Kollel

Jewboy has another thought provoking post on the balance of Kollel in starting out your marriage. Kollel today is needed by the masses to a much larger extent then it was in previous generations. Most young couples can afford to survive with only one spouse (the wife in this scenario) working for the first year or so. At that time the husband could strengthen his learning and foundation while still taking classes to prepare for his professional career. This connection to a yeshiva at the start of the marriage gives tremendous guidance in establishing your derech for your home. This is not a foolproof method but it certainly helps the vast majority of the time. This is not condoning those who use kollel as a “get of work for free” card.

I have seen the bnei torah who jumped full force into college/graduate or professional school right after marriage changed drastically more then those who had the benefit of spending the first year of marriage learning or learning during the day and going to school at night. I saw guys with benefit of many years in quality yeshivas becoming very comfortable fraternizing with their female classmates. I believe being in a yeshiva, even part time, would have helped keep up certain formalities. When you keep up that connection it helps remind you that you are different and not “one of the guys”. It reminds you that you should hold yourself to a higher standard. The connection to yeshiva and/or rebbeim makes a huge impact when setting the tone of your home for years to come. That being said it does not always work. I know of guys that spent several years in kollel and went into the workforce and couldn’t remain faithful to their spouse. There will always been problems in our society, but this helps minimize them and keep our focus on who we are and how we need to act.

This leads me to think about the impact a decision of yarmulkas in the workplace. It is a tough and complicated decision for many young guys entering or even currently in the workplace. I will try to give my opinions on that very sensitive topic in the future.

The issue with kollel situation is that there is a prevailing sense of entitlement. Young couples, especially guys expect to be supported and handed everything to facilitate their learning. I am not sure how this has evolved. It likely is connected to the fact that there is a high demand for “good” yeshiva guys. See my earlier post on shidduchim. This is the aspect that is troubling me. Financial means is rarely the sole deterrent in not learning, at least part of the day when you first get married. That does not mean it is for everyone, but nearly everyone would benefit if they even took it half seriously. I know couples that have done it on their own (no significant financial support from the parents) here and in Israel because it was important to them. I do agree that it is irresponsible to learn for 5-7 years not knowing what you want to do with your career. I feel as a general rule unless you are going in to kli kodesh, which would make kollel their professional school as you need that to continue your career, a year or two is more reasonable.

Yes, these are generalizations but the typical case will not fall far outside this range.

The world today is constantly pulling us down. The more resistance we can fortify ourselves with the better off we and our children will be in the long run. Kollel at the start of the marriage helps in that respect. It is similar to a tree sapling getting hit by a wind blowing east. The further you can push the tree to the west to compensate, the more likely the tree will end up straight in the end. This philosophy is also very true in raising children, gently push them (not too hard as you don’t want them to snap) more to the right of center and hopefully if and when they glide to the left, due to influences from society, they will come out in the middle. If you try to keep them directly in the center then the external forces pushing them to the left will have a much worse impact.

E-Mail Etiquette

E-Mail Etiquette

When a 7 footer wins the 3 point shooting contest and a 5’9” guy (who didn't deserve to win it, AI should have) wins the slam dunk contest the world has gone mad.

Making its way around the internet is an interesting exchange between two Massachusetts attorneys over a possible job. I received this yesterday from an attorney at a national law firm. Enter one Will Korman, who posted a job opening for Korman & Associates in Boston, MA on craigslist. One of the respondents was Ms. Dianna Abdala, who went through two interviews with Mr. Korman.

Evidently this amazing e-mail is true. It has made the legal rounds across the world. It has been written up in various newspapers and the subject of TV news stories. As always, never put in an e-mail what you wouldn't want forwarded. This had been circulated to at least a dozen states before I received it, all within a couple weeks.

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=1635684

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2006/02/16/2_e_mailers_get_testy_and_hundreds_readevery_word/
There are conflicting reports. One side claims that after the first interview, Ms. Abdala accepted the job. During the second interview, Mr. Korman informed her that he would not be able to pay her as much as originally discussed. This is where the story breaks down. Mr. Korman believed that she had accepted the job and proceeded to set her up for her first day on the job, which would have been February 15th. However, Ms. Abdala had second thoughts and dashed off an email refusing the job and setting a chain reaction that sent the exchange flying through the information superhighway.

Apparently, according to one story, Will Korman tried to work this out, but she wouldn't make direct contact. In spite of the somewhat arrogant tone, she apparently wouldn't directly interact to discuss the situation. She received this response on Monday:

The email has spread so far and wide that The Boston Globe and ABC News, and others ran stories confirming everything. Below is the exchange between the two and the forward that sent it out into the world. Enjoy and learn to be careful what you write.

Read the bottom e-mails first.

>-----Original Message-----
>From: William A. Korman [ <mailto:> wak@kormanlaw.com]
>Sent: Friday, February 10, 2006 9:55 AM
>To: 'David Breen'
>Subject: RE: Thank you
>
>You can e-mail this to whomever you want.
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: David Breen [ <mailto:> dbreen@bu.edu]
>Sent: Friday, February 10, 2006 9:47 AM
>To: 'William A. Korman'
>Subject: RE: Thank you
>
>OH MY GOD!
>
>Where to begin?
>
>First of all, how unprofessional, and secondly, it is "reap what you
>'sow,'" now "sew". If she is going to use a cliche, couldn't she at >least spell it right? And what is with her "blab la bla"? Does she not
>read your e-mail about it being a small community?! So, finally, can I
>forward this along to some folks? I am sure they would love to see how
>the up-and-coming lawyers are comporting themselves! (Clearly she did
>not go to BU!!!) J

>-----Original Message-----
>From: William A. Korman [ <mailto:> wak@kormanlaw.com
<mailto:wak@kormanlaw.com> ]
>Sent: Friday, February 10, 2006 7:59 AM
>To: 'David Breen'
>Subject: FW: Thank you
>
>Did I already forward this to you?
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Dianna Abdala [ <mailto:> dabdala@msn.com
<mailto:dabdala@msn.com> ]
>Sent: Monday, February 06, 2006 4:29 PM
>To: William A. Korman
>Subject: Re: Thank you
>
>bla bla bla
>
>----- Original Message -----
>
>From: William A. Korman
>To: 'Dianna Abdala'
>Sent: Monday, February 06, 2006 4:18 PM
>Subject: RE: Thank you
>
>Thank you for the refresher course on contracts. This is not a bar exam
>question. You need to realize that this is a very small legal community,
>especially the criminal defense bar. Do you really want to start
>pissing off more experienced lawyers at this early stage of your career?
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Dianna Abdala [ <mailto:> dabdala@msn.com
<mailto:dabdala@msn.com> ]
>Sent: Monday, February 06, 2006 4:01 PM
>To: William A. Korman
>Subject: Re: Thank you
>
>A real lawyer would have put the contract into writing and not exercised
>any such reliance until he did so.
>
>Again, thank you.
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: William A. Korman
>To: 'Dianna Abdala'
>Sent: Monday, February 06, 2006 12:15 PM
>Subject: RE: Thank you
>
>Dianna -
>
>Given that you had two interviews, were offered and accepted the job
>(indeed, you had a definite start date), I am surprised that you chose
>an e-mail and a 9:30 PM voicemail message to convey this information to
>me. It smacks of immaturity and is quite unprofessional. Indeed, I did
>rely upon your acceptance by ordering stationery and business cards with
>your name, reformatting a computer and setting up both internal and
>external e-mails for you here at the office. While I do not quarrel
>with your reasoning, I am extremely disappointed in the way this played
>out. I sincerely wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.
>
> - Will Korman
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Dianna Abdala [ <mailto:> dabdala@msn.com
<mailto:dabdala@msn.com> ]
>Sent: Friday, February 03, 2006 9:23 PM
>To: wak@kormanlaw.com <mailto:wak@kormanlaw.com>
>Subject: Thank you
>
>Dear Attorney Korman,
>
>At this time, I am writing to inform you that I will not be accepting
>your offer.
>
>After careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that the pay
>you are offering would neither fulfill me nor support the lifestyle I am
>living in light of the work I would be doing for you. I have decided
>instead to work for myself, and reap 100% of the benefits that I sew.
>
>Thank you for the interviews.
>
>Dianna L. Abdala, Esq.

Opinions

Kollel

Very interesting blog about the balance of kollel and wanting to support children and the demands on the parents and society at large. I am personally conflicted between appreciating devotion to learning and the utmost importance in learning to the fullest extent possible and the burden placed on parents. What is the realistic goal having everyone learn a year or two after marriage (possibly while going to school) and those staying in “Kli Kodesh” learning a number of years thereafter? Interested in others opinions.

Shiduchim

I saw on a fellow blog with a post on men and women in judaism taking issue with the premise that one may have easier traditional responsibilities in orthodox judaism.

Jewboy you missed the boat. I know I will get beat up on this and I didn't see the blog you are referring to. After marriage men and women have very different be but on average equally challenging lives. If anything, women have more juggling and responsibilities. This is not true before marriage. A single girl does not have children to take care of. She does not have an expectation of thinking about how she will support a family in hopefully a few years (that does not mean girls never think about this it just means it is not an expectation on most girls). A most importantly she does not have the expectation to spend most of her waking hours learning torah to be considered “good”. It is true to be a good single girl all you have to do is not do any negatives and throw in a good trait and act here and there. That is not a knock on girls, as they are doing and living their life as the should be, but at that stage in their life there are not as many pressures on them to be classified as “good”. In frum yeshiva circles if a boy is not in yeshiva and have an idea about how he wants to support his family he is viewed critically. If a girl is undecided in her career and not going to shiurim every night, I can’t see anyone having that viewed negatively on her.

The responsibilities certainly do shift after marriage and especially upon Married with Children (not all men are Al Bundy). At that point women have a lot more responsibilities and juggling to deal with. Even good husbands as most of us try to be help out the ultimate responsibilities of maintaining the house, kids, etc. falls on the wife. I help cook shop etc. but in the end it is my wife who has to take care of the kids when they get home, maintain the house and juggling 100 other things while working as well.

In today's day and age, it is very difficult to make it on one income and the wife in addition to everything else is also helping the financial end of household. Fifty or a hundred years ago the wife had to juggle the household but for the most part did not have to work outside the home. I think it is a terrible (albeit likely necessary) situation that mothers today can not stay home and only be overwhelmed with household responsibilities but they now have to deal with work responsibilities as well. It may be viewed as chauvinistic but when I was dating, I was hesitant to go out with girls that had a strong desire to have very demanding careers. I knew that my career choice was going to have a lot of demands on my time and I wanted my children to have one parent with them as much as possible. This is not always possible, so don’t take personal offense if you life does not give you that flexibility. I know that people feel guilty if they can’t have this set up, but in a perfect world I think most people would agree that the more time children can have with their parents the better off they are.

The Move

The begining of a new era.

Yesterday the old shul moved to the new (temporary) shul. See here for pictures http://www.shomreiemunah.us/oldshulmove.html It was a move with mixed emotion especially when no one truly knows the time frame for moving into the new building. The new shul is already starting to look like the old shul minus the creaking floor, leaking ceiling and ant infested kitchen. I imagine the minyan will not change much and the size is basically the same, but my dream of having a double wide to call home has finally come true. It only took about 50 jewish men two hours to accomplish what 3 non-jews could have done in an hour. We we not bred to be manual laborers. My biggest help was bringing Dunkin Donuts. I think the adults had more fun then the kids.

I missed the story about the old shul building having been a hippie commune (I think that was before it became Shomrei, although you never know anything goes in Greenspring), but I can tell you that they found Mad, Time and Sport Illustrated magazines and Colts programs from the 50's and 60's. Look for them soon on ebay. I think the library will now be dedicated to the hippies who previously owned the building.

Entertainment

Do people realize that what they right on blogs and e-mails live on long after they may want them to. Case in point there is a girl in a right wing east coast city who has a blog. She may (or may not) be anonymous right now but eventually someone she knows will realize it is her. She goes into pretty private details of her life which I am sure she would not discuss around a table. Yet she posts it on the web under the veil of anonymity. This is fine ( from her perspective) until her identity is revealed and then she has to deal with the fallout
(ask Wonkettte).

Sports
Terps have gone into their annual midyear funk. They will likely eke into the playoffs. Superbowl was okay. Officiating was not.

Cholent and Farewell to the Old Shul

Last night after a frustrating Terps loss and my quick trip to Liebes (buy liver and chicken strips and eat cholent) I began to make cholent for Shabbos. Unlike most weeks where I make one cholent this week I undertook making THREE cholents. I agreed a few weeks ago to take over this weeks cholent kiddush as the regular host went to Israel and the back up guy hosted last week. Then a neighbor called me last week inviting me to his siyum friday night. I had a bar mitzvah so I told him I couldn't make it. Several people had the same conflict so he ended up postponing it to this week. I offered to make the cholent for tonights siyum. then it is not fair to deprive my wife and kids from cholent so I am making one for ourselves. It is amazing to think about the status cholent (not exactly a fancy food) has achieved in the world today.

Can't forget to give props to my wife for peeling a bushel of potatoes and JF (now i thanked you) for delivering brownies.

It is a sad and exciting time at the minyan where I daven. The building which has housed it since its inception is being knocked down in the next couple weeks. This is the last week of it use. I only hope that it actually gets replace with the new and improved structure planned soon.

Welcome

I am floating this trial balloon to see who shows up. Those who know me know I have an opinion on everything and this is now my forum to rant and rave at my leisure. Those in Baltimore know of the impending vote tonight which will likely be much ado about nothing.

Rooting for the Seahawks this Sunday being that I was an ardent Seahawk fan 1983 through 1995 and mild fan since then (due to the Ravens coming home to B-more).