Is to Admire to Imitate?

Long ago, I jotted down this question.  Can you admire someone but not seek to be like them? Is that contradictory or can you say, I admire that, but it's not for me?

I initially thought that this is not contradictory.  That you can admire someone for something admirable they do or for an attitude they have, but not feel that this compels you to emulate them.  What they do is good for them, not necessarily for me.

I have thought that I live (or try to live) in consonance with what I believe is right, but I have come across the idea that living with integrity would mean that if I admire someone for some reason, if I think they are doing the right thing, then I would try to imitate them.  So it's time to rethink this.

A Tzadekes in Our Time

This article here was published in 2002 about Mrs. Henny Machlis a'h and this one here in 2009.  I read them back then, and was amazed.

To my dismay, I read of her tragic passing at the young age of 58 on October 16 - 3 Cheshvan, after a horrible illness here.

I'm seeing new articles about her, here and there.  They tell about her remarkable outlook on life, how she truly believed and did not merely say that Hashem is in charge, how she loved children so that nine out of her fourteen children were born via C-section, how she excelled bein adam la'Makom and bein adam la'chaveiro.  And she was born in Brooklyn, to kind parents to be sure, but it wasn't like she came from an exotic locale, born to a kabbalist, and raised in unusual circumstances.  That's what make her accomplishments that much more incredible as well as doable. 

Decorating Tips

In between trying or making the latest food craze, I thought it would be helpful to share with you "decorating tips from the pros" as published in a frum publication.  These tips are provided by frum decorators.

You need to know what is trendy and what is out of date - wallpaper is trendy (depending on the room and how it's used) and sconces and moldings are out of date

You need to know which colors are in and which are out.

Carpets are out, wooden floors are in.

I hope you held on to your area rugs because they were out, but now they're "making a comeback."

White bathroom fixtures are trendy.

Square spotlights are trendy now.

Don't use a bedroom or living set where everything is the same.  Mix and match pieces of furniture.  Each piece should look handpicked and make a statement.

Since the saying goes, "sarcasm doesn't work on the web," let me assure you that I this advice is nonsensical.  It's simply a way to keep people decorating and redecorating, and the winners are the interior decorators, those who sell furniture, those who sell flooring, painters, those who sell household accessories.  And yet, this is presented to frum readers in all seriousness.  For shame!

What are My Clothing Saying about Me?

In a write-up about a ger who is a Chassid and dresses as one, he says that when he first saw Chassidim, he did not relate to their clothes but then:

"I had a shift in thinking when my father came to visit me in Israel.  We rented a car and when my father asked to speak with the manager, he came out in a button-up shirt as opposed to the polo shirts of the regular employees.  My father commented how the manager has to dress better because he has responsibility.

"I thought a lot about it.  Doctors have a lab coat, accountants and attorneys wear dark suits, athletes have team uniforms.  In business school, when I spent a month at Domus Academy in Milan, I learned how designers sell people on the idea of dressing as an identity - 'I'm a person who wears brand X because it's an identity statement.'

"Everyone, from the president to a drug dealer, wears clothes that send a message about who they are and how they want to be seen in society.  When I realized all this, I thought: This is the team I want to be a part of, so I should wear the team colors."

***
What a good question to ask when trying on clothes: What message does this convey about me?

I want to look like this because ______________.

This applies to men, women, boys and girls.  Why are you buying that for camp? Why do you wear that length, that style, that color?

The answers might surprise us.

Not so Poshut

In R' Dovid Kaplan's fourth "Impact" book, called Lasting Impact! he tells of a couple who had a baby boy and decided to name him after the mother's grandfather.  But then she began to have second thoughts.  "My grandfather was a very nice man and a fine person," she said to her husband, "but he wasn't a talmid chacham.  He was just a poshute Yid (plain Jew).  Maybe we should name the baby after someone great."

 

Her husband consulted with his rav who asked, "When did her grandfather live?" When he answered, "He came to America in the 30's," the rav asked, "And where are his children today?"

 

The husband answered, "All of them are frum and all his grandchildren are bnei Torah."

 

The rav then said, "Anyone who lived in America in the 30's and 40's and raised a family that produced bnei Torah is not a poshute Yid! Name the baby after him."

 

The same week I read this story, someone told me that when her husband's grandfather was bringing up his children at some point, when he lost a lot of money (see story that follows) he went to Rabbi Levy to take his girls out of Beis Yaakov.  Rabbi Levy asked him why he was taking them out and when he heard that it was because of money he said something to the effect that money has nothing to do with this and made sure that they remained free of charge! The P.S. to that story is that when the grandfather had more money in later years he repaid the money.

As to how the grandfather lost a lot of money -  he built a dry cleaning business from scratch with partners, with the intention that it would be a shomer Shabbos place.  When it was ready to open, the partners decided that Shabbos was the busiest day for business and that it would have to be open on Shabbos.  At that point, the grandfather pulled out of the business at a great loss of money. A daughter of his remembers the hard times that she went through at that time and how she went to the bank with her mother to redeem a bond so that they would have a little more money.

 

People like this are not famous, they don't appear in our Jewish history books, but they are far from being "poshute Yidden."  They are Jewish heroes.

What Happened to the Valedictorians?

I read:

"One researcher, after spending more than 15 years following the careers of high school valedictorians, concluded that most of them simply, "know how to do school. They are not the group to look for, for creative breakthroughs ... or for becoming notable leaders in a particular area."

Looking back, what happened to the students who had the highest marks? Where are they today? Are they more successful as adults than those who were average or weak students? By successful I mean: Are their lives objectively better than others? Do they have better marriages? better children? happier lives? more productive lives? I can't see that those with the top marks accomplished anything special in life, more than those with average grades.

Then again, what does happiness in life have to do with high marks in school? Perhaps it makes more sense to see whether those who got top marks did something with their academic abilities.

****
A woman wrote:

I was the class valedictorian. While I may not be considered hugely successful by my classmates standards, I gave up a rewarding job to stay at home and raise my kinderlach. That being said, the same tools of perserverance, attention to detail, knowledge and the love of learning that helped me be the valedictorian are what help me be the mother and community member that I am. I believe that one has to strive to be the biggest success they can be at each point in their lives. When in school, one has to excel to the best of their capabilities, when at a job the same, in raising yiddishe children the same idea follows. Just an insight from a valedictorn whom many view as not going on to be a success but who feels like one anyway.

Our Frum Therapists

I was taken aback to read, in a frum publication, a reference to the "primitive brain" in connection with our self-defense mechanism, the flight or fight response.   That is jargon used by those who espouse evolution who claim it's the oldest  part of the human brain and a piece of brain anatomy that we share with reptiles.  Not something I expect to see in a frum publication or hear from a frum person!

It reminded me of an article I read on a frum website in which the author referred to "our reptilian brain."  In both cases, frum therapists whose books and articles are very popular in the frum world, show how they have been negatively influenced by their secular education. 

It's disheartening because these authors have a lot of good things to say and it's too bad that we cannot rely on frum authors and frum publications and websites to provide us with untainted Torah-true material.  It also belies the claim that frum men and women can study for a profession and somehow (magically?), because of their yeshiva education and allegiance to Torah, remain unsullied by anti-Torah ideas.  We are encouraged to seek out frum counselors and yet, these same frum counselors may promote ideas that are antithetical to Torah.  Caveat emptor.

Positive Psychology - An Oxymoron?

Two days ago there was a news item which said: Medication to treat mental health disorders is soaring among U.S. adults.  20% of all adults said they took at least one medication to treat a mental disorder. Among women, 25% said they took such medication and 20% said they were using an antidepressant.

The number of children under 10 taking antipsychotic medication, which is reserved for the most severe mental illnesses, doubled from 2001 to 2010.

In short, we are either getting crazier and sadder or the psychiatric and pharmaceutical companies are doing a great job convincing us that we are. 

The crying shame is that the voice of psychologists like Dr. Martin Seligman, the father of “positive psychology” who was called “the Freud of the 21^st century” by Newsweek, is drowned out by the doom peddlers.  Seligman shocked the world of psychology by focusing on what makes people mentally healthy instead of what makes them mentally ill.

Forbes had an article last week about the upcoming DSM V with an intro that said, "The new manual of mental disorders coins bizarre new psychological disorders, lowers the threshold for diagnosing old ones, and has some critics pulling their hair out."

We are a generation that wants to be victims, that wants to be able to blame our parents, our environment, our genes, our so-called chemical imbalance, anything but ourselves, for our problems.  If you as much as suggest that someone who has truly suffered at the hands of evil people can move past that and have a good life, you are vilified and accused of not understanding the depths of the person's trauma. 

In their sincerity to help molestation victims, they push those hapless individuals down and seek to keep them down.  I suspect it's because they believe that if the person goes on to lead a happy life, it demonstrates that what happened to them was not that egregious.  That's like saying that a Holocaust victim who was stripped of his dignity, who was robbed and beaten, who was a hairsbreadth away from death thousands of times and who lost his parents, spouse, children, extended family and community, could not go on to marry and live a good life.  But thousands did! And they are heroes of the spirit, particularly if they retained their faith and raised religious, upstanding children. 

"Positive Psychology" may seem like an oxymoron but it doesn't have to be.

Who do we admire?

 

A girl left her frum high school after 11th grade for Stern College and had plans for medical school.  She said, "There's something interesting going on. People think it's not the best for me to be in Stern and thinking of med. school, but then again, they're so, so impressed."

What did the Misyavnim (Hellenizers) want? They wanted the beauty of the Greek culture. The Greeks did not want to outlaw Torah as other governments tried to do. The Greeks said - you've got a philosophy? Great. As long as you leave G-d out of it.

What's with us frum people and out attitudes towards the "outside world"? Seems like we know the right thing to SAY about the supremacy of Torah and how all wisdom is derived from Torah, but when it comes down to it, many if not most of us are impressed and even intimidated by people with degrees and professional careers. And I don't think it's only about the money that some people with degrees earn. I think the admiration is exclusive of earning power.

So who do we admire more - the brilliant rosh yeshiva or the brilliant physicist? Or do we think that a synthesis, the Torah-learned lawyer, is best of all?

If a lecture was given on parenting-chinuch who would we be more interested in listening to, a talmid chacham/wise older woman who raised a fine family or a psychologist?