Trapped

I originally posted this poem as a comment to The System, but then I thought it merits a post of its own. It mirrors my story and how I reflected on it after reading HF’s rant and call for action.

It starts by telling how I resent being born into the caste I did. It makes the simile to a captured tiger whose feelings progress form rage to self-pity and finally to ultimate gloom.

Next, I tell how I was confined to a prison within a prison. I bemoan my arranged and early marriage and that I wasn’t given the opportunity to conduct an earnest search for my soul mate. I make the simile to a parrot envious of humans who find meaning in what they talk and don’t just mimic. Similarly, I’m sad that our union is merely staged and lacking a passionate bond.

Finally, I express my belief that I’m too entrenched to change. I’ll probably remain where I don’t belong for the rest of my life. But I want my children to be happy, so I will not indoctrinate them with any dogma or deny them freedom of exploration. If they will decide to remain Hassidic, then so be it. If they decide to leave, I’ll support them. However, I’ll have to feign being heartbroken by their rebellion. I make the simile to a salve too old for escape, but who will gladly buy his children a ticket to the Underground Railroad.

I’m trapped like a tiger in cage
Filled with rage
With pity, with gloom
Who confined me here
And why

From the moment I walked earth
From the moment of birth
From the moment conceived in womb
Why to this family appear
I cry

I’m trapped like a parrot in pen
I stare at all the men
Who chose themselves a mate
Why my basic right
They denied

Why haven’t I fled
But listened to them instead
You’re nineteen, you’re late
Why have I accepted without fight
My bride

I’m trapped like an old slave
I’ll not leave but for my grave
I want a better life for you, child
Be different, be smart
My boy

One day in years, years ahead
Gossipers will whisper you’ve fled
You listened to the call of the wild
I’ll mourn after you with a heart
Full of joy

Ego-Centricism

I once thought levels of observance in Judaism were clearly marked. I envisioned observance as a tiered platform with all performers conscious on what step they are standing. If the tiered platform analogy is accurate, then players look down and take note only of the steps below them, oblivious to the many rows above their heads.

I’ve listened to people with a modern background claiming online their family was as frum as it gets. I assume they heard about black-hats before, but can’t think in that direction. Relative to their neighbors, classmates, or congregants, they were saints, and that’s all that matters. The ultras are just that: ultras; out of the equation.

The same is true within the many layers of Chreidim. The yeshiva guy thinks he reached heaven because he grows a beard and his wife wears the most rumpled wig in town. He is blissfully unaware that somewhere a sanctimonious coreligionist removes the wine off the table during Kiddush because the label contains Latin lettering.

Ego-centricism is at play here. The people below don’t have a sense of what it really means to be frum, and the people above take it to an extreme. This credo is held even by sliver splinter groups.

Oh, falsehood comes in so many flavors, but the cherished truth is only one. And only a handful of people know it, most of whom happen to be born into it.

Aishel

A generous person gives bread; a truly generous person sells instead.

Williamsburg Chassidim are generous. Williamsburg is home to a myriad of charity institutions, and the posters on its streets testify on the many charitable fundraisers held within its borders.

No beggar will be left to sleep on the street in Williamsburg. A good-hearted fellow will surely offer an invite for bed and breakfast. No place to stay for Shabbos? A couple phone calls will locate an accommodation—free of charge. It will cost you, though—discomfiture.

I don’t like to stay as a guest with strangers. I like to pay for my lodging and dining. I want to be my own master, not a slave to my host. I want to conduct myself the way I see fit, not do as the Romans do.

But Williamsburg has no hotels, at least not one listed in the yellow pages. I learned that the hard way. When my Willie relative told me:

An event I make
Would you partake?
I knew right there
I should prepare
To begin
Search for an inn

There is no hotel
No family I can tell
Nor a contact in my cell
Where should I dwell?

Lodge is a headache
I will stay awake
Lean on the stairs
Slouch on two chairs
Feet raised on a bin
Palms under my chin

I guess land is so scarce in Chassidic sections of Brooklyn that investors have to choose the most profitable project to develop. Will a hotel make any profits? More so than putting up twenty-five apartments? Nah. Half the guests will ask for a discount on the basis of emissaries of exempt organization, or pay with third-party checks payable to cash, of course. Then they will have to make special pricing for kollel yungerleit. No hotels then.

Hence, Let’s go to a motel maybe, no we’ll have to pay.

Pork in KJ

Read this, and sing along


Dip dip, plunge plunge
Swallow grants like a sponge
Make a mikvah
Say it’s just a spa
Sure, right, yeah

Dip dip, dunk dunk
Swallow pork a chunk
Make of them a fool
Say it’s just pool
Sure, right, cool

Legalizing Christmas

Flashing back to years ago
In one-horse town of KJ
The calendar of Monroe
Wasn’t spelled double A
Learned to rung around a ring
Skilled on how to write
What fun it is to laugh at the thing
They still can’t get it right

Christmas as you know
This is coming on Thursday
In the Town of Monroe
Is celebrated as a legal holiday
It has such a hollow ring
We all wonder might
What is this legal thing?
We are above the law, alright

White Bride

I’m dreaming of a white bride
When we used each other to know
Where your headband pearls glisten
And I enviously listen
To hear your giggles in grounds below

I’m dreaming of a white bride
Just like the ones I used to know
Where your dress would glisten
And obediently listen
To hear me pronounce my vow

I’m dreaming of a white bride
As the our worlds apart would grow
Where your leather boots glisten
And I yearningly listen
To hear leaves rustle as you go

I’m dreaming of a white bride
The night it was your show
Where your ring would glisten
And you quietly listen
To hear the pledge of your beau

I’m dreaming of a night ride
As we sneaked out tiptoe
Our eyes would glisten
As we attentively listen
To hear our voices low

I’m dreaming of a white bride
Our eyes all aglow
Where the glasses glisten
And we cheerfully listen
To hear the toasts we throw

I’m dreaming of a bright outside
Like the ones I would never know
Where my morals would glisten
And to my heartbeat I listen
Pure as the driven snow

Fighting Satan

Destined for failure makes his case why the Hassidic community, (henceforth, we, us, our), is, well, destined for failure. He proves black on white, or rather white on black, (I highlight the text, so I get blue on white; can’t read otherwise), why seclusion will become impossible in the years to come and that the walls of our self-made ghettos will fall as the Berlin wall did.

I agree with his main point, but disagree with some supporting arguments.

I believe the Chassidic community leaders should embrace technology and open-mindedness instead of evading it. There is a way to preach faith in face of all the secularity, and a way to stay true to tradition in spite of all the communication possibilities. The Amish allow their young a period of rumspringa, yet a very great percentage remains demut. How entrenched in faith are the Evangelicals? Don’t they watch national TV? Don’t they go to Blockbuster? To the library? Browse the internet? All, of course, with parental restrictions. You don’t have to go further than Chabad. They sent young couples over to places as remote as possible from Jewish life, and yet they remain as steadfast to tradition as a Jewish mother could only wish.

R’ Samson Raphael Hirsch taught a righteous person doesn’t hide out form the world, but mingles among the common folks and makes a positive influence in the world and lets his torah have an impact. I believe we would had been better off if we were introduced to the outside world early in our lives and offered the religious interpretation of it. Instead of banning the media, avoiding all outside literature, and segregating between genders, our rabbis should have ripened us to the discovery of the forbidden fruit later in our lives; that would soften the impact of collision. Our teachers and parents should have taught us that watching movies featuring erotica and violence is bad, that that the pieces in National Geographic about the age of the universe are wrong, and that God despises prenuptial affairs.

However, I do believe that, if we choose to, we can hide from the outside world even in the years to come; it’s difficult, but nevertheless possible. The biggest proof is how we stayed secluded all thsoe years. Centuries have passed since the first voices were heard that things are different nowadays, that we can longer stick to the practices of the old ages, and that Judaism will have to adapt. Yet we managed to stay aloof and aloft for all those years, despite what the cynics said.

I well understand that things are different in this age, that there was never a threat to fundamentalism as ominous as the internet, and that internet is widely in use and puts frum souls within a button-click of falling deep abyss. However, they said the same thing back when egalitarian ideals swept across Europe, they said the same thing back when Neologs threatened to swallow Hungarian Judaism, they said the same thing back when radio or TV became household commodities, and they said the same back when we were uprooted from the shtetl and transplanted into metropolitan. Fundamental leaders always took extreme measures to preserve and protect Torah-true Judaism, and will not shun from repeating history again.

Rabbis are notoriously known for procrastination and ineffectiveness in acting on issues or solving community trouble in timely fashion. Coupled with all the petty bickering and power jockeying and you got a completely crippled theocracy. Wait until internet victimhood becomes a plague beyond a point where it can be conveniently swept under the rug or dealt with posters on shul walls, and some dramatic measures will be taken. I can’t brainstorm any ideas what they might do, but then if I could, I would be sitting at that convention.