Crisis or Change?

We were sitting around the table, and invariably the "shidduch crisis" came up. I launched into an unofficial TED talk, listing all the factors that created a struggling dating culture in the yeshivish world. 

"But what about the modern Orthodox shidduch crisis?" she asked. 

"There's a modern Orthodox shidduch crisis?" 

"Oh, very much so!" 

"I'm surprised by that. Everyone says that the reason why there's a yeshivish shidduch crisis is because singles can't socialize organically, but you're saying there is one anyway in a culture with organic socialization." 

I was telling over this conversation to Han, and he laughed. "There's a shidduch crisis all over! It's not just Jews!" Which is true. Open a newspaper. 

One of my objections to the term "shidduch crisis" is that we're being very simplistic about the problem. It's framed as strictly an issue about meeting someone and marrying them. Yet what about a divorce crisis? What about the unhappy marriage crisis? 

A childhood friend of mine married at the "ideal" age of 20. She's now divorced with children. How many of those years was she unhappy? Just because she married a decade before me doesn't mean she avoided a crisis. 

A reel popped into my feed about The Gilded Age, the HBO show that takes place in the early 1880s. The nouveau riche Mrs. Russel is determined to dominate the old money New York society that attempts to ostracize her. When an impoverished Duke comes to town, she plots to buy him to marry her daughter, Gladys. Teenage Gladys, however, is "in love" with someone else. 

Mrs. Russel tells her daughter that Billy is a "worthless non-entity" who will grow to resent Gladys. Gladys is not convinced, yet eventually is browbeaten into marrying the Duke, who is a rather nice guy despite the fact he starts a bidding war over who gets to be his Duchess.  

The woman who did the reel (don't remember her name) was saying that while the popular audience reaction is horror at Gladys's fate, considering the times . . .? Women had little to no rights. If a young woman married while young and stupid and in love, there was a strong possibility that man would turn out to be a disappointment. If he was, it wasn't like divorce was easily accessible. She could be trapped for life. So it was of the reel maker's opinion that by marrying the Duke, who could guarantee her status and influence and perhaps a chance of "love" in the future, Gladys would be making a smarter choice.  

This is a very different world than we know of today. 

People want more from marriage. Women don't need to be supported; they can support themself. Men don't need women to keep a functioning home. The state of marriage itself is in flux. 

Singles want more out of marriage. That can mean waiting longer for it. 

It's Not About Being Ready

Segment 1: 

 ". . . I'm ready." 

"It doesn't work that way," I said. 

"No, that's exactly how it's supposed to work. It doesn't happen until you're ready, but when you get ready and you least expect it, that's when it happens." 

"You are expecting it," said Jill. 

"Oh my gosh, I am not," Katie said vehemently. "At this point, I'd be positively shocked." A lie. I knew what she meant, but dead scared something won't happen is not the same as actually believing that it isn't about to.

"Maybe you aren't really ready," said Jill. 

"Of course I'm ready. I want this so much. My body is ready. Marriage and family is the divine plan. It's what everyone around me is doing. We're almost done with classes. I want it so badly." 

"Which is not the same as being ready," Jill pointed out quietly, so quietly that Katie looked up suddenly, realizing it wasn't an idle musing. 

"What do you mean?" 

"I mean maybe you aren't ready. . .You don't get things just because you want them. Just because you want them doesn't mean you're ready for them. Love and real relationships are a huge responsibility," said Jill. 

Segment 2: 

The next day, Katie had a plan. 

"I have figured it out," she said happily over breakfast. 

"What's that?" 

"I will pray for husbands for all my friends in church. And they will pray for a husband for me. That way, it won't be me asking for something for me. It won't be me wanting a husband so much. What I will be wanting so much is happiness and husbands for my friends. Not selfish. No obsessing. Outside myself. Very mature I think." 

So this was how Katie circumvented her narrative. She realized from what Jill said that it couldn't be about her wanting so badly to fall in love and get married. She realized . . . that she was being selfish worrying only about herself and had to help her friends first. So she became a Jane Austen heroine, so genuinely committed to the love and happiness of those around her that she forgot all about herself while love ripened all on its own in the background as she unknowingly readied herself. All of the outcome with none of the embarrassingly obvious effort. Or all the loopholes without any real change in attitude, depending on how you looked at it. 

—From Laurie Frankel's novel The Atlas of Love 

The Katie character is very religious (Christian), in case you didn't pick up on that. 

One of the basic tenets of faith is that we are not in control. That we don't always get what we want, when we want it. Yet what I have learned is that it's actually a very high madreiga to have actually absorbed this foundational belief. 

Katie's thought process is no different than the thought process of many a dating frummie, and I am including myself here. Girls are presented with a neat, linear timeline of marriage at 20, at 21, the latest. When that doesn't happen? Well, they kinda unravel. 

They (as was I) are gripped in torrential emotions such as disbelief ("but I'm not even picky!"), betrayal ("I followed all the rules!"), shame ("there's nothing wrong with me, I'm telling you!"), and anger. Lots of anger. Anger that they want something, and they are not getting it. 

So let's find the cosmic loophole. The segulah that'll make Hashem say, "OK, I see now what a good girl you are. Here's your groom!" (I was no different, at times.) 

In this day and age, the first time young things become aware of their own lack of control over the universe can be in their early 20s. And it's a shocker. 

Oh, we learned all the stuff in school what we believe in. But we never had much opportunity to put it into practice. There's a big difference between academics and application. 

It's letting go. Letting go of control. Letting go of finding a way to get around divine timing. Letting go of anger toward the universe. (Although, you can hold a grudge against the person who makes bitchy comments to you. That I'll allow.) 

I know of someone in her 70s who still hasn't learned. She thinks that every obstacle has a work around. That if she just works and searches hard enough everything will turn out the way she expected. She refuses to see that maybe Hashem just said no. She has no peace.  

It's better to learn earlier rather than later.  

Taxi!

Yet another dating term is making the IG rounds: the "taxi cab" or "yellow cab theory." First voiced by Miranda of that tv show, the premise is that a person (man) will commit to whoever is standing in front of them when they decide they are ready for a relationship. Meaning, it's not about the connection to the person they're committing to, it's about their own state of readiness. 

I don't deny that this definitely can happen, to some extent, but I believe it actually applies more to women than men. 

Women are, stereotypically, more geared towards commitment than men. I don't like claiming that one gender is a monolith, but little girls are raised with Bride Barbie, visions of their wedding, and awareness of their biological clock. Their purpose is to walk down the aisle, end of. No little boy dresses up as a chosson on Purim. 

Which does lead females to ignore red flags and overlook problematic behaviors. While there are an assortment of red flags and problematic behaviors, I really mean here is: he's just not that into you. 

Some men (I will not say all men, people are different) might drift along with a determined woman. She's willing the relationship into being, she's planning their future, and she's ignoring his lack of enthusiasm. Eventually, matters come to a head, and they part ways. 

The man then gets engaged to another in a matter of months. His ex, infuriated, may invoke the taxi cab: he's ready now, that's all. It wasn't about me.  

My take though, was that it was about you. He met someone else and ah! He's into her! You wanted him to be the One, but he wasn't. 

Note also that relationships require two people. Just because one person decides they are ready doesn't mean the other party will reciprocate. So this idea that a man is ready and suddenly he gets married—like, all women are falling into his embrace? Just by virtue of his readiness means that the next woman he trips over will automatically return his interest? Are all women just willing to marry any rando just to get off the market?   

Google "taxi cab theory" and hoo-eee, there are a lot of results. Apparently, a flippant line of dialogue ascribed to a character but obviously thought of by a script writer has been analyzed, debunked by experts, yet upheld by others.  

The reel that popped up in my feed was of a woman claiming that this theory is true because that's what happened to her: her long term relationship ended, the ex married shortly thereafter, then he called her up years later saying she was the one that got away. That doesn't mean the taxi theory is true. She doesn't know what his marriage is like. Maybe he's going through a mid-life crisis and decided to call up all his ex-girlfriends and sigh how unfair life is. 

I'm a reformed un-romantic. I used to think that marriage was about two people deciding to marry on a logical level—like Vulcans. But now, I believe that relationships are more than that, ideally. 

And your person, your specific person, is not a taxi.  

Logic and Love

This WSJ headline caught my eye, of course: Singles Are So Burned Out They’re Letting Spreadsheets Evaluate Their Dates by Molly Reinmann. 

The problem with dating apps is that there's no discernment; everyone is a possibility! From personal experience, that can get exhausting very quickly. 

"You become a little more willing to make compromises on things that you might not usually compromise on, just because you're so tired of searching," said Alyssa Tracy. 

Like I've been saying, frummies are not special in terms of our dating experiences.   

Former matchmaker Lily Womble says she has seen daters over-emphasize the data, causing them to minimize or numb the feelings they get in the presence of a potential partner. "Rigidity can actually be a shield against vulnerability," said Womble. 

It's not about being dogmatic. Frummies date for one purpose: marriage. But even so, a number of us can be let astray by a number of factors. The secular dating world runs by a very different timeline, and initial attraction can be mistaken for compatibility, while the relationship itself was on shaky ground to begin with. By analyzing data, singles are trying to make more intentional choices rather than letting one factor such as hotness run the show. 

For Peyton Knight . . . the rigidity shield is the whole point. "Spontaneity and fun is cool, but if you don't align with someone on basic core values that relationship is inevitably going to come to a halt," she said.  

There it is. 

The Invisible Woman

About a year back, I was in the park with Anakin on a beautiful fall day. I was in my typical underslept attire: hair shoved under a baseball cap, sunscreen but no cosmetics, a badly abused hoodie dress, comfy leggings, battered sneakers. 

Then, the park was invaded by a small army of high school girls, posing for yearbook pictures. Hair? On fleek. Makeup? Stunning. Physique? Well, they're high school girls. Fashion? On point. So many smart moto boots . . .  

I watched them simper and giggle and flip their glossy, perfectly styled manes, lip gloss glinting in the sun, and the unbidden thought popped into my head: I do not envy them at all.  

This was my inner voice talking, so no, I wasn't overcompensating for jealousy. I really did not envy them at all. 

What I saw was the cliques neatly divvying up and isolating others. I saw the Queen Bee being fawned over by her drones, clueless in her curated existence. What I saw was crippling insecurity, as some girls tried so hard to look so right for this "important" moment, yet believing they still fell short. For them, this was the high point of their existence to date, but in short order, it won't matter all that much. 

Television and movies nowadays are bemoaning how older women are "invisible," even when the main character is smokin' hot. Kathy Bates has sighed on interviews how women of a certain age are overlooked and disregarded. 

Mireille Silcoff expressed her befuddlement in a NYTimes Op-Ed, I'm a 53-Year-Old Woman. Stop Telling Me I'm Invisible. Besides for the fact that it's not true, or at least not every older woman's experience, she notes: 

Recently I canvassed a number of my middle-aged female friends and asked: If you could drink a potion and become 22 again today, would you do it? 

A few waffled, but after some thought, not one of them said yes. 

Today's culture idealizes youth, but that doesn't mean that anyone over the age of 35 simply vanishes off the earth. Nor does it mean that everyone wants to stay perpetually young, stupid, and unaccomplished.  

If you feel unheard and unseen, announce your presence. It's not about age. It's about confidence.   

Never Forget

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905

I have a theory. 

Vaccines are a contentious topic nowadays. There are many parents who are refusing to vaccinate their child based on . . . well, not much. One bogus study 20 years ago blew a hole in preventive immunity, and horrific diseases that were dying out are making a comeback. 

During covid, there was an article in The Wall Street Journal about an outbreak of virulent flu in 1957. A vaccine was developed in a couple of weeks, the military's resources was hauled in to New York City to disseminate it, and the virus was stopped in its tracks. The author was wondering what changed to today. 

My theory? The Spanish Flu killed millions. That had been only 40 years prior. The population remembered all too well the loved ones that had died, the suffering it caused. 

The same premise holds for the rise of antisemitism today. Some complain that it's synonymous with the antisemitism of 1930s Berlin, but Alan Dershowitz amends that to say it's like the antisemitism of 1930s America. I've read novels that take place in 1900s New York City, and just because someone was white didn't mean he wasn't discriminated against. All forms of racism was rampant, against Italians, the Irish, anyone of color, and yes, Jews. 

Yet what why did that antisemitism ease? The Holocaust. Many in the world were horrified by what the Nazis did, even if they were antisemitic. And we, by extension, became complacent. We forgot how it once was, how baked into the general psyche antisemitism can be. Then time passed. Survivors died out. People forgot. 

Han says the same thing regarding terror attacks. It breaks my brain a little to realize there are voting adults who were born after September 11. They didn't even exist at the time of that national trauma. They don't know what life was like before terror came to America. They just think the TSA is a pain in the ass.  

That's why it's important to remember the past. Yes, I happen to have a fascination with history, and it provides me with a framework to roll my eyes whenever I hear lines like "The world is burning." Babe, you've got air conditioning. Your great-great-grandma did not have a climate controlled living space or indoor plumbing or basic hygiene or a guarantee all her babies would, well, live. 

When we say, "Never again," we are also saying, "Never forget." Because history is important. All of it. 

No Reason

One day in the office, Han overheard a conversation, and intrigued, drifted over. 

A fellow had explained to a female co-worker that he had gone on a date, but decided not to continue for a number of problematic red flags. 

The woman was poo-pooing his choice, saying he was being too particular, questioning his judgement. 

Note that Han is the only observant Jew at work, but these two weren't even Jewish. As gentile as they come.  

There's this phenomenon I've noticed when people seem to think that their situation is unique, and ascribe it to certain circumstances. 

Like, "I'm single because my family is fruity." 

There are plenty of young marrieds with fruity families. 

Or, "I'm single because of my health condition" (meaning "no one wants to date me because of my health condition")

There are plenty of young marrieds with health conditions. 

Or, "I'm single because I'm frum." 

There are plenty of single gentiles and frei Jews out there. I didn't watch the entire Bridesmaids, but the opening scene hit so hard. Annie (Kristen Wiig) nervously enters her friend's engagement party, only to be bombarded on with snide comments about her lack of partner and fending off nebachs. 

Look, I get it. It's human nature to try to find the reason why our desires aren't fulfilled. We want to blame a specific circumstance for our singlehood, because enough people do blame singles for being single. But It's not my fault! I can't help this! 

Yet that path leads to anger and resentment. One starts railing at the constructed reason, rather than finding joy in other avenues available. 

There are plenty of people who are single and there is no reason. 

The fun part about being frum is that if you leave it to His timing, that does take the pressure off.   

Anti-Segulah

I've always had a problem with so-called "segulas," then Rabbi Natan Slifkin sucked whatever residue of mysticism out of me. So far in our marriage, Han's more mystical in outlook than I am, but now he's also reading Rabbi Slifkin's book and I (wiping away a tear) am giddy that he's come (somewhat) to the rationalist side with me. 

Han noted that one of the differences is that mysticism believes in the ability to manipulate spiritual forces to achieve their own ends—which sounds a lot like segulos. Segulos tend to be on the woo-woo side: visiting various dead sages, lifting havdalah candles to a specific height (never lifted mine, still got a tall guy), lighting various candles for unknown reasons, etc. etc. 

How come no one says, "I'm giving tzedakah as a segulah?" 

"I'm visiting a lonely elder as a segulah?" 

"I'm buying groceries for that struggling family as a segulah?" 

Segulos tend not to help anyone. 

Hashem doesn't need your candle. The dead sage is not sitting around his grave waiting to take a sack of requests up to his Manager. The havdalah candle has no correlation to one's bashert. 

Instead of a segulah, help someone. Hashem likes it when we help others. It doesn't matter what your motivation is. Ma would say, "As long as the poor man gets to eat." We know motivation doesn't mean much in Judaism; action does. 

So instead of spending money in the name of "segulah," give that money to tzedakah instead. 

Rationalist out.  

Zipper-Mouth Emoji

I was in for a 45 minute drive, so I pulled up the YU Torah app and punched on a shiur at random. Surprise me. 

I had never listened to this rabbi before, and . . . well. 

He was discussing a writing of the Rambam, specifically his take on "Do not hate your fellow in your heart." 

The Rambam wrote there is a simple solution to this. So you don't hate your fellow in your heart, the remedy is to tell them in what manner they bug you, they'll correct it, and problem solved! 

I thought he was joking, but no. He repeated this "solution" numerous times, including a separate example of rebuking someone who is violating halacha. Apparently, that person will also be glad to be "rebuked," because obviously he knows it's for his own good! 

Um . . . 

Look, the Rambam is my man. Seriously, I refer to myself as a "Rambam Girl." But, sweetie, no. This isn't going to fly. 

There is a very good reason why most of us prefer to keep our mouths shut even if resentment is percolating away in our chests. Because if telling another that a behavior of theirs bothered us was simple and straightforward, we wouldn't be dealing with ulcers. 

I do believe that the biggest problem in relationships is usually communication. Yet there are many barriers to effective communication. One of which being that none of us like critique. Sometimes, honest feedback can destroy a relationship.  

I told over this shiur to two people, and they both found it unintentionally hilarious. 

I'm still Team Keep Shtum.  

No Regrets

 "Looking back," she asked, "did you make any decisions that you think now you would've done differently?" 

She means, of course, in terms of dating. 

I wasn't even insulted; I get versions of this question from time to time, specifically from people who married at the "appropriate" age (of 21 or so). There's still that undercurrent of: It was your fault, in some way. It just doesn't make sense otherwise. 

I recently listened to a Meaningful Minute: Stories of Hope with Jackie Glaser as the guest with her husband. Jackie has quite the tale; a baalas teshuva, she only started dating in her late 30s, married at 44, and had a baby at 50. She had some insights which I had also realized in my own experiences. 

One of which being: Han is my person. Even when I'm annoyed at him, he's my person. Even when we fight, he's my person. It never, ever crosses my mind that I made a mistake or married the wrong dude or think wistfully of some other guy I went out with once. He's my person.

The only reason I know this is because I dated all the other candidates for over ten years, and no one, no one was remotely him. 

Whereas, for those who married to the first or second or third chap that they went out with, when the bumps in the road come (and believe me, they'll come) they might wonder, in a moment of weakness . . . Did I choose right? 

It's human nature. I doubt I would be different. It's only because I took the long and winding road that I know. 

This is what I tell those who are freaking because their child (typically daughter) is still unmarried in their mid-20s (gasp!): There's pros too, not just cons.  

So, no: Looking back, I know 100% I had made the right decisions. It wasn't that I was a silly, flighty 21-year-old and I said no to someone who was probably my soul mate but I had been ridiculous about something minor. 

Another thing: Ma would say, "They find you, even if you're hiding under the bed." Meaning, just because someone once said no to their potential soulmate doesn't mean Hashem decrees, "No soup for you!" Tziporah Grodko discusses this: Is Hashem that cruel? One mistake on our part and we are denied fulfillment in marriage? Shidduchim have happened all the time despite rejections along the way (including my own). If it's meant to be, it'll be.  

God, Take the Wheel

We don't have control. 

This is a message that I thought I learned after dating forever and Ma dying. Yet this message didn't really kick in until I had offspring. 

An article popped up in my feed from The Atlantic by Jessica Slice, a disabled woman, titled "The Biggest Surprise About Parenting With a Disability." I'm not a paying subscriber, so the most I could gather was from the teaser: Slice thought parenting would be incredibly difficult, considering the modern narrative, plus she is disabled to boot. 

Yet, to her surprise, she didn't find it as hard as she thought it would be. Her theory was that being disabled, she was already quite aware that she did not have control. Postpartum mothers can be suddenly dealing with an unaccommodating body, and most definitely an unaccommodating baby, and that new lack of control is terrifying. 

We hear about helicopter parents and snowplow parents and parents who sign up their fetuses for the high-tier advanced playgroup that is the first step for future success. Despite the fact that there is no proof that the high-tier advanced playgroup leads to a corner office—yet there certainly is enough data that resilience is a better predictor of accomplishment. 

The tighter our grip, the more slips away. It's not easy. We live in a culture where parents are blamed for everything, whether by society or by their own children, so it's not such a stretch that parents would think that they have to be perfectly on top of their game OR ELSE. 

I was the youngest. It was very apparent then that Ma felt little to no pressure at that point. She expected me to study and try; as long as I did that, it didn't matter if I got a bad grade. She didn't feel the need for extracurriculars, unless it was something I wanted to do. She knew what kids really want: cartoons to be watched in peace, toys, and cake. She didn't begrudge them. She was still terrifyingly European and expected good behavior and going to bed on time, but she didn't demand academic excellence. When I was in high school, I decided I wanted to do well and really applied myself.

So with my kids, I try to see them for who they are and what they need, as opposed to what I would want them to be. I try for them to feel accomplished for themselves, rather than my doing things for them. 

Will they be mad at me when they grow up? Probably. But they'll be mad at me no matter what I do, so I might as well take it easy on myself. 

We don't have control, whether we think we do or not. For many of us, our lives did not turn out remotely the way we expected. And that's ok! It's not an indicator of failure. It just means we aren't in control. 

"Tiny Beautiful Things"

After reading Lori Gottlieb's Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, I've been trying to find other books with the same therapy/self-awareness vibe. I don't remember which website I used to find Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed, but I do appreciate the recommendation. 

For a couple of years, Strayed was asked to take over a struggling online magazine's self-help column, called Dear Sugar. The book is a compilation of the questions and her responses. 

What makes her approach so unique is that instead of the typical Dear Abby model, where Abby is an invisible voice dispensing advice, Strayed begins each of her responses with a personal anecdote that seems to have nothing to do with the question. 

The anecdotes are vividly described, and most of them are quite miserable. Strayed grew up in a dysfunctional home, lost her beloved mother very young, and struggled through many years of poverty before becoming a best-selling writer. 

Somehow, magically, she manages to brilliantly tie the life lesson she learned from her own experience to the advice she dispenses to the questioner. 

As I get older, the more I see how we are all really more the same than different. We get disappointed. We figure out what we can and cannot control. We figure out our values and what's important to us. We grieve. We rejoice. 

So even though my experiences may not be exactly the same as someone else's, with 40 very close, I am still able to better see the commonality of the human condition. The empathy we should be giving one another, rather than the blame. 

It's not that Strayed's life made her perfect person to be a self-help columnist. She's not a therapist by training. But she possesses the self-awareness and self-confidence to look unflinchingly at even the most unpleasant moments of her life and turn it into a valuable lesson. 

One experience of hers that she mentions more than once was how her first marriage was to a good man, but a little voice inside kept telling her to leave. She's now been happily married to her current husband for 25+ years. Validation that is always nice to hear: Just because a person is nice doesn't mean they're for you. 

The book has some, um, UA moments, so it's not for those who are squeamish about cussing and other stuff. Yet I find it a valuable read.  

Kafoi Tov

I would love to catch up with you soon! her text said. 

I would love to also, I typed back, but the kids have the croup. 

Her response: Such tzaros by akaros! 

Huh? 

It took me a full day to decipher that phrase. Did she mean—

Oh no she didn't.

"I wasn't complaining!" I ranted to a laughing Han. "I was just making a statement! 'The kids are sick'! That's it! I wasn't saying 'Oh woe is me that I ever became a mother because I haven't slept in a week because a wheezing toddler was crying all night'!"

It became Han's catchphrase for a week, every time I made statement about the kids. "Such tzaros by akaros!" 

The annoying thing it is rhymingly catchy. 

Contemplating this phrase a bit more, I realized further my insult. 

When one marries at a, er, "elderly" age, there's this concept that one's marriage is quite simply, a miracle. A neis. Heck, your anniversary should be a codified holiday, up there with Chanukah and Purim. The impossible happened! The oil lasted for 8 days and that beyond hope spinster wed! 

If someone married at 20 and had five kids and she simply stated, "My kids are sick," no one would respond, "Such tzaros by akaros." Her marriage and children aren't miraculous. It was perfectly natural. So it's understandable if it feels like a bit much, after all. 

With the passage of time, I thought my . . . bitterness over my single experience had faded. I'm busy now with not sleeping due to a child's foot in my kidney and freaking out how to get him to eat more than Cheerios. 

Yet then a dodgeball gets hurled at my head and *ow* I'm back.   

My personal takeaway from my single decade plus was that all marriages are bashert; some are simply on a different timeline. Others don't see it that way. It's that if you're single by a certain age, chances for marrying at all plummets down to negative zero. 

Even now, married for nearly eight years, someone feels the need to remind me: you were such a helpless case that you should be on your knees every day thanking God that you're married and you have children. 

Don't get me wrong. I'm grateful. Of course I am! But I would like to be treated like anyone else who's married and has a family: that when you slept four hours—nonconsecutive—because the kids took turns waking up and wailing, that someone says, "Oy, that sounds rough!" instead of "Shut your mouth, you ingrate!"   

It Sucks Everywhere

A trailer popped up in my feed for the new film, Oh Hi, and against my better judgement, I let it play through. (It is very UA, so I do not recommend looking it up if you're squeamish.)

When Molly meets Isaac, everything seems to click into place. They are on the same page about so many things! The two have a whirlwind romance, and are off on a weekend getaway to a cabin. 

At some point, Molly sighs and gazing into Isaac's eyes, mentions something about them being a couple—to Isaac's surprise. 

Isaac quickly disabuses her of the notion. No, no, no, they're not a couple! Ha ha! No, they're just having fun! No strings fun! 

Molly then goes off the rails. She then proceeds to, in essence, kidnap Isaac in an attempt to convince him that he wants to be her boyfriend.  

OK, I have to admit that in the past, when a guy said "no," and I thought I liked him, I was sort of tempted to do the same.  

I have heard people complain, many times, that if they weren't frum they'd be married. I don't know what they are basing this on. If anyone reads anything about modern relationships, it's as much of a bleak hellscape as it is for single frummies. 

There is this phenomenon, for instance, of men as not being as "in" the relationship as his girlfriend is, but he doesn't want the drama of a breakup. So matters drift along, where she expects an imminent engagement and he's desperately hoping she'll leave him on her own volition. 

I know this isn't much comfort, but: it sucks everywhere. 

Frankly, I'm not sure if there ever was a golden age of relationships. None of us would be keen on the whole arranged marriage setup (I'm assuming). Chassidish b'shows are a rather acquired taste (cool for them, not for many). It's not like marriage guarantees a happy relationship. Because the stigma has been lessened, people actually feel free to divorce—which should be technically a good thing?—and now frum divorce is on the rise.  

There are all sorts of suggestions to completely overhaul "the system" in completely unenforceable ways. Yet the system isn't really a system, it's a vague set of guidelines that's barely being abided to. Even if the guidelines were being strictly followed, that wouldn't guarantee someone marriage, or a happy one at that. 

Yes, it seems to be grossly unfair how a 20-year-old pipsqueak trips into an engagement with seeming little effort. But as I get older, and presumably a wee bit wiser, I've learned that everyone struggles in some way at some point in their lives.  

In the end, none of us know what others are going through. It's often not public knowledge. So while it may seem as though those young chippies are skipping off into a blissful future, who knows what they have dealt with or will deal with in their lives? A wedding is a beginning, not an ending. Life can be one crazy ride.  

Back to the Past

Today's fashion trends has me laughing. 

You know how in Back to the Future, when Marty ends up 30 years in the past, in 1955, and everything is beyond recognition and comprehension? 

So if Marty took the Delorian back 30 years from 2025 to 1995 (God, I'm old) he would see that—

Not THAT much of a difference. 

OK, cell phones aren't around yet, and he would actually have to use a paper map, but the fashions are the same. 

And, well? '90s fashion kinda sucked. 

Floor length denim skirts? 

Platform shoes? 

The long, blocky blazer? 

They're baaaa-aaaaack. 

Skater jeans? Why? 

I can't find anything to wear. 

I'm going to have to wait this out for another few years. Now, the 2010s? THAT was fashion.   

"Rabbis and Wives"

Back in May, the NY Times Book Review rhapsodized over Sons and Daughters, a very posthumous English publication of a Yiddish serial by Chaim Grade. 

Chaim Grade (pronounced Grah-deh) was a Yiddish writer of great renown, to the point when Isaac Bashevis Singer won the Nobel for literature, many in the Yiddish community thought it should have gone to Grade. 

Grade died in 1982, and his widow refused to release any of his papers; after her death in 2010, his documents were pounced upon, and a Yiddish serial that had yet to be translated and published was dusted off and made ready. 

I don't like fighting other library patrons for new releases, so I requested an older Grade book, Rabbis and Wives. It's a series of three novellas, each depicting a very certain type of rabbi: a humble, learned, compassionate man, who eschews a shteler because he cannot bear to tell the poor women of the community that her chicken is not kosher, nor does he want to be embroiled in local disputes. This rabbi is not recognized by many for his holiness, but he doesn't care, obviously. 

Grade vividly depicts a world that was, down to the women's fashions and styling of male facial hair. He describes the children chafing against the ideology of their parents—including the debate if the Land of Israel should be settled by Jews now (Mizrachis) or if Moshiach should come first (Agudahniks). 

The level of detail is mesmerizing, to the point I have no idea how non-observant Jews or non-Jews could possibly chap this universe. One visual made me laugh out loud: the young people are inappropriately taking boat rides down the river on Shabbos, boys and girls cavorting together, however, of course they would not smoke in the streets on Shabbos, for: "they come from good families, after all." 

I had not expected a book such a this, and pulled up his Wiki entry. Apparently, he had learned in Novoardik, and seven years under the Chazon Ish. Rabbis and Wives is dedicated to the wife of the Chazon Ish! Despite the fact that Grade left observance, he apparently maintained a great respect for the rabbinate and his own Rav.  

Grade's mother and first wife were killed in the Holocaust; they remained while he fled, believing that women and children wouldn't be harmed by the Nazis. He tends not to address the war in his books; they are mainly time capsules. 

Here, one can truly envision what life was like before the war; what the shul politics were, what the marriages were like, how children behaved (gotta say, kinda badly). The perspective isn't narrow through one narrator, so one can see the whole picture. 

I think I'm gonna buy Sons and Daughters. 

The Wise Elder

Maggie Anton takes great fictional liberties in her Rashi's Daughters trilogy, but there is a depiction therein that I still think about, a year or so after reading it. 

Rashi came from a family of vintners, but he was away at yeshiva for many years before returning to the family home. His widowed mother ran the show.

He dutifully toils in the fields with the others, but in terms of agricultural strategy, his mother is the one with the experience. So if the rains came too early or too late, she knows what to do in order to salvage the crop. 

As Book 1: Yocheved, continues, Rashi's mother begins to suffer from cognitive decline. Yet even in dementia, the family still turn for her knowledge when it comes what to do with the grapes. Even when mentally disadvantaged, her experience is still sought after and respected. 

In a time when the science of agriculture—all of science, rather—stayed the same for hundreds of years, the wisdom of elders was valued and respected. They saw many years of bad weather, which would result in a bad harvest. Yet in their old ages, they would know what to do to at least make out the year with something rather than nothing. 

Yet as technology advanced to the point that the new becomes old in a matter of months, not centuries, that once valuable experience became obsolete. The reverence of the aged became scorn. 

I'm not elderly yet, but as I am almost 40, I'm noticing a shift. Younger people use unfamiliar slang that doesn't feel natural to me (I still say "awesome" and "dude"; I have no idea how to use "salty" organically except in terms of food). When I pass by 20-somethings on the street, I realize now I'm not their contemporary anymore. Han is just a few years older than me but other guys his age are marrying off children, while our oldest is six. 

I've become that crotchety complainer by weddings. "The music is too loud. Do you have ear plugs?" "This is how the kids are dancing nowadays? Shrieking and jumping? This isn't dancing!" "Can we leave yet?" 

I've also become aware how important life experience is. It's not the new features on the phone that matters. It's about learning from one's mistakes, doing better, being willing to recalibrate. It's about understanding what is important, what should be priorities. It's about the values we carry and try to pass on. It's about so much more than technology. 

I've already resigned myself to a future witnessing eye-rolls in response to whatever I say, but that'll just be the youth not getting it. 

Some More Trauma Talk

You'll have to bear with while I squeeze this topic to death; I was obsessed with this article when I first read it, and reread it more than once. 

To continue: 

Around the time the piece came out, Han was listening to Edith Eger's The Choice (he likes Audible). Edith Eger is a Hungarian survivor, but she didn't practice a particularly religious life; when she came to America, she tried to deny her experiences, attempting to make herself as American as possible (but I must say, her attempts to beat the Hungarian inflection from her speech was not successful). 

She didn't want to be identified as a survivor. Han noted that her experience must have been different from that of our grandparents, who dwelt in a religious community who were primarily survivors. My grandmother's idea of small talk was "So, where were you in the war?" 

I guess that's the logic of support groups. Being amongst other people who have also dealt with your experience can help us bear the burden. 

After first reading the article, I had felt this burning need to track down Brodesser-Akner and pour out to her my own story. She'll understand! And yet I know that sometimes sharing pain is not what some want to do. 

Rachel Goldberg-Polin wrote an article following Hersh's murder that, in essence, begs people to not approach her with their pain:

When my girls and I are having a moment walking, breathing and smiling, and someone stops us and starts crying, they are robbing us of a moment of respite from the horror we are digesting. When I am walking alone, with a hat, sunglasses and my head down, it is me saying, “Please, oh please, let me breathe for a moment without having to also carry your pain. Your pain is as real as mine, but I have no strength at the moment to carry yours too. I love you and am endlessly grateful for you loving Hersh. I love you for loving the hostage families. I love you for trying to help. But please, if you want to help me, let me go on walking. When you see me and our eyes cross paths, please, oh please, just smile and wave. My knees are buckling from all the wounds people are sharing. I am just not formidable and powerful enough. Not yet.” 

Sometimes we do have to sit with our discomfort, and gauge first whether others are willing to share that pain. People are often at different stages of their grief journey, and maybe they can't always go there.

Another comment to Brodesser-Akner was how sometimes in our need to fight the trauma, it can negatively overtake our lives. The commenter said that her mother also had a traumatic birthing experience, and became a focused advocate of home birth. Yet, her daughter said, her book writing and agenda so overtook all that her children were neglected. This reaction to her trauma may have seemed healthy—after all, she's fighting for change—but it in turn traumatized her children. 

We also have to be mindful of collateral damage, which can happen in numerous ways. 

The article ends off that Brodesser-Akner concludes with this awareness:

It happened. It will never not have happened . . . after all your attempts at healing—when you finally realize that you are forever changed—you can allow yourself to embrace your trauma. You survive what happened to you, then you survive your survival, and then the gift you're given is that you fall in love with your whole life, inextricable from the bad thing that happened to you. 

It's sort of like with people. We sometimes wish that a person in our life was a little less this and a little more that, but people are an entire being; you can't pick and choose what parts we want to keep and what parts not. 

It's not that the stories of our lives are stuck in only one point in time. Our grandparents accepted their experiences, but they didn't allow them to define their lives. It was but one year amongst many. 

I sometimes meet young, bright things, who haven't yet hit that inevitable bump in the road, and I know how small their perception of life is. Because knowing grief, I feel, gives me a more complete perception of the human experience. Before, it was narrow and shallow; now, while it may be more painful, it is more accurate and true.

The Very Ordue Continuation of Trauma

To preface, my kids go bonkers when I take out the laptop and gleefully try to push as many keys as possible. So yes, I know this is ridiculously late for a follow-up. 

After I read Brodesser-Akner's article—twice—I found myself sifting eagerly through the comment section. Did anyone else find this article mind-blowing? Please? 

This is still the internet, so some missed the point entirely. One had snippily typed that she had experienced the same unasked-for procedure during childbirth, as well as sexual assault, and in no way were they comparable. 

No one was saying they were comparable, moron. She was saying that trauma is trauma, and it's not a matter of what others consider valid and invalid. 

But most of the letters applauded the article, and some took it further. 

One commented a truth: That when Jack Teich was kidnapped, everyone agreed this was a very bad thing to the point the government mobilized to help. In the case of Brodesser-Akner's childbirth trauma, she was alone. Very few people believed her or validated her. Many probably—like the above commenter—belittled her experience as being "no big deal." That can certainly exacerbate the trauma into attendant feelings of shame.

"Sherry" posted that after she was traumatized, she was told by the therapist that she eventually consulted to talk about it as much as she could and cry as much as she wanted. However, the people around her were impatient: "It was so long ago. Why don't you get over it already?" She thought she was crazy. Then a chance encounter with a stranger who went through the same: "You will never get over it and they will never understand." 

That is what I learned after Ma died: If they haven't been through the same, people don't understand. They don't understand that grief leaves a permanent mark. 

I watched a clip on Meaningful Minute's Stories of Hope about a widow who remarried. She said that no one gets over grief; she will be talking about it for a long time. So if you want to be there for your friend in their time of need, you better be willing to listen to them talk about it forever. 

"Michael" posted that empathy is so important. For some people, they can't "choose" to move on. (I personally don't think people move on, I think they're just really good at compartmentalizing.) Support and kindness is the best that can be done.

Trauma is Trauma

Is anyone still here? 

I would perfectly understand if you've moved on. Obviously, I haven't been blogging.

It's not that I don't want to. It's that, to me, this annus horribilis has made my usual observations . . . petty. It has made most of the happenings in my life . . . inconsequential. 

How can I get upset about anything? How can I even write about anything, at all, when anything at all is so obviously trivial in the face of the suffering others have to bear? 

So even though I've had thoughts and observations, I couldn't bring myself to blog about them. It felt insensitive, for being too mundane. 

But then, a few months ago, "The Kidnapping I Can't Escape" by Taffy Brodesser-Akner was printed in the magazine section. I like her as a writer, and the article did not go where I thought it would. 

It begins with a retelling of a harrowing ordeal from 1974. Her neighbor, Jack Teich, was kidnapped from his driveway. During his nightmare, the kidnappers claimed they were for the Palestinian cause, but was later discovered to be a disgruntled ex-employee. Unbelievably, Jack was freed after the ransom was paid—which rarely occurs. 

As friends with his children, Akner thought of him as fine. He was fine, right? He went back to work. He went on with his life. He was fine.

Then the article shifts, much to the reader's puzzlement, as Akner describes the birth of her first child. I think every woman out there who has been in the same position of vulnerability and agony felt her experience. After hours of labor, the doctor performed a procedure on her—without her knowledge or consent—to speed up the process. 

When she returned home, she was a wreck. She describes, in excruciating detail, how she unspooled. Most assumed it was post-partum depression, but eventually another therapist informed her it was PTSD: she was traumatized. 

What followed then was shame. Other people go through trauma, she wondered, and they're fine. They're fine. How am I not fine, too? So she made sure that, at least, she appeared to be fine.

Then Akner was working on a novel, inspired in a way by her neighbor's kidnapping, and asked to meet him to discuss his experience. She didn't think anything of it; he was fine, after all, right? 

When she arrives, she sees how he carefully unlocks the door, then relocks it when she comes in. His property is under 24-hour security. Lights are always on. For the year after the kidnapping, he would go to work, but do no work. He couldn't focus. He wonders if he could have made a run for it into the woods next to his house, but then his family within would have been at the kidnappers' mercy.

Then Akner realized: Jack was not fine. Not remotely fine. Of course he wasn't fine. 

Tolstoy tells us that all happy families are alike and that each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. A few years ago, I wrote a different novel, my first novel, about divorce, which was inspired in part by the divorce stories of several people I know, and I came to the conclusion that, actually, all divorces are exactly alike. I tell you this because I’ve now come to understand the same thing about trauma: Happy, well-adjusted people are all different. The traumatized are exactly alike. I’m about to tell you a story that is nothing like a violent kidnapping — almost laughably so — but what I’ve learned over the years is that trauma is trauma. Something terrible happens, beyond what is in our own personal capacity to cope with, and the details don’t matter as much as the state we’re thrown into. Our bodies and brains have not evolved to reliably differentiate a rape at knife point from a job loss that threatens us with financial ruin or from the dismantling of our world by our parents’ divorce. It’s wrong, but explain that to your poor, battered autonomic nervous system.

Luke holds that we were all traumatized by 10/7. I had stupidly watched Instagram reels that motzei Shabbos, and sobbed for days following. I sobbed on the train platform while my brother muttered to me, "We're in public, Lea." 

I'm not claiming my experience was the same as those who went through hell, or live half-lives of terror while their sons are in battle. But pain is pain. One person's agony doesn't cancel out another's. 

This goes for other pain we may experience in life—not just a terrorist attack and subsequent war.

To be continued.