"How have we created a system where a girl has to do something against her will, and against everything she has been taught about tzniyus, in order to get married?"

Just Wear It [Text Messages / Issue 846]

I am an avid magazine reader and my entire family looks forward to our weekly delivery of the magazine. I always enjoy and almost always agree with Eytan Kobre’s columns. This past week’s column “No More Excuses” was absolutely correct!

I wanted to share that I visited a well-known frum city this past week and went to a local kosher supermarket. To their credit, there was a big sign on the door that said “Do not enter without a mask.” Additionally, there were two boxes of free masks for anyone to take as they entered if they did not have one. I could not believe that when I entered the store there were still people not wearing masks!

As I looked at the non-Jewish cashiers I cringed as I thought about the chillul Hashem that these non-mask-wearing people were perpetrating.

I know for a fact about a man in his forties from Lakewood who said he was not susceptible, that COVID was over, and refused to wear a mask. He is in the hospital this week with COVID.

But let’s put all that aside. The sign on the door said “Do not enter without a mask.” And free masks were being provided. All people had to do was put one on. What is the big deal about wearing masks? What a chillul Hashem that can never be undone. And this chillul Hashem extends beyond that supermarket, to every time a person with a yarmulke or a sheitel goes into a store without a mask.

Additionally, it is unfair for those of us who are being considerate and doing the right thing that we are constantly having to defend our fellow Jews who are too stubborn to follow the rules.

A. F.

The Solution Within [Perspective / Issue 846]

After reading Alexandra Fleksher’s Perspective this week on our spending habits, I wanted to offer a different perspective.

I think we have been getting used to the idea of identifying communal problems and trying to lobby for everyone to change together. The writer is talking about something deeply embedded in human nature, and expending our energies to convince others to change is not truly tackling the issue that is being discussed.

The message we may be sending our kids by noticing and complaining about everyone else’s inexplicable high standards of living is that although we feel they are wrong for doing so, we wish we could also have the money to live that way.

Societal pressures generally exist in a person because he himself, deep down, wants to be like everyone around him. The rich, or the pretending-to-be-rich people are not at fault for these feelings. Although they may be wrong for what they are doing, the true issue is not how to judge such people, but rather how to deal with the pressure that we feel from them.

The solution to social pressures, whether it is a fancy wedding, a style of dress, or an exotic vacation, is not changing society to live a simpler lifestyle. Unless we are their mentors, we will not successfully teach people that +a simpler life is the Torah way, because we are not their mentors. The beginning of the solution and where our energies should be spent lies in teaching ourselves to be content with the standard of living we feel is fit for our family.

I understand we are concerned for our children and shidduchim, but if one could be content living within his own means, our children would recognize and respect that. By doing so, I can assure you that you will find the “rich people” are jealous of your lifestyle.

N. Krischer

Deaf Gains [Inbox / Issue 845]

In response to the letter from the father who has several deaf children (he prefers to call them hearing-impaired): As Rabbi Soudakoff clarified in the article (“Loud and Clear,” Issue 844), the term “hearing-impaired” is not preferred by most deaf/hard of hearing people since it focuses on negativity (what is lacking). There is also a new term called “deaf gain” (what we gain) referring, among other things, to having great eye contact, attention to visual detail, and giving full attention when communicating.

We know many deaf/hard of hearing people who use digital hearing aids or have cochlear implants. While these devices are extremely helpful, they do not create “perfect” hearing and these people still rely on captioning, especially for online content. We think that Rabbi Yehoshua Soudakoff is wonderful for his care in working on behalf of deaf and hard of hearing people. His organization Chushim is currently translating Tanach into Israeli Sign Language AND captioning in five languages: English, Russian, Arabic, French, and Hebrew, making it accessible to many more Jewish people around the world — whether they use sign language or not.

We look forward to much more from this organization and hope that Rabbi Soudakoff goes from strength to strength.

Rachelle and Samuel Landau

Frustraters Aren’t Culpable [Inbox / Issue 845]

I wasn’t sure what to make of Simcha Leib Grossbard’s point about the frustrated and the frustraters — specifically, about the frustraters holding some responsibility for people’s frustration.

Maybe that’s because I am a seasoned frustrater. When my children ask for candy after brushing their teeth, I tell them no. When they ask to read just another chapter after bedtime has already come and gone, I tell them to wait for the next day. Yes, they do feel frustrated sometimes.

But guess what? Even though I’m guilty of being a “frustrater,” I don’t think I am culpable for any wrongdoing. I’m doing my job. Sometimes it causes frustration. So what?

Just because you don’t like their conclusion doesn’t mean a “frustrater” is doing something wrong. Certainly when it comes to the election, the justices who decided not to hear the “stolen election” case don’t bear any culpability for your frustration. They did their job.

Miriam Weissman

You Never Could Have Known [Namesake / True Account — Issue 845]

After reading this past week’s True Account again and again, I knew I had to put my feelings and emotions into words. You see, though some details of the story were changed, it only took me a few moments to realize that “Mrs. Eisenberg” is my very own high school principal.

Mrs. Eisenberg, I have always felt extremely close to you, I have always felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude to you for the way you took special care of me throughout my high school experience, and I have always appreciated the way you rooted for me no matter what, but after reading your story this past Shabbos, I am truly in awe of you.

I knew you lost a baby that year, but my naïve teenage self could never have imagined just how nightmarish that reality was. As I read about your “double life,” I remembered the countless meetings I had with you that year, some in the late hours of the night, in which you listened and walked me through my innermost teenage fears and insecurities, treating them as though they were the most important matters in the world.

Not once did you reveal any hint of the other life you were living, the one full of pain and emotional upheaval. I’m embarrassed and humbled by your ability to make me feel so important at a time in your life when everything could have seemed so trivial compared to your own experiences.

Rather than retreat into your own pain, you reached beyond yourself, you rebuilt, you came back to school, and you validated and concerned yourself with the teenage worries of your students, showing us the same amount of love and care as ever before.

I am now married and experiencing my own unique “grown-up” nisyonos that enable me to relate to your story in a way I never would have been able to before. The strength I saw back then fills me with awe, and has compelled me to rethink the way I react in the face of my own nisyonos.

May the continued impact you make on all of your students serve as a tremendous source of aliyah for your precious Binyamin’s neshamah.

Your student for life

Pictures Warp the Process [Counterpoint/ Issue 844]

As a mentor who helps build relationships, I am writing in response to Mrs. Weinstein’s letter in the Counterpoint section regarding pictures in shidduchim. Mrs. Weinstein mentioned my speaking against pictures at the 2019 Agudah convention.

Although I certainly agree with all the hashkafic reasons to stop using pictures on résumés, it is important to recognize yet another reason to avoid it: A picture on a résumé isn’t a conducive building block to a healthy relationship. In fact, it is actually a disruption of the correct order of how a dating couple should approach shidduchim with the end goal of a healthy marriage.

After all the research done by both sides and the couple going on two or three dates, there needs to be an intellectual understanding that the person you are dating is someone whom you would like to try to build a relationship with. When done correctly, you should then be focusing on connecting emotionally and forming a bond. Only then do looks take on an important role on another level.

Although intellectual, emotional, and physical connection are all important, following the correct order has lasting power and ability to connect, even when the excitement wears off or if someone is ill or aging. If the foundation starts with the picture, there is little chance that the intellect and emotion will stay as strong in a time of change.

The good news is, a couple can always start to build a healthy relationship, even if they are already deep into a worn-out “image relationship.” Although it takes work, I have seen healthy relationships form many times.

Rabbi Yechiel Rhine

Against our Values [Counterpoint/ Issue 844]

I am a mainstream frum Bais Yaakov girl who has been in shidduchim for a while. I remember when I was starting out about ten years ago (not too long ago!), people were still talking about how résumés were demeaning and they were decrying the idea of a paper representing a real, live person. Now pictures have become the norm.

I know lots of girls in shidduchim and I have yet to hear of one girl who is comfortable sending her picture. And yet, it’s a must. It’s expected. It’s come to the point that if a girl refuses because she was imbued with the concept of modesty since she was born, she is labeled “difficult” and assumed to be “hiding something.”

Many shadchanim won’t agree to work with a girl who doesn’t send her picture. Most boys and their mothers will never even consider a girl unless she sends a picture. As a friend of mine pointed out, most Torah-true magazines and newspapers won’t publish a picture of a woman, married or not. But sending around pictures of shidduch-age single girls is considered to be best practice? How have we gotten here?

How have we created a system where a girl has to do something against her will, and against everything she has been taught about tzniyus, in order to get married? How many single girls have heard, “Well, that’s how shidduchim work today. You just have to go with the flow.”

Maybe there is a way to change this. Perhaps, if enough singles agree not to send their picture we can turn the tide and make a change. I know many people will say “you can’t fight the system.” But I think that if we make a collective decision not to send shidduch pictures anymore, we can make a real difference together. Who’s in?

S. M. (I can be contacted through Mishpacha)

Let Them Be Adults [Counterpoint / Issue 844]

When reading Rabbi Goldberg’s article “No Further Questions,” I found myself thinking about the chassidish community who heavily research each boy or girl before meeting in person. The reasoning behind this is to allow for the girl and boy to only have eyes for each other. The reference system reduces the number of times they will meet other people. (This is not to say that the chassidish system is flawless — they readily admit that they too pry into each candidate at a level that upsets the references.)

However, the yeshivish/Orthodox shidduch system uses both the reference system and the dating system. This seems to be the reason for our discomfort with the misguided and overly prying questions.

The purpose of dating is to learn about the match. Once the basic personality questions are asked, the dates soon revolve around deeper questions about hashkafah, lifestyle choices, and the future. Depending on the boy and girl, these conversations can occur over the course of a few or many long dates. Regardless, these are conversations held by the boy and girl via dating rather than through the parents and the references.

In the yeshivish/Orthodox circles, parents and advisors have attempted to participate in both the dating and reference calling which has led to unnecessary, lashon hara-like prying. For the yeshivish/Orthodox system of dating, the references are meant to see if there is potential compatibility. It is meant to give another reason for them to go out, not to learn about all the issues before they even speak to each other.

We have turned reference calling into gossipmongering with the excuse of preventing broken hearts. What once was doing one’s hishtadlus is now a method to control the outcome of which we have only some control.

We have removed the girl and boy’s ability to think about the date and ask questions by not using the reference calls as they were intended. Instead of asking references for every gritty detail, we should train those in the parshah to understand and look for red flags so that they can make informed decisions (EQ for example).

We should expect that young people in shidduchim are adults who are capable of asking for help when there is a problem. By teaching them how to act like adults instead of being the adults for them, we will be increasing their confidence in making choices and help them figure out if they should stop or continue dating that person.

A person’s personal or medical history will be revealed while dating if each party is comfortable to have that conversation. By that time, there will be a context for such information, which will give the other party a chance to look into it further and make a decision. While there may be some heartache involved, the dating process allows for both parties to grow and build trust based on the time spent speaking.

If we want to help singles find their bashert, we need to shift our focus to enable our children to become the adults who will carry our heritage onward.

Sara Aliza Cox

Dispel the Fog [Counterpoint / Issue 844]

Thank you to Rabbi Efrem Goldberg for his interesting and thought-provoking article.

Encouraging and supporting young women to trust their gut instincts is the key to preventing abusive relationships before it is too late. This is not the easy way out. It is the harder way out and it deserves authentic support, not questions, ideas, and advice.

If something seems like it is not quite right, if something feels off, it is because it very likely may be, and often for very serious, harmful, and dangerous reasons.

Information is education, which is essential to making rational choices and decisions before it is too late. Coercive control can be as subtle as it is cunning and it lacks language to adequately explain feelings which lie below consciousness.

Young women may find themselves in a FOG and wonder how they got there. The FOG is an acronym for fear, obligation and guilt — which describes the emotions most commonly used by emotional manipulators to gain and keep control over others and over certain situations.

When these emotions are being exploited, a “fog” of confusion sets in and the person in the “fog” has a hard time thinking clearly. The “fog” can come in the form of well-intended and well-meaning incorrect advice about commitment, family, and friendship from everyone across friends, culture, therapists, religious leaders, and society as a whole often due to a widespread lack of education.

If a young woman is blessed to have a close family, they become her support system both practically and emotionally. However, even if they don’t, it is important to know that there are others she can reach out to help gain clarity, perspective, and confidence about this very important decision.

Rosie Steiner, Specialist Counselor in Emotional and Psychological Abuse and Trauma Recovery

B. Couns, GCBCI

Ethics Above All [Screenshot / Issue 845]

I read with interest Mrs. Friedman’s explanation of Mishpacha’s reporting on Trump and the community’s relationship with Trump. I appreciate the honesty with which you explained your policy — but I was also concerned.

The riot at the Capitol on January 6 was not an aberration and it was predictable. Legions of serious conservatives from Bill Krystal to George Will opposed Trump precisely because of his penchant for lies and his authoritarian style, demanding conformity and adulation from his supporters and members of his administration. His demand that his followers accept his lies after losing the 2020 election was unsurprising and the fact that so many were willing to believe them — after years of accepting his lies — was also unsurprising.

These truths point out a basic problem with the approach to politics you suggest in your editorial. Politics in a democracy are fundamentally not just transactional. We are citizens of this republic, making us responsible for the maintenance of the republic. This republic has granted our community unprecedented freedom to grow and thrive. No country before has ever granted us both full citizenship and the overt permission to live openly and proudly as Torah Jews.

Our future here is therefore far more tied to the successful maintenance of a system of laws and norms, than it is to any one or even multitude of policies. And the maintenance of norms in a democratic republic requires governance by people of good civic character. So when we elect leaders, we need to ask not whether they are wholly moral leaders — we have those in our own community — but whether or not they are essentially truthful, ethical, and kind.

In other words, we need to ask if the person, whatever their private flaws, is someone who demonstrates kindness when they speak with and about others, is able to tell the truth, and whether they do the right thing, whether or not it is to their own personal benefit.

It was clear in 2015 that Trump did not demonstrate kindness, lied far more often than other politicians, and did not do the right thing when it was not to his direct benefit.

The Torah community’s active embrace of someone who is unkind, untruthful, and unethical has had consequences. During the years of Trump’s presidency, the rebbeim at the yeshivah where I teach have watched as our students have become more crude in their speech and conduct, less likely to listen or be able to discuss with those they disagree with, more likely to use ugly racist language, and less understanding of the notion that we must behave toward all people with a deep appreciation of Hashem’s care for that person.

If we wish to act correctly in the future, we need to rethink the notion that our relationship with politicians is simply transactional. The republic that protects our rights needs leaders who are ethical — and we need to teach our children that we care far more about middos, which are objective qualities, than any political position, which should always be debatable among reasonable people.

David Green

Our True Friend [Screenshot / Issue 845]

Shoshana Friedman’s article “As the Dust Settles” left me feeling rather confused.

With every passing day in office, Trump not only met the expectations of the frum community, he surpassed them on so many occasions. Whether it be freeing Rubashkin from prison or recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, Trump solidified himself as a true friend of the Jewish People. And while the secular media attacked him on all fronts, agonizing over his tweets and tone, the frum community rallied ever stronger around this president who had done so much for them. And rightfully so.

We are not, as Shoshana Friedman calls us, people who have “bought into the personality cult.” We are Yidden who have an overwhelming amount of hakaras hatov toward Trump. When you have a president who defends the rights of the unborn (he was the only president to attend the March for Life in Washington), pulls us out of the Iran deal, lowers taxes, secures the border, puts three conservative justices on the Supreme Court, commutes the sentences of not only Rubashkin, but many other frum Yidden right before he left office, kills murderous terrorists, is tough with China and North Korea, brings back law and order to this country and so much more, the outcry that his tone is too harsh or his tweets are too mean is seen by many in the heimishe world as totally irrelevant in the greater scheme of things.

As frum Yidden, we have one concern when it comes to electing a president. And that concern is whether or not the candidate is good for Klal Yisrael. Trump is by far the most pro-Jewish president this country has ever seen. To accuse him of empowering the “radical right” is downright absurd. Groups associated with the alt right are virulently anti-Semitic and possess a deep hatred for Jewish people. Trump has Jewish family members and has stood by Israel through thick and thin. I’m still scratching my head trying to figure out how that empowers groups like the KKK and the Proud Boys.

Unlike Friedman’s suggestion, the Trump presidency did not come to a “crashing end.” The liberal media wants to believe that. The swamp dwellers in Washington want to believe that. But we don’t believe that. We’re different.

We’re frum Yidden who benefitted tremendously the past four years from a kind president who obviously cared deeply for the Jewish community. We don’t care what the media or the experts say. Because as the Trump presidency comes to an end and the media is losing their mind over the “lethal raid of the Capitol,” we are thankful for all that that this president and his administration has done for us. So on behalf of all the “cult” members, thank you President Trump!

Esty B., Yerushalayim

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 847)