23.4.08

The Woes of a Chabad Gal

As it is Pesach break, and I am... more or less lifeless, I have been spending a lot of time looking at other people's blogs. Random blogs. Jewishblogs. Reform, Orthodox, chabad, not chabad, you name it...
And one thing that I've noticed is a very odd trend.
It seems like guys in the Orthodox world are under the impression that... Women get the better part of the deal!
I'm shocked.
With my reform upbringing telling me constantly that orthodox women were considered less than men, and my own doubts as an orthodox Jew to whether all that stuff they're forcing down our throats about how women are more spiritual etc. is really true, this is quite the breakthrough!
Anyhow, that was just a little interesting fact that I found...
But there is something else that struck me about all these bochurim (or ex-bochurim) complaining about Yeshiva, and how frum girls these days are walking around all slutty, and how we have it so easy - and yet we don't even understand how great it is for us...
Well, NEWS FLASH guys.
Our life isn't exactly a piece of cake either!
No, we don't sit all day in Yeshiva learning... boo hoo.
Well, does that mean that we don't learn? The Lubavitch girl nowadays doesn't have it so easy.
To start off, the whole tznius thing.
It is a beautiful mitzvah, and I love doing it because it makes me feel like a true "bas melech" but you guys don't even get the tip of the iceberg.
Sure, you walk around with kipa and tzitzis like walking billboards reading "I'M A JEW! LOOK AT ME!" but do you think we have it any easier?
I can spot a frum Jewish girl from a mile away in the summer.
Unlike you, we don't get to wear short-sleeves whenever we feel too hot. We don't get to hide our skirts like you hide your tzitzis in your pockets, or your kippot under hats.
Nope, we gotta keep it covered 24/7 - even the collarbone!
Do guys even comprehend the nightmare it is looking for a shirt that covers elbows, is light enough to wear in the summer - but not seethrough, AND covers our stinking COLLAR BONE?!
And from the other side of the spectrum, all these bochurim are complaining about Yeshiva.
Well, I would LOVEEEE to be in an environemnt where I could learn ALL the time.
But alas, I can't.
Girls are vastly underestimated in the Chabad movement.
AND chabad girls are overestimated too.
They don't think they can put us in an environment where we learnabout yiddishkeit more than three hours a day.
And at the same time, they expect us to be motivated enough on our own to say chitas every single day.
I don't understand it.
I personally, love to learn... But I need to have more motivation than just myself to open up a chumash and start learning. I need to have a chavrusa or be in class or SOMETHING to really get into my learning. Its just part of who I am.
And schools WONDER why girls my age go off the derech.
Can't they see it from OUR point of view?
We're teenagers. We're lazy, emotional beings with a messed up sense of what is right vs. what we want.
And we like guys. A lot. This is getting way off topic, but its something else that I'd like to ramble about for a little. The girl/guy dynamic is something that no force on earth can stop. And yet we HAVE to, because that is what good frum girls do. I only became frum last year. I know what its like to have a boyfriend. I get all the logical reasons behind why not to, but I still miss it. I still want it. And people still wonder why the good ffb (frum from birth) girls are going off the derech.
I've witnessed it with my own two eyes.
I've watched girls - such "good" girls - fall into the trap - the allure of life without rules.
And they always come crawling back - back to truth and light... But in the meantime, they mess themselves up! I mean, it can really affect their shidduchim.
Thats something else that I don't get. Why is it that if a girl (and I guess this also applies to guys) goes waaaaaay off the derech when their fourteen because their homelife sucks, and they hate their school, and they have a huge crush on Mendy Ploni who lives down the street and is also a little fried out himeslf, that they get punished for it when they're twenty-two, full-on-frum, went on shlichus and 3 yrs of sem etc. and ready to build their own "binyan adei ad"???
Also baalei teshuva. Now this doesn't happen so much in Chabad, but in every other sect, yichus is SUCH a huge factor in shidduchim.
Reb Ploni: "Oh, my Menach is interested in Chana Leah Smith... is she a good girl???"
Shadchan: "Oh really now. Well, sure - she has great middos and is very modest and G-d fearing, but did you know her father is a baal teshuva? Up until he was 18 he was a full-on bacon eating aethiest! Surely she doesn't have the right yichus for your wonderful Menach!"
Reb Ploni: "You're right! Thank you for letting me know about this, Menach defenitely deserves better!"
Bam - there goes that girl's chance at even meeting someone who could be her beshert!
In short, girls don't have it NEARLY as easy as guys would like to think.
And that is partially because of a rather messed up system in a beautiful sect of Judaism.
Chabad is amazing, but it really needs to pull itself together.
And G-d willing that will happen soon with the coming of Moshiach speedily in our days - Amen!

Alright all.
Have a Pesach Kasher v'Sameach!
Rochie

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