Rav Chatzkel Abramsky ztz”l was already in his nineties when he lived on the premises of Bnei Brak’s Slabodka yeshivah, and on one particular evening, the beis medrash emptied out for the chasunah of one of the bochurim.

Spying one young man who’d remained behind as he sat in a corner learning, Rav Chatzkel made his way over to him and planted a kiss on his forehead, telling him, “You’re now meriting to acquire the Torah with one of the 48 kinyanim mentioned in Avos — that of mi’ut derech eretz, minimizing derech eretz. You see, everyone travels to chasunahs because they’re concerned about ‘derech eretz’ — they think, ‘Es past nisht for me not to go.’ But you’re not affected by that. You’re willing to minimize that ‘derech eretz’ in order to acquire Torah.” And with that, he bestowed a blessing for future greatness in Torah, which was indeed fulfilled.

In our society, as in all others, there’s an entire unwritten canon of social graces, of accepted and expected behaviors; some of us chafe under them, others see their conscientious fulfillment as a point of pride. A prime example of the genre is attendance at simchahs — not those of close family members, which are obvious moral obligations we both owe and happily fulfill, but those of more distant relatives, friends, and acquaintances.

The happy frum reality is, baruch Hashem, that of a rapidly expanding population with growing family sizes, giving rise to an unending string of joyous occasions large and small, from upsherens to weddings, taking place in an ever-widening geographical area (e.g., Lakewood, for those of us in Brooklyn, Monsey, Far Rockaway). Yet less happily, as one rav said to me recently, is that attending all these events has made people’s lives spin out of control.

Like the weather, this “whether” topic — whether baalei simchah ought to significantly reassess their expectations and streamline their invitation lists, and when they don’t, whether invitees ought to feel obligated to attend — is one many of us like to discuss, but do little about. It’s an issue with lots of implications, and too many casualties.

Walk into any chasunah hall anywhere on any night of the week and scan the room filled with that captive audience called “guests” — and what you’ll see on many faces, beyond sheer boredom, is a look of quiet desperation. Most of these folks have full lives, overfull ones, and their presence there at that moment translates into a whole host of unseen losers: the children at home, the chavrusa in shul or yeshivah, tonight’s responsibilities, tomorrow’s work. And perhaps the biggest loss, in a larger sense, is the possibility of a saner, calmer life, which seems to get more remote with each passing year.

The generous check they press into the hand of the chassan or his father notwithstanding, these guests have given an infinitely more expensive gift, one they really can’t afford. They’ve handed five prime hours out of their lives to people they may well not see again, at least until the latter reciprocate under an unspoken Pact of Expectations that’s taken more seriously than many an international treaty.

Chasunahs, at least, are true milestone events, and ones at which you can use the precious moments of the chuppah to daven — and get served dinner too. But what of the phenomenon that brings acquaintances traveling from an hour or two away to enter a hall or home, shake hands and kiss and enthuse “Mazel tov,” wash a piece of potato kugel down with a cup of Sprite and get back into the car? Let’s not go there — literally.

It has a name — the vort — but, as they say in Yiddish, it “has no verter.” Is it logically defensible, after all, for people who aren’t close family, neighbors, or local friends to feel inescapably obliged to do as described above? Indeed, two decades ago — eons ago in Jewish communal terms — some of our esteemed leaders enacted simchah guidelines, one of which was that “the vort is to be discontinued.”

I broached this topic intending to make a limited point about its connection to limud Torah, but I’ve gone on at some length because, I suppose, it all seems at once so irrational and yet unstoppable. I certainly have no easy answers, other than maybe for someone to create a site called “I’mnotinsulted.com” (or perhaps KamtzaUbarKamtza.org) where people can register their names indicating that they indeed will be perfectly content — ecstatic, actually! — to not be invited to simchahs, and for their invited guests to view the invitations as a show of affection to which they need not respond in the affirmative. Those for whom the invitation means something more will know who they are.

What Rav Chatzkel suggested is, of course, a solution of a different kind, at least for those men who want to make something of themselves as lomdei Torah, who have aspirations about what they’d like to accomplish in the breadth or depth of our vast Torah during their allotted time on Earth.

No less than any business or profession — indeed, considerably more — Torah learning is a serious pursuit for serious people, and if we want to get ahead, something in our lives has to be let go. Just today, my son-in-law related a striking observation by Rav Tuvia Goldstein a”h, rosh yeshivah of Emek Halachah, who quoted Rav Moshe Feinstein as having said that despite the impressive amount of Torah being learned in America, what’s still lacking is a willingness to learn shelo lishmah. What he meant was that people need goals, even non-altruistic ones (such as seeking the prestige of being a talmid chacham), in order to produce the drive and the focus — and the willingness to downsize one’s social obligations — that are indispensable for growth in Torah.

And what better way than, with the guidance of a spiritual mentor and the support of one’s spouse, to step at least partially off the never-ending merry-go-round of social obligations that fill our lives.

Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 751. Eytan Kobre may be contacted directly at kobre@mishpacha.com