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You’re you like I’m me.
Froggie: I’m me like you’re you?
Y & P: No. You’re you like I’m me. Don’t get me confused. If I’ll convince myself that I’m me, then maybe you’d be you. Until then..
Happysnappy: With all due respect, I get these little criticisms all the time, ostensibly from people who like what I write. Thank you for your advice. However, obviously not everything I write is gonna be liked by everyone. I like “Your Humble Servant” and ultimately I’m the one who makes the decision about how to sign my letters. Incidentally, I don’t “always sign off” that way; when I don’t feel it’s appropriate I don’t use it.
What’s wrong with “Your Humble Servant?” I would not mind having a humble servant (especially at Pesach time).
Rocky, I read this week’s letter. I have two points on which I wish to disagree with you.
Danny Danon’s lack of religiosity doesn’t change or excuse the fact that saying “we can ultimately only rely on ourselves” is kefirah, and despite the fact that it’s sadly expected of Israeli officials, I certainly cannot blame “Mr. Keeping” for being dismayed.
Secondly, just because someone nebach isn’t frum doesn’t mean he’s not intelligent, and you really shouldn’t refer to him as “not daati”.
(I’m sure you meant “not dati”.)
Take away that one sentence and there is nothing wrong with his article. That said, let’s not throw around the “kefirah” word so cavalierly.
I try not to, but if it means what it seems to mean, there is no bigger kefirah than that.
I honestly didn’t read the original piece, but I certainly can understand why someone could be dismayed at that phrase.
Anyhow, I mostly brought it up to show everyone that you did indeed prove yourself to be RZ. 🙂
How did I do that?
By accurately “predicting” the content of your letter.
Oh, that.
I didn’t read this week’s (yet?).
What did you write about?
Rock,
My dog ate my list while shopping at Pomegranate. I couldn’t remember which brand of dog food I was supposed to get, Hadar or Kedem so I asked a pomegranate (I first asked an actual pomegranate, but he ignored me).
After running around like a wild Indian, I realized that Pomegranate does not carry dog food (or cat food) should I sue?
And why wasn’t my species on your list, Rock?
What species are you?
My precise species wasn’t listed either. I’m probably closest to “Maritus Ascribo Machinatio Morologus”, though.
The difference is, I’m reading the list off of a text message. And running all over the store in a random, repetitive way because the list is arranged according to whatever order each item popped into my wife’s head, not in aisle order. Probably called “Maritus Ascribo Machinatio Moronogus”.
Rocky’s species, “Caelebs Elatus”, would be the most likely to notice all of the other species.
Just so you all know: I was NOT responsible for the “?” between the words “happy” and “bachelor.” The editorial board, in its infinite wisdom, chose to add that particular punctuation. When I questioned Mordy about it, he said “The Rabbi” insisted on it. Will someone please explain all this to me before my head explodes?
Seems like you don’t like editorial boards.
Maybe the question mark is because not one of the definitions in Wiktionary is “happy”.
Anyhow, nice piece.
Are you allowed to post your letters here, or is there a copyright issue?
It’s not that I don’t like editorial boards. It’s that I’ve been writing these stupid letters for four years and I still can’t figure out their parameters.
Yeah, the insertion of a question mark is a bit interesting.
Is “interesting” in that sentence a euphemism?
I guess so.
Are they saying we can’t promote the happiness of bachelors?
Apparently.
I see on the other thread you don’t appreciate that the editorial board here (what we call “the mods”) won’t allow external links.
That one I do understand, actually. They do allow hebrewbooks.org, though, for discussions in learning.
A tip: you can give a hint, and we can google.
Rock,
Reading this week’s article gave me a scare. You asked someone to shoot you. Are you for real?
Well, seeing as how it was like what, 50 degrees today? I’m reconsidering. 🙂
Well, since most men insist on being married to only one woman at a time, people want to force all men to get married.
BUMP!!
In honor of the upcoming Chag, I invite all CR members, posters & lurkers, to read (or reread) RZ’s famous quiz (page 1, above). Those privileged to live in scenic Flatbush will surely recognize themselves. And those less fortunate who live in distant lands like Cleveland & Chicago, where it is difficult to find a minyan, a kosher chicken, a man with a black Borsalino & a grey beard, or a woman in a genuine European human-hair sheitel and the other accoutrements of Flatbush femininity, will gain greater understanding of our great borough.
Also notable and praiseworthy is Mr Zweig’s analysis of the shidduch crisis from A to N. After gallons of ink and gigabytes of cyber-ink have been spilled in a futile quest to resolve the Crisis, Mr Zweig defines it with clarity and precision. And having defined the crisis, the cure cannot be far behind.
As regards the shidduch crisis, Hashem never sends a machlah without there first being a cure for it. The problem in my humble opinion, is that we are loathe to acknowledge a very real source of the machlah (in today’s times), which is the way in which shidduchim are conducted in this generation. I know there are people who strongly disagree with my opinion, but that does not mean there is no truth to what I believe.
In my own generation we did not have a shidduch crisis, not in the epic proportions we see today, where SO many people are still single in their 30s or more. Parents of young men and women did not typically check each other out to death before giving a “go” to a set up,the girls were often asked directly by the “fixer upper” if they would be interested in going out with “that nice boy I know from my shul” and the boys were given a girl’s number (no pictures) and called the girls up and asked them out after a conversation of at least a few minutes’ duration. If and when they did not want to go out again, they acted like the grownups they purported to be and told the other person directly. With the exception of chassidic circles or the like, where ONLY official shadchanim made the matches, and people met in a “beshow” or similar date, most frum couples that I know, either met on their own, or were fixed up by friends and family, who gave the boy the girl’s number and the rest was up to the young couple. No one did a background check on each other’s families, until and unless there was a real potential in the relationship. There were no such things as resumes (I DETEST that expression)or research (what is this – a term paper?), and no references (ditto)were called (unless they were our personal friends who knew the boy or girl).
We live in a time that has virtually crippled the process of boys and girls growing up in a normal environment, to feel comfortable in conversing with the opposite gender, and able to be themselves. I do “get” that we also live in morally reprehensible times and as a result need to be even mroe vigilant, but there has to be a safe, reasonable, and morally wholesome and proper way to have boys and girls be comfortable with each other from an early age. There was in my childhood, and in my teen years as well.
Now bring on all the criticisms of my point of view. I respect that there are those who disagree. These are my observations over the last 15 years or so and I have seen nothing to change my mind yet.
Oomis, you’ve never (that I recall) refuted my response to your theory: do those who don’t employ the methods you object to have a higher success rate of marrying?
Oh my.
This was so not what I intended on starting when I posted.
Purim is just a few days away.
I suppose Haman’s daughter didn’t exactly get what she intended on either when she spilled the trash out the window.
(Not that I’m comparing myself to any unsavory characters here.)
Lighten up all of you!
L’Chayim!
Oomis, you’ve never (that I recall) refuted my response to your theory: do those who don’t employ the methods you object to have a higher success rate of marrying”
DY – respectfully – Nowadays, we have hobbled our ADULT kids from even thinking it is normal to meet girls or guys on their own. They are brainwashed in Yeshivas and Seminaries into thinking it is an aveira gemura to even talk to people of the opposite gender. MY own kids who have not been brought up to think that way, still DO believe that it is wrong to even HEAR info about another shidduch when someone else is working on a shidduch for them. Mind you, the girls don’t even know if the first boy’s side is agreeable to go ahead, but until they know for sure that they will either not go out with the boy at all, or not go out a second time, they are not willing to even discuss other possibilities. That is a huge time-waster IMO, especially for the girls, who are l’chatchilah at a disadvantage in the numbers game.
B”H a million times, I am married to my husband davka because I accepted a date with him for the the next day after I was scheduled to meet a blind date. He called as I was leaving for home to get ready for it. The blind date, as it happened, was a complete dud, he was ill-mannered and boorish, two things that really turn me off. Had I put the second guy (my husband) off by saying I was “busy” (another term I dislike, among the several I have mentioned)) he would likely have shied off from calling me again. We met by the way, at my job, when he came in to purchase some seforim from the publishing house where I was employed, and I was working the front desk while editing a manuscript. MET ON THE JOB????? WHEW! Almost blasphemous…
So my answer is, yes, I think they might have a little more success, though clearly the shidduch “protocols” have affected all frum kids from the very modern to the chareidi. It cannot help but affect all of them, and even the more modern ones are dating a little differently today than in previous generations.
This crisis did not happen overnight, nor in a vacuum. It happened because we bought into a vision of tznius that makes the very idea of dating, untzniusdig. Unless it follows the “protocol,” of course. Read some of the “Ask the Shadchan” letter in the Flatbush Jewish Journal. They are really eye-opening signs of the times. I have seen a lot of ill-advised actions there, people turning away shidduchim because the boy wore the wrong sox, or mothers wringing their hands because their precious maideleh (GASP!) met a boy on her own (What WILL the neighbors think???) These and other types of things are hindering many of our kids from getting married. JMO, of course. I know you disgree. That’s ok, because I likewise disgree with opinions that are different from my own in this regard. It’s what makes this forum great. If we all agreed, it would be very boring.
We agree on at least one thing, oomis.
Were you being polite (as usual) when you referred to some of the things you read in “Ask the Shadchan” as “ill-advised”?
Some of the advice in that column has my hair standing up on end.
Literally.
(Under my sheitel, of course.)
Oomis, I concur with golfer; you are one of, if not the, most polite and respectful posters in this forum.
If your issue is waiting for an answer from one prospective until going out with another, I agree that that’s pointless. I think those who don’t go out until someone finishes working on a shiduch for them are being silly (if I’m understanding the scenario correctly).
But this has nothing to do with dating in a tzniusdik way.
Your experience, that the shidduchim process has become more conservative, is true within your framework, but in a broader historical sense, the yeshivish way is still far more liberal than how they did it in “the heim”.
Can someone please tell me how to start a thread?
Regarding shidduchim, there was an interesting article in “The Kuntris” about dating (Daas Torah something-or-other feature.)
If your issue is waiting for an answer from one prospective until going out with another, I agree that that’s pointless. I think those who don’t go out until someone finishes working on a shiduch for them are being silly (if I’m understanding the scenario correctly).”
It is indeed, and your understanding of what I posted is accurate. Thanks for the kind words, btw. You and Golfer made my day, and it has been not so pleasant, otherwise, as I woke up with the flu and 102 degrees fever this morning 🙁
FYI: I met Mordy today and he told me that there are some Rabbonim in Flatbush who are pressuring him not to publish ANY of my letters, period. Apparently they don’t think people should be allowed to laugh a little on Shabbos. They don’t want any of what they consider “letzonis” in the FJJ. Frankly I have a good mind to just chuck the whole enterprise. I don’t want to be in middle of a machlokes; it’s simply not worth the aggravation.
-RZ
Write the letters, then self-publish.
And where exactly shall I do that?
Right here!
Thinking about starting a blog.
Didn’t you once have one?
Yes, I did.
So don’t you think you would have a larger readership here?
Dunno.
If you build a blog, they will come.
Amazon.com lets you publish for kindle.
I’m new to this party, so forgive the non-sequitor. Are we talking about, and to, the same Rocky Zweig that was a day camp counselor in the 60’s in Boro Park, and who wote such classics as “Hey, Rebbe Rebbe” and “Who Will Buy (this Spitball Gun)”?! If it is, this is my chance to say thank you for 4 decades of smiles, just thinking about those days. Go, Beer Shmuel!!
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