Some more introspection...

Note: As with the previous post, I'm bringing over the responses...
I know...don't worry, we'll get back to some more lightheaded stuff soon enough, but in the meantime, bear with me...

Last week was my grandmother's ( my father's mother ) yahrtzeit ( anniversary of death ). Last year, I was in the Holy Land, and I was able to be by the seudah my parents made, but this year I spent it with my relatives. Along with all the standard issue reminiscing, a point that kept coming up was that my grandmother suffered very much in her lifetime. First, she went through the Holocaust, which in and of itself was Hell on earth. But even afterwards, when she moved to the States to make a new life and build a family, because of my grandfather's line of work, they had to move to a literal spiritual desert, much more so than even what was going on in New York and such places. At least in the big cities, there was some semblance of observant Judaism. Where my grandparents lived, there was nothing. Singlehandedly, my grandparents built up their community, establishing a shul, building a mikvah, etc. That was the second big test that my grandmother went through. After all that, though, my grandmother had to go through years of sickness, battling a deteriorating disease until she finally succumbed a few years ago.

Through all that, her demeanor never changed, and though she suffered, we rarely heard a word of it. Always doing things, baking cakes, checking on every child and grandchild, you would never be able to tell that one woman had such pain in her life.

Now, I realize that though her personal details, her own struggles and hardships and hopes and successes were unique, the underlying theme of her story isn't.

I'm sure everyone has a relative from the "old" generation who had to sacrifice a lot. Who had to make terrible, difficult choices. Who saw unbelievable pain, and yes, unbelievable happiness. Even looking at my folks' generation, I see a difference between theirs and ours. My father also had to make sacrifices, and it completely changed his character and outlook on life.

And then I look at my generation, and more importantly, myself. And I'm not quite happy with what I see.

I don't now about the rest of you guys, but every once in a while, I look at myself and I'm disappointed and shocked. We have slipped into a mindset of complacency, and it's very dangerous. With the onset of new medicine, with the breakthroughs of modern technology every day, it would stand to reason that we would make more out of what we've been given. But, I find myself questioning: If I had been in my grandparent's place, or conversely, in my parent's place, would I make the same choices as they had? Would I have the moral fiber in myself to stand by my convictions and not budge when the whole world was telling me to move? For that matter, to stare them in the eye and reply "No, you move"?

I don't know, but I wouldn't hedge my bets.

I can't speak for you guys, but I know this: with everything seeemingly "better", when countless torah institutions are cropping up like clovers on a field, when - thank God - we live in a world where we are able to practice our religion freely, why aren't we doing more? With the advent of the internet, and the use of gadgets like the ShasPod, we appear to be living in a time of renassiance. And it may very well be such a time. However, on the other side of the coin, we are also experiencing a boom in the "phenomenon" of jewish youth dropping out of the fold, walking on the edge, living on the fringe, whatever you want to call it. As a whole, we've become spoiled in our good fortune, demanding instant gratification for all our needs.

Again, like the last post, I'm not bringing anything novel to the table. I am reiterating this idea, because whether we like it or not, this is something we need to realize, and work on. I don't know exactly what aesthetics should be practiced, or what there is to be done about it, but I do know that this is dangerous, and it hurts to see it in myself...

I'm open to suggestions..



Originally posted Monday, 19 February 2007

The responses:

trix made this comment,
I honestly think that with all the new technology there is more to sacrifice than ever. my great grandmother's generation didn't have to decide whether or not they were going to listen to the rabonim when tv's came out and how do you live without one. but I grew up just fine without a tv. now there is internet and it really isn't possible to survive the modern world without it, but there are people who are sacrificing for torah and not having it in their houses, even if it means that its harder to communicate with people far away or you have to spend more on a ticket. or the girls I know who don't go to college cause they don't want to risk their innocences when it means that they wont be able to get as good a job. or the families that have 10 kids in a world where 1 or 2 is accepted and have to pay what its needed for those extra kids. its true we don't struggle like that generation did (no walking to school in 10 feet of snow or climbing ten flights of stairs with the groceries, and cholov yisroel can be shipped and frozen wherever you live), we have to make different sacrifices for our families these days. and alot of people aren't making them, same as in the last generation alot of people didn't make the sacrafices. what and where will our children end up? like the comments on the last post, you can only see these stuff by looking back at history, but we never had these nisyonos before, so in a hundred years I would be glad to get back to you and let you know what the right decisions were and what we could have got away with. we'll know by which families are still frum. I hope mine is one of those.

karma dude made this comment,
We are so spoiled we don’t even know what a sacrifice is. We have everything handed to us on a silver platter; we don’t know what it means to fight for something. Being brought up with everything people start to believe that everything is owed to them, and when they don’t get it instead of going out and working and fighting for it, be it material or spiritual, they get angry and rebel against their parents, their teachers, and most often G-d. I think children need to be brought up aware and grateful for what they have. I speak to myself as well. I spent last night in Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center with a friend who has the big C. A young guy with a wife and children fighting the ultimate fight with a smile. The whole hospital is full of smiling bald people struggling for life and grateful for every day. Maybe a struggle is what it takes to appreciate what you have. As I drifted off to sleep in my hard, uncomfortable, and wobbly chair, I thanked G-d with every fiber of my being that I was spending the night in this chair and not in that bed.

jjl made this comment,
its interesting that you piont this out when adar comes, because purim is about hesder punim. our grandparents lived in a generation of hesder punim with obvious threats all about. Purim is about hashems influence in the modern world, see mesechet migillah for the indepth explanation. The thing is by surviving physical threats we can see hashems hand in life. we live in a time of hesder hesder punim where the threats physically are hidden, and hashems influence is hidden on top of that. We dont even know that we are in trouble, that is the situation that existed before purim at the seudah and germany before the nazi rise where jews were calling berlin their jerusalem. now we have crown hieghts ir hakodesh, Sometimes its not enough to be frum, because even frumkite can be misdirected, and the goals of torah subverted for other things. At least here in Isreal we know the physical threats and where they are coming from. we have the ability to stand up and fight for ourselves, prevent the another destruction. that can help us direct the spiritual struggle to where it needs to be.

Jewmaican20 made this comment,
Trix, while you are right, there are some people who do indeed still make sacrifices, I sadly believe they are an exeption to the rule of our generation. Karma Dude and I were talking the other day, and he expressed himself here as well, and I have to agree with his points. Back then, people were so busy trying to put food on the table, they didn't have time to think about their problems and complain. The sacrifices some of us may make today were the NORM back then. Something to think about...

malka made this comment,
That's excellent that you did some introspection. We all need to do that sometimes and think how we can improve.
You made a good point and it's true. When times are tough, we fight for what's ours and sacrafice for it. But when times are good, we become spoiled. What we need to do is stop and think about our great oppertunity. Yes we have our own battles nowadays but we should still take this oppertunity and not let is go by.

jjl made this comment,
see the tochicha and second paragraph of shema