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Assuming your description is not a euphemism-laden attempt to describe someone entirely different, perhaps you should look into Yeshiva Ohr Yisrael in Boston. It is a small yeshiva, with excellent secular studies, an understanding of the need for leisure activities, and a hanhala that is par exellence second to none.
It is also discussed elsewhere on this site; perhaps you can search.
Yes. It must stop immediately, or we are in grave danger that people will begin to ask whether asking if things have gone to far has gone to far has gone to far.
I am likely among the more liberal Coffee Room denizens and I agree with lilmod ulelameid that this is sick. It is unquestioned even in secular society that it can be uncomfortable for women to wear bathing attire. Here, there is a clear, widely observed religious stricture that coincides with the widely recognized secular sensibility. The state should make accommodations for its religious citizens. In this particular case, Switzerland allowed the girls to wear “tznius” bathing suits, which makes it far less egregious. But it is still a bad idea, IMO, to favor something as random as swimming lessons over religious observances.
As far as the comparison to sex education, I don’t love mandatory sex education either. But at least the case can be made that it is necessary to ensure that children learn the things they need to know and that we know from experience may be difficult to teach. That does not apply to swimmming.
In the car yesterday my son turned on When Zaidy Was Young 2. I must have listened to it literally a few hundred times, but I still found it so enjoyable. The lines are the lines, and some of our favorites are below, but the characterizations are hysterical and true to life. We have all encountered people like Mr. Osborne (mainly at the DMV), like Mr. Farzammelt, like Mr. Genugshoin. Maybe I am reading too deeply into it, but when Mr. Genugshoin yells in his heavy (and yet untraceable) accent about the the Bullzoders coming up to the shul, one wonders whether he flashed back to his formative experiences of anti-semitism in Europe. The invocation of the saying “mayors never go to bar mitzvahs” is pitch-perfect, leaving Hyman and Zelda constantly on the line where we can’t tell if they are as comically foolish as the rest of the characters, or if they appreciate as well as we do the preposterousness of the goings on.
The story is so entertaining that you almost forget that the plot is this: some people daven in a run down building. They get an eviction notice. Instead of looking for alternate accommodations to rent, they do nothing. One of my favorite lines is when Eli asks Zaidy whether they did anything about the notice, and Zaidy says, “for the next two weeks, the Chevra Mishnayos and Free Loan Society met every night!” The bar mitzvah approaches, and still they do nothing. The only people doing anything are Heshy and Manny, and their plan has several flaws.
Finally, as the bar mitzvah is about to begin and the bulldozers are about to tear down the building, the mayor arrives, and threatens to prosecute a city worker for doing his job. But the characters are so endearing and the story so entertaining that the nonsensical story line doesn’t even register.
Some favorite lines:
“But by unz yidden, our hopes and our dreams and our dreams are our hopes. Do you know what I mean kinderlach?” “I hope so”.
“I imagine so, Zaidy, I imagine so…”
“Heshy and Manny are tearing up the city?”
“With deepest regards, Mr. Untervelt”
“There was a little nice hall where you could leave your coat.”
“Of course there were stains on the glass on the windows. And on the tables and chairs too!”
In my dream shul, there would be lots of interesting people to talk to the whole davening. There would be no uptight yekkes (redundant?) shushing everyone because they are having trouble focusing – after all, if they’re focus was so intense, they wouldn’t notice the chatting. In fact, they already don’t notice that nobody likes them.
There would be a rollicking kiddush after davening on shabbos where people who like to drink would drink, and people who like to eat would eat, and it would be paid for by the $5 fines that would be issued when people shush ($10 when they shush a crying baby).
There would be lots of seats in the shul and at kiddush. Every speech would be voluntary, i.e. not in the middle of davening (and they would thus be sparsely attended, unless the speaker took pains to make them really interesting).
And on behalf of my son, they would do Moshe Emes between each aliyah on shabbos and also on Monday and Thursday.
There are not enough boys in Ohr Yisroel to draw general conclusions about “type” or “yeshivish” or “going off the derech”. Also, the yeshiva is trying to be something that doesn’t really exist in the yeshiva world, so it is difficult to label.
From what I have heard, the yeshiva is well-run, and both limudei kodesh and chol are on a high level. For a few reasons, I imagine this is going to continue.
First, the rosh yeshiva comes from a strong yeshivish background but has strong ideas about development of the bachurim in areas other than learning as well, including chol and middos. Conversely, the baalei batim involved in the yeshiva are accomplished in limudei chol and careers, but are strongly committed to ruchnius. The yeshiva is a product of an idea that the founders, including the rosh yeshiva and baalei batim had, to create a particular type of yeshiva. They have b’h been successful to this point, but if it does not work out, unlike some other yeshivas, they will not re-brand themselves as another kind of yeshiva so that people can maintain their shtellars.
I can only speak for myself. Absolutely not.
I don’t think there are any Jews in Boston. I know people think there are butbif that were true they would have maybe a decent kosher restaurant.
I once listened to goyishe music and now I am a Christian missionary. I will never forgive the goyishe music I listened to for doing this to me.
All the Chofetz Chaim guys I know are baalabatim.
He just called me to let me know I should pass this along – he does not exist.
(raises hand)
1: A friend of mine was pressured to go out before he was ready. He was not planning to date, but the shadchan convinced his parents that they had already agreed, and that since the girl was in town only for another day, the date had to happen immediately. He barely had time to shave and he had to borrow a (borderline) decent car and didn’t really have time to clean it, etc. etc.
The shidduch didn’t work out. A few months later, another friend of mine got engaged to the woman with whom the first friend had gone out. Some time later, I asked the second friend if his wife had discussed this date she had had with a tzifloigeneh guy who couldn’t be bothered to shave or rent a decent car. He said she had mentioned it, without mentioning names of course because they don’t speak lashon hara. I told him he could tell his wife that the guy wasn’t really that bad…
2: When I was dating my wife, she asked, what is your reaction when you find out that you are wrong or made a mistake? I thought about it for a few minutes, and then answered very seriously, “I don’t really know, I can’t say that has ever happened before.”
She married me ON THE SPOT.
I don’t know why this question is even relevant. Only a goy would wear a kippah serugah.
Could lead to dancing.
“What about someone who does not like math, or social studies, or school in general. Is sending them to school considered abuse?”
In fact, sending such people to school is not considered abuse. A better question would be whether sending them to school ought to be considered abuse. That would be a more difficult question to answer, but I lean toward something like, if you need to medicate otherwise functioning children so that they can sit through school, it ought to be considered abuse.
I completely agree with DaasYochid. It is useful to ask people who are off the derech what led them to go off the derech. It is also useful to ask people who observed them, their rebbeim, their families, etc. Every answer you get will be a useful data point but every answer will also be based in large part on the biases of the person giving the answer. Additionally, there are probably almost as many reason for going off the derech as there are people who went off the derech.
My highly biased answer, which applies to everyone who went off the derech: Because they were not getting enough out of frumkeit, at least in the short term, to keep them on the derech.
Daasyochid just when I found the final missing piece to the puzzle, Popa graduated.
Not sure how Obama’s birthplace is a conspiracy theory. Do people think that the Democrat establishment had a brilliant idea in 1961 to hire a couple to have a baby overseas, whom they would then raise and promote to the presidency? If so, I wholeheartedly agree.
Joseph: Not really. Not every problem requires a ban as its solution.
DY:
“I have been advised by someone involved in phone and computer filtering and monitoring programs that people should stay away from WhatsApp – not because of some theory a rebbe or rav came up with, but based on real life experiences.”
The conclusion does not follow from the implied premise. I have no doubt (he wrote sarcastically) that thousands of otherwise entirely innocent people are attracted to a life of crime by Whatsapp. However, I am not making a decision for thousands of people. I am making a decision for myself and my family. I am confident that neither me nor my siblings are in danger of (to use the euphemisms) getting “caught up” in a “web of aveiros” simply because we use the same communication app as other people who have used those apps for wrongful purposes.
I have always been amazed at the ability of rebbeim to immediately assume all of the terrible things that will be done with technology. I have done a lot of terrible things in my life but with respect to Whatsapp and texting, the worst thing I have done is curse when I realized that I couldn’t easily contact my siblings who don’t have Whatsapp or texting.
If the OP in this topic is accurate, it is very depressing. If the responses are accurate, I should go buy a faster vehicle to race off the derech.
Fortunately, I don’t think the responses are accurate. You should get in touch with Ner Yisroel – they are perhaps the best combination of a stable institution with a diverse student body. They understand that it is their mission to facilitate Torah, not to sell it at a markup to the people who could have it anyway (and then expect kavod to boot). They are meticulous about tuition, but IME experience tend to be reasonable as well.
Of course a mesorah needs a mekor. That is why we are so careful to make up a mekor for each of our mesorahs.
Q: When do you not eat the afikoman because you have another chiyuv that trumps it?
A: When tisha b’av falls out on the second night of pesach.
I had the very same problem as OP, so I worked on disliking myself to the point I was sure that I loved all my friends as much as myself.
I wonder if the reason we make a shalom zachor for boys and a kiddush for girls is because women cannot be chayav in a mitzvas asei shehazman grama.
Daas Yochid, I hope you are incorrect, because Mendy Wald’s song “R’ Chanina Ben Tradyon” was taken from a song called “Via Dolorosa” which is as churchy as can be.
IME “Modern Orthodoxy” is a straw man that a lot* of black-hat Orthodox Jews use to make themselves feel better.
*Specifically, the ones who need to feel frummer than other people. This is not by any means a tenet of black-hat Orthodoxy.
OP has clearly never met a single Modern Orthodox person.
No, we have not gone too far. At least I have not. I am a high-class corporate-attorney and I am sitting in my office on the 57th floor wearing a rusty-old bathrobe.
Put some chicken soup in the houseplants.