Against Principles

"I don't like people with principles", a boy once told me.

I stopped and stared at him.

"Because they put their principles before everything else. They refuse to step out of their comfort zone, to stretch. People should come first, and that takes flexibility."

"But everyone has principles," I said, "at least, I hope they do. Like in my family, my father stressed honesty, I hope I'm carrying that on."

"That's different. That's Halachah. Think about it. There's Torah, Halachah, we should be acting according to that. Not be adding things on."

"Oh. I see." I said. But I didn't really see. It took a few months, with his words buzzing in the back of my mind, before I grasped the meaning.

Today I remembered him. Today I understood.

A Rabbi refuses to give me the name of one of his Talmidim, until he's met me.
"We can discuss it on the phone." I said. "I'll tell you everything you'd like to know."

"No, I have to meet you. That's my Shitah."

"You can speak to your friend Rabbi C., he knows me well. Or you can speak to your Talmid, Yitzchak Greenberg, I dated him for a while, he’ll remember me."

"No. This is the way I do things. I won't set up my Talmidim with girls before I've met them. On principle."

I also feel strongly about preferring to date single guys, and not middle aged married men and women. I even wrote about it. I didn't pull the "principle" card on him though. I'd just be told I'm stubborn and picky and not doing my Hishtadlus.

I gave up, said goodbye and hung up.

I've begun to notice when principles appear.

When something is wrong, it's simple. "I don't do that.", "I can't do that.", "I don't feel that's right", "Sorry, but that's breaking Halachah."

And when something is right, it's even simpler. Often there's not even a need for justification. Most good things people are happy to accept without explanation.

Principles are used for behavior that is outside what the Torah teaches us, outside what is obviously correct. Principles are used when we can’t find a better argument.

Parshat Noach: Doers and Believers

Have you ever heard a question, a question that an entire Dvar Torah rests on, and not gotten it?

Noach is the only person to be called a Tzaddik in the Tanach. (I haven't checked the sources myself, but that's what the last Yeshiva guy I dated told me. So if he's wrong, you know who to blame. )
Then Noach only enters the Ark when it starts raining heavily. Why didn't he go in before? Rashi asks. God had already told him that the world was about to be submerged, why wait around? It's because Noach was "מקטני אמונה", of the slight of faith.

But how could Noach be called a Tzaddik if he lacked faith?"

Pre-empted by the required. "I'm not the type of guy who gives Dvar Torah's on dates, but", my date-of-the-night launched into a long and convoluted explanation.

Are you in suspense? Sorry, I don't remember what the answer was. You see, I was still stuck on the question.

Why should so called lack of faith be a contradiction to righteousness? Give the guy a break, he's only human. God created the universe so that his presence is Nistar, hidden, veiled behind the material world. We have to struggle to see him, to connect.

Rav Wolbe, in Alei Shur, writes that "Emet", truth, isn't the clear and obvious. When a man swears that a tree is a tree, or a rock is a rock, the Talmud calls that a false oath. Because the shallow isn't worthy of the title truth. Emet is one of God's names. Emet is deeper, more spiritual.

I see a Tzaddik as someone who does the right thing, despite the difficulties. Someone who deep inside, and through the hazy world, knows the truth, and battles to put that truth into action.

Noach can be a Tzaddik, and still be fighting some internal battles, be working on his connection with God. That doesn't bother me.

The opposite, surface faith, casually spoken words of faith that leave you wondering what lies behind them, that's what I find disturbing.

After all, it's easy to espouse faith, especially on behalf of other people. "Hashem will help ", "Have Bitachon and your Zivug will come", and, my favorite, "I'll Daven for you."

One thing I've noticed over time. The people praying are never the people helping.

The minute I hear a Pasuk or a slogan, in response to the information that I'm "in Shidduchim", I know there's no point in continuing the conversation. I know that this person is not going to set me up with anyone. Especially not with their single son.

I thank God every day that he created another type of person in the world. People who care, who do. They may not go to as many Shiurim, or know their way as well around the book of Tehillim, but in my eyes they are the true Tzadikkim of our generation. It could be that they are praying for me as well, but they do the praying privately.

I don't think faith is the main measuring stick we are judged by. I think our deeds count too.

Shavuos 2009 - a Love-Hate affair

I caress them. Perfection. They have eluded me for years. The vision of dreams. Found, after months of searching in the malls of the holy land.
I slip them on. The shoes I've always wanted. I admire my reflection in front of the narrow pine mirror. There is something about a good pair of heels that can make even a covers-the-knee-when-sitting-down-skirt look hot (or so I'm hoping, at least)
I teeter off to shul.

After davening I practice my chatting-up skills. Standing by the bulletin board, pretending to scan the shiurim schedule, I strike up a conversation. By the end of it we've arranged to meet at the first shiur of the night.
(For those who think aidel bais yaacov girls have no opportunity for flirting, let me correct the misconception. We flirt just as much, but with stout middle aged women, instead of young cute guys. We dress the look, talk the talk, walk the walk. Learn how to make eye contact, smile, joke, exchange telephone numbers. Every woman is a potential mother of/aunt of/neighbor of a "boy", and must be treated with due interest.)

Supper is spent in bright pink crocs. It's just family, so who cares. Only when it's time for my night of shtark learning do I force my feet back into patent leather, which is beginning to look (well mainly feel) distinctly less appealing, and return to the bais medrash, this time clenching my teeth as I walk. Beauty is pain, or so I was told countless times in camp, when my amateur-hairdresser friends did their best to yank or singe my hair into submission.

After a couple of those modern orthodox type shiurim, the ones with the perpetual source sheets that everyone tries to foist back onto the speaker as soon as he closes his mouth, I see that the rest of the night, despite being billed for "All", has a list of topics starting with "Bava", and followed by Aramaic. The Women's sections remains closed off. Apparently the shul isn't quite that modern, and we are expected to return home, to recuperate from the cheese cake making perhaps.
I step outside, into the darkness. Bid farewells and begin the trek home.

The road is deserted, aside for a shaggy white dog, who thankfully can’t speak well enough to report back to society on what he's about to witness.
I slip off my shoes. I dangle the straps in my hand, my stockinged feet now lying against the cool and rough cement. Blisters and agonising self inflicted torture are forgotten. It feels like heaven. I tread back, in the moonlight, through a path strewn with blossoms. Freedom. For one night at least.

The Rabbi Hunt

Moonlight. Park. Bench. Third Date.

"So, do you have a Rav? Like, someone to ask?"
(OK, that's the guy asking. Not my style question.)

"Um, well. I ask Y. when I have questions. He's got Semicha. He looks it up for me if he doesn't know." (Nothing like illustrious relatives. The whole learning in Kollel thing comes in useful sometimes.)

"I mean real questions, you know, life questions. Not Halachic questions".

"Oh."
(Long silence.)
"No, not really. I used to ask a couple of Rabbis stuff sometimes, in seminary. But I never get round to phoning them nowadays."

If I like him I may bother trying to explain more. Usually I don't.

I do feel faintly guilty about it. "Not having a Rav", that is. I had to memorize Mesilat Yesharim in High school. That whole paragraph with the Rabbi being up on a hill, able to guide lost and clueless lil' you through the maze of life. So Rabbis are the kind of thing one needs, right?

Yet somehow they never seem to work for me. Take dating episode #1,804,346 (that would be last week's)

I decide I wanna "Hear Daas Torah".
I spent three days trying to get hold of Rabbi X.
I begin to despair of ever talking to Rabbi X, except perhaps if I take up stalking as a hobby.
I ask all and sundry if they know of any other Rabbi with a slightly open mind, plus common sense. Apparently no, they are a rare breed in the Charedi world.
I keep trying. Eventually I get through.

"That's your decision"

"Yeah, but what does the Torah say?"

"Look, no Rabbi is going to tell you what to do."

"I wanted to hear the Torah perspective."

"There isn't one."

"Oh. Well do you have experience with other people going through this?"

"No."

"But it's pretty common."

"I tell them all it's their decision."

I give up. Make the same decision I was going to. (Since I'm sitll single, we all know what that was.)

But seriously, I'm puzzled, what's the deal with this talking to Rabbis business?

Is it for reassurance, for a listening ear? Fill-ins for shrinks, who no-one can go to for fear of besmirching their shidduch reputation forever? Is "I need to talk to a Rav" really the codename for Therapy 101?

Or is it for a stamp of approval? The excuse you can present to the outside world?
"I spoke to my Rav and he said.." = "This is what I want to do".

Because next time I want to hear what the Torah has to say, I think I'll stick with pulling out a book from the shelf.