The Definition of Wrong

For those of you who have trouble distinguishing between right and wrong, I offer you a visual representation... Any questions?

What defines something as wrong? Technically is there something wrong with banging a goat? It’s sick, disgusting and if I know anyone who did it I’d never talk to them again. But I think we define wrong as something that is out of our societal norms. let me give a few examples:

Oh, and please don’t leave comments telling me I’m making stereoypes etc. I’m not dumb. I’m well aware that most people in each segment probably don’t conform to those stereotypes, but that’s why they’re called stereotypes. Cuz that’s all it is. A stereoype, not reality.

Someone learning at R’ Avrohom Yehoshua: I know a bochur who’s mamesh messed up.  He learns more than a blatt every half year. He zicher doesn’t have right p’shat. He also has a second cousin that goes to YU.

Someone at R’ Tzvi: walking outside without hat and jacket, or coming to shiur after the door is locked…

Mir: Um…

BJJ girl: Marrying a boy from the other Brisk.

Hadar: Not listening to every word Mrs. Orenstein says.

All the Yeshivas with acronyms: AJ, TJ, OJ etc. : Listening to the Rabbis. A definite no-no.

YU: Disparaging The Rav, or referring to Rav Chaim when saying The Rav.

Upper West Side guy before 23: Having sex. So young to give up on finding a true mate.

Upper West Side guy after 23: Taking off your Yarmulka before walking into a bar. What’s there to be ashamed of. Leaving with a girl just shows your straight, that’s cool.

Chabad Dudes: You can do what you like, sleep with how ever many people you like, go to South America on a road trip and not keep Shabbos, but for God’s sake, don’t forget The Rebbe is big stuff, MaMesh.

Chabad Girls: Not liking hooka. A true chabad girl loves nothing more than to spend an evening with 8 mendys a 10 mushkys and 4 hookas.

Liberals, not necessarily Jewish: Not caring about the environment. Not caring about animals. Not being into art. Being homophobic. All terrible things.

Frat Boys: Being into art. So gay. Environment’s cool, anything resembling pop culture is bad.

Upper East Side Ladies: Most of them have plastic surgery once they hit 40 and are still ugly as sin, so being naturally beautiful is a crime. As is not having been married 3 times, robbing the guy of all his money each time. After all, they deserve SOME peace in their lives. Having a child that didn’t attend an ultra-elite prep school is taboo. Going out Saturday night with their lady friends and drinking martinis or vodka tonics is standard.

Hipsters: When they aren’t smoking up and can coherently think, it’s definitely wrong to not know what real music is. Real music is only something that just about all Americans never heard before. It also must have a vinyl edition somewhere out there. Deodorant is optional.

Hot Chanies: Not going to Miami for pesach is worse than the nail salon being closed when you get there. It’s wrong to be in NY over pesach. Very wrong.

Get Married, Have Babies, Swipe Mom’s Credit Card. In Reverse.

'Learn' in Kollel, do nothing, make money. WTF

Yeshivish people get married. Have babies. And their parents support them. Regular folks work, and then either have babies then get married, or marry first. Or skip the babies. Or the Marriage.

There’s something that has been bothering me, and has recently intensified. I’m torn about this, not sure what to think.

I work, and struggle to pull in a few dollars to save up, get an apartment soon maybe a car. I pay for my phone, day to day expenses and acting lessons. My parents are kind enough to pay for school, health insurance etc. Fair deal. And they paid for my siblings school as well, for those who went. Here’s my issue: My sister has an insane amount of children for someone so young, and has been popping them out like the world is coming to an end. She works and tries to help bring in money. Husband learns and makes a small stipend

She Sent Her Hair to Dry Clean

Just got home from a very long day went onto Facebook and a friend sent this to me and I’m not quite sure what to think…

So…were the religious people lying or not? Some people on YouTube seem to think they were pretending to be religious but I don’t agree – their heavy Flatbush accent gives them away.

The point where the Judge seems to be wrong is that a wig isn’t live hair so shampoo won’t fix that damage. The hair is dead, and I’m no expert on wigs but that wig seems to have been past the point of no return.

They do seem to be lying, though it could be she was wearing a long wig from another company and just got flustered. I certainly walked away with a bad taste in my mouth.

P.S. Just finished writing this and thought to check Frum Satire when I noticed Heshy Fried already did a piece on this one and in all likelihood my friend found it on his blog, but here it is anyway.

Post Thanksgiving Blues

Some of my thoughts as the weekend progressed.

Friday 9am:

Dinner. Powerful word. Take 15 great friends, lots of booze and good food and that makes for some memorable times. I woke up this morning feeling like I got run over by a truck, when I realized I have to head off to work. Sadly, my boss does not recognize thanksgiving. I guess he’s too religious for it. Or maybe he just doesn’t like turkey. Either way, since I hadn’t actually been run over by a truck,  I guess that meant it was time to drag myself out of bed. There was this very holiday-like feeling in the air. It’s that feeling where you know you shouldn’t be at work/school that day, yet there you are. Oh well.

Monday 12 noon: The day’s progressing, though I really feel like I’m looking at the world through a haze. I’m not feeling too well, I’m in a down mood for a few other reasons, one of them being that my friends sister got into Sundance. She’s still broke and struggling but after 3 years of acting a film she’s starring in may just propel her career upwards. Of course I’m happy for her, but jealous at the same time. I’m only human. So I’m not in the greatest of moods and then I saw my boss. I swear that dude is the most depressing fellow ever. Just seeing him makes me wanna run and hide.

A) He’s religious.  Normally that wouldn’t piss me off to much, but he’s the type that doesn’t give a shit about it, yet does all the external yeshivish crap. And as time goes on I care less about the activities about the religious people around me; sometimes I can sit back and be amused at their silliness like you look at children marveling over the tooth fairy and Santa Claus, but sometimes they just get on my nerves.

B) he’s a multi-millionaire who can’t seem to enjoy it, or understand that others aren’t in his position. The dude actually asked me to lay out money for him the other day. I don’t care how little he asked for, if your paying me as little as you do, and have as much as you do, well what can I say…you’re just a bad person. No, rotten. Time for a new job.

I’ll probably wake up tomorrow and laugh at my current mood but that’s life. We turn around constantly, look at ourselves yesterday and either cry or laugh.

Abdullah Goes OTD!

I’ve pasted an article from the NY times.

I guess Muslims, like Jews refuse to believe that one who leaves religion is a rational person. I’ve put that which I thought important or similar to the Jewish OTD, in blue.

QALQILYA, West Bank — It is hard to imagine that a dingy Internet cafe buzzing with flies in this provincial Palestinian town could have spawned a blogger who has angered the Muslim cyberworld by promoting atheism, composing spoofs of Koranic verses, skewering the lifestyle of the Prophet Muhammad and chatting online using the sarcastic Web name God Almighty.

But many people in Qalqilya seem convinced that this Facebook apostate is none other than a secretive young man who spent seven hours a day in the corner booth of a back-street hole-in-the-wall here. Until recently the man, Waleed Hasayin, in his mid-20s, led a relatively anonymous existence as an unemployed graduate in computer science who helped out a few hours a day at his father’s one-chair barber shop. Several acquaintances described him as an “ordinary guy” who prayed at the mosque on Fridays.

But since the end of October Mr. Hasayin has been detained at the local Palestinian Authority intelligence headquarters, suspected of being the blasphemous blogger who goes by the name Waleed al-Husseini. The case has drawn attention to thorny issues like freedom of expression in the Palestinian Authority, for which insulting religion is considered illegal, and the cultural collision between a conservative society and the Internet.

While Mr. Hasayin has won some admiration and support abroad — a Facebook group has formed in solidarity, along with several online petitions — others on Facebook are calling for his execution.

In his hometown, the reaction seems to be one of uniform fury. Many here say that if he does not repent, he should spend the rest of his life in jail.

“Everyone is a Muslim here, so everyone is against what he did,” said Alaa Jarar, 20, who described himself as not particularly pious. “People are mad at him and will not respect the Palestinian Authority if he is released. Maybe he is a Mossad agent working for Israel.”

Aside from his Facebook pages, which have now been deleted, Mr. Husseini, the online persona, also posted essays in Arabic on a blog called Noor al-Aqel (Enlightenment of Reason) and in English translation on Proud Atheist, identifying himself as “an atheist from Jerusalem — Palestine.”

The essays offer some relatively sophisticated arguments in a blunt and racy style. In one, titled “Why I left Islam,” Mr. Husseini wrote that Muslims “believe anyone who leaves Islam is an agent or a spy for a Western State, namely the Jewish State.”

He added, “They actually don’t get that people are free to think and believe in whatever suits them.”

He went on to describe the Islamic God as “a primitive, Bedouin and anthropomorphic God,” and Muhammad as “a sex maniac” who bent his own rules “to appease his voracious desire.”

It all seems a far cry from Qalqilya, a conservative low-rise town of more than 40,000 people where horse-drawn wagons plied the streets this week and the market was bustling ahead of the Muslim holiday marking the end of the annual pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

The arrest of Mr. Hasayin has caused a sensation since it was first reported by the independent Palestinian news agency Maan. But there are also some who question whether he could have written all this material alone.

Mr. Hasayin’s father, Khaled, was reluctant to talk. Clearly upset and ashamed, he said that his son was in treatment and had been “bewitched” by a Tunisian woman he had met via Facebook.

Before shooing reporters out of his barber shop, where a framed Koranic verse hung on the wall above tubs of hair gel, he said that his son’s literary Arabic was not at a level where he could compose fake Koranic verses.

One relative of Mr. Hasayin said, “It is true he studied computers, but he is not a philosopher.”

At the local intelligence headquarters, officials seemed to be treading carefully. Speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the case’s potentially explosive nature — Salman Rushdie’s “Satanic Verses” led to riots and death threats in the 1980s, as did cartoons of Muhammad in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in 2005 — the officials said they could not release any details since Mr. Hasayin was still under interrogation. They said they had to act fairly and with sensitivity in case the suspicions proved false or exaggerated.

They said Mr. Hasayin had not been allowed any visitors and told them that he did not need a lawyer. Mr. Hasayin, they added, was being detained partly for his own protection.

Palestinian human rights groups in the West Bank have so far remained silent about Mr. Hasayin’s arrest. But Majed Arouri, a human rights expert in Ramallah, said he believed that the way in which Mr. Hasayin had been detained and his correspondence recorded “contradicts human rights principles and existing Palestinian laws” regarding individual privacy.

If Mr. Hasayin is to be tried, Mr. Arouri said, it would be according to a 1960 Jordanian law against defaming religion, still valid in the West Bank.

Some bloggers are already comparing Mr. Hasayin, or Mr. Husseini, to Kareem Amer, an Egyptian blogger who was sentenced in 2007 to four years’ imprisonment for insulting Islam and the Egyptian president.

At the Internet cafe that Mr. Hasayin frequented, youths played online billiards and looked at pictures of girls on a recent afternoon. The owner, Ahmed Abu Asab, said that six weeks ago he discovered that Mr. Hasayin was “not a regular client.”

Mr. Abu Asab had grown suspicious because Mr. Hasayin would not let anybody come close and see what he was working on. Mr. Abu Asab said: “At first I thought he was looking at pornographic sites and chatting with girls. That would be normal and none of my business.”

But Mr. Abu Asab said he used software that allowed him to check what the client was up to, and among other things, he came across the Facebook page on which Mr. Hasayin appeared to be speaking in the name of God. Mr. Abu Asab said that he and three friends knew what was going on and that “maybe somebody” informed the authorities.

Mr. Abu Asab kept copies of the pages, and Palestinian Authority officials came and downloaded the material. Next, they came for Mr. Hasayin, who asked for a moment to close what was on his screen.

Giving Up Judaism for Orthodoxy

I’m sitting here in my bed listening to some amazing recordings of Kol Nidrei Chazzanus that Heshy Fried posted.  I find myself both nostalgic and sad. Regardless of the validity of Judaism, it is certainly beautiful at times.

I have just watched a documentary on air travel, and I find my mind to be floating in the memories of LA travel as a kid. LA to me was always a place where I was able to feel the echoes of Judaism as it was in the 1940’s, 50’s 60′ and 70’s. Not the black and white clad version where Rabbi’s with long beards attempted- rather successfully- in pulling Judaism back into the dark ages of the Shtetl, but rather the echoes of the massive shuls of the 40’s we had after the war, and the Hebrew Day School types that thrived in out of town commuities before the term out of town was coined.

Perhaps that feeling was brought out by being in my grandparent’s home there, where seeing my grandparents,  normal people who happened to be Jewish and older people, connected me in some weird way to the Jews of yesteryear. Sadly my grandfather changed, as he aged he too got influenced by the yeshivish movement and became slightly more closedminded.

Listening to Kol Nidrei now just added to the feeling that the Yeshivish world, in an attempt to authenticate Orthodoxy, lost Judaism. The culture and refinement that infused so much inspiration into Judaism of the 60’s, and added so much glory, it itself was perhaps an anchor that kept many clinging to it. Perhaps that glory itself gave meaning to Judasim in a way that debating over minute laws of tying shoes and enforcing self created dress codes cannot possibly accomplish.

And perhaps being raised in a home where my mom grew up with day schools and can still appreciate the refined side of Judaism, the side where culture infiltrates, has allowed me to not completely disassociate myself with them.

Scotch, Sex and Drinking

While I’m on the topic of the evils of drinking I figured I’d make a list of different scenarios in which different people have a drink…or two…or ten.

1. Yeshiva Guy Headline Whore:

Age: 10-19

Favorite Activity: smoking and talking about the time Yanky’s older brother beat up a goy. Oh, and he also likes to brag about how long it takes his Yeshiva to get through an amud gemara.

Drink of Choice: alcohol. Doesn’t matter what type, he barely knows a beer from a kettel one with 3 limes.

Time of Drinking: Purim and by his brother Yerucham’s siyum. He finished gantz seder nashim! (can’t blame him- must’ve gotten sick of cows goring fat pregnant chics, figured he’d get into some steamy girl stories. With Rabbi’s students getting off under their Rabbi’s bed watching him fuck his wife. Nasty. But I’ll parody the different gemara stuff another post.

Most likely to be wearing: The younger guys: Nike sneakers, dark dockers and a polo- maybe ralph Lauren, more likely Tommy or maybe even Hollister for the realll cool guys.

Older guys: white shirt, tzitzis, black pants and huge yarmulka. hat and jacket goes without saying. Or maybe not, if he’s a hocker.

Motive: Bragging rights. Heck, maybe he’ll get into the Yated for landing himself in the hospital.

2. Oiveid Hashem:

Age: 14-40

Favorite activity: The fact that your even asking vos ich hub leeb tzu tun, is mamesh a geferlecheh chillul hashem! The only thing vos a yeshiva man want, the most important zach i deh velt vus mir ken tun, iz tzu lernen der eibeshters heiligeh heligeh torah ayayayy…

Drink of Choice: wine or schnapps.

Time of Drinking: Purim is the only time a year that ah mentch is shayach to reach the kedusha oof Yom Kippur! And even better vibalt it’s durch simcha! Nichnas yayin yatzah soid! Ah! Moiiiiredig! Chayav inish livisoomay bipoorayah ad diloh yada! And the Mitzvah is only with wine…

Also noch davening shabbos morning at the kiddush, a shot or two of bourbon never hurt anyone…

Most likely to be wearing: wrinkled white shirt, black shiny dress pants and mismatched black jacket. Dusty used-to-be-black but turned grey brimmed down hat. Shoes scuffed and ugly.

Motive: Ah mentch darf nisht hubben ah ta’am far deenin der eibeshter.

3. Dude in Israel for Shana Alef or Bet:

Age:17-20

Favorite activity: Depending on which Yeshiva he went to (also for another post) either going to Zolly’s and getting blowjobs in the bathroom or fucking the shit out of the yeshivish looking sem girl in his dorm room. But they’ll always be sure not to get caught…might ruin the chics shidduch chances. Ha- that slut will be wearing short shorts and tank tops within 6 weeks of getting back from Israel.

Drink of Choice: Hooka. Oh, its not a drink? Well some pot in the hooka mixed with some vodka redbull ain’t too bad a deal.

Time of Drinking: best is straight out of bed, after you manage to push her off you and realize you have a pounding headache and no memories of how or when you ordered pizza. And why it’s moldy is another question, for another time. And best thing for a hangover as they say is more beer. Can’t hurt, that’ for sure. Usually warm beer from a half drunk can which probably was last touched by the lips of the girl you just climbed out from under. And shes also the cause of all that goddam itching. Good luck brotha!

Most likely to be wearing:

Option 1: Baggy khakhis, rumpled t-shirt, naots.

Option 2: Jeans, untucked american eagle shirt, naots.

Option 3: Black pants, used to be starched untucked white shirt and crocs, probably dark in color. Or maybe bright orange. Depends- on what? I dunno.

Motive: survival, buddy, survival.

4. Post Israel Barely Religious Dude

I like ti call these guys Frum But Not Religious. They don’t keep anything but still go places for shabbos and eat at mainly kosher establishments even tho they’ll be using their cell phones on shabbos and have bacon egg and cheese on the way to Atlantic City if they somehow missed stopping at Dunkin on 18th.

Age: 20-24

Favorite Activity: Titties. And don’t tell me that’s not an activity. Better than Christmas!

This guy drinks alot:

Time of drinking, drink of choice and motive: A. House party, flat beer from a keg and jack and coke, getting with the drunk slut. Read drunk slut in the plural form. As in when I talk  to 300 ppl at once and say “you”. And btw who the fuck said there has to be a motive??

B. Club, Vodka cranberry orange juice, getting with- well anything that moves and has boobs. Cuz most guys end up paying through the roof for those drinks, unless they have a hookup ( I know I do, many actually :p) so they must be desperate at that point. Like my friend said- fat chics are great for one thing- giving great blowjobs, well cuz they know how to eat!

C. Hooka bar: don’t get me started.

Most likely to be wearing: Fitted t or nice shirt. Jeans, brown pointy shoes with dragon designs on the front.

5. Post Party Day Ex Yeshiva Rebel:

Age: 25-30

Favorite Activity: Making money. Loads of money. And then some.

Time of Drinking: After work on random nights at high end hotel bars where they play soft music and in the movies some hooker always sits down and with the look of a shrewd business woman, softly whispers something in his ear while her hand…I’m getting carried away, dammit.

Drink of Choice: Scotch on the rocks. Something golden in a nice glass should do the trick.

Motive: so much stress can only be relieved one way…

Most likely to be wearing: Armani suit, shirt and dress shoes. And if he used to be satmar….he probably still has his bluetooth in…

Gritty Details Inside – My First Day. At Work

K so here I am. First day at my new job. And no it wasn’t that post I wrote about my boss. Glad to be done there.

8 am.

Gotta wear my goddam yarmulka- owner is my dads student – thinks I’m religious- really annoying.  I walk in the quiet frum guy walks up to me. Points me over to my new desk and tells me Jonathan – the guy showing me around will be in soon. I wait. Get the code to unlock the computer. Surf the web. Check out the history. No porn. So far so ….good? Definitely a huge Frum Satire fan. Then some rebels something or other jackets. Seems like my predecessor was either some type of Hells Angels dude or he just likes those type of clothes. I’ll find out when he gets here.

8:40 am.

Woman walks in. Not sure of she’s religous or not. She certainly thinks I am. She doesn’t offer her hand. This is just too awkward. Fuck it- ill just offer my hand. This is so silly. When’s the last time I thought about shaking a girls hand?! Wtf.

So the guys was supposed to be hear by 9. I’m still waiting. No sweat. Another dude who looks like life passed him by- he’s only 35-40 walks in. I’d say names Kalman or something. Probably has a fat wife with 3 kids under age 5. This is gonna be interesting. Hopefully ill get my headshots b4 october so I can start auditioning and balance out all this intense religion that just burst onto the SCENE I call life. Its really hot in here. Not sure if its the sun shining on me or the fact that the AC is set wrong. Fuck. I’m tired- I just got back from AC last nite. I’m also hungry- I didn’t eat anything yet.

9:30 am.

Jonathan’s here. Not goth. At all. Ok good. Maybe I’m too judgmental. Its in my blood. Anyway he has to go to Brooklyn for business stuff. I go along. Religion comes up in conversation. Says something about being himself and hugging the girls in the office just because its funny to see everyone’s reaction. I definitely hear that one!

Then- No, I’m not religious. Yes I know I’m wearing a kippa.

Lifes a bitch. Shudda just walked in without it. Or maybe not.

We see a guy on the platform. I immediately try to guess his life story- which yeshiva, where he lives, shomer or not religous level etc. Like I said I’m a judgmental bastard. Yeshiva education- what can I do. And, no my Rabbi didn’t touch me. Surprising, I know. Guess I wasn’t good enough for him.

Then here comes the weird part. I tell Jonathan that I have a blog called Kissmeimshomer, because he mentioned something about Frum Satire. He tell me he has a friend, lets call her Rachel (shout out!). This friend is an avid Frum Satire reader. He says he must call her because she must know who I am. OK.

He calls her. Tells her he’s hanging out with me. She said something like “How’d you manage that??!” (put in high pitched scream here- nah I kid, she wasn’t that excited. I’m defintely blowing this up.) She said she wouldnt know what to say to me, well neither would I. Know what to say to her, that is. So we spoke. I must say it  was a weird feeling to have a complete stranger kind of recognize me. I like. I think I am gonna pursue this acting thing after all. ( which, BTW I am already doing. Great coach- email me for his info.)

1:30pm.

We get back to the office. Shit- looks like there’s a MINCHA MINYAN at 2. Damn. Gotta go fake davening- just like everyone else in the room…. and move on. Jonathan shows me gum. Ok…I’ll have one…?  Oh he was trying to say he eats not kosher gum. I hadn’t realized it was the brand he was showing me, not the gum. My bad. He’s a great guy, very modern orthodox but very purposeful about it. If it were possible to convince him that being a hardcore chassid was the truth he’d do it no matter how hard it is. None of that I don’t give a shit thing we  ex faker yeshivish ppl have in us. But no worries- it isn’t possible. And not cuz being chassidish isn’t the truth, although that certanly is a true statement, but because- well you gotta know Jonathan.

4pm.

Oh ya then there’s the kosher food cooked by the local rabbis wife. Ya sounds like I work in Massapequa. wherever that is. But one never knows, even NYC can have a local  rabbi. Whose wife makes a mean Schnitzel.

Some woman who reminds me of the woman our yeshiva used to employ mentions that its good I’m getting told all the important stuff. Ok…but it is good to know where to get Kosher, well if you kinda gotta keep up the image of a semi nice Jewish boy.

Which I’m not. Nice, that is.

5pm.

About to leave. Boss calls me over we chat for a while. Nice guy seems to know what he’s doing. We go outside and he shows me around . Not bad. There’s certainly room to move in this company and it could be kinda cool. Time will tell.

Flatbush vs. Chabad – My Observations

Went to a big Flatbush wedding recently. Lots of hockers, Hatzalah members and fully loaded Maximas. And of course lots of Flatbush sluts/future Hot Chanies. Funny how all the guys want to hook up with those girls, but yet call them sluts. What I noticed is how most of the people there seem to be more or less apathetic towards Judaism just keep up the pretenses just because.

And in many cases it isn’t just pretenses that they’re keeping up; many of those guys and girls actually do keep Shabbos and Kosher to some extent. And most of them will end up getting married before they hit 25 years of age continuing to raise another generation of apathetic Jews.

A friend of mine mentioned how he had spoken to his Dad, a prominent member of the orthodox community who would be considered “chilled” by many people. They were speaking about how he isn’t too religious anymore. He told his Dad “you don’t believe in half of this (religious) bullshit either! You’re a smart man!” His Dad responded “True, but still. And I also won’t let you use my car on Shabbos or the cellphone I pay for because it’s on my cheshbon”.

Hypocritical anyone? Or maybe the community has come to a point where everyone knows it’s all bullshit, or at least they have no interest in keeping it, yet it’s a cycle. Everyone keeps certain things, so they do to. It almost becomes fun, sort of a big brotherhood.

Yet somehow my Chabad friends, who keep less than the Flatbush crowd and dress not Yeshivish – are still living Judaism more. They feel very religious, mostly believe very strongly in it, and essentially are what religion should be – if there should be religion. Strange.

My Dilemma

So here’s the moral dilemma of the day. Well I’m not seriously considering this, or maybe I am. Not sure. Let me describe my family for a second to give you some background.

My dad’s an intense personality. As one of his friends, my former Rabbi, once told me that he knows my parents to be not necessarily the most yeshivish people he knows, but definitely the most frum.

My mom’s more open minded, having grown up in day schools. She became more yeshivish as the years went on, especially after my oldest sister got married. That’s when Yinglish expressions became part of her daily vernacular to some extent or another – it’s still funny to hear it from her.

A year back when I was still somewhat religious and they had no idea where I was up to, she always told me I can go work and she doesn’t think that me learning is a greater fulfillment of who I am, considering that I am more than just someone who knows how to learn (gee thanks Mom- permission to go to work). She told me my dad’s someone who sees potential as a black and white thing- ie) you can learn well, so go learn!  She mentioned to me how he didn’t see a person as a whole with other issues and interests etc.

Looking at it from another side of things she definitely believes in the life she leads- which is a good thing- but she definitely is one of those people that believes her way is correct to the exclusion of other ways. When I mentioned at one point that I would eat fish at a regular bar (at that point either I had been partially keeping kosher or wasn’t but didn’t care to share) her reaction was one of  “c’mon, stop being so immature.” So she’s very much in that world but somewhat knowledgeable of the normal world. Somewhat.

My sister- well I already told you all you need to know about her. My other sister’s as yeshivish as her except more open minded. My brothers-in-law are super yeshivish – kind of like their wives.

The issue at hand is my little sister. She’s preteen. Well she SHOULD be preteen considering she’s 12. She should be headed off to her Disney concerts and be fighting for or against Team Edward. Or maybe she’d be into the whole goth thing. Who knows.

She’s a miniature version of my oldest sister. She’s got that whole holier-than-thou tznius thing going on. Probably never spoke to a boy her age who isn’t related to her, and has never seen a movie. If I put on the radio while driving her somewhere she gives me a look and laughs, not as if she’s uncomfortable with the music I’m listening to, but more like she doesn’t quite understand why “goyish” music is on. I can almost see her trying to figure out why her brother has music on that she only hears in Sears or from the workers doing construction at our house. Now the shit they play in Sears NEVER comes out of my speakers. Try telling her that. To her it’s all lumped together. Yeshivish vs Goyim.

I was driving her to a friend a few months back on my way to help a friend study for her test. She asked where I was going. I told her. Her response? ” HER test???!!” She can’t fathom anything other than her small narrow world. Unlike most girls in Brooklyn who are somewhat aware of the world out there, my sister is completely and wholly in the dark.

And it’s even moving on to the next generation. My oldest sisters 4 year old boy asked me why I was wearing gray pants. Charcoal gray suit pants, mind you.

So, here’s the dilemma:

Do I corrupt my little sister or not?

No, corrupt is the wrong word. Do I sit back and watch my little sister follow in her older sister’s strange footsteps, or do I find some way to make her slightly more normal.

I’m not talking about becoming not religious. Just to let her know about the world of religious people in the NY area who are far more – what’s the right word- open minded? I have plenty of religious friends who are quite normal thank you very much. She just never gets to meet that crowd. So yes or no?

And if so, how?

Would love to hear from everyone. Just remember, I didn’t actually say I’m doing it. Just sayin.