just settle

i find it humorous whenever i hear the "just settle" speech. it is wasted by the orator. the person who should be given the "just settle" speech is someone in her early twenties. if someone over thirty hasn't "just settled" they most probably never will. its a lot easier to "just settle " at twenty-two than it is at at thirty-two or forty-two.

out of love or out of fear

i never like it when i hear people disparage thing and say that such and such is bad because its goyish. why not stress the positive instead of a negative ?

i went to frum schools all my life and i went to touro college. i did not have to deal with the outside world and the world of the goyim until i got a job in a secular company. if i would have believed the frum cultural notion that everything goyish is the work of the devil i surely would have left the fold.  

there are good secular people and bad secular people . there are good goyim and there are bad goyim. we keep the torah because we are jewish and because the torah is true, not because everything else is "bad". 

right back to the start

i grew up modern orthodox. for a while i had a stint as left wing yeshivish and eventually went back to being modern orthodox. i am a bit more right wing than the way i grew up, but modern orthodox i am.
i have some friends who grew up in secular jewish families who were frum for awhile,,but went back to being less observant  over time.
its not that i think that no one can maintain spiritual growth, its just that often because one grew up one way, this is the hashkafah one feels comfortable with. the other common denominator is that when one remains single it is easier to through in the towel. some friends who were frum for awhile may have stayed frum had they married. since they did not it became harder to keep the faith. its not an excuse, but it happens. it is easier to grow spiritually with a partner.
then again, everyone has to find their place religiously. sometimes it is not best for someone to be really shtark. sometimes one is better suited for a more  moderate  form of judaism. if one is more extreme it could cause one to feel too stifled.
then again, its best to feel clear about one's  own  hashkafah before marrying . this may happen when one marries a little later and can actually be a good thing. then one will be ready to grow in the best direction  alone or coupled.

16 handles on avenue j

for months now i have been anticipating the opening of 16 handles, a frozen yogurt place that is now on avenue j - the heart of jewish midwood. there has not been a kosher non-cholov yisroel ice cream store in the area since carvel has closed , except for baskin robbins, which is now part of dunkin donuts.
when i walked into 16 handles last night i felt as though i was in manhattan or at least park slope.
blueberry on avenue m does have good frozen yogurt . most flavors are not cholov yisroel.16 handles has more variety . blueberry has some real food on the menu while 16 handles is strictly frozen yogurt. 16 handles does have some pareve selections, but i have not yet tasted them.
it is quite a shame that though there are some strictly cholov yisroel ice cream places in the area but their ice cream does not taste as good as the non-cholov yisroel ice cream
anyway, check out 16 handles on avenue j and see what you think.

keeping up with the times

 when i see old yiddish movies from the 1920s it always cracks me up . everyone is always dressed in the "hip"  "cool" clothes of the times. unfortunately what was "hip" and "cool" then was quite different from what is "hip" and "cool" then.
so often we try to keep up with the culture and be fashionable and then even just ten years later what was then cool is now uncool.
i am frum, but i also find secular culture enjoyable. secular culture changes while the torah stays the same.  for better or for worse, this truism cannot be seen more clearly than in an old yiddish movie

everybody needs a little magic

i have attended more singles events than one person should be allowed to be subjected to . however, i think that because of this i have  a right to share my opinion regarding them. i think that the best singles events are those that are just that- an event. when speed dating first became in vogue i really enjoyed it. it was a way of forcing people to interact. speed dating went by the wayside when singles realized that though they may get to interact with those they would like to at speed dating events, they also get to interact with those they do not like. so speed dating fizzled.

i have over the years been to singles events that may or may not have brought me any closer to meeting my bashert, but they did not break my spirit. several years ago there was a singles event that featured an eccentric artist who made paintings for everyone at the event. i don't know if anyone connected, but it was so much fun and people did feel compelled to interact because it was exciting . another fun event was the screening of the israeli tv show srugim. . yet another positive event was with a magician who walked around the crowd as well as performing a show, forcing people to interact .  a single's event with a shiur that has a mechitzah and then socializing afterward does not work. most people just scope the crowd through holes in the mechitzah during the shiur and leave when its over.
the truth is it does take a little magic to meet someone. it does not really matter the venue. if you aren't going to meet someone you won't and if you are supposed to meet someone , no matter how lame the event, you will meet.

choices

when i turned 30 a good friend of mine who was married with three kids at the time informed me that if she hadn't gotten married by the time she was thirty that she would have just married anyone and have kids with him. i remember thinking how preposterous she sounded to me at the time. marry ANYONE just to have kids? how could anyone actually do that? i thought.
flash forward to the present. well i still would not do that , but i have more of an understanding of why someone might do that. the fear of never giving birth to a child is  real . for some it will never happen. then again , i was always afraid of just marrying  ANYONE  and then not having a kid with him anyway. or worse . to share the bond of sharing parentage of a child with someone i did not at any point care much for seemed like too much to bear. couples who marry because they want to share a life together as well as kids together may divorce but at least they went for it with the proper intent.