Chutzpah!

I was speaking to an older person I know about how much kollel bothers me. I was telling her how much I found it irresponsible for someone who had no job to marry, and I told her even more so, how much it bothers me when they leech on the society from the get-go (have hachnoses kallah to pay for wedding for example).

The lady completely agreed with me, and told me the following story, which was just mind-boggling, but unfortunately super believable.

She used to live in Boro Park and one day she had a knock on her door, and it was a beggar. It was a frummy young guy, all dressed in his penguin-self, collecting money for his wedding.

My friend was not dressed tzniously (as she was conservative and not frum), but was dressed in a robe that was sleeveless.

The guy, asked for money, and then started explaining how my friend should not be dressed the way she was, and that she needed sleeves! Then he again, asked for money.

My friend was rightfully pissed off, and she said to him "I work hard, and I pay for things, on my own. if YOU are getting married, *you* should have a job and work too, I will not give you any money, because you're younger and able-bodied and perfectly capable of getting a job. If you can't pay for your wedding, you shouldn't be getting married. and if you're poor, you just shouldn't be having a wedding, only a chupah."

The guy was annoyed and left.

Chutzpah! Talking about tznius, being a lazy leech, while expecting others to pick up the tab!

saving neshamos?

I was at shul on shabbos and actually stayed to listen to the speech - can’t figure out why Rabbi’s are allowed to speak! Priests/Reverands give sermons shouldn’t speeches be considered goyish now? - Anyway, the speech was about a whole bunch of things which only proved that Rabbi’s don’t understand what being an employee in corporate America is like… but I’m not going to get into that… What irritated me most, is what I’m here to write about… Kiruv (sorta).

During the speech the Rabbi was saying something about kiruv and how kiruv professionals “save” countless neshamos, but in the meantime their own kids are known to regularly go off the derech.

Now, I’d like to ask

1- What are these non-frum Jews being “saved” from by becoming frum?

*As Jews we don’t believe in hell in the way Christians do. We don’t believe in eternal damnation; nor do we believe in this huge red monster who will keep us in a huge hot fire cave

*As Jews we are taught to believe that Gd that is merciful and forgiving. When we pass away (@ 120) we’ll go through like a t'shuva process to cleanse ourselves for a few months and then we go to a good place.

*As Jews if we have any intellectual honesty, we know we’re *all* gonna end up in a form of gehenim anyway. Kosher or not… and even the worst man just ends up there for a little longer (except those who qualify for the “yimach shemom’ category)… so really, what are we saving them from? We’re not saving them from anything we’re not already *all* gonna be a part of.

*Religion is not for everyone. Some people can’t have their lives dictated by diets that are the “fad”. Nor can they live a life in which they have to worry about everything they serve in their house because someone else may not eat there. Some people just shouldn't be religious.

So really what are we saving them from other than their own ability to CHOOSE what they want, without it being bombarded down by BS crap?


2- If Kiruv-professional kids are known to be going off the derech, REGULARLY, why in the hell are we even DOING COMMERCIAL KIRUV?

- *Chessed* begins at home… so even if a frum persons neshama is somehow “safer” (still don’t know how) than a non-frum persons neshama, why are we risking the neshamos of those who are *already* frum? Isn’t there a thing that Gd only minimally punishes us if we’re unaware that we’re doing something wrong, whereas if we *know* we’re doing something wrong our punishment is that much worse? So why are we educating a public that doesn’t really know how much wrong they’re doing while allowing people who *know* perfectly well HOW MUCH WRONG they’re doing to still not do it? Why not just leave the non-frum Jews non-frum and allow the Frum Jews to REMAIN frum. If we allow that, there is minimul punishment amongst the Jews.

Pretty much, Rabbis go on and on and preach about how "chesed begins at home", they dont practice what they preach, and BAM, their own kids go OTD, and they validate it by claiming they "saved" neshamos!

YAY~!

Online Doctoral Programs

-I dont even know how this works, but I guess THANK YOU to whoever nominated me, or voted for me, or whatever it took :)-

YAY!
and congrats to all the other winner :)

Yeshiva Hypocrisy

The following is a guest post:

I don't usually like to complain or make waves, but a recent incident has made venting a necessity, as well as a need to let the public know of the admissions process of a very respected Yeshiva. Our son is supposed to go to Kindergarten in the fall, so we applied to several schools in October of 2009. One of the schools that we applied to was this respected yeshiva. We thought that we would have no problem in getting in as my husband is an alumnus and many of our friends' children go there. We were wrong. While we were contacted by and then accepted by several schools, this respected Yeshiva never bothered to reply to us. We didn't pay attention to this for awhile as we were considering other schools. However, in the end, we decided to focus on the respected yeshiva due to the high cost of tuition and after being made aware of certain incidents in the schools that we were accepted to, as well as the fact that we would have for a very expensive private bus for the first year. The respected yeshiva is the least expensive of the schools that we applied to and it is within a very easy walking distance from us. Due to the act that we never heard anything from them, we correctly assumed that we were rejected and asked our Rabbi to find out whether anything could be done for us to be admitted there. He tried and over the course of several months was told that there was simply no room. However, as I simply wasn't sure we were rejected in the first place, I finally called the Rabbi in charge of admissions and he explained the reason.:

He said that they first take all the children of their Kollel members and those with older siblings already in the school. I said that's fine, but then I pointed that after these children, we should have been one of the first to be contacted for an interview as my husband attended this school and that we applied as early as possible in October. His answer was that the list of alumni was sent to the board, who then decided who to interview based on their activity on behalf of the yeshiva and contributions to it. In other words, it didn't matter that my husband was an alumnus or that we were one of the first to apply, the reason that we were rejected is that we didn't give them enough money. Now, beside the fact that this should have nothing to do with admittance, we have contributed money to the yeshiva throughout the years and my mother in law contributes every year as well. Then to add insult to injury, this Rabbi said that there were no spaces already in January, when our Rabbi first started inquiring on our behalf. However, this is a lie as I know someone who was interviewed and accepted in January after someone spoke for them.

To say that I am angry about the entire incident is an understatement. It is time that everyone knew that these holier-than-thou types are complete hypocrites who claim and teach one thing, but really only care about money. Also, before anyone asks, we would have paid full tuition in this respected yeshiva, afterall the high tuition in the schools that we were accepted to combined with paying for an expensive private bus, would have required us to apply for scholarship which we didn't want to do.

It is also quite obvious that from now on we are not going to contribute another penny to this yeshiva."

SHIDDUCH book

My Sister Is In 12Th Grade. Finally, She Is Putting An End To The Main Source Of The Insanity In Her Life, And She’s Getting *Far* Away From Her Hs!! In The Meantime, While She’S Anticipating Her Last Day Of Classes, Her Idiot Principal (And Other Prinicipals As Well, As I Remember These Things Happening At My Hs) Is Checking Out EVERY Single Yearbook Picture The Girls Put In.

If the girl has her hair to long… it has to be photoshopped short.

If the girl has her hair in front, and not in the back, her hair has to be photoshopped out.

*this* is what the insanity of the frum world has come to. Yearbook pictures.

I for one, am eternally greatful I was not in my school yearbook (or rather SHIDDUCHbook)

Tfillin

True occurrence:

A super frummy, a friend and I were shmoozing when the conversation turned to Tfillin and how expensive it was.

Friend said looking at frummy "You know, a friend of mine just bought Tfillin for his Bar Mitzvah son and it cost $1200!"

Frummy said "that's nothing, My brother-in-law just paid $1800 for Tfillin for his son."

Friend and I were totally shocked, after all, we could understand a difference in $100-$200 for the tfillin, but $600 is huge... so I asked "What's so special about that Tfillin?"
She said "Well, its from a soifer with greater yiras shamayim"



Honestly, it took alot of strengh to keep from cracking up- not that friend and I were any nicer in our reaction- we both made funny looking faces which gave a clear explaination of our thoughts "WTH? HOw can you tell?"

Then, one of us (don't remember who first) said "what? How can you tell?" OUT LOUD and so frummy was like "Well, they... "

I couldn't fully understand what she said, but it was pretty obvious that the laymans terms version of it woulda been something like this "they have better handwriting"...

I was like "FOR REAL?!"

Why are people so frikkin stupid? I mean, I understand paying more money for BETTER QUALITY stuff, but lets face it, the writing will fade no matter who wrote up the tfillin. Eventually the Tfillin is going to need to be checked, so unless you fly the Tfillin back to Israel (where else would someone with greater Yiras Shamayim live?), it aint gonna be any different.

Then these bozo's complain about how expensive it is to be frum.

non-Jew coworker on Jewish men

One non-Jewish lady at my office said to me "You know, back in the former Soviet Union, all of us wanted to marry Jewish guys. They were known to be the best. They worked, they didn't drink and they didn't have girlfriends... And if they did, their wife and child always came first if anything major happened."

I thought that was an amazing thing she said, and then I responded "they don't really work so much anymore."
She was like "WHAT!?"
I said "yea, its not in style for them to work, they don't work, they sit in yeshiva and learn all day, and get married, and continue to sit in yeshiva and learn all day"

She said "they can do that, but no one will want to marry them!"
I said "yea, umm... its in style for girls to want a guy like that and for her dad to provide for them"

To which my coworker responded "They're not Jewish then. Jewish men are actually hardworking." (She would know, she married a Jew)

I thought to myself "its a sad world when the non-Jew recognizes the insanity of our current culture."