One Woman’s Agudah Convention Takeaway

Like many others who have forwarded this Facebook post to friends, it was love at first sight. For those who are not FB friends of Suri Weinstock of Passaic, here is a refreshing look at last week’s Agudah convention, presented without editorial comment.

So,I just came back from The Agudah Convention yesterday, and I have been mulling over some of what I’ve experienced. This may sound bad or a little jaded, but I must admit that I was surprised by how not extreme, normal, and positive they were! Here I was, literally surrounded by some of the undisputed gedolei hador, listening to incredibly holy people, and a part of me was expecting to hear things like, “You are awful and not frum enough and it’s causing people to get cancer!,” etc.

But that’s not what happened.

Instead, I heard this from Rebbetzin Leah Feldman, wife of the Rosh Yeshiva of Ner Yisroel, when a woman asked how much she should sacrifice for her husband’s learning, as it was leaving her to feel neglected: The Rebbetzin didn’t need a second to think, before saying that a woman must tell her husband that she needs his time and attention! And it’s too bad if his learning has to wait a little! She said something along the lines of “You matter and your relationship matters! And if you wait around for him to figure this out, you’ll be waiting forever! Men never figure anything out!” Many of us burst out laughing of course, but she was not trying to be funny. This wise and holy woman was dead serious. But this was not what we were expecting.

When Rabbi Yaakov Bender, Rosh Yeshiva of Darchei in Far Rockaway, addressed someone’s concern that his son wants to follow sports, he said that you have to raise your kids to be normal. If they are good kids who go to yeshiva, and have a good family, and they want to follow sports a little — relax! You don’t have to encourage it, but it won’t send them off the derech either! Now, no one can accuse R’ Bender of being on the fringe of Orthodoxy. He is a true talmid chochom. This is da’as Torah and that is what he said.

And this one may surprise a lot of you: When Rabbanit Yemima Mizrachi was asked how a woman can encourage her daughter to dress b’tzanua, she said “You must speak about tznius, *b’tzanua.* Be gentle and positive, and tell her she is beautiful and holy. And whatever you do, STOP telling her she is causing others to sin! STOP!! Tell her she is holding up the world and elevating the spiritual plane of the Jewish people with her tznuit and mitzvot! And don’t you DARE tell her she is causing people to sin!!” She literally screamed this at us! She said when you are constantly talking about your daughter’s body or your son’s eyes, you are not handling the matter b’tzanua, and are missing the point, all the while creating damage.

Let’s just say this was not the way the topic of tznuis was approached in school when I was a kid. But this was coming from the top at The Agudah Convention itself. This is the truth. This is the feeling that is supposed to be transmitted to our girls. It makes me wonder where the message is getting confused along the way, and how we can go back to basics…

I remember before I left for the convention, my sister asked me if I was nervous about going somewhere where I didn’t know anyone, and would have to endure making endless small talk with the random women I was seated with. I told her I wasn’t worried, as I would be sitting with my husband. She was shocked. “They have mixed seating?!” She asked. Well, yes. There were many groups of Jews in attendance, and the Chassidim who did, indeed, want separate seating, had their own dining room so they may do so. And guess what? We all got along! Pretty neat, huh?

Of course, that’s not to say all we heard all weekend was feel good fluff. A true Gadol B’Torah doesn’t have to pull any punches. Rabbi Elefant spoke very strongly about our generation’s over indulgence in the physical. Always chasing the finer things in life and losing focus on what it is we are meant to be doing in this world. Rabbi Frand talked about the tremendous mesiras nefesh that former generations readily made, while we are complacent and feel no need to exert ourselves. He said we must consider the environments in which we choose to work, even if it means making sacrifices in order to avoid negative influences. Rabbi Bender implored us all to learn to live with each other with kindness and decency. He made it clear that if you block someone’s driveway because you wanted to make it to Mincha, your tefilla wasn’t worth much. He and others said you should knock on the doors of your Non-Jewish neighbors when you move into a new town, and introduce yourself and find your common ground. Be nice; be a good neighbor. Do what Rav Pam’s Rebbetzin did and hand out candy on Halloween.

Many of the speakers bemoaned the fact that we are lacking in our Jewish pride. We look outside instead of in, to find meaning in our lives. We have forgotten the privilege and responsibility of being the Am Hanivchor. Well, walking out of the convention, I felt an invigorated sense of pride and hope.

Can you imagine what our communities would look like if we actually listened to these gedolim and modeled our lives in this way? If we all looked up, and listened to what THEY had to say at the top, instead of glancing side to side, to see what others were doing? Imagine if we really stood for something authentic and real, and had true pride in being Torah Jews. What would it be like if we focused less on how many years a possible suitor planned on learning for, and more on returning our souls to our Maker in an elevated state? What would it mean if we treated our neighbors, Jews and Non-Jews alike, with respect and friendliness, exchanging gardening tips (like I do with mine) and asking how their families are doing? Wouldn’t that be something special? Well, I think it would be incredible. Please share this post if you think so too. Let’s start moving in this direction together, putting our faith in Hashem, in the true leaders of Klal Yisroel, and in ourselves.

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10 Responses

  1. Steve brizel says:

    What a great article! Once again we see that issues about parenting and relationships  as opposed to power issues are the issues that count.

  2. Lakewood Resident says:

    How sad that she was expecting anything different.

    • Yossi says:

      Lakewood Resident,

      Let’s look at the positive, not the negative. She took away a great message- that’s fantastic. I have to admit along similar lines- I’ve avoided the convention because I thought it would be what she thought and over the pst few years, while I wasn’t able to go, I noticed how relevant it is becoming and indeed would like to go in the future.  I listened to some of the talks and they were excellent.

  3. joel rich says:

    very nice post. perhaps someone might study how the sentiments articulated are translated into day to day resource allocation (time and money) by the gedolim, the agudah, agudah related rabbis and congregations……..kol tuv

  4. A.S. says:

    Nice to hear about the positive changes. I attended 20+ years ago and it was different. First of all, most of the speeches were in Yiddish. To the degree that a well-connected friend sneaked me into the back of the women’s shiur because that was the only English one at the time. In addition, many of the speeches were fire-and-brimstone variety, attacking whatever the perceived threat of the moment was (e.g. TV, Modern Orthodoxy). I remember one concerned woman asking about the financial stress on families because everyone wants to be in kollel, and the unsympathetic response was,”Isn’t it wonderful how much Torah learning is happening.”  I take issue with her characterization of the “undisputed gedolei hador,” there are many great talmidei chachamim and poskim here and in Israel who do not fit under the Agudah’s umbrella, as the Siyum haShas dais clearly demonstrated.

  5. Shades of Gray says:

    Speaking of  this year’s Agudah Convention, I would recommend the video of “Raising Healthy, Happy, and Resilient Children” on the convention website(Womens Sessions section).

    I skipped around, but some excerpts from Mrs. Rachel Roth from Hamodia about their value of respect:

    Even the second or third time(beyond standards of secular media) elected officials are referred to with titles because of values of kavod habriyos and Tzelem Elokim, particularly leaders, even if such elected officials are bad for the community(34:45).

    Hamodia writes “five people” injured rather than “five injured” because of Tzelem Elokim(36:00).

    At 37:00 she says that Hamodia’s  goal is that people should think of others with respect in the first place, rather than just  avoiding certain terminology  when an African American is present. Similar examples of sensitivity are about a giyores’s  original family(39:30) and regarding going beyond media standards regarding Vietnam war victims(46:45, from a questioner).

    At the end of his speech(17:00), Dr. David Lieberman has a powerful story about an autistic child that  illustrates the power of a single word or moment to sum up a relationship.

  6. david z says:

    First to A.S.: she wrote “some of the undisputed gedolei hador.” That is an inclusive statement not an exclusive. Now if you disagree you’re the schismatic not her.

    Second I might be one if those people to always complain but the answers while fine aren’t the problem. The questions are kind of sad. Weren’t we all raised with stories that “done of the undisputed gedolei hador” were really into sports themselves at least as kids? We’ve lost a lot in the critical thinking and common sense of the masses if not the leadership.

    Really cool about mixed seating though. I stopped going to my schul dinner when they went separate. Come on man.

  7. Aviva Gopnick says:

    Oy.

    Where to begin? I read this and wanted to be positive, I really did, but….

    How sad that a father or mother needs to ask a rabbi what to do if a child would like to follow sports.

    How depressing to hear that mothers need to be told by a rebbetzin not to tell their daughters that the way they dress causes men to sin.

    How  pathetic that there is a need for a rabbi to tell someone not to park in front of someone else’s driveway.

    We need to spend hundreds of dollars to attend an Agudah convention to be told to be polite to neighbors (Jewish and non-Jewish)?

    Here’s how I raise my children:

    We use common sense. If something is not an avayra, or destructive, or dangerous, or unhealthy, we allow our child to do it. No questions asked of rabbis.

    We tell our daughters to sit like ladies when they wear skirts. We send them to a Bais Yakov school and encourage them to dress according to the school’s expectations; but they know the halacha mandates a more minimum standard. They know some women don’t dress the way they do and respect them for who they are anyway because they are also Jews.

    We do not litter, park illegally, cut off other drivers etc. We wear our seatbelts and tell our children to obey all traffic laws and parking rules.

    We are nice to all our neighbors, Jewish and non-Jewish. We stepped in to see our neighbors’ Xmas tree and told them it was pretty. (And no, none of our kids asked for Santa to come to our house.) We wish strangers a good morning, Good Shabbos etc.

    I personally don’t have any friends or relatives who have time or money to attend one of these conventions. I don’t imagine the people there are a representative sample of religious Jews, they aren’t even typical black hat Jews. I think we as a community have much to be proud of – we do much kindness, slave away to pay tuition etc. But having rabbis with normal ideas shouldn’t be exceptional, and I am afraid that’s the  implication of this article.

     

  8. Raymond says:

    My understanding of the expression “Derech eretz kadma L’Torah” is that before we can even think of fulfilling the endless intricacies of Jewish law, that we first have to make sure to be morally decent human beings, for Torah in the wrong hands can become like poison.  And at least one explanation I have heard for why the Torah begins with the entire book of Breisheet rather than right away getting into the law in Torah portions such as Mishpatim, is because studying the lives of our Forefathers is thought to be quite an effective way of learn how to be morally decent human beings.  I realize that such ideas are pretty basic, yet I have found that some people who are so smugly convinced that they are spiritually superior to those around them, too often lack basic moral decency.

  9. Raymond says:

    My understanding of the expression “Derech eretz kadma L’Torah” is that before we can even think of fulfilling the endless intricacies of Jewish law, that we first have to make sure to be morally decent human beings, for Torah in the wrong hands can become like poison.  And at least one explanation I have heard for why the Torah begins with the entire book of Breisheet rather than right away getting into the law in Torah portions such as Mishpatim, is because studying the lives of our Forefathers is thought to be quite an effective way of learn how to be morally decent human beings.  I realize that such ideas are pretty basic, yet I have found that some people who are so smugly convinced that they are spiritually superior to those around them, too often lack basic moral decency.

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