barney must go

ok, this is a post for my father. long ago, on a planet much closer to ninth grade, my father insisted that i should get a blog and post about 'issues affecting jewish teenagers.' i told him that, knowing nothing about what's right and wrong anyway, i'd never know what to post.

i'm not sure if this is an issue affecting teenagers or just me specifically, but whatever it is, it bothered me severely.

last night a friend of mine got home from camp beis yaakov. i want to preface this by saying she is one of the sweetest girls i know...she walked in the rain with an umbrella to meet me because my mother told her i didn't have one (Which was false). she called me as soon as she got home because she wanted to see me.

anyway, i brought her a bunch of the books i got from stern...shabbaton, orientation, res handbook etc, because i was and still am pretty excited about going, and what else is new in my life?

but the first thing she said when i showed her the booklet was:

'why do they have a beit medrash?'

huh?

i saw where she was pointing; it was a list of lectures being given at orientation, some of which were located in a beit medrash.

'i don't know,' i said. 'it's a school. shouldn't they have one?'

'i thought you said it was a girls' school.'

'it is.'

'a girl's job isn't to sit and learn all day...it's...it's not good for them to have butay medrash. there's no point to that.'

i think i just blinked at her. i said: 'there's nothing wrong with it...?'

'it's not assur, it's just...that's not a girl's job. we aren't supposed to sit and learn.'

it's a school. what are we supposed to do, play volleyball?

the next thing she noticed was that the girls in the res life handbook were 'not dressed tzenously': the shirts were way too tight, some had necklines that were 'ridiculously low', and some just 'didn't look nice.' she said she understood that obviously in an institution as big as yu, there were going to be girls not dressed appropriately; but it really bothered her that yu would put inapropriately dressed girls in their advertisement and say: this represents our school. i was floored. i'm pretty sure yu, like me, never looked twice at those pictures.

then she didn't like the shabbaton book. every shabbos is sponsored by a different club, so they have different themes. 'that's not shabbostick,' she said. 'that's like dress-up day.' she really didn't like the biology lecture about the jewish perspective on stem cell research. 'you want to talk about that? on shabbos?'

i decided to change the topic, because even though she is my friend and i do love her, i was seriously afraid i would blow a gasket soon. i asked her about her camp.

'wonderful,' she said. 'i had a lot of meaningful discussions.'

since this is the stuff of my high school years (me and my friend n sitting up at four in the morning in the rain talking about life), i asked her what about.

she said, 'well for example, this one girl showed me how careful you have to be...why all television and computer games, even educational ones, are inherently flawed. i'm telling you, this girl could prove why barney is inappropriate.'

she went on to say that she wasn't saying no one shoudl watch barney, just the concept of children sitting and staring at a box that's filling their mind with all these goyish values and cultures is a bad idea. apparently, in her camp, no one even knows that a television is called a television. they call it a video player because they are not aware that it does anything else. television watching is 'barely tolerated' in her camp.

i said: 'all due respects, a, i do not think i would belong at your camp.'

why not? she said. i know tons of girls just like you there!

i watch television, i said.

she said: 'so do some girls that go there. they just don't advertise the fact.'

then she asked me if i'd read the new harry potter, and i said yeah. she said: 'isn't it terrible?'

'what, that he died? (i didn't spoil it!) yeah, that was pretty--'

'oh...big whoop. no i didn't finish it. i mean- it's just disgusting! i had to put it down...why did she ruin it by putting so much inappropriate stuff in it?'

she went on to explain to me why you can't get hashkafa from fiction, and anyway harry potter doesn't count as fiction because fiction is 'something that could happen, but didn't.' harry potter couldn't happen, so it's not fiction. i wanted to put my head down on the desk and weep. that is a third grade definition of fiction, i said. you are most DEFINITELY talking to the wrong person about this.

but, in her perfectly sweet and unassuming way, she went on to explain why all fiction is a waste of time and there's absolutely nothing to be learned from it. except for jewish historical fiction, which can give you a context for things.

'A,' i said, 'you are ripping my heart out over here.'

'i'm sorry,' she said, 'i'm so sorry. what did i say?'

and that's just it. i know this girl, and she loves me. i know she had the best of intentions. whether right or wrong, i wasn't offended by her or angry at her because i know she is a wonderful girl.

BUT DON'T PEOPLE REALIZE WHAT A TURN-OFF CONVERSATIONS LIKE THESE ARE?!

to me, this is like looking at the world with a red marker and saying, 'ok, what can i cross out next?'

i realize that i'm more moderate on a lot of issues than this girl is. and i also realize that she is entitled to her views. and it's perfectly ok for her to live that way. if that's how she understands things, fine. but what bothers me is that, if i didn't know her and were just meeting her, or worse, if i went to her camp, those things she said would push me away. there is a way for people with different views to be friends -- it happens in this city all the time-- but you can't make friends with people if you give them the impression that they are 'barely tolerated.' if this is how beis yaakov (and i know i'm generalizing, i don't want to single them out) interacts with other orthodox girls, i am not surprised that we are so divided. i am not surprised so many teens drop the whole thing. after all, if the highest aspiration is to one day be too holy for barney, what is le point?

i know at my low spiritual level i am probably misunderstanding her point, and i explained that to her. but my point is, when you can look at a jewish college catalogue full of girls learning and notice only that some of their shirts are tight, you are not seeing the trees for the forest. (does that make sense?)

regardless of your feelings about harry potter, even if you're so religious you've given up reading english altogether, that's not what it's about and it really can't be, or i might go mad.

if you cannot find a way to coexist, with respect and with understanding and with dan l'kaf zechus, with other jews who have differing viewpoints, then who honestly cares how many gartels you wear.



((this girl feels the same way, remarkably. she hates nothing more than the holier-than-thou attitude. she doesn't realize, probably because of her camp and so forth, that what she said could be viewed like that.))