soon as people go off of it they gain the weight right back and no one can stick to one of those crazy things forever), losing weight takes time. At least it does if you do it by changing your lifestyle and your eating habits.
I used to be jealous of people who are very skinny, especially those who insist that they are unable to gain weight no matter how hard they try. I always say that if I was super skinny I would never exercise at all and I would eat anything I wanted all the time. Which is why it is a really great thing that Hashem did not make me naturally skinny because then I would be very unhealthy. I realized that if I was born super skinny, I would not have learned some of the great lessons I learned from exercising and dieting. The first main lesson I learned was the one I mentioned above about perseverance, and along with that is patience. This comes in handy in so many situations in life, especially when it comes to working on middot. Sometimes I unrealistically think that I will just be able to change overnight, that I will just decide in my head to abolish a certain negative behavior from my life and that will be the end of it. Unfortunately, things are just not that simple. You don’t lose weight overnight, and you can’t change yourself overnight. Sometimes you might even gain weight before you lose weight. Sometimes you’ll fail before you succeed. But you can’t let that stop you or you will not get anywhere. You have to keep going day after day after day, even if you do not feel like you are accomplishing anything.
Another lesson that I learned is that it is not all or nothing. Just because I broke my diet and ate that piece of cake I promised myself I wouldn’t touch, doesn’t mean I should give up and decide to throw the whole diet out the window. One mess-up doesn’t mean it’s time to give up. The same thing is true for exercising. Ideally, working out for longer is better, but just because I don’t have time to work out for an hour every day, doesn’t mean I shouldn’t work out at all. If I can work out for 45 minutes one day, then that is great. If another day all I have is 15 minutes, then that is what I have and I go for it. I do what I can do and try my best. (As I wrote about before, every drop counts.)
Despite starting out completely out of shape, I started exercising regularly in high school and kept it up. I laugh when I think about how lazy I used to be and how I would get out breathe by walking down the block. When I go for a walk for an hour and feel like I can keep going, I feel great. Additionally, exercising turned out to be a great outlet for me to let out steam and de-stress. It’s a great way to take a break and revitalize. Although there are days when I don’t want to exercise at all and force myself to anyway, most of the time I feel great afterwards. To finish the story, I lost a relatively small, but for me a decent size amount of weight over a long, long time, most of which I kept off, though it’s been up and down.
Now that Thanksgiving and Chanukah are over, the diet starts today. Not tomorrow, today. Even if it is small, even if it is step by step, even if it seems like I’m not going anywhere. Even though I know I’m going to mess up, and won’t stick to my original plan. I will overcome my dieting challenges!
.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
The System
Despite complaints directed against the shidduch system, I recently had an experience that reminded me of its advantages. I was talking to a co-worker who is a non-religious Jew, and she was telling me about the guy she is dating. She explained that although she likes him a lot, she knows he is not the right person for her, and she does not want to marry him. For those wondering why she was dating him at al, it had been clear from other conversations as well that she was just dating him for fun- she liked him, she enjoyed spending time with him etc. When I asked her why she would not marry him despite her feelings for him, she paused and responded that they have different values and went on to elaborate a few areas in which he did not share her outlooks on issues that were important to her.
The conversation reminded me why the process of finding out important information about a potential date before dating is a good system. If you’re dating because you want to find a life partner, it is important to first make sure you are basically on the same page as a person. Because if you don’t do it that way, then you end up meeting someone, developing serious romantic feelings for them, and by the time you realize that he’s headed in one direction and you are headed the opposite way, you end up with a painful break up. I guess, if you’re only looking for fun and not marriage, then why not go out with anyone who you get along with and are attracted to? In the case of my coworker, (or those like her) I think she is started to reach the point where she is done having fun and ready for a serious relationship, but is so used to just dating people she is interested in without checking out the important stuff early on in the process. That’s the problem with dating for marriage outside the shidduch system.
On the other hand, one problem with the shidduch system,(which I also wrote about here) is that at times, too much emphasis is placed on compatibility on the values level and not enough on the “do these two people get along” level. Or not necessarily too much emphasis on values, but rather emphasis on the wrong values, or on small details that people pretend are values. This video which I have recently seen posted in a number of places and has been emailed to me by a number of friends is a humorous demonstration of how extreme it can be. For example, people have suggested guys for me whose parents are divorced, and they made sure to tell me that in advance. Things like that (that is just an example) slightly bother me because they are not make-it or break-it items, as opposed to factors such as religious level/observance or the type of lifestyle that they would like to have. One might argue that a person whose parents are divorced is probably negatively affected by that and/or perhaps have not had a positive model for a healthy romantic relationship.
To that I respond that if that is the case, we should also be asking about whether a person has had any traumatic experiences that might affect their future relationships, such as being abused by a teacher or being bullied as a child or every single negative. Perhaps some people do ask about those things. In which case I wonder: Are all of those whose lives aren’t perfect (by certain standards, anyway), which describes most people because such is life, doomed to never get married? My decision to go on a date with someone is not based on if their parents are divorced, or what their cousins do for a living. Nor is it based on what happened to them on the second day of school in fifth grade or how many times they blinked when they were two weeks old.
Despite the flaws of the shidduch system, namely that people can get carried away in attributing importance to small details, luckily most people I have personally encountered are pretty reasonable, and my conversation with my coworker was a good reminder that the system is at least good in theory. Before you develop feelings and become invested in a relationship that you hope will lead towards marriage, it is good to make sure your basic values are the same. Once you know you’re headed in the same direction, you can meet up and figure out whether you would like to head in that direction together.
The conversation reminded me why the process of finding out important information about a potential date before dating is a good system. If you’re dating because you want to find a life partner, it is important to first make sure you are basically on the same page as a person. Because if you don’t do it that way, then you end up meeting someone, developing serious romantic feelings for them, and by the time you realize that he’s headed in one direction and you are headed the opposite way, you end up with a painful break up. I guess, if you’re only looking for fun and not marriage, then why not go out with anyone who you get along with and are attracted to? In the case of my coworker, (or those like her) I think she is started to reach the point where she is done having fun and ready for a serious relationship, but is so used to just dating people she is interested in without checking out the important stuff early on in the process. That’s the problem with dating for marriage outside the shidduch system.
On the other hand, one problem with the shidduch system,(which I also wrote about here) is that at times, too much emphasis is placed on compatibility on the values level and not enough on the “do these two people get along” level. Or not necessarily too much emphasis on values, but rather emphasis on the wrong values, or on small details that people pretend are values. This video which I have recently seen posted in a number of places and has been emailed to me by a number of friends is a humorous demonstration of how extreme it can be. For example, people have suggested guys for me whose parents are divorced, and they made sure to tell me that in advance. Things like that (that is just an example) slightly bother me because they are not make-it or break-it items, as opposed to factors such as religious level/observance or the type of lifestyle that they would like to have. One might argue that a person whose parents are divorced is probably negatively affected by that and/or perhaps have not had a positive model for a healthy romantic relationship.
To that I respond that if that is the case, we should also be asking about whether a person has had any traumatic experiences that might affect their future relationships, such as being abused by a teacher or being bullied as a child or every single negative. Perhaps some people do ask about those things. In which case I wonder: Are all of those whose lives aren’t perfect (by certain standards, anyway), which describes most people because such is life, doomed to never get married? My decision to go on a date with someone is not based on if their parents are divorced, or what their cousins do for a living. Nor is it based on what happened to them on the second day of school in fifth grade or how many times they blinked when they were two weeks old.
Despite the flaws of the shidduch system, namely that people can get carried away in attributing importance to small details, luckily most people I have personally encountered are pretty reasonable, and my conversation with my coworker was a good reminder that the system is at least good in theory. Before you develop feelings and become invested in a relationship that you hope will lead towards marriage, it is good to make sure your basic values are the same. Once you know you’re headed in the same direction, you can meet up and figure out whether you would like to head in that direction together.
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