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UPDATED: Stripping Off Society's Big Cover-Up about Marriage & Motherhood

1/1/2019

UPDATE:
Either Weebly or my filter is not letting me comment on my own post (on other posts -- yes; on this one -- no), so I can't respond in the comment section. But all the comments so far are very inspiring and written from the heart (and much appreciated!).

This wasn't in the post, but based on the comments, I feel it's important to add that while getting pregnant later in life is often more difficult (as mentioned in the post), it's far from impossible. Two commenters had children from age 37 and onward. I've personally known women who got pregnant for the first time at age 39 and another at age 45 shortly after her first marriage -- no fertility treatments or even herbs, and no long wait!

So if this is your situation, please don't despair! And I wish all of you much bracha and hatzlacha.

(And thank you to all the commenters for sharing their stories & giving chizuk.)

Growing up in secular America, I always saw marriage & family portrayed as the end of one’s life.

My orthodontist cheerfully informed me that she waited until around age 37 to start a family. "I wanted to wait until I wouldn't feel resentful about not being able to go out to dinner," she said with a warm smile.

As if your own child isn't worth missing a couple of hours in a restaurant in the evening.

As if you can never go out to dinner again...

I secretly wanted marriage and children instead of a career (though I wanted to be a novelist on the side too), but couldn’t admit this—not even to myself.

You were supposed to push off marriage and children for as long as possible. Education, career, travel, living one’s dreams, sowing wild oats, and all that took precedence.

Marriage and children came only when you had lived your life and were either finished with everything else or were just sick of it.

Sadly, this has led a great many women into the dilemma of being at the height of her career just as her biological clock starts running out of time. Now she’s supposed to find a husband--or if she already has a husband, start trying to get pregnant and then deal with pregnancy and juggle a baby when her career is going full-force.

Furthermore, many women discover that it’s not as easy to get pregnant at 38 as it would have been at 22.

And while frum women continue to have children throughout their fertile years, a non-Jewish journalist pointed out that for other Western women who anyway only plan on 1-3 children, it makes more sense to build your family when you’re on the upside of fertility, when you’re young and can deal with sleepless nights (she makes the point that college students often throw themselves into all-nighters: study sessions, parties, discussions & heart-to-heart talks, etc), and are still at the beginning of their career.

Yes, building a career (if a woman wants) goes more slowly with young children, but it’s better to do things that way and hit your momentum when they are relatively self-sufficient teenagers rather than hit your momentum—and then need to slow down or stop to deal with birth, recovery, and a child who will be very dependent on you for the next few years.

The Best Feeling Ever

When I had my first child at the age of 24, one of my initial feelings—in addition to (and actually because of) new-baby ecstasy—was betrayal.

Not only did I realize I’d been lied to my whole life, but that I’d been lied to very badly.

And I felt so betrayed.

Having a baby was one of the best things to ever happen to me.

I felt so lucky and grateful. I felt like my baby was a treasure and that I somehow merited the great fortune of this special treasure being given to me.

Also, I felt a love that I’d never felt before.

But before I continue, it bears noting that every situation is different. Some people get the baby blues after birth, some people face emergencies, tragedies, or colicky babies, and some people don’t feel joy but feel heavy (albeit not unpleasant) responsibility instead. Varying amounts of anxiety are often part of the post-partum recovery too.

And that’s all in the realm of normal and nothing to feel guilty or defective about. If you do feel tremendous joy after birth, it’s a big chessed from Hashem and something for which to be grateful.

And I also faced difficulties. Just as 2 examples: The healing episiotomy hurt and was a nuisance to care for. The nursing went pretty badly and was excruciatingly painful for an entire month (despite following all the expert nursing advice), and it continued to be an unexpectedly stress-filled hassle until I got pregnant with the next child around 8 or 9 months later. Phew!

And despite the ups and downs of parenthood, the times when I wanted to run away, and the times when I feel like a big failure as a mother, I always feel like me kids are the best thing I’ve ever done in life. (And I didn’t even do it—it was Hashem! But still.)

But I was deeply in love with the baby himself. And that kind of love is a very pure love to experience because it’s so strong, intense, joyful—and selfless. A baby only takes and can’t give anything back (except smiles—but only after a few weeks). So you’re just rejoicing in the free gift of his very existence—pretty heady stuff.

And I had no idea I would feel that way until I did.

The Truth about Marriage & Motherhood

And I was just like, “Why, oh why did everyone always make this out to be so awful? Why is it considered so miserable and limiting that it needs to be pushed off until you’ve fully ‘lived life’ first?”

Why is the emphasis always on the hardships of motherhood and not the fulfillment or the rewards?

I felt like I’d only started living life with his birth! I realized that I didn’t have a life before I had my kids.

And I felt regret that I hadn’t gotten married and pregnant right out of high school instead of wasting my time. (It would’ve been kinder for my husband too, instead of him suffering through shidduchim until I finally got my act together.)

Yet when I told someone, “If only I’d known how great this would be, I’d have done this much earlier!”, she laughed and said, “But were you ready before now?”

“Well, no,” I said.

“That’s what everyone says,” she told me. “They all wish they’d done this earlier, but admit they weren’t ready before.”

She’s right—but she’s also wrong.

Her comment got me thinking…why wasn’t I ready until I married at 23?

Well, I needed to become frum first and to get myself solidly into the Torah life. But other than that?

An informal survey showed me that I wasn’t alone in feeling that any major inner growth came because of marriage and children, and not a result of work prior to marriage and children.

Many women feel that the experience of dealing with marriage and children increased their emotional maturity—maturity and inner growth that couldn’t come any other way.

Needless to say, marriage and children don’t guarantee peak emotional maturity. There are many immature and irresponsible parents walking around. Furthermore, some people are so dysfunctional, they really shouldn’t get married or have children yet because they simply will not be able to rise to the occasion.

The point is that whatever level of emotional maturity you found yourself on before you married and procreated, that level rises after marriage and procreation. Usually. Most people are better people after marriage and children—even if they feel like they’re not.

This is because even during parenthood’s most stressful, miserable, and despairing times, you’re still doing something meaningful.

You’re rectifying profound soul issues and changing the world.

You can’t say that about partying, making money, climbing the corporate ladder, performing, falling into yet another meaningless relationship with no future, drinking, touring Paris, or lying on the beach with the latest bestseller.

Nurturing Different Facets of Self

Also, mothers manage to nurture other facets of their personalities. Just in the frum community, there’s a wealth of shiurim and classes for dance, drama, art, music, sewing, fruit-carving, cake-decorating, pastry-making, healthy meals, and much more. (The variety depends where you live.)

Taking courses either online or a couple of times a week at available hours gives mothers degrees and skills for paying jobs.

It’s more of a juggle when you have kids, but it’s definitely doable—at least to a certain extent. And many if not most mothers participate in activities outside the domestic sphere, so it's obviously a realistic thing.

The Other Big Lie

The other big lie—and it’s a lie by omission—is that you can't push things off until later in life.

When is that option ever offered?

You CAN push things off until later in life. And it’s okay to do that.

Just like secular society encourages people to push off marriage and children until later in life, you can do that with other things too.

For example, I know so many women who made a career change, starting in their late forties. Their kids were older or out of the house and they started taking courses toward a new degree. Then they phased out their old career to start the new one around fifty.

What’s wrong with that?

NOTHING.

As a personal example, there are certain activities and classes I’d like to indulge in, but I don’t have the time or extra money right now. And that’s perfectly fine! I’m not tortured by their absence right now and it gives me something to look forward to in my fifties and sixties. Why not?

What is the big pressure to do everything (except child-bearing) before you’re 40?

It’s not a coincidence that youth-and-hedonism-worshiping Hollywood pushes this whole deception. Those degenerates portray the world as they honestly see it.

But it’s a big tragedy that so many people fall into it.

Related posts:
Breaking Out of the Big Lie about Motherhood

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Jewish Education in a Crisis of Hypocrisy

30/12/2018

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Recently, New York state has started cracking down on the secular curriculum of frum schools.

You can read a very good defense of this HERE.

Education: Prepared for What?

One of the strongest arguments against the claim that frum schools don’t prepare their students properly to compete for a high academic education in the non-Jewish world is:

Yes, the frum schools always have and will continue to emphasize Torah knowledge and values over secular ones.

That’s the purpose of their existence.

And yes, until Mashiach comes:

There will always be resentful FFB alumni who feel that the frum system held them back and forced them to work harder to catch up with their secular counterparts and, in general, caused them a great deal of unhappiness and frustration.

Some even say it was like growing up in a cult.

Likewise, until Mashiach comes:

There will also always be Jews (like me) who feel that a non-Torah upbringing held us back, and caused us to make extremely harmful decisions that can never be taken back, plus forced us to work harder to catch up with our frummer counterparts and, in general, caused us a great deal of unhappiness and frustration.

Some (like me) even say it was like growing up in a cult.

Throughout the world, you see that some people start on a higher floor than others.

Many feel they got a wonky start to life.

Hashem gives everyone the challenges they need to grow in the way best for their neshamah and to complete certain tikkunim.

That’s no comfort to those who don’t accept the idea of a Wholly Omnipotent All-Knowing & All-Compassionate Creator or the idea of the exalted human soul, but this is nonetheless the Truth, whether people choose to believe it or not.

So that’s Argument #1.

Why Target Davka the Torah Education?

Another point is that of being specifically anti-Jewish—specifically anti-Torah.

Throughout Jewish history, you find that Jew-haters specifically leech onto the idea that the Jew must be absolutely perfect at all times.

Everyone else’s sins can be forgiven, but not the Jew’s—especially the sins of the Torah Jew.

And no matter how bestial and evil the acts of anyone else, and no matter how light and less the mistakes of the Torah Jew, everyone else’s brutal deeds are ignored and the relatively light lackings of the Torah Jews are spotlighted and magnified.

This is done on a national level with the world against the State of Israel and this is done on an individual level or a group level.

This is done by non-Jews and also by self-hating Jews.

And it’s a historical pattern.

The Experience of Mainstream American Public Schools

So for example, I attended American public schools with barely a Jew in the school.

Luckily, my elementary school education caught the tail-end of the last decent American teachers.

These were mostly women in their fifties and sixties who knew had to control a classroom and how to get the necessary information into our heads—even if we didn’t like that subject or weren’t good at it.

So I actually learned skills that I still use now, like spelling, reading, printing, cursive, memorized multiplication tables, proper sentence structure, geography, the names and locations of capital cities, and so on.

But after sixth grade, I’m not sure I learned much.

The most educational lesson I remember from junior and high school graduation is from an English teacher (whom I really disliked) who emphasized the importance of varied sentence openings and avoiding passive voice in writing.

That’s good advice that I still utilize today.

And that’s basically it.

The junior high I attended drew a crowd from neighborhoods that didn’t take school or decent behavior seriously.

I remember water balloon fights in the back of the classroom during a math lesson and a seventh-grade boy who regular came to school drunk by 8 in the morning.

One girl had to deal with growing up as the half-black daughter of a white unwed mother, which was still unusual at that time in that place.

(Just to be clear: Unwed mothers became common among my peers, but most of my peers didn't grow up as the children of unwed mothers.)

It actually took me a year to realize that she was biracial and the result of an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, and no one ever said anything to her about her being biracial or the daughter of an unwed mother—I only figured it out because of her extreme self-consciousness about it.

Another girl confided in a teacher that her stepfather had thrown all her clothes into the fire place—into a blazing fire.

And yet another boasted of chasing her mother around the house with a knife.

It was also the first time I realized that nothing really horrible happened if you didn’t do your homework.

Due to peer pressure (the long-haired punks actually jeered out loud at you in front of everyone if you handed in your homework), a math class that started the year with almost everyone (except 2 students) handing in their homework saw only 3 or 4 students handing in their homework by spring.

As in elementary school, most of the teachers were also older and experienced, but struggled to teach the new generation of badly behaved students from dysfunctional families.

The long-haired, neglected youth wearing heavy metal T-shirts were a far cry from the more clean-cut student body these teachers had started out with in the Fifties & Sixties.

And when the class actually allowed these teachers to teach, these teachers did quite a good job.

However, older teachers also face problems of their own that they bring to the classroom.

Friends and family members start dying. Both the older teacher and them suffer health problems and decreased energy.

After indulging in a particularly bad mood, the art teacher replied to a student's protest with, "My best friend just died, okay?!"

One English teacher constantly looked like he was on the verge of tears throughout the 2 years I attended. One day, his students decided to open the drawer of his desk.

They found a best-selling non-fiction book of indecency and a six-pack of beer. That teacher later died of AIDS.

Perhaps if their students & surrounding culture had been halfway decent, the teachers would have been able to set their personal problems aside and focus just on teaching.

But everything together was too overwhelming.

Aside from the time his best friend died, the art teacher exploded every so often and stated outright that he wished he could just quit already, but was waiting out the next couple of years until retirement so as not to decrease his pension.

High school was better than junior high, but not of the same quality as elementary school.

And this increasing failure of schools to teach is endemic throughout America.

American Schools & Universities Fail to Do Their Job

Just as one example:

A professor who teaches at a state university once told me that her students sometimes resent her because she forces them to re-do their work until it’s written properly.

Sometimes, students must re-do the same assignment 4 or 5 times.

Having attended public school herself, she receives their protests with understanding.

And she tells them: “I know you see me as being mean and unfair. I know that it seems especially unfair because I’m not even your English professor, so why am I making a big deal about your writing when your English professor doesn’t even do that? I know that you’ve never had a teacher or professor do this to you before—and that’s exactly why I do it.

"I’m afraid that if I don’t teach you how to write, no one will. All I’m doing is teaching you what your teachers should have taught you already. I’m afraid you’ll graduate college without ever learning how to write.”

Yeah, this professor officially teaches the history of ancient Greece & Rome, but she needs to teach her students English composition too because no one else has and no one else will.

But who cares about the entire country? Let’s only go after the yeshivah schools for not having an up-to-par secular curriculum!

Well, you might say, private schools are doing the job.

And frum schools are private schools.

The thing is that private schools do teach certain basics like English and math better than public schools, but they mix in a lot of garbage too.

Many are highly politicized.

For example, students will graduate with the conviction that evolutionary theory is absolutely true and that man-made global warming is not only completely true, but one of the most pressing problems facing mankind today (AND that it can be reversed).

Furthermore, due to their extreme liberal leanings, exclusive private schools introduce their students to material they really shouldn't.

For example, there is a famous cult classic movie that gives women nightmares & bad memories even decades after seeing it.

I never saw it, but friends told me about it—which is also how I know they suffer from it.

Some were shown this movie by their elite teacher in their nifty private school. They wouldn't have been exposed to it otherwise.

What an appalling thing for a teacher to do—and with the parents shelling out big bucks for this!

What a scam.

And many private-school students also come out with poor middot and values.

Society doesn’t care, especially since mainstream media and entertainment adore these poor values and middot. But it’s still a problem whether it's recognized or not.

One such problem is that the faculty for private schools and schools for the gifted condition their students into an elitist mentality.

This mentality makes for a very poor work ethic.

Why?

Because these people feel entitled to high-paying high-level jobs while doing the very minimum required of their position.

To their mind, anything beyond the bare minimum is for peons and therefore, they dump all the rest onto their overworked underlings.

(If you look at struggling or failed institutions and businesses, you’ll see that this is often the underlying dynamic.)

I didn’t say that all products of such schooling behave this way. There are some stunning exceptions. But many do possess this elitist real-work-is-for-peons mentality.

The Problems in a Nutshell:

So there are 2 major problems crippling America’s educational system:

A school system that does not teach proper fundamentals (while emphasizing social mores and unproven theories)
An elitist-entitlement mentality that discourages a healthy work ethic

But hey, let’s ignore all that and go after the less than 1%!

So the point is that the secular curriculum among frum schools is the least of America’s problems within its educational system

Yet they’re targeting the frum school system.

And we know what that really means.

Related articles:
Jewish Education in Crisis—Leave Our Yeshivos Alone. Period.
Jewish Education in Crisis – A Torah Perspective
Could You Pass the 8th-Grade Exam of 1895?
The Decline of American Education
Creating a Victim Mentality: A How-To Guide

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One Minute of Hashem's Overwhelming Love For You

28/12/2018

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Today's post features an excerpt of yesterday's post (which is excerpted from A Life Apart) because it seems like something so many people struggle with.

Yet in all the classic mussar sefarim, knowing that Hashem loves you is a key part of wanting to do teshuvah, being a better person, and doing Hashem's Will.

It's very hard to do a true cheshbon hanefesh and make real improvement if you think that the Creator of the Universe isn't so fond of you, chas v'shalom.

So you need to know that He's actually VERY fond of you.

So for 1 minute, say the following (or some variation thereof):

"Hashem, I know You're right here with me and that you're listening to me.

You love me more than I can imagine.

You love me more than my mother loves me, more than my father, more than my friends love me.

You're taking care of me, everything You do to me is for the best and I love You too!"

(By the way, just saying the above on its own for the few seconds it takes to say it is a million times better than not saying it at all. Just saying it has a beautiful effect on your neshamah. And doing it for a full minute internalizes this essential Truth even more.)

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How to Break Out of being "Ordinary"

27/12/2018

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Guess who recommends the following:

Try thinking about Hakadosh Baruch Hu for one minute straight...Think Hashem loves you. "Ahavti etchem ne'um Hashem" -- "I love you," says Hashem.

Do you think about that ever? Do you ever stop to think that Hashem loves you?

He loves you a thousand more times than your mother loves you and you never thought about it?!

You never once thought that Hashem loves you immensely, infinitely?!

That's a wonderful thing to think about in your one-minute excursion into solitude, your minute of being alone with Hashem in your thoughts.

So you're thinking..."Hashem, I know You're right here with me and that you're listening to me. You love me more than I can imagine. You love me more than my mother loves me, more than my father, more than my friends love me. You're taking care of me, everything You do to me is for the best and I love you too!"

Who recommends all that lovey-dovey hitbodedut?

Rav Shalom Arush? Rebbe Nachman? The Baal Shem Tov?

Nope! It's all a direct quote from Rav Avigdor Miller.

And there's a lot more where that came from. (Also, this uncompromisingly Litvish rav emphasizes the Baal Shem Tov as an example to follow in this dvar Torah -- Am echad, lev echad, one Nation, one heart.)

If you want to see the above inside, plus read more about hitbodedut & talking to Hashem with a Slabodka Litvish flavor, then please see Rav Miller's dvar Torah on Parshat Shemot: A Life Apart. (All quotes used with permission.)

Rav Miller possessed a unique wit that was dry, wry, and slipped in with brilliantly poker-faced manner. And if you're into that kind of wit and tongue-in-cheek humor, then it makes his mussar much more fun to swallow.

Here's an example of Rav Miller's makes-you-chuckle-out-loud wit from the same dvar Torah:

Ask Hashem that He should help you with everything:

“I am going for a walk, Hashem. Please help me I should succeed in gaining good health, and that I shouldn’t have any difficulties with rude people that bump into me. And while they are 'bumping into me,' they put their hand in my back pocket and take out my wallet."

See? He's so funny.

But really, he's giving us mussar about not wasting our time with mundane thoughts or gazing around at things we shouldn't. He's telling us that even a walk needs siyata d'Shmaya (especially if there are pickpockets around). He's reminding us to think about Hashem constantly.

But he makes us laugh as he does it.

A Woman's Kitchen: On the Level of the Baal Shem Tov's Forest or the Novardoker's Holy Hut - If She Wants It To Be

And this is from a different parsha on Toras Avigdor, but Rav Miller's speaks about how a woman in her kitchen can achieve the same as the Baal Shem Tov doing hitbodedut in his forest or the Novardoker in his hut:

When a woman is by herself in the kitchen, it’s a glorious opportunity.

Do you know what she’s doing?

She’s practicing one of the biggest virtues, the virtue of hisbodedus, solitude.

The old nevi’im, the old prophets, used to go out in the wilderness.

Even the gedolei acharonim, the Ba’al Shem Tov, went into a forest for weeks to be away from people.

Rav Yoizel Novardoker had a hut hidden in the forest. He had two huts. One that his wife knew about. He was unlisted. Nobody knew how to get him, but his wife knew. But there was another hut that even his wife didn’t know about. Only his talmid, Rav Yoel Boronsik, knew about that hut, the second one. Even his wife wasn’t told about that one.

He had two degrees of hisbodedus because that makes a man great.

A woman in a kitchen, all day long she’s alone. All day she has an opportunity. She can listen to Torah tapes. She can think noble thoughts.

It’s a great thing for a woman to be alone if you utilize it properly.

But maybe you aren't all day long in the kitchen.

He's taking the extreme example because this is something looked down on in society, something many women want to escape.

Yet Rav Miller sees this as an opportunity for the highest greatness.

Now let's look at something else many people want to escape...

How to Do Hitbodedut amid Raucous Music

Personally, I really dislike the unending blasting music at weddings.

But Rav Miller has a positive take on it.

He thinks you should use that opportunity to talk to Hashem. Seriously!

He advises you to use that opportunity to ask Hashem to bless the new couple with all sorts of good wishes.

He recommends davening amid the overpowering music in the following way:

You could say it with your mind and nobody's listening.

But even better, you can say it with your mouth - the music is so loud, nobody will hear you.

They think you're singing along.

Picture the above scenario in your mind, picture yourself sitting at a fancy table talking out loud to Hashem and looking like you're just singing along -- it's so funny!

I hope I can work up the guts to actually try it...

Also, someone at Toras Avigdor is a genius with titles & subheadings. For example:

Would You Choose Uncle Harry to be Your Rebbe?
Moshe Rabbeinu Doesn't Need the Movies
Getting Your Mind Cleaned at the Dentist
Great Men Skip Shul
It's Good to be a Hypocrite

So you end up getting some pretty heavy mussar, but it doesn't feel so heavy because you're chuckling through the entire thing.

Hashem Wants More Than Ordinariness

But here's some serious mussar from A Life Apart that is so applicable to our generation (especially against the popular yet erroneous idea that any level just one baby-step above the current one is "only for great tzaddikim," etc.):

Now, I know people will listen to me and they will just dismiss these ideas. They think that it's a middas chassidus, it's something that only very great people should do.

But that's wrong.

Don't think that what we're saying here is going overboard.

Just because ordinary people will often live like they do with hesech hada'as; they daven as ordinary people daven and mostly their minds are occupied with ordinary things, doesn't means that you have to do the same.

Hakodosh Boruch Hu wants more than ordinariness.

He wants you to be close to Him because those who are far away from Him will eventually go lost. And even though you seem to be a shomer mitzvos, but actually you're far away from Him if your mind doesn't concentrate on Him, if you're not living with Him in your mind.

And therefore, as much as possible you spend time talking to Hashem.

You can also read/print out another geshmak dvar Torah for Parshat Shemot here:
https://torasavigdor.org/parshas-shemos-the-real-test-of-life/

Also, if you wanted to know more about a certain someone, you can see:
Rav Miller on Yoshkeh

May we all merit to spend as much time as possible talking to Hashem.

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What to Do When the World Starts Closing In on You

26/12/2018

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For a while now, I’ve been feeling like the world is getting narrower and smaller.

One of the things that’s happening is many things are losing their seemingly “pareve” or “neutral” status.

For example, it used to be acceptable for even very frum people to go to the professional ball games. It was neutral, it was pareve.

(In other frum communities in the world, ball games were disdained as a waste of time, but not in America.)

Yet greater awareness among more yeshivish communities of the prohibition against wasting time has pushed many frum people away from an interest in sports. Furthermore, halftime performances and ads have become completely indecent, ridding ball games of their pareve status. To the minds of many frum people, these games are firmly treif.

Some frum people are still trying to find away to do it ("I'll just close my eyes at half-time..."), but it's getting harder.

The Infiltration of Vulgarity

“Kosher” reading material barely exists anymore.

Even non-fiction books liberally utilize vulgar language, mock traditional values, laud anti-Torah values, and insert raunchiness.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about the history of seafaring, psychological theories, the art of good writing, politics, or anything else, a lot of treif stuff goes in. Yes, sometimes it’s done subtly, but it’s still done.

And even if it’s written from a very conservative point of view by a religious conservative, it usually still contains foul language.

Newspapers aren’t much better, though many give lip service to keeping a clean mouth. But if I spell “table” as “t@ble” or “t*ble,” do you honestly not hear the entire word in your head? Of course you do.

Speaking of foul language, words censored from TV networks in the Eighties are bandied about freely in the new millennium.

Grandparents who washed their own children’s mouths out for lesser words are now using worse language to those now adult children in casual conversations and emails.

There are even frum people (albeit yeshivish people less so) sprinkle their conversations with foul language.

Even Maternity Needs to be "Hip"

Books for pregnant women or mothers of toddlers feature indecently dressed young women on the cover—just to be hip and modern.

But in front of your husband and children, you can’t read about what age to introduce yogurt without kashering up the cover somehow.

No More Kosher News

Newspapers and TV news portray women as skimpily as possible (including the news anchors themselves) and gory or morbid images are no longer omitted. Long gone is the professional look of Joan Lunden of “Good Morning America,” with her feminine suits and buttoned-up-to-the-neck girly ties and natural make-up. Today’s professional high-ranking women dress like cocktail waitresses while the men still need to wear 3-piece suits and neckties.

And this is considered "equality," for some reason.

Much of frum media freely displays images of reshaim, untsnius images and videos, violent or disturbing images, and articles that don’t really suit a frum readership. Some frum media has also started featuring images of professional women dressed for a beach party.

Death & Raunchiness for Kids

The Mickey Mouse show went from being a wholesome young show to being a raunchy pop exhibition.

Children’s movies portray morbid images and glorify raunchy jokes and impure spirituality.

For example, the re-make of A Little Princess features a split-second cut of a dead solider with his face alight in blue methane flames. Really appropriate viewing for kindergartners, to be sure! [sarc] (And there’s this creepy Eastern mysticism theme throughout.)

It's Not Just Stocked with Paper Towels Anymore...

A friend of mine entered the ladies room in a mall in a part of the USA known for its traditional and religious values.

At the entrance stood a vending machine packed with offerings that I cannot mention on this blog. (Suffice to say, it wasn’t a food vending machine.)

“Can you imagine taking your 6-year-old to the potty and having to pass by this?” she said.

No, I really can’t.

But it’s standing there, unprotested.

Flashy Frummies

One day, my son came home from yeshivah excited to have us hear the latest song from a frum singer.

His older brother has a phone bought with his own money and decided to show everyone the video of the song. One minute into the song, I noticed everyone get up and leave, looking a bit discomfited and shy to tell me why.

What could be wrong? This singer’s songs contain a lot about emuna and other beautiful concepts. I took a look and the video and said, “Oh.”

I’m not looking to bash the artist, so I’ll leave out details of the video, but it’s something that normal young men would definitely find alluring, even though other technicalities of tsnius were observed.

And there are several music videos out by frum people that contain women who are dressed or behaving in a manner not in line with tsnius.

I understand that some women feel “deleted” by the lack of females in frum media, and frankly, I like to look at images of women too. (In general, I like to see the photographs of people described in a book or article).

It's a halachic discussion, not a social one, whether images of women should be portrayed in videos and newspapers. But regardless, the behavior and style of the women in these videos isn’t appropriate. And as is usually the case, it seems like the women in these videos honestly do not realize that their behavior and style are inappropriate. (Women often do not understand what men find alluring. That's pretty normal.)

By the way, I have books about frum women which contain photographs that I can gaze at to my heart’s content. I love seeing how frum women dressed throughout the ages in all different cultures.

Anyway, I think it means something when a yeshivah bachur cannot comfortably watch a video put out by frum men. (Who, being men themselves, should know exactly how males feel when seeing young females dress or behave like that. So what is going on with these guys? Seriously, I'm not being sarcastic. I'm honestly perplexed as to what they are thinking.)

And that's in addition to the fact that frum women traditionally maintain their dignity and refinement even when there are no men around.

Tsnius is not just about male taavah.

After all, we're a Nation of priests and princes and princesses. Men are supposed to dress tsniusly too. And most frum men do.

In fact, chassidish men dress even more tsniusly with more layers than the vast majority of frum women. Where's the equality?

Yet I know that just for saying that there's a problem with tsnius in the frum media, some frum people are going to get offended and think that I just don’t understand.

Perhaps I am uptight, repressed, controlling, judgmental, and ignorant of “real” halacha!

(For those well-meaning people, I’d just like to make a plea of understanding for myself: Please know that I'm a formerly secular person who, on the path to becoming charedi, was a lot more modern for a few years, so it’s unlikely you will be able to "enlighten" me with something I haven't already heard & didn’t say myself in my younger years. Yup, I probably said it myself at some point.)

Who's on First?

Traditional values in general are under attack.

I’m still amazed at how fast society accepted all this gender dysphoria as legit.

It took a couple of generations for same-gender relationships to gain widespread acceptability. When gender dysphoria as a legitimate lifestyle came out a couple of years ago, I laughed.

Now I’m not laughing.

Against all rationale, it gained widespread acceptance—along with the predicted crimes as a result.

The fact that gender-based pronouns are even an issue is a serious sign of insanity (except for the extremely rare situation in which a person suffers a medically diagnosed chromosomal and physical anomaly in this area—but even they undergo tests and evaluations to choose one gender or the other).

Brainwashing U.

College classes were already propaganda-pits when I was in college in the Nineties, but they’re much worse now. University attendance was always a problem for the frum student, but now it’s much worse—and frum students are being negatively influenced.

Monkeys against CO2!

And despite lack of evidence—or even evidence to the contrary—a denial of evolution brands you a dummy.

A denial of man-made global warming or an opposition to useless carbon taxes brands you a cruel uncaring nitwit—and again, even if you have evidence to support your views, your name is still mud.

Old-Fashioned Jew-Hatred

Jew-hatred keeps rising.

Jews, especially outside of North America cannot keep a low enough profile, cannot keep their heads down enough.

When you have elderly Jews gunned down in America and pre-teen Jewish girls attacked on a bus or the street in Europe (and that’s just 2 examples), then you know you have a severe problem coming on.

When the world’s most respected newspapers do things like portray authentic Judaism & Torah Jews in the worst light and report the justified shooting of a terrorist running down innocent victims with his car as “Israeli soldiers shoot Palestinian driver,” you know that the world is closing in on you.

In American politics, the Democrat Party is openly anti-Israel and openly anti-Torah Judaism. (Jews themselves are still okay though—as long as they toe the Leftist line).

But even on the more conservative Republican side of things, there is a growing number of people who also hate Israel and who solidly believe in anti-Jewish conspiracy theories.

American Christians are a mixed bag because while there are some who sincerely appreciate Jews and Israel, there are a great many who possess underlying hostility—even if they themselves aren’t aware of it, but you can pick it up in their words and the way they look at you or deal with other Jews. In their heart of hearts, they believe that even the saintliest Jew (who firmly believes in God, by the way) is going to Hell—simply because the Jew refuses to believe in a divine trio.

Where's the Silver Lining?

(There are many more examples of an increasingly narrow world, but this post is long enough as is.)

In other words, hardly anything in the gashmius world is "kosher" anymore.

And anything you do to increase your spiritual and halachic awareness automatically shrinks your world—the world of gashmius, anyway.

But there’s something very good about all this...!

The Refreshing Expanse of Torah

The Torah's world is as deep & expansive as it ever was.

A great many people are seeking to immerse themselves in the light of Torah.

People are struggling to conquer their worst middot. People are turning to Hashem to speak with Him and build a relationship with Him.

Chessed organizations, services that cater to the ill and their families, organizations and individuals who deal with troubled youth. Tehillim groups, and prayer gatherings are not only thriving, but expanding and improving.

Recently, I decided to start learning Mishlei/Proverbs with Rashi. I go at a very slow pace. And while I’m immersed in it, I’m in bliss. First of all, the metaphors on their own are very compelling. But Rashi (and other commentaries) expand the metaphors to reveal even deeper meanings. And it’s deliciously geshmak.

As another example, Rav Levi Yitzchak Bender’s Words of Faith is a compelling book that’s surprisingly hard to put down once you start reading it.

It feels good to learn Likutei Moharan, to completely focus on a part of Mesillat Yesharim that really speaks to you, to listen to your favorite frum speaker’s words of inspiration…it feels very good to talk to Hashem as you would to the perfect friend who understands and forgives you for everything, and who can always help you and genuinely wants to help you…

And yet…do you have any idea how hard it is for me to get myself to sit down and do what I need to do—do what I LOVE to do?

What crazy resistance! It’s so illogical!

I LIKE learning Mishlei with Rashi. I LIKE talking to Hashem. And yet when I have the time to do it, resistance crowds in. I have to really fight it.

In Garden of Emuna, Rav Shalom Arush wrote that there’s always a yetzer hara against speaking to Hashem. He feels it too, he says. And this is from Rav Arush, who has regularly done 6-8 hours of hitbodedut with Hashem.

Rav Bender said that even a book's binding can be an obstacle. Just needing to get up and open the sefer can incite the yetzer hara to say, “Oh, it’s too much trouble…I just don’t feel like it…”

It’s totally frustrating, yet completely natural.

So it’s a funny thing that so much of the Torah world is so enjoyable, yet there’s a resistance that isn’t there about less enjoyable and genuinely meaningless things.

And that’s the yetzer hara for you.

Anyway, I’m not sure what the original source is, but it has been common knowledge for a while that Hashem is going to force people to stop straddling the fence and decide. Apparently, each person is going reach a type of breaking point where he or she will be forced to pick a side.

Some people have picked a side, but haven’t scooted into that side far enough or are still hanging onto stuff from the other side.

Others have picked the wrong side (but they can always change).

And others still wobble between both sides.

The Hate-Filled Lovers

We see that in general society, picking a side demands a lot of courage.

After investing a ton of research, one feminist shed her feminism. She said that she wants to focus on equal rights equally for both genders--equally. What could possibly be wrong with that? She doesn’t want to emphasize just women’s rights any longer, so she no longer goes by the feminist label.

And even though she still holds by the other depraved liberal ideologies, she has been raked across the coals by the mainstream media and her liberal community—just for refusing to call herself a feminist any longer. She still supports women’s rights, but not exclusively. That’s all! And now she has been under attack.

Another man who always considered himself attracted to men only and had indeed immersed himself in that lifestyle since his early teens decided to change.

At one point, he realized that he was actually attracted to women and that his former orientation had been a lie and a response to trauma.

In other words, he’d been repressed.

So he got his act together and married a wonderful woman and he’s really happy in his new (and authentic) orientation.

Yet he underwent a massive years-long character assassination because of it.

Especially because he’d never been with a woman before and only men, his “conversion” was considered quite radical and a slap in the face of all the pro-toeva theorists. So this guy, who seems like a real sweetie, was attacked for 8 years by his university faculty, his liberal students, his liberal family members, Leftist activists off-campus, a journalist who represented a civil rights org, and so on.

All because he said that being raised by a toeva parent wasn’t so great and because he switched orientations when he was 28.

That’s it! And he was slaughtered by all the pro-tolerance peace ‘n’ love-niks.

Kumbaya, dude.

The Real Thing

So the world is shrinking and closing in on every last shred of decency and Truth.

But the real world—the world of Torah—is wonderfully spacious yet cozy, and it’s full of beautiful light and color.

We just need to slide into it.

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A Seasonal Gem from Rav Avigdor Miller

25/12/2018

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When I was a kid, my family often drove around on a late December night so we could admire all the lights and decorations.

Too bad we didn't have Rav Avigdor Miller to set us straight...

Q:
Is there anything wrong with admiring the colorful lights that the our non-Jewish neighbors hang up during their holiday season?

A:
It’s very wrong to admire anything that is in any way connected to avodah zarah. Of course it’s wrong! תזרם כמו דוה – “You should throw it away like something that is unclean” (Yeshai’ah 30:22). It’s disgusting. And even if you don’t think so, you must tell yourself that it’s disgusting. You must train yourself to think properly. The lights are disgusting. Chas ve’shalom to admire the lights.

I don’t want to talk in public about what they’re celebrating, but it’s one of the most shameful things in history. A child was born from a woman who said, “It’s not from my husband.” Disgusting! He was born from a woman who said, “I admit, it’s not from my husband.” And they want to celebrate it with lights?!!

TAPE # E-211 (December 1999)
Rav Avigdor Miller on Admiring the X-mas Lights
(used with permission)

May we all do true teshuvah from love & see things how Hashem sees them.

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The Abortion Stories You Never Hear

24/12/2018

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One of the big propaganda pieces with which I grew up is that abortion is a right and that abortion needs to be safe (for the mother at least; it’s never safe for the baby) and legal.

Horror stories of illegal abortions and extremely fertile impoverished mothers abounded.

Yet who hears the stories of young women who died during legal abortions in certified clinics nowadays?

And what about the botched legal abortions which left the baby alive and deformed for life?

(Fortunately, some of these babies grew up to be very powerful pro-life speakers, baruch Hashem.)

But unless you actively seek out pro-life articles & books, you never hear the above stories.

Another group you rarely hear about are the missed abortions.

The truth is that previously, abortion’s legal restrictions and lack of safety are exactly what saved the lives of many babies and their mothers—a fact I only discovered over the years from listening to a variety of true stories.

In other words, many lives were not only saved but enriched only because abortion was neither safe nor legal.

Blind to the Truth

One woman I knew described how her mother’s doctor told her that she must abort the baby (my friend) or else she (my friend's mother) would go blind. Yet by the time the doctor made this proclamation and by the time her mother managed to get an appoint for a legal abortion, too much time had gone by and she could no longer get an abortion.

She ended up giving birth to a baby girl who became exactly the friend I needed during a difficult time in my life -- so I'm very grateful for her existence. This friend also became sincerely frum, married a wonderful guy, and had a beautiful large family. She and her husband also do a lot for the community. And although my friend denies it, it looks to me like she gives her parents more Yiddishe nachas than her siblings combined.

P.S. Her mother's eyesight ended up being just fine.

A Blessedly Dishonest Abortionist

A high school classmate once told me how his mother went to abort him when she found herself with an out-of-wedlock pregnancy at age 19.

Fortunately, the abortionist was also an extortionist.

He took her money, gave her a couple of pills (which she later assumed were aspirin), and told her to go home and lift the furniture a lot. Despite all the exertion, she carried to term (I guess she didn't have enough money left to try for another abortion) and produced my classmate, who ended up being a Godsend.

From a young age, he protected his mother, helped his mother with the housework and the younger siblings who followed, was always very nice, and did well in school, and ended up going to college on a military scholarship, thereby ending his family's cycle of poverty.

The "Impossible" Child

A somewhat assimilated Eastern European Jewish woman told me how she found herself pregnant with her third child not long after she and her husband and children arrived in America. She explained that they were still getting settled and still so poor, they could not see a way to manage with another child at that time.

It simply seemed impossible.

But due to the restrictive laws of that time, by the time she realized she was pregnant and tracked down an abortionist, it was too late to perform a safe (for the mother at least) abortion.

She brought that child into the world and she remarked on how she always had a lot of nachas from him. “He’s the biggest, handsomest, and best-behaved of my children,” she said. “He was always very good to me. Even now that he’s dorming away at university, he still calls me regularly to chat. His brothers never did that. He’s the most attached to me and such a good boy.”

Then she looked at me with wide eyes as she took another drag on her cigarette and said, “And to think—I wanted to kill him!”

Who Benefits When Abortion is Neither Legal nor Safe...

My great-grandparents immigrated to America from Germany at the turn of the 20th Century.

They ended up with 8 kids, but I was told that my great-grandmother had her children between abortions. Apparently, she found my great-grandfather difficult to deal with and having one child after another added more stress than she felt she could handle -- although clearly, she was wrong. (From the little I know, my great-grandfather seemed like a nominally frum am ha’aretz with a strong control streak).

Being that birth control back then demanded the cooperation of the husband, my great-grandmother resorted to abortion under the false impression that Judaism didn’t consider it so bad. (This is part of the problem with Jews who practice Orthodox Judaism by rote, but aren’t actually knowledgeable and why Chazal traditionally looked down on people who were frum amei aretz. Due to ignorance, such people can't actually keep the Torah properly and end up transgressing.)

My grandfather and his younger brother were the only ones born in America. When she found out she was pregnant with my grandfather, she wanted to abort him. But the abortionist was out of town and by the time he came back, it was too late.

Interestingly, from the time he was little, my great-grandmother felt a warm connection with him and enjoyed an especially close relationship with him throughout her life.

More than 1 Life Saved by Abortion Restrictions

Although we, as parents, should not favor one child over the other nor should we judge a child’s worth by what the child gives us, I still find it interesting that in all the above stories, the child who was supposed to be aborted was the child who ended up giving the mother the most.

Sure, I suppose it's not always true that the child intended for abortion ends up giving the mother the most. But I definitely saw this pattern in the incidents I discovered.

And finally, while I’m grateful to Hashem for intervening with my great-grandmother so that my children & I could descended from the child she originally intended to abort, there’s another life saved by that missed abortion.

During America's 1940s, a black man was accused of a murder he did not commit. But the white cops were fine with letting the black man take the rap for it. Fortunately, my grandfather had the proof that the black man did not kill anybody and Grandpa intervened with the authorities to set him free.

Without my grandfather, that man would be dead.

(You can read about it in Values: When People Want to BE Good & Not Just “Feel” Good.)

So these are the stories you won’t hear because they don’t fit the mainstream agenda. Because abortion was mostly illegal and unsafe, many lives were saved and many mothers experienced lifelong nachas they would never otherwise enjoy.

May Hashem make us a Nation of true talmidei chachamim & may we all do true teshuvah from love.

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Please Daven & Donate

21/12/2018

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You're probably already aware of the following, but here's a reminder anyway:

Please daven for the Israeli soldier who was severely wounded in a shooting in which two of his fellows were murdered:
Netanel Ilan ben Shayna Tzipporah

Please also daven for David ben Nasriya, the elderly man viciously attacked & robbed in Los Angeles. Here's a GoFundMe page for him:
www.gofundme.com/us-campaign-sr-citizen-attack-robbedlife-savings
(H/T Yeranen Yaakov)

May they have a refuah shlaima u'meheirah among all the other cholei Yisrael.

May we only hear good news.

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'Tis the Season of Creepy Customs. Tra-la-la-la!

20/12/2018

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Many years ago, Rabbi Leib Kelemen gave a class on the disturbing pagan origins of Edom’s December holiday. I found it very enlightening and wanted to check out his research for myself. (I was automatically double-checking everything back then.)

It’s a really creepy, crazy history.

(You can see another detailed analysis of that holiday history HERE. Fascinatingly informative!)

Posts have previously appeared on this blog explaining why polytheistic belief systems are not the traditions of serenity, wisdom, feminine power, and cuddly nature as portrayed by Western society.

Likewise, popular wintertime traditions possess many spiritually repulsive elements—which American colonists originally recognized.

Despite being Europeans themselves, American settlers were on their way to becoming a society of Bnei Noach (then took the wrong fork in the road).

In fact, the American Puritans ignored the December holiday and some even prohibited any celebration of it because it wasn’t mentioned in the Torah or their gospels. (Hint, hint!)

For example, seasonal trees are a newer tradition in America—dating only from the 1840-50s. The custom was brought by German immigrants who decorated their trees with candles, presents, and flowers.

One American newspaper initially reported on the custom with suspicion and frowned upon the pagan aspect of going into the forests at that time to decorate trees with candles and the like.

Their suspicions were well-founded.

Emuna Goes Up Against...Pine Needles?

Tree-worship goes back to ancient times, with Ashera-worship clearly forbidden in the Torah.

Pagan systems vary in flavor, but they basically believed that the winter solstice indicated a sick god who would eventually be “reborn” again.

You’d think it’s very scary to believe that one’s god could get the snuffles (“Sorry, no prayer service today; our god just called in sick”), but rather than changing to authentic monotheism, people just developed different customs to make themselves feel better.

Egyptians used green palm decorations to reassure themselves while Europeans and Scandinavians used evergreens.

Okay…but why not just believe in the truth:
God is Eternal, All-Powerful, and cannot get sick or weak.

So put down the green stuff and have faith!

But some people prefer palm leaves and pine needles to emuna. Oh well.

Many people today also romanticize the nature-loving Celts.

But archaeologists in Britain discovered evidence of human sacrifice before a tree.

They also found mistletoe in the victim’s stomach. (Oh, so THAT’S what you’re supposed to do with the mistletoe… everyone’s been doing it all wrong this whole time!)

But it’s not just the old-time Brits who sacrificed people to trees.

Aryan Amalekites

Germans had a tradition of sacrificing humans before “Thor's Oak” (which was decorated with lights) on December 25th.

Many Europeans kept up a remnant of this tradition by burning a “Yule log” (rather than a person, I guess) on their hearths until the 1900s.

Then people decided to make the Yule log into a rolled-up jelly-and-cream-filled sponge cake and eat it instead of burning it.

Actually, it's funny that church-going people still use the term "Yule" to describe their cakes and season. Yule was an ancient Germanic pagan festival that revered imaginary gods, predatory spirits, and sacrifices.

Anyway, it’s not surprising that davka the Germans brought the tree tradition over to America. With a few exceptions, they never managed to completely drop their nature-worshiping tendencies.

Contrary to the popular belief that Nazism was an atheist movement, Nazism idealized and observed many occult nature-worshiping customs in an effort to get back to their pre-Christian roots (roots like “Thor's Oak”).

For example, the racist occult society on which Nazi ideology is based hosted secret ceremonies based on nature-worship and even included background music sung by a choir of “forest elves.”

(Presumably, these were creepy Aryans dressed up as forest elves and not actual forest elves.)

Continuing along these lines, Nazi SS officers married in pagan ceremonies that took place in special parts of forests containing occult significance. Nazis chose fortresses and castles located in forests for the occult significance of those particular areas.

Actually, West German tribes called Thor "Donar" and they knew the tree for human sacrifice as "Donar's Oak." An allusion to this tradition remains today as the name of one of Santa's reindeer, Donner. (Donner & Blitzen are "Thunder" (Thor) & "Lightening.")

How merry!

Anyway, the point is that Aryans traditionally have been really into trees.

And it’s not for good reasons.

And German immigrants brought these customs with them to America.

'Tis the Season to be Savage

Going even further back, the week of Saturnalia was celebrated at winter solstice in Rome.

Jolly pagans ran amuck violating women, looting, vandalizing, committing human sacrifice, and passing out pastries in the shape of—how do I say this in polite company?— erva parts.

Then they got rid of the human sacrifice and settled for distributing dolls made of wax or pottery instead...ooh, presents!

Europeans actually kept up some of these violent traditions, but only against the Jews.

Then they ran out of Jews after the devastation of the Shoah, so they stopped that seasonal tradition.

(Actually, not completely true. Several brutal pogroms were committed against surviving who Jews who returned.)

And Europeans also modified the vulgar pastries into gingerbread men.

Prior to the merry Romans, Persians celebrated December 25th as the birthday of their sun-god.

Ancient Persians shouted from their shrines about how a betulah has brought forth issue. (Gosh, that sounds so familiar...)

If you go back even further, you find a woman who seems to have been the wife of the Babylonian tyrant Nimrod, who gave birth to a baby long after Nimrod had died—like, a LOT longer than 9 months after he died. Oops!

But no worries—she simply claimed to have been impregnated by a sunbeam and the child was an incarnation of Nimrod.

So with that, Nimrod's wife inspired immaculate-conception & mother-goddess/child-god worship.

Ancient Egyptians also celebrated this time as the birth of their sun-god, which they represented with the image of an infant.

They ate goose and decorated their homes with greenery (both of which are familiar December traditions nowadays). They also had celebrations similar to the Romans, but less violent.

I'll Stick with Judaism, Thank You Very Much

Many of us don’t feel the pagan holiday season at all, especially those of us living in Eretz Yisrael.

(The exception might be if you, like my son, served in the only Jewish army in the world and roomed on base with non-Jewish Ukrainians who decorated the room with colored tinsel and sang carols at the top of their lungs. Ho, ho, ho!)

And it’s so typical of Esavite culture to make everything look pretty and attractive.

But all those trees with their lights and decorations? Think human sacrifice.

Rolled-up jelly-cream log-shaped cakes? Think human sacrifice.

And all that partying & feasting & gingerbread? Think pagan reign of terror.

Yeah. It’s really not so nice.

Frankly, I prefer Chanukah.

And Purim. And Pesach. And even Tisha B’Av…

Baruch Elokeinu sheh baranu b’chvodo v’hivdelanu min hato’im…

Blessed is our God Who created us for His Glory and separated us from the erring ones…

Related posts:
Why Polytheism Really is So Awful
New-Age Nazis

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Will the Real Role Model Please Stand Up?

18/12/2018

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"Packaging" is part of the reason why it can sometimes be so hard to differentiate between aspects of society that are good and helpful & those that are actually bland or even harmful.

We know that Chazal compares Esav to the pig who looks all good and kosher on the outside with his cloven hoof, but is actually completely treif and non-cud-chewing on the inside.

Esav is Edom. And one manifestation of Edom is North America today.

The Inspiring Degenerate

Take inspirational or motivational videos, speeches, and stories, for example.

They’re usually very well produced and presented. The writer or speaker is often passionate and convincing. They can be interesting and fill you with pleasurable feelings.

On the other hand, I’ve never heard of anyone who actually did anything with the motivation and inspiration from these videos. (That's part of the Esavite false-front: You've got tons of motivational videos that don't seem to actually motivate anyone.)

Furthermore, I think some people feel discouraged after hearing about someone else’s awe-inspiring success story.

One problem with them is the falsehood innate in many of them.

For example, I remember the disgust I felt when reading the story of a brilliant academic who’d overcome paranoid schizophrenia (with the help and support of a lot of people).

If you use Torah values as your yardstick, this guy was an awful jerk lacking in basic empathy. He had a sadistic streak too, if you judge him by a childhood event in which this young genius created an electric chair and then tried to convince his very sweet sister to sit in it so he could test it out.

He used women, cheated on his wives, abandoned a son who desperately wanted a relationship with him, and so on.

I didn’t find it to be such a tragedy that he thought aliens were recruiting him to save the world in light of the bigger tragedy of his appalling lack of morals.

When he was finally cured (mostly) of being a nutter, he went right back to being the same awful despicable jerk he was before. I couldn’t believe it! After all that, what about some gratitude and appreciation? Or teshuvah?

Nope.

Yet millions of people consider this an inspiring success story.

Why? Because he’s intellectually brilliant—something Hashem doesn’t care about unless it's accompanied by morality.

But we now live in a society which places such things on a pedestal and convinces everyone to enthuse over it.

The Overblown Overnight Success

Sometimes we’re presented with a story of overnight success. But that “overnight” success was actually years in the making and pocked with setbacks.

Or we’re presented with a simplistic, seemingly miraculous story whose background is kept hidden so as not to stunt the “WOW!” factor—like a girl wins a massive singing competition and her only experience is singing in her room and dabbling in song composition while sitting on her bed.

But then you discover that she’d been taking singing lessons & song composition lessons prior and she’d performed several times in public, plus created and uploaded her own videos. So she actually came to the competition with experience and training—and not straight from her bedroom as presented.

Is such a person talented? Yes, definitely.

But not miraculously talented as portrayed.

The Greek Champion

Other stories and videos of inspiration feature an athlete who grew up in a bad neighborhood and rather than turning to drugs and gangs, he focused on running really fast across a large area with an egg-shaped ball.

Now, I’m glad he avoided indulging in drugs and crime. But so many professional football and basketball players lead dissolute lives off the field. Many (if not most) are debauched and their treatment of others leaves a lot to be desired.

So why are these types so admired and held up as the ideal? Because they fulfill a certain athletic ideal of strength and prowess. Also, they make tons of money.

However, if he’d grown up to be a faithful husband & father with a stable job, then that would be an impressive and inspiring accomplishment for someone from his background.

In fact, that would actually be a LOT MORE than playing ball with a bunch of other overpaid ball-runners.

Accomplishment: The Hidden & The Revealed

Why are primarily superstars held up as the ideal?

There is a book (The Resilient Self: How Survivors of Troubled Families Rise Above Adversity) that idealizes people who grew up in very dysfunctional circumstances and later become normal decent people (as opposed to becoming society's superstars), but it’s an exception.

For a time, I felt that nearly every frum story of overcoming difficulties ended with the person forming an organization to help others. Needless to say, if you can do this, this is VERY good.

But what if you can’t? What if the very thought of starting and running a national or international organization makes you go numb from all the complexities of carrying out that task?

Yes, I think the extreme stories in the frum world are very important. I like to read them too. And as far as the organizations and grand accomplishments go, well, I’ve certainly benefited from them and am personally grateful for those who created them.

My point isn't to bash it—on the contrary, they're very necessary! But it’s not something that every single person can do—nor should it be the measure of personal accomplishment and teshuvah.

People need to know that if you can transform yourself from a dismal person into a decent person, then that is amazing and very precious in Hashem’s Eyes—even if you don’t end up running an entire organization or becoming famous for it.

I once knew a young woman who grew up in nightmarish circumstances. The explosive fights between her parents and their wild acts of revenge against each other broke all boundaries and made the home a frightening place. And this was a daily life!

But her parents’ feral behavior caused her to consider the source: a lack of vatranut (giving in). So she decided to become a vatran. She wasn’t a pushover at all because her vatranut emanated from a place of strength and not spinelessness. And looking for a more moral life and a system which also valued vatranut led her to Torah Judaism.

Seeing her, you’d never guess that such a nice sweet sensible person was raised in such a savage environment.

Her middot are such an amazing accomplishment on their own—even though, to my knowledge, she’s never done anything socially outstanding.

"Hashem Loves Fat, Short People"

I think this was one of the secrets to Rav Avigdor Miller’s success: He put the average unnoticeable Jew on a pedestal. He noticed them!

The harried-looking frum mother of many children considered pathetic and unattractive in secular society was declared “the most beautiful sight one can imagine” by Rav Miller in his lecture on Parshat Vayetzei. He further exhorted that "there is nothing more beautiful and more perfect than the mothers of our people. That’s the genuine beauty!"

He takes the image of another regular frum woman seemingly not doing anything special, and presents her in the loftiest light:

Here’s a place, let’s say a waiting room, and everybody is dressed in denim. They have no backbone, so since the high school bums wear blue overalls, so the adults also, they have no backbone so they yield to the environment.

An elderly man is sitting in the waiting room wearing blue denim!...Ragged artificial patches, splotches on it as if someone poured ink on it or something.

And he mentions the lack of modesty among these people as well.

But then we spot...The Frum Lady:

And here is one woman, she's covered up; her hair is covered up. It's hot, she has sleeves down to her knuckles, she has a long dress, and she is proud, she's not self-conscious.

That woman is the eishes chayil! That's the strength that Hashem cares about.

She's a lion, standing tall and proud in the jungle of naked pygmies!

The people like this woman are the ones carrying aloft the banner of our pride!

(Parshas Vayachei: The Fearful Moment—used with permission)

Do you see what Rav Miller did there?

He took that whole cultural ideal of being cool and youthful and turned it on its head by labeling it as a sign of having “no backbone” and yielding to “bums.”

All of the sudden, the exalted secular society is disdained as a jungle of uncivilly dressed pygmies—and this anonymous average frum lady is the pinnacle of civilization.

Just as a side note, I remember how much I liked acid-washed denim as a teenager and I enjoyed Rav Miller’s description of it as “splotches on it as if someone poured ink on it or something.” Yep! Too bad I didn't realize that then...

And what about the short, fat Jew waddling down the street? Also beautiful!

Here's Rav Miller again:

You see your husband, a fat, old fellow, waddling in the street, short and fat, you have to say, “I love that man.”… Hashem loves fat, short people.

If they are Jews, shomrei Torah, He loves them intensely, He loves them more than anything in the world.

(This is mentioned in a couple of lectures, one of them being The 10 Commandments of Marriage.)

Of course "fat" isn't a good thing; we shouldn’t give into food taavos and overeat—Rav Miller warns against that too.

But he means that the imperfect frum Jew who is either unnoticed or even despised by his non-frum brothers and many non-Jews—that very Jew is greatly loved by the Creator of the Universe...simply because he’s doing his best to keep halacha.

And because of Rav Miller’s insistence on their gorgeousness, we start to love these Jews too.

And because most of us are regular, imperfect Jews who keep the Torah—even if we’re awkward or messy about it at times—we realize that we are also the kind of Jew Rav Miller declares to be intensely lovable and stunningly beautiful.

And that’s the truth.

Related posts:
The Stunning Greatness of a Regular Jew: Gitty
The Stunning Greatness of a Regular Jew: Leah
The Overlooked Prophetess: Chana
Why a Leah Imeinu Can't (and Shouldn't) be a Sara Imeinu
2 Examples of Unforeseeable Personality Transformation

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