Lilmod Ulelamaid

“Anyone ever play The UnGame?

My wife made me play it when we were dating.

I don’t remember much about it, just that it is not a game at all.

It was torture.”

Good thing you kept going out anyhow.

That particular comment was referring to a previous post.

Joseph, I agree with you 100% that the more Yeshivish the community the less divorces (in general, imho). In fact, that is why I always get upset when people attack the more Yeshivish ways of dating as though they are to blame for the rising divorce rate.

BUT, I think that there is a big difference between saying that the more Yeshivish/Chassidish ways are the reason for the high divorce rate (which as you pointed out does not seem to be substantiated by the facts), and saying that there are people who would be better off going out more often or in different ways.

As I keep pointing out, these things are very individual and everyone has to do what’s right for him/her.

One thing that is bothering me about this conversation: If it’s untznius for people to go out more than a handful of times, or to have more casual dates (even though it’s for toeles), why is it okay for men to be talking to women online (and telling them that the way they date is untznius)?

Personally, I think that both things fall in grey areas of halacha, which doesn’t mean that there is no right and wrong, but it does mean that it depends on the individual and the situation and therefore only the person himself can make his own cheshbonos (by weighing the ideal against the reality).

I totally agree with you that dating has to be as tznius as possible, but it also has to be effective, and what that necessitates is different for everyone.

ZD – first of all, I wanted to apologize if the tone in my last post was too harsh. I was tired when I wrote it. I do get frustrated when I have to keep repeating myself, but I should have found a nicer way to phrase things.

In any case, your comments weren’t relevant to my comments because I said nothing about the halachos or the way in which online businesses work. And I certainly never claimed that you are not an expert in either.

All I said was that if it’s assur then it’s assur and you can’t claim that it has to be okay because there is no other way to do things.

And btw, in terms of the halachos (which is not what I had been talking about), there may be different opinions or situations. There certainly is no place to critize Poskim who give a different psak than what you were given.

I can’t look it up right now, but I’m pretty positive the Mishna says that a Kohen’s life takes kadima over a yisrael and a man over a woman and that this is regardless of who is more righteous.

However, I don’t know if that means that Kohanim are more spiritual than Yisraelim. That may have to do with one’s definition of spiritual.

ZD – please read my post carefully before commenting on it. Nothing you said in your last two posts relates to my comment.

Why does your name keep switching between Comlink-x and Randomex? Did you do that or did the mods do that?

What do either of them mean anyhow?

Joseph:”If the psak is you can’t keep your Amazon store open on Shabbos, how’s that different than the storefront with the non-Jewish Saturday worker?”

ZD: “If you use Fufillment by Amazon, you cant close it”

ZD, if your statement was a response to Joseph’s statement, it’s not a good response. If it’s assur, then it’s assur, and you are not allowed to open it in the first place.

Note: I have no idea if it’s assur or not – I am just noting that the response is not a logical response to the premise.

“Rav Moshe says it is permitted to take public transportation if necessary”

Emphasis on the words, “if necessary”. According to Chazal if someone takes a route that involves seeing people untzniusly dressed and he had another option, he is a rasha.

In any case, the point of this discussion is to figure out the best option. If the whole purpose of his taking public transportation rather than driving the girl is to be more tznius and meanwhile it’s actually less tznius, that would defeat the point.

WTP- I don’t see why it’s untznius though. It just might be uncomfortable for her the first few times she goes out, but after that she shouldn’t mind. I certainly don’t care anymore if people know I’m going on a date.

Even if you don’t take public transportation, they can see you when you are in the hotel lobby or they can see the guy when he comes to the door or they can see both of you as you are walking to the car (that sounds even more awkward to me! How do people manage that?)

just uncovered this one:

http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/dating-without-a-car

I saw something like that once when I was looking at past threads. Someone asked the moderators about it, and they said “don’t worry; it’s just a joke”. Truthfully, I was wondering how they could know that they wouldn’t really meet for real.

Well, we could try that, LB. But I wonder if that’s safe. The whole world would know when I would be where. And I really would have no way of knowing who LB is, because anyone in the world could pretend to be her.

mw13 +1

ZD: “He was defiantly equating the internet with intermarriage and divorce”

“Facebook tumah website has brought millionS of yidden to divorces & intermarriage R”L”

That quote wasn’t from Nisht; it was from MA. Matan and I were talking about Nisht’s statement.

Yeah, well, I got nervous because Joseph keeps posting that the only way for a girl to get to Olam Haba is by supporting her husband and sons’ learning. So I got scared that I wouldn’t have a cheilik in Olam Haba.

Now I have to figure out where I’m getting the money from. Any offers?

Joseph: “As far as the issue, if you were driving solo from Ashdod to Haifa and the nice neighborhood seforim store owner guy your family knew for years needed to get there too, would you offer him a ride? (Or feel comfortable if he asked you for a ride.)”

I didn’t realize that was what you meant. I have thought about that. That is why I make sure to check guys out well especially when I’ve gone out in the US. I was really upset once when a shadchan tried pressurring me to go out with someone without checking him out first and she didn’t “chap” why I thought it was dangerous (amongst other reasons).

On the other hand, the counter-argument might be: aren’t people supposed to be checking the guy out well enough to know that he is someone they would trust enough to marry or let their daughter marry?

Joseph, I hear. I still have a few problems with it:

1. As it is, there is a problem that guys in Brooklyn sometimes won’t go out with girls from other places because they don’t want to have to travel. Won’t this make them more unlikely to do so since dating will be so much easier in Brooklyn where they don’t have to pick the girl up?

2. Isn’t the boy supposed to meet the parents before they go out? Or does it not work that way anymore? Or is the point that he would first come to the house and then they would go out by public transportation?

3. Wouldn’t it be unsafe for the girl to go home by herself (or is the point that he would take her home by public transportation)?

I’m also wondering if you know what others think about this issue. Are a lot of the boys and girls who date this way (by car) uncomfortable with it? Do they feel it’s a breach in tznius? Would they be more comfortable not dating this way?

Abba, I’ve never skyped, but it doesn’t sound like a good way to date to me. You need to see the person not their image on a computer.

“I have heard the street, as well as noted rabbonim and roshei yeshivos claim that the internet is the cause for today’s OTD population. This is clearly false.”

That sentence sounds inappropriate to me. You don’t say “Noted Rabbanim and Roshei Yeshiva say….” and then follow it with “that is clearly false”.

It also makes no sense. If the Rabbanim say it, it can’t be “clearly false”. The fact that something is clear to you but not to Rabbanim makes it “clearly false”? That is inappropriate and illogical and kind of gaavadik. If the Rabbanim are in fact saying something that appears to you to be clearly false, maybe you should try to figure out why they are saying something that seems to be clearly false. Maybe they know more than the average person does. Or maybe they didn’t mean what you thought they meant.

In terms of your assertion that it is clearly false because kids were going OTD before the Internet, it may be a question of numbers. There have probably been kids going off since the world was created, but the question is how many. There seems to have been an explosion in recent years, so it can be because of the Internet. I did hear recently from someone in the field that what is happening today is that as a result of the Internet, kids go from at-risk to OTD much faster (because of the online support and encouragement).

Btw, I am just responding to your statements as you made them. Personally, I don’t think that the Rabbanim are saying that Internet is the only cause of kids going OTD. The Rabbanim that I know that are dealing with the issue are clearly aware that there are many factors and that is not the factor they are targeting.

Perhaps the comments you heard were in the context of giving mussar about internet and they were just pointing out that there are kids who go OTD because of it (and not that it’s the only cause).

Joseph, I’m trying to understand your reasoning as to why a car is a problem. I’m not saying that you are wrong; I’m just trying to figure out what the issue is. Is your concern what it could lead to or that in and of itself it’s not appropriate?

Iacisrmma – I thought you meant that you thought it’s a yichud issue.

Apparently, Joseph wasn’t talking about “yichud” but about “tznius” or he would have used the word “yichud” and not “tznius”. The concept of tznius encompasses a lot more than yichud. In this case, it would have to do with the idea that boys and girls aren’t supposed to be too intimate. In general, boys and girls don’t drive around together when it’s not a dating situation, and even when men give rides to women, the women generally sit in the back (in the Yeshivish oilam, at least).

You have to do what you have to do in order to get married, but you should make sure that the dating process is conducted as tzniusly as possible and practical. I agree with him on that. What I am unsure about is:

1. Is there an alternative?

2. Even though dating should be as tznius as is possible while still being effective, different people need different things in order for dating to be effective. Just like some people might say, “why do you need to meet for more than 20 minutes?” and other people think, “no, of course I need to go out for 3 or 4 times.” and other people feel like they can’t get to know the other person well enough to be comfortable marrying them unless they actually do something on the date.

I do wonder sometimes if it wouldn’t have been better for me to have dated more “American style”. I don’t know. But the question of what is effective has to be taken into account.

But maybe for most Yeshivish 19 year olds, there is no reason why they have to date by car. I don’t know.

There actually probably are millions of intermarriages. There are more than 6 million Jews in the US, and the intermarriage rate is quite high. I don’t know the precise number, but I think it might be more than 1/3.

In terms of the rest, maybe he was calculating all of the future doros, r”l.

What other option do Yeshiva Bochurim have in the States (other than driving)?

“Why are you so surprised by that?”

I was surprised by the girls who thought the guy was cheap for not ordering a taxi. In my circles, it’s not done, and I certainly wouldn’t think someone is cheap if they didn’t.

I mainly date chutznikim, so they probably do things differently. I am referring to all my years of dating even when I was younger. However, when I was younger, most of the guys I dated were not really Yeshivish, and the ones who were Yeshivish were usually bt, so that might also be different.

Also, most of the time I was either living in a dorm or a girls’ apartment. Maybe it’s different when the girl is living at home.

“Let me give you an example: Am I posting here to serve hashem? No I’m here because I enjoy it. So you might say: “yes but by spending a certain amount of time doing things that you enjoy you get the energy to spend time later doing mitzvot”. But that’s just another way of saying serving hashem is not so important to me. Because if it was, I wouldn’t need so much time reenergizing.”

The way I would put it is if you were on a higher level, you wouldn’t need so much time to reenergize, but since you realize that you are not on that level, you know that it will be better for your Avodas Hashem if you reenergize, and perhaps given the choices, this is the best way for you to reenergize.

That is how I look at my time here.