“Her employer was right to point out the lack of communication and loyalty. Unfortunately, I think this reflects today’s generation”

Spiritual Road Test [Guestlines / Issue 1029]

I thoroughly enjoyed Rabbi Yaakov Salomon’s article proposing an initiative for Elul, in which rabbis offer their congregants a dedicated space for introspection. This idea resonates deeply with me, as it mirrors what our rabbi, Rav Y. Reuven Rubin at Adass Aish Kodesh in Manchester, has been doing for years.

Our rabbi calls it a “spiritual MOT,” drawing an analogy from the UK’s requirement for cars to undergo an annual MOT test. Just as we ensure our vehicles are roadworthy, we should do the same for our souls. During these sessions, we reflect on our commitments (kabbalos) from the previous year, while our rabbi encourages us to pursue further growth, especially through increased Torah learning.

This year, the central theme was a thought from the Kotzker Rebbe: “How much do you really want to be a Yid?” This question serves as a powerful prompt for deeper reflection during this auspicious time of year.

Thank you for bringing attention to this meaningful initiative. It’s an idea whose time has truly come.

Melech Dovid Kanter

Manchester

First-Time Employer [Double Take / Issue 1029]

I’m writing in response to the Double Take story about Meira, who hired Russy to cover for her during her upcoming maternity leave, spending time training her and then giving her off to go to camp — and then Russy quit just before she was to go on leave.

I’m both a father of daughters and an employer in the private sector and I believe Russy was correct on all accounts. Not only did she abide by the contract 100 percent, but even from got a psak from a rabbi that she was doing the right thing. In addition, she offered to train the next person.

Meira showed her inexperience as a first-time employer. There were no guarantees that this was going to work out, yet she didn’t have a Plan B.

If I were Russy’s father, I would have encouraged her to do what she did, and if I were a prospective employer looking over Russy’s résumé, provided she was qualified for the job, I would have hired her on the spot!

R.M.

Cleveland

Lack of Communication [Double Take / Issue 1029]

I understand the young employee in the Double Take story was fresh out of school and getting guidance from her parents, but she left several loose ends. In my opinion, her communication was lacking. First, she should have told her employer why she was leaving, so it wasn’t a surprise. Second, she should have mentioned that she asked a rav and followed his advice. While I get that this new job “fell into her lap,” it only happened after she told her family she was looking for something else.

Her employer was right to point out the lack of communication and loyalty. Unfortunately, I think this reflects today’s generation. Once she accepted the job, it became her responsibility to follow through. If she wasn’t happy, she should have given it a few months, given notice, and then looked for something else. But leaving just weeks after training, when her employer was depending on her, shows poor commitment and responsibility.

In the past, we stayed at jobs we didn’t love because it was still a job, something we had to take seriously. I understand the current trend of wanting to “love your job” and making sure it “works for you,” but there’s a real lack of dedication and accountability today. Many employees expect to have it all — high pay, flexibility (another buzzword), clocking out as soon as possible regardless of open tasks, and asking for frequent raises.

This attitude, whether from employees or contractors, shows a lack of professionalism and dedication.

In my opinion, we should emphasize the importance of the commitment, integrity, and responsibility that come with any job.

C. A.

Commitment Necessary [Double Take / Issue 1029]

Each week when the magazines come, I flip straight to the end of it to see if there’s a Double Take that week. When I was in seminary, we discussed these stories way into the night, usually ending with a proclamation of “they should have asked daas Torah!” and then the conversation was over.

Oh, if the Double Take about Meira and Russy could have been published while I was still in seminary. Reading this left me riddled with disbelief, as I almost became Russy and Meira’s Double Take story this year.

Where I live, getting a teaching job right out of seminary is a rarity, and classroom assistant and secretarial jobs are limited, too. I was determined to teach when I came back from seminary. As I was advised, I started making phone calls to the local chadarim and Bais Yaakovs even before I came home for Pesach, sending in application after application, calling and meeting with principals, but to no avail. My friends and I spent much of the short time we had at home before Pesach networking and doing model lessons.

I made my way back to Eretz Yisrael after Pesach feeling as if I had made no headway in the job search, but knowing I had done my hishtadlus and the rest was up to Hashem.

When my seminary year ended, it felt like everyone around me had a job. I was surrounded by friends who were secretaries and assistants and teachers and I was jobless — but I wanted to follow my dream and teach!

My mother encouraged me to make one last phone call, and one of the school principals answered on the first ring and offered me her last school position as a classroom assistant. I was grateful, but hesitant. It wasn’t exactly what I had hoped for, but I didn’t want to be left without a job, so I asked for a week to decide. The principal kindly agreed.

I spoke to my parents, my seminary principal, and a mentor and they all echoed the same sentiment: “There is no guarantee what else will come up, but if you do end up taking this job you should accept it with a full heart and put all your energy and passion into it as if it is your first choice. If
you’re always thinking about the job you didn’t get, you won’t get the maximum you can out of the experience and your students won’t see the best of you.”

Everyone I spoke to agreed that if I did accept this job, it was an achrayus I was taking, and it wouldn’t be fair to the school or the students to back out, even if something else came up.

After a week with no job offers, I realized either I accept this job or potentially lose it and have no position for the coming year. Hashgachah had it that the day before the one-week deadline, as I was about the call the principal and accept the assistant position, I got a call offering me the position of my dreams. Yad Hashem was so clear and I was so grateful that this is how my story ended, but I also benefited from learning a tremendous lesson about commitment.

Russy, your attitude upset me to no end. Is this what we have come to? No sense of commitment, no sense of hakaras hatov, no sense of menschlichkeit. While I admire you tremendously for asking a rav (especially since that is what is usually missing from Double Take), I’m wondering if you told the rav the entire story. Did you tell your rav that Meira had invested both time and money to train you? Was the rav informed that Meira was about to go on maternity leave with no time to find and train someone else and that her parnassah and personal well-being depended on you? Did you not feel at all guilty about this decision you were making? What if you were in Meira’s position? How would you feel?

You ended your side of the story with a plea to Meira: “This job isn’t working well for me. And with a much better offer literally having fallen into my lap, can you understand why I won’t turn it down?”

I’m speaking to all the post-seminary Russys out there, including myself — commitment is so important, not just in our post-seminary jobs but in life. If there is no sense of commitment in our generation, then what are we left with?

Name Withheld

Help Them Understand Themselves [Double Take / Issue 1029]

Russy’s dilemma resonated with an all-too-familiar phenomenon known as “post-sem pressure”: the perceived need for young girls to have it all figured out the minute they step off the plane.

Unfortunately, many young women are nudged into accepting jobs this way, pursuing degrees and even long-term careers that aren’t right for them, simply because they lack clarity in what they’re seeking.

This creates the exact scenario so eloquently addressed in the Double Take.

If you’re a “top girl” receiving lots of offers, you have too many options. If you’re from “out of town,” you have few options, and getting your foot in the door can be brutal. And if you’re a bit indecisive (which is perfectly normal for an 18-year-old), you feel like you’re miles behind.

In any case, you’re positioned to accept the first and best offer that comes your way, even if you don’t have the faintest idea of what you actually would like to be doing.

Russy had reservations about accepting the job offer in the first place, but she couldn’t attend to her inner voice — there were likely too many voices, whether real or imagined, based on the societal expectations around her.

In my experience as a career consultant, a potential hire who knows the exact role she’s looking to fill is a much better candidate than someone who is being pulled from all directions.

Let’s do both the employers and employees a favor and give our girls some space, shall we?

If Russy had been clear with Meira about her intentions when applying for the job, it would have saved them both a lot of heartache. If Russy had understood how her personality wasn’t suited to the role, she could have expressed this much earlier on. And if Meira had truly listened to Russy, instead of projecting her own interests onto her, she may have picked up on it as well.

Might I suggest a good practice for parents assisting their child in career decisions, or even anyone looking to hire a young, fresh-faced employee: Help them determine for themselves if it’s the right fit! Sometimes, quieting all the noise is all it takes. Try to step back, detach, and ask the right questions — and if you can’t, encourage them to weigh in with someone who can.

Aleah Cohen,

Career & Talent Consultant

Jerusalem, Israel

Not Everyone Is in School [Back to School / Issue 1029]

I appreciate your article highlighting the work of Mr. Shuli Halpert in getting young men and women admitted to yeshivah. As an educational advocate, I have long admired Shuli Halpert’s work from afar and appreciate the difficulty of the challenge he has embraced.

Toward the end of the article, Mr. Halpert is quoted as saying, “Everyone somehow ends up in school.” While I wish I could agree with that sentiment, unfortunately, I have not found that to be the case.

Work At It is a community organization that supports young people who have found no place in the yeshivah system, and our database is full of names of young men and women who unfortunately have not found a place in any yeshivah. It is estimated that over 1,000 young people drop out of the yeshivah system every year, some by choice and some not by choice, and the sad fact is that many do not move on to positive places.

The Work At It strength-based program works to find options for these young people. We help them pursue their passions, find internships and jobs, develop homeschooling programs, and take alternative routes to high school graduation. It’s imperative that every young person, even those who do not find a suitable yeshivah program, still have a welcoming place in the community.

The Work At It system is most successful when community leaders and business owners join forces with us, creating a place in the community for all of our children, regardless of their previous academic success, and we are always looking for more people to join us in making this possible.

Yaakov Mintz

Educational Advocate

Work At It

A Personal Loss [He Belonged to Everyone / Issue 1028]

I went to be menachem avel the Skulener Rebbe’s family. Upon entering the shivah house, I was faced with the enormity of the family’s tzaar, their profound sadness at losing a husband and father.

He was like a malach in the form of a Rebbe, and he was also the tatte in his home. A home that radiated simchah. A home filled with warmth, kindness, and erlichkeit, a home that was wide open to anyone and everyone who was privileged enough to enter. A home where a Kiddush or Havdalah was said with the same intensity and dveikus as if it were being said in front of thousands of chassidim at a tish. A home where watching Chanukah licht transported one into a different world. A home where Purim truly felt like a holy Yom Tov. A home where the father sat and learned at the dining room table and the mother was in the kitchen with the family. A home that was filled with kedushah and taharah.

At the shivah, we Montrealers sat there crying alongside the family, as each of us felt close, so very close to him.

How was that possible? How could he have made everyone feel that way? The answer was simple. As one of his daughters so eloquently put it, “Because he really did feel close to everyone, because his heart was so large, he had room for everyone in it.”

Our husbands and sons are lost without him, and we feel their pain.

The Rebbe’s hadras panim lit up the room, and he gave the men and boys chizuk and a chiyus for learning Torah and avodas Hashem. He always took the time to inquire about each chassid’s family members, remembering at what stage in life they were holding.

If you were ever zocheh to have the Rebbe attend your simchah, you could feel the warmth as he shared in your happiness, as he danced as if it was the simchah of his own child.

A couple years back, when he was suffering from terrible sores in his mouth, my husband went in to him, not realizing the yissurim that he was enduring and what tremendous pain he was in. After the Rebbe gave him heartwarming brachos, my husband was about to leave when the Rebbe motioned to him to come back. Almost apologetically, he told him, “Di kenst davenen far mir,” please daven for me.

He truly felt that another simple Yid’s tefillos would help him. How pure, how holy!

One Friday afternoon, he asked my husband to drive him to a shivah house where it seemed like the man was sitting alone with no visitors at all. The man didn’t know very many people and his face lit up when he saw the Rebbe.

“You’re the only person that came to be menachem avel today,” he said. (The only person who had come the day before was the Skverer Dayan.) “Please taste my wife’s kugel,” he begged. “Make a brachah in my house, please.”

And the Rebbe, with his outstanding middos, who hardly ever put any food in his mouth altogether, let alone from someone else’s kitchen, took the plate and made a brachah. What gadlus!

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of stories that can attest to how derhoiben he was. We lost a father. What an honor and privilege it was for all those who were fortunate enough to have witnessed his simchas hachayim, his ability to achieve such lofty heights in his short lifetime.

Our hearts are hurting and our thoughts are with his rebbetzin and their beautiful family who miss him so badly.

May he be a meilitz yosher for the whole Klal Yisrael, and may he go to the Kisei Hakavod and beg HaKadosh Baruch Hu to send Mashiach b’karov.

F.V.E.

It Should Be Mandatory [Inbox / Issue 1027]

Many readers wrote in about the previous Double Take story about a principal who made in-service days mandatory. One subject that wasn’t discussed was the title of these in-service days: Mental Health Awareness.

Teachers who detect the first symptoms of a problem when it’s still in its infancy enable early diagnosis. This can prevent escalation.

Maybe the principal should have planned this workshop in a different way. But she was very wise making it mandatory.

Hadassah

My Mother Was His Kallah [For the Record / Issue 1025]

Thank you to Yardena Schwartz, author of Ghosts of a Holy War and to Mishpacha for printing the article about this forthcoming book. It was so meaningful to read the account of (Aharon Dovid) Dave Shainberg’s experience and untimely death in the Chevron Yeshivah Massacre.

Before he went to Eretz Yisrael, Dave and my mother, Jennie Sorscher (Golden at the time) were unofficially engaged. I was in touch with Yardena Schwartz, and she sent me a letter that my mother had written after the tragedy, expressing her sympathy to Dovid’s parents.

It was so special to see my mother’s handwriting, to have evidence of her performing the mitzvah of nichum aveilim. Many years after the massacre, I was expecting a child, and my mother asked that if the baby was a boy, could I please name him Dovid. Our son, indeed, was named Dovid for Dave Shainberg.

Yehi zichro baruch.

R. Snow

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1031)