To Your Own Self Be True--Or Maybe Not?

? אם אין אני לי, מי לי

? וכשאני לעצמי, מה אני

? ואם לא עכשיו, אימתי

"If I am not for myself, who is for me? 
And if I am only for myself, what am I? 
And if not now, when?" (Avos 1:14, translation from chabad.org)


These famous words of Rabbi Hillel have been going through my head quite frequently. They seem so wise and so obvious, yet so hard to fulfill in practice. 

If I am not for myself, who is for me? 

When I tell people my story, I often get the response "How can you live this way? You have to be true to yourself".


I see their point. Living a double life is hard--very hard. I feel awkward in the frum world, like I am pretending to be someone whom I am not. I feel like a hypocrite when I tell my children that they may not play with a muktzah toy on shabbos--then go into my room, lock the door, and use the internet. I hate having to lie to my children to hide my aveiros, and having to explain everything to the rest of the world.


I can't help but wonder what it would be like to live life honestly--on my terms. I could be myself without needing to hide anything. Avoid the hassles of observance, the fights with my husband over religious issues, and the lies.


However...

And if I am only for myself, what am I?


My decisions affect others. 


Throughout my life, I have consistently been labeled as selfish. While I try to be a good person, I have never been the type to go out of my way to do chessed projects. I am terrible at cleaning and am therefore constantly called selfish for not doing my "fair share". (This is despite of the fact that I do far more than my fair share of things that I am good at. When I work on group projects at the school, the other people often end up being the group while I do the project).  


To an extent they are right. When describing myself, "selfless" is not the word that would come to mind. Especially in the midst of this crisis, I find that I spend way too much time considering my own needs over those of my children and husband.


As I know that I have this fault, I realize that I need to try to rectify it by focusing on the needs of others. And I just can't justify breaking up my family in order to avoid feeling like a hypocrite. What kind of person would that make me?


On the other hand, I wonder if staying in this environment is in fact hurting my children. When the very act of telling my children that the petrified log in front of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History is 200 million years old sparks a huge argument, maybe staying in this environment isn't the best thing for the kids. 


Or maybe I can find a balance, a way to live my life, educate my children, and maintain shalom bayis. How? I don't know.


And if not now, when?


Who knows?

"You Can Be Anything that You Want to Be, If You Try Hard Enough"

...Or maybe not.

When I was in ninth and tenth grades, my family lived in a small town far from any substantial frum community. I spent those years in a public school that had only five Jewish students, of which I was the only frum one.

In tenth grade I made friends with the girl who sat next to me in math class. Leila, a Muslim immigrant who came from Pakistan at the age of five, was one of the few students in the school who could relate to my religious observance, and I was one of the few students who understood her. We discussed topics such as modesty and dietary laws, and I was there to support her when her father caught her with a picture of a boy with his arm on her shoulder. The other students would not have been able to understand why her father cared.

One day Leila was quite upset. She described to me how she had spent hours writing and rewriting an essay for her honors' English class. She was distressed because she felt that no matter how many times she would try to rewrite it, the essay would still be terrible. Leila was an intelligent girl so I was sure that she was exaggerating, but I offered to look over her essay and help her rewrite it.

After our math class we went to the library to look at the essay. I was shocked. Using the word terrible to describe the essay would be an understatement. The essay was so bad that I could not understand what she was attempting to write. It was clear to me that she really had tried, but that for some reason she had no grasp of grammar. So I sat with her and helped her rewrite her essay, and then did the same at least once a week at lunch for the rest of the year.

One day I asked her, "Why are you in honors' English if writing is so difficult for you?" To me it seemed that remedial English would have been a more appropriate placement. She explained to me that her immigrant parents wanted her to fulfill the American dream of going to an ivy-league university, so that she could get into a top medical school and become a doctor, so her parents insisted that she stay in the honors'-level English track. She told me that she wished that her parents would let her take courses that were more appropriate for her.

Her parents had absorbed one of the most common beliefs of modern American society, that a person can be anything that he or she wants to be by trying hard. This belief seems to transcend religious and cultural boundaries, and Leila's parents simply could not understand that their daughter could not do well in honor's English, no matter how hard she tried. Leila was quite good at math and may well have done fine at a middle-of-the-road state college, and then possibly have gone to medical school, by taking an appropriate English class that would have taught her the skills that she needed to succeed. Alternatively, if she really could not learn how to write well enough to graduate college, she may have been able to find a trade that suited her. If Leila had been my daughter, I would also have had her evaluated for learning disabilities. By pushing their daughter to go in a direction that was not appropriate for her, her parents were setting her up for failure.

This attitude is seen particularly strongly in the frum world. The frum world defines success quite narrowly, yet argues that everyone can achieve that measure of success if they try hard enough. While some "elite" sectors of the secular world are guilty of having the same attitude, in most secular households success is defined broadly enough that everyone can succeed at something. When success for a man is defined as being able to learn gemara for hours per day, is it any surprise that many people end up feeling like failures? Many people simply cannot do that, even if they "try hard". If success for a girl is defined as being a good mother to a large family, is it any surprise that many people fail?

People are different by nature. Everyone is unique, and effort is often not enough to compensate for having inherent difficulties in a particular area. No matter how hard I try, I will never be a good baalebusta. Hopefully one day I will achieve the level of "mediocre". So why should I spend my life working towards something that I will always be bad at, rather than working towards a goal that will enable me to excel?

I unfortunately lost touch with Leila and do not know what happened to her. I, however, am determined to do what Leila would have done if she had the choice. I am going to follow the direction of my innate abilities and find a way to succeed at something.

Clothing and Identity Among the Orthoprax and OTD

Image Source:
http://www.heavenwarddesigns.com/

Over the last few days I have been thinking about my last post, the one that I typed on yom tov while having my hair covered, and Undercover Kofer's response that he has also used the computer on shabbos while covering his head (except that he was weraing a yarmulke, of course). So here I am posting again on shabbos, reflecting on the significance of clothing to the Orthopraxer.

While clothing does not define a person, people throughout society use clothing as a manner of expressing their identities. Making a dramatic change in dress is usually associated with the individual making a dramatic change in personality or role in life.

This is even more true in the Orthodox community, where people are routinely identified and even referred to by the clothing they wear. A Litvish man is often called "black hat" and it is not uncommon to hear statements such as "Sara is marrying a streimel", when she is actually getting married to its wearer. For this reason, when an Orthodox person changes his or her way of dress it makes an even bigger statement than it does in the secular world.

Therefore, when a person does not feel comfortable identifying as non-religious he or she makes a point of keeping to the same standard of dress as before. Conversely, if a person wants to show that he or she is more modern and/or not frum altogether, the message is often intentionally broadcast through clothing choices.

In my case, as I imagine in many others, this even applies in private. I still often dress tznius at home even as I am committing aveiros. The only explanation that I have for this is that I am simply not comfortable (yet) with identifying as non-frum. I still identify as a member of the frum community despite not wanting to be part of it.

This probably also explains why some people who have recently gone off-the-derech dress in a manner that is more provocotive than that of general society. By dressing in a manner that is the direct opposite of tznius, it expresses that one wants to be sure that she is not identified with a community that she despises. Even among those who are still frum, those who simply wish to be more modern typically change their dress more than anything else, such as kashrus standards.

So, readers, what do you think? At which stage of your departure from obervance did you change your manner of dress partially or totally? Were you keeping shabbos while dressed in a non-frum (by anyone's standard) manner, or did you break shabbos while dressed as before?

On Individuality and Education

Yesterday I completed a computerized practice test for the GRE. For those of you who are not familiar with it, the GRE is a standardized test that prospective graduate students take so that graduate schools can have an objective standard against which to measure all potential applicants. The test consists of three sections, one of which is an analytical writing section which requires the test-takers to write two essays on the topics given.

The particular practice test that I took required me to write an essay, in thirty minutes or less, either supporting or opposing implementing a mandated national curriculum for all students in the United States from kindergarten to college. Here was my response:

Quality education is fundamental to the success of society. Therefore, the national government should do everything within its power to ensure that all children receive a high-quality education. While one may think that a set national curriculum is the appropriate means of achieving this goal, having a national curriculum would like do more harm than good. Requiring a national curriculum would reduce innovation within education, limit the ability of educators to individualize the educational process, and restrict some of the freedoms that are part of the foundation of a free country.

Human knowledge and discovery develops over time, and this is certainly true in the field of education. Researchers in the field of education, which is part science and part art, regularly develop new theories which enhance or even transform the way that educators view the educational process. In order for a new hypothesis to be accepted as a theory, it must be empirically tested in an educational setting. If schools are required to follow a national curriculum, the opportunities to develop and test new theories, as well as the motivation to do so, will be greatly decreased.

No two students are alike, and it therefore follows that it would be ineffective to teach all students in the same manner. Some students are more talented at certain subjects than other students and therefore students should be given the opportunity to take advanced or remedial courses as needed. There is also a wide discrepancy amongst students and even among regions of the country in terms of student preparation and motivation. Students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds would likely need more educational support than a standard curriculum would provide, while students from other backgrounds may find the additional support redundant.

Additionally, imposing a federally-mandated curriculum limits the rights of parents to control the upbringing of their children. In a free society, parents are given the ability, within reason, to educate their children according to their values. Therefore, parents who prefer one type of education over another, regardless of whether the preference is based on educational reasons, religious reasons, or philosophical reasons, should be given the right to educate their children according to their beliefs, provided that a minimum standard of competence is met.

Therefore, in the interest of providing a solid education for all children within a free society, a national curriculum should not be implemented. The federal government should instead actively encourage educational innovation within school systems and provide for a diversity of educational options for the public. Allowing for a wide variety of educational approaches is the best way to implement unique and appropriate educational techniques for every child.

Since taking the practice test I have spent a bit of time thinking about my twenty-minute essay response. My immediate negative reaction to the proposed idea demonstrates what I view to be a fundamental flaw in many restrictive social systems--the emphasis on conformity. While the pressure to conform has the essential benefit of maintaining a structured society, it also has the potential, when taken to its extreme, to hamper innovation, limit individuality, and restrict the rights and freedoms of the members of that society.

It seems clear that the best, although by virtue of its subjectivity somewhat flawed, approach is to strike an appropriate balance between the two extremes. This can be achieved by having some degree of structure and rules that all members of society need to follow, while allowing for individuality and alternative approaches whenever possible. Regarding the topic of the essay, the best approach would be to have some general minimal educational guidelines that all schools, public or private (Ohalei Torah, are you listening?), are required to meet while allowing flexibility in all other areas of the curriculum.

Orthodoxy, by its very name (k'shmo kein hu), suggests that it requires a higher level of conformity than average. To me, this seems to be both its advantage and one of its biggest faults. Many ba'alei teshuva are attracted to Orthodox Judaism precisely because of its orthodoxy. Many people feel that the secular world as a whole is too permissive and long for a return to a structured lifestyle with set social norms, and this structure can be found within Orthodox Judaism. However, that same structure and social norms serve to strangle those who cannot fit into the prescribed box permitted for them. As the box continues to get smaller, those who desire conformity will feel more comfortable, while more people on the other end of the spectrum will be pushed out of the box.

To those who are left inside, I would like to ask a simple question. Is it worth it to have a smaller box with more structure and more exclusivity? Do you understand that not everyone can fit into such a small box? The answer is not that we should try harder or have more bitul. No amount of bitul in the world can make one box work for everyone. Every individual is unique so why can't we build our own boxes, or better yet, a box big enough to fit everyone's little boxes?