“The attitude that was displayed in that letter is downright dangerous. Allergies are a big deal, especially allergies that cause anaphylaxis”

Allergies ARE a Big Deal [Inbox / Issue 839]

I’m writing regarding the letter to the editor which said that allergies are no big deal. I’m writing this as someone who is deathly allergic to wheat and some nuts.

The attitude that was displayed in that letter is downright dangerous. Allergies are a big deal, especially allergies that cause anaphylaxis. This isn’t something to simply brush away and say, “It’s no big deal.”

Many, many allergies are to foods hidden inside other foods. Do you know how often wheat appears in food? Did you know that it’s in sauces? Did you know that many soup mixes contain wheat? How often do you make a soup or a gravy, and flour is a key ingredient as a thickener, and you add it without thinking twice? If my allergy wasn't public knowledge among  my family and friends, I would be dead by now from accidental contamination.

It’s incorrect to say you shouldn’t allow people to ask questions and to point out that a food contains an allergen. It’s crucial that people are aware of what an allergic reaction looks like and know how to help, where your Epipen is located, to call Hatzalah/911 right away, and how to handle it calmly and efficiently.  All my colleagues are well aware of what I’m allergic to and the proper protocol in case G-d forbid I have a reaction. I’m extremely grateful when people serve food and right away say, “This contains flour and this salad has nuts.” You don’t always know what ingredients are included in a food, and believe me, it’s a lot more awkward asking someone to list the ingredients! Anytime my family goes anywhere for a meal, I make sure the host remembers I’m allergic to things.

I’d also like to point out something else that was incorrect — that a person is born with allergies. In fact, some come out later in life, all the more reason that allergy awareness is crucial. Hiding your allergies like it’s a bad secret is a mistake that can cost someone their life (G-d forbid).

There’s nothing wrong with having an allergy. I know many people, myself included, who happily live their lives with allergies, with many people lovingly protecting us all from danger by knowing about the allergies we have.

Ahuva Fierstein

To Grow on Our Own [The Last Havdalah / Issue 839]

I’d like to add another important aspect to your beautifully written tribute to Rebbetzin Bruria David a”h.

One can teach someone to learn or how to learn, but Rebbetzin David taught us to want to learn. That required skill. As an incomparable mechaneches, she had inventive ideas on how to teach us that. For example, she would teach us a maamar that was four pages long and only learn until the end of the third page with us. On the test, she would include a question from the fourth page. When we protested, she said, disappointed, “How can you not have continued on? Weren’t you curious to know the end?”

She decried what she called “schoolishness.” At the end of the year, when school was officially over, she gave another class. “Don’t be a tinok haboreiach mibeis sefer,” she would exhort.

One of her favorite stories was of a wealthy man who came to a yeshivah searching for a son-in-law for his daughter. He posed a difficult Talmudic question to the yeshivah students and promised that the one who knew the answer would be the match for his daughter. He waited a week, but no one knew the answer. As he was leaving the town, a bochur came chasing after him. “Wait,” he called. “Shidduch or no shidduch, please tell us the answer.”

“You,” said the delighted man, “are a match for my daughter.”

A mevakesh. That’s what Rebbetzin David wanted us to become. It was more important than anything else. Rebbetzin David didn’t speak at our graduation or at any of our subsequent reunions. Instead, she listened while we spoke. She wanted us to become self-reliant and to learn and grow on our own. Often she was silent — not complimenting or criticizing — to teach us we don’t need to seek her approval, but Hashem’s. Rebbetzin David only had us for one year, so it was imperative that she teach us how to nurture the seeds she planted during that time.

Now that she has left This World, even more so do we need to remember her belief in our abilities to keep learning, growing, and striving to find favor in the eyes of Hashem.

G. Rosenberg

A Letter to Dassi [Stand By / Issue 839]

Dear Dassi,

I worry about you. I know you’re just a fictional character. But still, I watch you struggle, and I’m afraid of what you’re doing to yourself.

I worry as I watch you doubt your intuition. I worry as I watch you continue to date Ari, despite your concerns. I worry as I watch your own mother advise you to ignore your unease. As I watch her tell you that, not only are Ari’s traits not bad, they’re good and will make him a caring, thoughtful husband.

I worry because somewhere out there is a girl just like you, who does exist. She might be dating a guy just like Ari. She, too, might have doubts, but she’s going forward anyhow because others are telling her to ignore herself. They’re telling her that her concerns don’t matter. That her hesitations aren’t important.

There are men out there just like Ari. And I’m scared that if you continue to ignore your intuition, that girl out there just like you will learn to do the same. I worry she’ll think Ari’s behavior is okay. Or even good. I worry she’ll learn she can’t trust herself. That others know what’s best for her. That her concerns aren’t real.

And I’m afraid of what that message could do to her.

Abuse can happen to anyone. It’s painful. It’s all too real. And most of all, it’s subtle.

You’re the only person who really knows. Others only see fragments of the picture. Only you know what you feel, and what you need, and what you experience. At this point, you also know Ari better than everyone else around you.

It’s dangerous to let others override your concerns, especially when they seem all too real. Because other people don’t know.

So yes, I worry about you. You don’t trust yourself. You’re letting others decide for you, even though deep down you already know they’re wrong.

And even more than I worry about you, I worry about the girl who is just like you. The one who does exist. I worry she’s learning from you to trust others over herself. And I worry she might one day marry someone just like Ari because of them.

So please, Dassi, trust yourself. If not for your own sake, for the sake of the girls around you.

The Let’s-Set-A-Good-Example-For-Our-Girls Committee

What about Mesorah? [Man with a Pan / Issue 839]

Except for cholent and kishke, the Shabbos menu featured had no mention of any traditional Shabbos food! Where was the fish? Soup? Eggs? Especially disturbing was the line, “Yes, we’re aware this isn’t your bubby’s Shabbos menu, but we’ll have gefilte fish and potato kugel in yeshivah.”

What’s the message here? That the traditional Shabbos foods are  outdated ? Old-fashioned and boring? Why are we reforming the traditional Shabbos menu that our ancestors have been eating for generations?

The Shabbos meal is deeply rooted in our mesorah. It’s so much more than eating to please our palates and fill our stomachs. Every one of the machalei Shabbos has meaning to it.

And who said Shabbos meals are limited to gefilte fish and potato kugel? There are so many ways to vary and upgrade our menus while keeping to our cherished traditions! My message is: The menu was gourmet and delectable. Please save it for a special weekday dinner!

R.S.

Are We Discouraging Kiddush Hashem? [Moonlight / Issue 838]

I’d like to express my appreciation and admiration for Rabbi Menachem Nissel’s thought-out and scholarly “Moonlight” piece on the role of women and their greatness, as well as the quality of their mitzvos, which he hinged upon the privacy and inner integrity of that mitzvah. His article was deep yet readable, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  However, I would like to respectfully disagree on one point.

Rabbi Nissel brought the story of “Judith K.,” who sat overnight doing shmirah for the harugim Hy”d and impressed the other people there, including her counterpart Christians, creating a tremendous kiddush Hashem. The New York Times wrote about her and publicized the greatness of Klal Yisrael even further. Yet Rabbi Nissel goes on to say that “On its own it lacked the true definition of a good deed” and that “The mitzvah was diminished in the eyes of the public." He contrasts this with the woman who quietly davens Tehillim and purports that she saved a life. This, he says, is even greater.

I fail to understand. Every mitzvah is different. There’s tremendous value in crying to the Borei Olam, and there’s also tremendous value in doing shemirah for a meis. And I don’t think I’m too bold to say that the value of the kiddush Hashem was greater than both.

It’s true that we need to do mitzvos in private, and that their privacy gives them a certain unique value, but not every mitzvah is done in private, and indeed, some, like kiddush Hashem, are inherently public. I wouldn’t like to think that Rabbi Nissel discourages women from making a kiddush Hashem!

Thank you again for a wonderful publication,

Chava Tuchman, Flatbush

Rabbi Nissel responds:

Thank you for the opportunity to clarify a vital and highly nuanced concept in hashkafah.

Of course, we can never know the true value of our deeds, that’s the domain of the Heavenly realms. Chazal, however, have given us axioms in the value of our actions to help us with our choices. So for example, fulfilling a Torah commandment has more value than one that is Rabbinical. Doing a small chesed with a smile has more value than a bigger chesed with a frown. It goes without saying that a chesed that creates a kiddush Hashem is significantly greater than one that doesn’t, which is why I described the mitzvah of “Judith K.” as stunning and beautiful.

The point of my article was to bring out an axiom central to Torah thought and anathema to Western culture. I also wanted to remind us of the dangers of charisma and turn secular society’s definition of a hero on its head. The Kotzker used to say, “There are two things without ta’am, a hidden aveirah and a public mitzvah.” To savor the true taste of a mitzvah, we need hatzne’a leches, to keep it hidden.

Overwhelmingly, the defining moments of the founders of Klal Yisrael were hidden from view. Think of the Akeidah, Yosef Hatzaddik overcoming temptation, or Moshe Rabbeinu davening for his people. The greatness of our gedolim lies in the 80% of their actions we never see, and with their rebbetzins, it’s in the 99% we never see.

I recently brought a group of Darchei Binah seminary students on a Shabbaton in Bnei Brak to get a brachah from Rav Berel Povarsky shlita, the venerated rosh yeshivah of Ponevezh. We arrived just as the rebbetzin was lighting Shabbos candles. After lighting, the rebbetzin faced the candles, motionless, for what seemed forever. She then turned around, and her eyes were clearly moist. She gave a big smile and showered the seminary students with chizuk and brachos.

We were zocheh to catch a “Puah moment,” to observe a hero in action, to see the ultimate greatness.

Screaming from the Rooftops [To be Honest / Issue 838]

As a divorcée myself, I’d like to highlight some key points Batsheva’s opinion piece mentioned:

The need for community support for divorcées to sustain their children. Our children’s needs far exceed those of an average child. Our children need therapy to enable them to face their reality and grow up healthy. Our children have a bigger need to look and feel like their peers, to not provide additional reason to be looked down upon. Our children need to go to summer camp; this isn’t a luxury, but a necessity for them to thrive away from home, from the chaos, conflict, and pain.

‘When a couple divorces, there usually is no choice. No one goes under the chuppah with the intent to divorce.’ In most divorces, one spouse may have the ability to be in a healthy, sustainable relationship, and one may not for a variety of reasons, thereby rendering the marriage unsustainable. The way people judge divorcées is so unfair. She’s already suffering so much.

The need to advocate is so demeaning and demanding. However, unless we divorcées advocate for our children, they’re often written off  or ignored. Only one kind person in shul noticed that my son was unaware of the need to stand for Yehei Shemei Rabbah in Kaddish. A mesivta didn’t want children from divorced homes because the “burden” on the school would be too great. If we don’t scream from the rooftops to help our children, nobody will.

A Single Mother

Not Even Fifth on the List [To Be Honest / Issue 838]

Thank you, Batsheva Kirsch, for speaking up on behalf of single mothers. It’s not pleasant to criticize others when none of those being criticized means to be malicious.

But it can be hard for the community to grasp the needs of a divorcée, especially when each person and their needs is unique. Some of us have a parenting partnership with our ex, while others are raising children alone. Some divorcées have family support or stable finances, and some don’t. Some of us had peaceful divorces and others deal with upheaval for years. Some of our children are scarred and some are coping nicely. It’s not easy to know what help to offer and when.

In the past 14 years as a single mother, I’ve gotten many invitations for seudos, but not much else. I’ve handled medical crises, floods, and made simchahs on my own. I can’t say it doesn’t scare me that I don’t know who to tell my kids to call in case of emergency because there’s no one who will definitely pick up the phone.

I understand I’m not first on anyone’s priority list. Everyone has their own families who come first. But it feels like I’m not even fifth on the list. There were a few times when people I have little to do with were incredibly kind and understanding. They went above and beyond to make sure I was taken care of. These people knew almost nothing about my situation. They just spoke up when they realized I might have a need.

It’s not necessary to know details. If you don’t know what to offer, just think about what your spouse does for you. Think about what would be much more burdensome if you weren’t married. And if the offer wasn’t accepted, at least you showed you care.

A Fellow Single Mother

It’s the Father’s Fault [Family Connections / Issue 836]

I was quite shocked with the answer Mrs. Radcliffe provided to the mother asking what to do with her adult daughter who lives at home and refuses to talk to her critical father, and is influencing a sibling to do the same.

Mrs. Radcliffe suggested that the daughter either go for therapy or move out. I felt that the answer shifted blame to the daughter, instead of the father. I think that the father needs to take responsibility for the critical and gruff manner in which he interacts with his children. He seems to be emotionally unaware of the damage he caused to his daughter.

Living with a parent who is chronically critical is emotionally scarring. I don’t think that the daughter is intentionally going out of her way to not be close to her father. I think she’s only trying to survive around someone who caused and continues to cause her so much pain and hurt.

Having the daughter move out or go to counseling may temporarily solve the issue, but it won’t get to the root of the issue. If the father continues to engage with his children in his critical and gruff manner and doesn’t take responsibility for his actions, I’m sure the rest of the children will distance themselves from him just like the oldest daughter did.

I assume the writer is raising a typical frum family where the children don’t move out of the home until they marry. If the family was part of a community where it was common for children to move out before marriage, there would be more room for this option to be justifiable in this situation. In this case, however, it would probably make her feel abandoned. This is the last thing the daughter needs when she is already in so much pain from her critical father.

Name Withheld

Sarah Chana Radcliffe responds:

Thank you for writing. I agree with almost all of your points. The only point of disagreement I have with you is about my conclusion. First of all, there is no blame being put on the daughter for the situation she’s in. It is the father’s fault. If the father would go to therapy and fix his parenting style, that would have been the end of the issue.

My response was based on the fact that the father is not going to do that. Your solution is predicated on something that’s never going to happen and therefore isn’t practical. We don’t live in a world where everything works the way we want it to and all people do what we want them to do. Hashem wants us to figure out how to deal with those situations, too. It’s Hashem Who arranges the closed doors in our lives.

Now that the daughter is in this particular situation, she has to deal with it the best way she can. Right now, she’s not dealing with it appropriately, so she can either just figure out how to do so (while continuing to hold her authentic feelings toward her father) or, if that isn’t possible, she can seek therapy to gain emotional support and clear her trauma sufficiently to make room for normal and appropriate adult behavior, or she can do neither and simply move out.

Her father’s poor behavior isn’t something she can control. Her own behavior is the only thing she can control. At 26, she needs to get healthy enough to appreciate this reality, but if she chooses not to do that, we still can’t condone her completely unacceptable behavior and allow it to continue.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 841)