The Mask
Fruma Biegeleisen2010Off the Derech[Reflections]
Tzomo Lecha Nafshi,
Put away the book. Put it away and listen to Kiddush. Stand up, your father’s waiting. Shhh. Come on. Nu. Nu! We don’t talk before grape juice, you’re a big girl already. Kinderlach, let’s wash for bread. Come on, Mommy will help you. One, two, three. One, two, three. No, honey, you can’t tear paper towels on shabbos, you know better than that. Don’t talk now before you eat the challah. Shh. Okay, who has a nice dvar torah from the parshah? Yes, you will get your turn next. Sit nicely like a big tznius girl. Who knows some nice songs we can sing? Yes, of course I mean shabbos songs. Stop tearing the table cloth, that’s muktzeh. Sure, let’s sing some niggunim, that’s a great idea. How about Tzomo Lecha Nafshi, I like that one. No fighting. If you fight, there is no dessert.
After the kids are in bed and the meal is over, that’s when I start the conversation. The conversation we’ve had a million times before, the one where we know the script by heart, its ending so predictable. Can we talk about compromising? Maybe I can wear a hat or sheitel just to shul functions? Maybe I can wear one to school events or when we are out together? Is that good enough? Is that a good starting point for compromise, for a discussion? No, it is not. No, because he has already compromised so much by just staying married to me. And just like he always said, one compromise leads to another. First it was cholov akum drinks at coffee shops. And now it is taking off my sheitel. What will we compromise on next? Will I take our children to eat cheeseburgers at McDonalds on Yom Kippur? Will I? Well? And isn’t he entitled to raise his children in the way we had initially agreed? And my eyes brim over as I think about the new gym he just joined and all the sheitel-less ladies in the hot tubs. I know this conversation is pointless and futile to begin with, I have no idea why I started it, maybe I just wanted to feel sorry for myself some more.
Kamoh lecha besari,
The next evening I stare at myself in the bathroom mirror. I run my hands through my hair, over and over again, trying to grasp what it is I am fighting for. Sometimes freedom feels soft and simple, sometimes coarse and tangled. Other times it is just ugly and plain. But it is always mine. It is real, it is something I can pull and feel pain.
The thought flashes through: I should just cut it all off. I should find the red pruning shears and hack off all my hair. The idea overwhelms and satisfies me, it meets the anger head on. That is what I should do. I will show him, he will see where his stubbornness has brought us. He will be hurt and that will feel good. I am consumed with the details. Where are the red shears? Can I sneak them up here? How long will it take? Can I flush the hair down the toilet or will it clog?
I hear a child downstairs and the little voice breaks through the fury. I cannot cut my hair off. If I ever leave, the custody court must see me as a model of sanity. Models of sanity do not cut off all their hair and flush it down the toilet. I take another moment to fantasize, but now I know my hair will stay on my head. Just like the sleeping pills stay in the bottle, just like the therapists stay uncalled. Models of sanity control their trivial temper tantrums and they put on a pleasant little face and that’s all there is to it.
B’eretz Tziyah V’ayeif Bli Mayim
I walk into a Chinese wig store on Sunday and buy a furry little animal. It has a fake-skin scalp and the tag says 100% human hair. I look decent and it is relatively cheap. It will be ready for the trash within a year’s time, but for now the furry companion stays on my head, firmly attached with bobby pins. When I come home my husband smiles and nods approvingly. I look nice, he says. I did well. My little ones fawn. Mommy, I love your new sheitel. The Ultimate Compliment: You look like a princess.
I smile and hug them and wonder how I could have ever considered leaving. For what? For a new hairstyle and blond highlights? Who would be so vain? A mother could never do that. And then, of course, there’s always The Greater Good to consider. Would I want my children to go through a divorce, a custody battle, awkward child care arrangements, bitter parents, pompous psychologists? Wouldn’t we just end up arguing about the same things anyway? It would be expensive, outrageously expensive. More than yeshiva tuition, that’s for sure.
But it’s not really about the greater good or custody battles or about what a mother could or could not do. It’s not about their strawberry shampoo scent or the homegrown chemistry experiment or the robot made out of tin cans. Those are all just excuses, feel-good reasons, ways to pat myself on the back for being the dutiful little martyr that I am.
When it’s late at night and I’m honest with myself, I know that I don’t stay because of the kids. I stay because of a movie. I don’t recall the name but an innocent man was imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. He spent years, maybe decades, proving his innocence. Eventually, he won his case and was released. But once free, he couldn’t adjust. He couldn’t make his own decisions about what to eat, where to live, what to buy. He shot himself within a few weeks because he didn’t know how to live in the outside world.
I am like that man. I know where that Chinese wig store is and I will eventually find my way there again. My sheitel is permanently sown into my scalp and the freedom my soul thirsts for will inevitably turn out to be cheap and synthetic.
Kein Bakodesh Chazisichah Lirois Uzcha Uchevodecha
57 Responses
One word: Beautiful!
(Although I don’t fully agree.)
If it’s just about the hair, and nothing else bothers you then it’s a good idea you stay (wouldn’t work for me, if only I had the guts).
The movie you are referring to is called
Shawshank Redemption.
Your writing is awesome.
In Shawshank the innocent man is not released; he escapes. The parolees kill themselves, and by hanging.
Misyavni,
Youre right about the details, but chances are Fruma forgot the specifics. The message would still be the same.
HT, I’m sure Fruma knew the title of the film. She is just exhibiting the golden rule of “show dont tell”.
Misyavni, only one paorlee commits suicide.
Farchapt, if you understood the piece as a lament on shorn hair you totally didnt get it.
yeah, you’re right misyavni, I guess that was the film. The part that I remembered most was the guy who killed himself after working so hard for his release. Freedom doesn’t work out so well for everyone, that’s what stayed in my mind.
Ahhh… Fruma is back.
At least you weren’t raped since.
But to the bigger point.
What a common pain in our community. Married off when young, dumb ,and underdeveloped, then left to rot after the full personality has developed and enlightenment sets in.
The only thing worse is to be buried alive.
Or castrated.
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Thank you for this beautifully written and thought provoking story.
Fantasies are fine, even healthy, so long as one does take them too far.
It’s called being a mature, responsible adult.
I sometimes fantasize about running off, leaving all my problems behind, and indulging myself. But I know that besides being selfish and irresponsible, the problems will still be there and I’d just have more problems.
I try to focus on the good things in my life.
The character who committed suicide, for not being able to adjust, was Brooks, and he hung himself in the halfway home he was residing at. When Andy Dufresne, (Morgan Freeman) was paroled and ended up at the same halfway home, and saw Brooks’ inscription on the beam he hung himself on, Andy skipped town to somewhere in Mexico.
But that is only a movie, albeit a good one, but still a movie.
Thanks for a wonderful piece, beautifully written and full of heart.
There seems to be a common theme in most of the lasts posts. It verges from longing to hope, from fear to wanting courage, from rebellion to resignation, from nostalgia to regret and yes, creative expression and poetry trying to make some sense out of this constant turbulent existence . However many of the comments usually focus and criticize small details from a background, context, rational perspective with a bit of progressive tyranny. Albeit many of the comments contain great ideas and insights as well as open up different interesting conversations, I think we are missing a valuable ingredient, “community”. Let’s not forget our roots, while we may have found it stifling and overbearing, I’m sure that many of us felt some of the comfort as well. why should we throw away the baby with the bathwater? Why not unite in common empathy without forcing our own current opinions down on others that may not find themselves in the exact same state as ourselves? We all have so much in common that we don’t have to indulge in showmanship or arrogant advice. As in the words of that ancient Jewish preacher “He who is without sin (pain) cast the first stone”. I’m not proposing some hedonistic carnal get together, just a slight change in tone and some more empathy with our fellow sufferer. It shouldn’t matter what choices or state one is in, as long as someone enters this forum they are already opening themselves up to something different than their norm, let’s welcome them.
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If your posts are an accurate picture of marriage among the Orthodox I give heartfelt thanks for being raised Reform and that I never heard the word “shidduch” until I’d been married five years. It sounds more like a prison sentence than an adult relationship.
Lovely piece! Beautifully crafted. Thanks.
The critique I am voicing is not a critique of the writing, nor is it a critique of the author—it is a critique of the life choices of the main protagonist in this piece and in several other pieces on Unpious. I am startled by the number of entries on Unpious whose protagonists express the grief and sorrow of parents who found a way out, or who want out, yet permit their children to be educated as Hasidim.
The notion that a prenuptial understanding by youngsters who sometimes aren’t legally major, let alone mature enough to make such decisions—that such a prenuptial understanding comes before a parent’s responsibility to bring up his/her child in a way that makes sense to the parent, reflects a warped notion of responsibility, and in particular, of parental responsibility. -Don’t responsible parents equip their children for success, adjustment, happiness in a society that makes some sense to them? How can abandoning a child to an education, a society one considers bankrupt be good parenting?
Of course, most Hasidim are far too young before they father and mother their first offspring. Of course, it is difficult for a young adult to provide for children in the “outside world” when one has no tradable skill and when one has lost the support of one’s own parents, friends, community. Nevertheless….
I remember reading a memoir by a woman who left the Mormon church. This woman had several children, one severely handicapped. Not once did she consider leaving alone and permitting her children to be brought up in a way she had come to consider bankrupt. I am full of admiration for this mother.
Perhaps there is a need to help parents who want out WITH their children, perhaps some non-fundamentalist Jews might respond to such a need, were it articulated, but the creation of such an organization cannot be contemplated if a need is not articulated, if parents who leave, or want to leave the Hasidic fold declare—if the protagonists in their pieces declare—one after another that, whatever the pain of separation from their children, the parent who left, or wants to leave, trusts it is best for the children to stay behind and be educated in the Hasidic mold.
It seems to me that responsible parents who are unhappy with the Hasidic education they received would try either to change things from the inside, to change the norms in Hasidic communities—a formidable task, or would leave and fight for custody of their children. It seems to me that protagonists who do not have the means to bring up 2, 3…7, 10, 15… children in the “outside world” might imagine ways to articulate their despair and might not declare, one after the other, that educating their children in the Hasidic mold is the default choice, but might get together and fight for better choices.
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Forbidden,
Your comment makes a lot of sense…in the outside world that is. Your logic doesn’t apply to the Chasidic community. You need to be an insider to truly understand the difficulties in doing what you suggest one does. It’s too long and tiring to go into all the reasons why it would be almost impossible. Maybe someone from the inside would care to elaborate.
Btw, it has probably been done on occasion, but it’s definitely not the norm.
I agree with Forbidden; sure, it’s difficult, near impossible even, but the consequences of not doing so (relegating your own decendants to a life of ignorance) are too terrible to allow.
Eucalyptus, your hyperbolic phrase “life of ignorance” is merely *your* opinion. Hasidim use the exact same phrase about people living a secular life.
Alter Ego, I was an insider, alas. I lost my entire family when I left at the age of nineteen—when I couldn’t push off marriage any longer. I was very much an insider, alas. I lost my many siblings who live as Hasidim and my father refused to see me, even on his death bed. (And to all the “insiders” who pity the difficulties of those who leave: yes, it is hard to live cut off from family and former friends, but not harder than living what one considers a lie.)
I left at nineteen, before marriage, because I understood that I did not want to bring up my children in the Hasidic world. So my case, however tragic and traumatic, is in fact an easier one than the case of leaving after fathering/mothering children with a Hasidic partner.
Yet, in my opinion, the principle of not living a lie becomes even more essential when deciding whether to pass the lie on to one’s children.
Alter Ego, I agree that taking one’s children along, when leaving, would be immensely difficult and that the community would fight it; it is even probably the case that parents who want to take their children with them would be in physical danger. That is also why I was careful to say that there would be a need for support organizations to help parents who feel that their responsibility toward their children starts with not leaving the children behind.
Besides the enormous practical barriers to taking one’s children out, there are psychological difficulties rooted in Hasidic racism around the concept of Jewish blood (which resembles the Nazi invention of a pure German blood and an Uber-Superior Aryan Culture).
Hasidim are taught that Jews (their brand of Jews) are Chosen and Superior to all others on earth. Such irrational teachings have irrational ramifications. It took me years of introspection to try to get to the bottom of my ambivalence about having a child with a non-Jew—for how can a Hasidic offspring take it upon himself/herself to taint the “pure Jewish blood” Jewish mothers have carried for generations? Even though I had left and was living my life in a secular setting, I was (unconsciously) resisting the idea of consigning my genes to the same choices I had made.
My hunch is that parents who leave their children behind, to be raised in a system that no longer makes sense to them, feel they may not have a “right” to their children.
If that is the situation, then it is tragic for the parents, the children, and humanity at large. I profoundly regret my earlier lack of understanding of the racist culture in which I was brought up, the culture that inflected my personal choices about not having children.
Just as parts of the Catholic church are organizing to resist the destruction caused by celibate priesthood (molested boys, abandoned women), resisting antiquated ideas of Jewish holiness will require organizations of our own.
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Forbidden: “And to all the “insiders” who pity the difficulties of those who leave: yes, it is hard to live cut off from family and former friends, but not harder than living what one considers a lie.”
To reiterate my above comment, this is *your* opinion. I, too, am irritated by all the “woe is he” comments following a post depicting the difficulties of life after leaving. (The comments elicited by HR’s most recent post were particularly galling.) But just as no one can claim that people who leave the lifestyle are experiencing hell on earth without sounding idiotically narrow-minded, so too can nobody make the blanket statement that leaving is better than living a lie.
That should have ended, “without sounding the same.” (Sorry, I’m writing in a rush.)
Laura, My comment addressed the plight of those who feel that staying inside is living a lie. The people who feel they are living the truth, inside, obviously don’t have this problem.
Faith is personal, so is child rearing, and parents should be able to choose for themselves and their children (until their children are old enough to make their own choices).
Forbidden, your comment struck a chord with me. I feel very strongly about the sentiments you expressed. I don’t mean to offend anyone but it does really bother me that children are left to be processed through the “system” of segregated yeshiva, shidduch, family etc by parents who found that system so unsatisfactory. For those that argue leaving with children is not doable, well, that does not mean that it should not be desirable. We hear many laments here that are pushing the impossible, and only from that unstoppable desire does change come about. It is beyond my comprehension how parents who so struggle with the frum community can leave their children heir to those same struggles that they are still haunted by. Shouldn’t giving children a better life be a strong motivation for deviating from the lifestyle? Perhaps the sense of hopelessness comes from the resignation of children as properties of the community.
Fruma, if you would imagine imparting to your child things you believe in and you are passionate about, (not the immense value of straw mops on the head) then you won’t be able to convince yourself that making a choice about your future is trivial; that it‘s “just about hair“. And while I doubt you’re Brooks (key to being a Brooks: be well adjusted in prison, which you seem not to be) your children certainly aren’t. They’d take change in stride better than all.
One may argue that an alternative lifestyle is not necessarily better than the Chassidic lifestyle. That does not matter. What matters is that children are raised to be able to fly from the nest when they’re grown and make their own choices about lifestyle- say to be a goy, Chassidic or what-have-you. That’s a parents’ duty and satisfaction; to nourish a child towards maturity. Does raising children Chassidic enable them to mature and fly? I think not. With bleeding and limping wings, maybe. We ourselves knows this too well. We know this when someone intelligent like Fruma can’t trust herself to make a decision in life because of the lousy, crippling upbringing the frum community gave her left her without the means to survive. Shouldn’t we – having struggled with this to a degree of such agony – want to, be outraged and passionate to raise our children to be able to confidently take off when they grow up?
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Laura -
But just as no one can claim that people who leave the lifestyle are experiencing hell on earth without sounding idiotically narrow-minded
Laura, since I was the one who used the hell on earth sentiment I take offense for slapping me with the idiotically narrow-minded epitaph.
Have you left the fold to say with such conviction that its “idiotic” to call it hell on earth? No. you’re heavily still inem chulent tup. Have you read at least 2 of the latest posts where misery screams out from the lines of its authors, respectively? Even HR retorted that its “presumptuous” to say so, while he is one who actually left, what brings you the gall to exclaim its utter “idiotic” and “narrow minded”?
Kindly provide an explanation. I’m eager to hear one. with a heartfelt thanks in advance.
Insider, I’m so sorry to have offended you. I didn’t actually remember that you were the one to express that narrow sentiment.
My point is that regardless of how one comes across in a particular piece of writing (or any sort of creative work, for that matter), it does not mean that the artisan *always* feels that way or even feels it to the extent that is expressed in her/his art. Additionally, one who uses umbrella statements for situations that are individualized and unique (as humans are) comes across as exceedingly narrow, without the ability to genuinely think something through. The phrase “living a lie” is a cliche, which means you don’t really have to think when you read or hear it, you simply have to nod sanctimoniously. Sheeplike. In reality, living a lie is often the lesser of two evils and not all that bad at all. But of course, to say this is heresy.
Same for the people who cry, “Woe, this is hell” in response to those who write or speak about how unhappy they are once they left the lifestyle. Yes, their lives may be difficult but they may easily have been more difficult before they left when they were (yes!) living a lie.
My message: 1.Think. 2.Don’t make blanket statements. 3.Don’t assume a specific work gives a general opinion. 4. Think.
Again, sorry for insulting you. Not that I’m overly worried about your ego.
Forbidden: “My comment addressed the plight of those who feel that staying inside is living a lie.”
Mine too.
Btw, Forbidden, I always enjoy your comments on this site. You seem to have knowledge of literary criticism, correct?
Laura, While every word you write is true and makes perfect sense, the case here is different. It is different because HR specifically discussed HIS life in the article, with the full knowledge that everybody here is quite familiar with the details of his life’s situation, as some commentators denoted how he didn’t hold back any detail, children’s names and so on, therefore it wasn’t an art piece, it was more autobiographical.
Thanks anyway for the effort to explain. The ego patch worked
HR, sorry for discussing your life here without giving you the opportunity to chime in and being so “presumptuous”, can I take you out tonight?
Name the place!
Laura, The sentence you quote (my sentence) was indeed ambiguous. I was trying to say that my comment addressed the plight of those who feel that they themselves would be living a lie if they stayed in. It was not meant as a blanket statement about all the people who stay.
Its very nice of you to tell me you enjoy my comments. I have indeed read quite a bit of literary criticism but I care more about literature itself.
“My hunch is that parents who leave their children behind, to be raised in a system that no longer makes sense to them, feel they may not have a “right” to their children”.
Forbidden,
Perhaps. But unless we are referring to very young children, we can’t ignore the psychological trauma your typical chasidic 10 year old would experience were he to be yanked out of Satmara Chaider and send to… What would you propose?
Hoezen T, Your question is important and difficult and I wouldn’t presume to answer it on the fly. It is so central a question that perhaps the moderator might be willing to treat it as a submission to which the Unpious community might respond as a whole?
I need time to think about it. The particular case of a ten year old may be the hardest one. Before age nine, parents must use parental judgment and love and children will come to understand. After age fifteen, such a decision may have to be left to the child, not the parent.
Under normal circumstances, I might have answered that a ten-year-old must be consulted, but a Satmar child has had no exposure to alternate choices, was not taught that alternate life styles also merited respect, has not been encouraged to have a volition of his/her own. It may be that this is so delicate a matter that one would have to involve psychologists on a case by case basis.
I need to think about it some more and I am curious about what others think.
I think all parents, secular ones included, end up teaching their children some version of a “lie” in one way or another.
Some examples of the top of my head: many parents raise their children to believe that the outcome of sports games is important. And in real life, it matters not at all who wins the World Series or the Super Bowl or whatever. Many parents raise their children to believe that people deserve or don’t deserve certain privileges just based on whether they had the good fortune to be born in America or not. Also not true. Some parents in some socio-economic circles teach their children that which preschool or which kindergarten they attend actually matters in the long run.
So we all tell lies, nobody gets to raise their children in the ideal way. I don’t think teaching your kids that god wants them to wear long socks in the summer is so traumatic or that teaching your kids that 3000 years ago moshe got the torah is more of a lie than anything else parents teach their kids.
I do think some parts can be damaging- lack of secular education, shidduchim, racism, etc. And come hell or high water, my kids will not be illiterate bigoted pregnant teenagers.
Forbidden,
One does not have to be a psychologist to understand that taking an innocent naive child, recently stigmatized and shattered by parental divorce, alienating him/her from family and peers would likely cause extreme emotional trauma.
The American legal system recognizes that too, and in more than one case that I know, actually forced the now secular parent to continue sending the children to Yeshivas.
Forbidden,
You’re right that a parent has the obligation to offer the best upbringing to his or her children and should not stand-by and allow them to be raised in a system against his or her convictions. But parentage is a partnership, and the parent who stayed has the very same obligation but to the contrary: to raise the children Hassidic.
People are responsible for their actions, even if they could claim those actions were made under ignorant conditions, especially when it involves another person. Family courts aside, why would it be morally just for a Hassidic father to watch his children grow up secular when he sired those children specifically to provide soldiers for God’s army?
One parent may believe it a crime to rob children of the opportunity to live their lives according to their choices, while another parent believes it a crime to introduce children to the satanic notion that life should be lived according to ones choice. To Hassidim there is only the one Deuteronomic choice in life: Good or bad, life or death, which is not really a choice. Hassidim have made the choice to obliterate all choice.
If children make the choice for bad, they rather should not have been born.
When a spouse agreed to raise a Hassidic family in partnership and then backed out taking the children along, the other parent was robbed of the children, and of his or her own life choice.
FB,
It’s not the same. Telling children what you believe to be a lie, what is a factual lie, or what studies of shown to be lie, are quite different form parents telling children something they themselves believe to be a lie.
HT – your example is extremely narrow. It presupposes 1. The parents to be divorced 2. The change in education to be drastic 3. The child to be of a specific age 4. The child to have experienced no “prepping” from the dissident parent before the change, that is the ideas of modernizing are completely new 5. The change to be a “yank”, whatever that means- it does seem very traumatic and 6. It doesn’t evaluate the trauma that would result from the other options.
That said, should parents want to assimilate with their offsprings, many difficult problems like the one you listed would crop up. They would be real concerns, and require creative problem solving. I’m not sure it’s solvable and I don’t suggest with certainty that it is. But it certainly won’t become solvable if parents resign to the situation from the start.
I think the idea of “trauma” and “confused” has been emphasized out of proportion.
Frumma – A parents’ belief is a belief, it isn’t a lie. Every parent has a right to share their “lies” with their children, so long as they allow their children to believe in their own lies. If in the secular world a child denies the importance of the World Series, think about how that‘s different than when a child denies the importance of the Rebbe. The first isn’t punishable.
Parents aren’t supposed to teach the perfect thing, they should simply teach critical thinking by being fallible, refutable, allow for independence and for the child to decide on his or her own. Hypothetically, even if everything a frum parents teache is 100% true, it is still wrong to force your unquestionable truth down your child’s throat.
The importance isn’t in the quality of answers you give your child. It’s in the quality of questions you give your child.
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Misyavni,
I don’t think parents need reminding that they are not sole owner of their children. What is family court if not a tribute to the dilemma Shloima Hamelech first so sloppily solved by suggesting limbs of children be distributed among the disagreeing parties? When there are two parties and one prize, the question is who it goes to. Chassidim may claim ownership, but the other parents can do the same. Arguing that there is a ‘an unspoken, unwritten, assumed, prenuptial, prebirth child rearing agreement’ that needs to be stuck to be it hell or high waters is ridiculous. For all you know the parents may have signed in blood their commitment to raise their children to be their personal slaves and bow to their feet and sing their praise. Does that make it the deciding criteria of how the children should grow up? No. Neither does the feelings of spouse status quo matter more than that of the other spouse. The criteria for deciding where the child goes should be one: the child’s best interest.
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Probably it is best for children to minimize the conflict between the parents, and the parent who “leaves” should be willing to maintain the status quo regarding the children’s education, while insisting that they at least get some basic tools to support themselves when they grow up.
As for exposure to other lifestyles, no worry, they’ll have exposure to you, the parent, won’t they?
(Don’t you think the parental conflict is likely to be far more traumatic to a kid than a move toward a more wordly lifestyle?)
printed to read on the tube – comments later.
“Hypothetically, even if everything a frum parents teache is 100% true, it is still wrong to force your unquestionable truth down your childs throat.”
Says who?
Kaf,
” Hypothetically, even if everything a frum parents teache is 100% true, it is still wrong to force your unquestionable truth down your childs throat.’Says who? ”
Well, says He, the one and only, with complete certainty. You may not question this truth statement. It is heretical. ;-3
And says the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of thought (indirectly).
I think it’s logical that children have rights to think, and to deny that right by feeding unquestionably facts is wrong irrelevant of the truth of the facts.
I take issue with idea that Hasidic couples should be considered to have made an unbreakable pact that come what may, the children will always be raised in the Hasidic lifestyle.
It seems to be accepted as a truism by many people, but like many truisms it is in fact not true at all. I do not remember ever explicitly agreeing to such a thing, and neither can it be considered to be an implicit agreement. What I have implicitly agreed to is that we will raise the children in the best way we know how. I have not, and could not, have agreed that my definition of best will forever stay the same. How could I?
Had someone asked me back then if I think my views might change over the years I would have undoubtedly agreed that this is a distinct possibility (though I might not have guessed just how far they will change). Even now I secretly harbor the haunting suspicion that not ALL of my opinions on everything are completely and totally correct, and some of my opinions my yet change in the future. (Although I am of course correct on all the major issues affecting my lifestyle choices.)
The position that I must raise my children in the way my 18-year-old self considered best — and not in the way my mature self considers best — is a morally bankrupt one. And to further maintain that I have implicitly agreed that my definition of ‘best’ will never ever change is silly, inane, and bogus. Even I have never been quite that presumptuous!
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Thinking about the difficult subject of children of rebels– perhaps the solution to this dilemma lies (in the faraway cosmic future) in establishing a private school especially for children of such homes? The ideal school would be structured on an emphasis on multiculturalism and academic rigor while openly rejecting dogmatism and any specific doctrine. Teachers would understand the child’s past and future, and the faculty would be thoroughly informed about research on the subject of psychological implication of “immigration” and the sociology of Hassidism.
Schools are doable under the right circumstances.
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Amen, BD! Unfortunately, the idea you take issue with is one the legal system in America subscribes to, and custody is determined based on this irrational, corrupt philosophy. I have this on authority of several legal experts that state this concept matter-of-factly and believe that justice is law and that’s all you get.
Shpitzle, th constitution? Is that the best you can come up with?
And if the “unquestionable truth” that would be at issue here would be the fact that dangerous drugs can ruin your life, would it be ok to ram it down your kids’ throats? The “Constitution” obviously is interpreted to allow the government to even ram that down the throats of adults… and knowing what we know about marijuana, that “unquestionable truth” is very much questionable…
So if someone sincerely feels the same about the risks of our decadent society, why shouldn’t it be OK for him to teach his kids about that in a very strong way, what you would call “ramming it down”?
BD,
You agreed to build a bayis ne’eman b’yisroel. Allow yourself some leeway in the interpretation of ne’eman, but you can’t take out of the realm of religion, and certainly not out of yisroel.
Kaf, as far as I know the constitution does not entitle the arrest, persecution, execution or public flogging of those that *believe* in the legitimacy of marijuana. Do you know it to be otherwise?
Note the distinction between:
Freedom of thoughts
Freedom of acting on thoughts
The second is not endorsed, especially for children with immature understanding. A child can believe many insane things. A parent may question or debate these views but not ban them. On the other hand a parent may not allow the child to act on them if the parent sees it to be dangerous.
If someone believes dragging off humans to a mountaintop to slaughter for God is holy, we make no objection. If however, the belief were carried out we would cry folly. Same goes for a parent. If the child thinks the parent is vicious for enforcing rules (explaining the logic behind rules may or may not eliminate the objection) then the child is entitled to disagree but not act on it.
Modern approaches to child rearing suggest children be encouraged to opine about the rules but the final authority goes to the parent. That is – you are welcome to disagree honey, but be a good tattele and march in line, when you’re old enough you’ll do as you see fit.
“Modern approaches to child rearing suggest children be encouraged to opine…”
That’s what it boils down to, the modern approach. Not that I have anything against the “modern appoach”, but why aren’t other people entitled to different beliefs, and different methods of child rearing?
Misyavni, every couple is blessed to build a “bayis neeman bysrael”
every husband is contracted to feed clothe and sexually attend to his wife. Where do you see more? A blessing is not a contract.
Furthermore, children are not a party to agreements between spouses. Your obligations to raise them as best as you see fit stand independently of whatever you told your spouse, and they take precedence.
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Just to give myself some clarity, I think that most of what was written pertains to the following questions. I wonder what the esteemed commentators answers are to the below questions.
1. Do we believe that its better (healthier) for a child to be brought secular (suburban lifestyle) than in CH, BP, WB, KJ, Monsey?
2. If the answer is yes, then should an effort be made by the parent (or whatever controlling authority) to effectuate that change.
3. Even if the answer to number 1 is yes, but since the change might have a short or long lasting effect, should the change still be pursued?
4. If there is marital strife anyway in the marriage? Does that negate issue number 3?
5. Is the decision one made in youth or ignorance binding forever?
Now the kicker…
6. Does a person have to suffer all their life for the mistakes they made when they were young? This question is asked even if its agreed that the change will have a negative effect on others.
Forbidden, I read a number of Mormon accounts too, and from what I remember the conflict wasn’t just about differences in belief- there was severe abuse going on too.
Misyavni,
“You agreed to build a bayis ne’eman b’yisroel.”
No, I made no such long-standing guarantees, most especially not with regards to raising children. All I did was enter a pact with the good-faith understanding that as things stand currently, our ideas on how to best run a household is sufficiently similar.
I never did abrogate my right, nay responsibility, to continue to inform myself and update my ideas on how best to raise children, and I have never — neither explicitly nor implicitly — conferred veto power on how to implement those ideas to my former 18-year-old self. That would be foolish and immoral, and claiming that by virtue of getting married I implicitly agreed to such a thing is claiming that my spouse knowingly married an immoral fool. Clearly, this cannot have been the mutual understanding at the time.
And it wasn’t.
Shpitzle,
I am intrigued by your vision of a new school for “children of rebels.” It is important that we begin to think about institutions and organizations and not just about our private journeys.
Individual parents and children find themselves at such a loss in front of the monolithic response of the hostile community that it would be great indeed if they could find new institutions to help them.
Schools may be particularly important because the Hasidic world threatens (and then enforces) that the children of rebels will be isolated from the community and taken out of Hasidic schools. A new school for such children would help form a new community.
–To the insiders who purport that a child’s world falls apart when a parent leaves with her/his children, I would like to remind that the fifth commandment is a pillar of Hasidic upbringing and parents who wish the least trauma for their child may find that permitting a child to “honor” a parent who leaves coheres for a Hasidic child, and certainly is less painful than growing up with a parent whose existence has been silenced.
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Baal Devarim,
Yes! Yes! Yes!
Kaf-”That’s what it boils down to, the modern approach. Not that I have anything against the “modern appoach”, but why aren’t other people entitled to different beliefs, and different methods of child rearing?”
This discussion is specifically about parents who *have* embraced modernity. Those who haven’t are entitled to stone their be sorer umorer as they see fit. No, wait. They’re not. Hm. Whyever not?
Our modern understanding is far from a single shiteh, but in general it replaces an acceptance in the practice of tyranny, corruption and injustice of pre-Enlightenment times with ideas of progress, freedoms and rights. Are you saying he concept of freedoms and rights aren’t universal, objective and timeless? They’re just “one way” among other “different options”? Do you believe modern laws on child labor, primary education, child abuse, fgm, polygamy, minors in marriage, freedom for children are just us one-track minded Westerners projecting our modern subjective biases on poor parents who just want to do as they believe? I’m not saying the laws are perfect, but should laws be replaced by laissez faire?
I’m curious what you’re suggesting.
I think, Kaf, that the very concept of extreme non-judgementalism and tolerance towards other beliefs is *very* much a view based on enlightened understanding. So in essence, if you don’t reject frum people’s extreme chinuch approach because of your modern understanding of relativism and tolerance, you are really allowing them to struggle cold-heartedly because of your modern beliefs, which means you’re also somehow projecting it
Shpitzle, I think you summed it up beautifully in the last paragraph. I am ambivalent myself on this issue, which is like the question can God create something stronger than himself. Is it right to impose my view, not to impose one’s views on others, on others?
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