Keeping Tabs
I knew he’d be there :-)
*Coincidentally*, I met the happy couple many moons ago. As usual, I was at my cousin’s house for Shabbos. Being that it was June, both Havi and Elichai had come to Israel to learn in their time off—he in Gush, she in Migdal Oz (letting the awwww’ing begin). As Maish’s daughter put it, “a talmid and his girlfriend are coming for lunch...” By then, I had come to expect such surprises; during my first Shabbos in Alon Shvut, however, I was a bit taken aback. Most of the yeshivas I was familiar with at that point in my life frowned upon any interaction with the female race. Many boot boys suspected of having girlfriends (well, at least officially). When R’ Sosevsky came to speak to us at Michlalah, he insisted that the policy in OJ is that one cannot be associated in any way with a member of the opposite gender. Well, ahem, we all know how strictly that rule is enforced…… (He also made some cracks about Mich girls who try to hide that “male voice on their voice mail”…) But it seemed to me that at Gush, no such policy existed…quite the opposite in fact. Suffice it to say that when I was there on Purim, Maish led his shiur in a comic round of “Our girlfriends zachur la’tov.”
My point, and I do have one: Regardless of my opinion on whether or not boys and girls should mix (and YES I do have a tendency to flip-flop on this issue…too many liberal influences in my life…cough :: Eli7 :: cough…), I would like to chime in on the discussion and state that I agree that it can be very beneficial for a bochur to be able to converse with his Rebbe about gemara AND girls...(oh yeah, and sports too ;-)
*Coincidentally*, I met the happy couple many moons ago. As usual, I was at my cousin’s house for Shabbos. Being that it was June, both Havi and Elichai had come to Israel to learn in their time off—he in Gush, she in Migdal Oz (letting the awwww’ing begin). As Maish’s daughter put it, “a talmid and his girlfriend are coming for lunch...” By then, I had come to expect such surprises; during my first Shabbos in Alon Shvut, however, I was a bit taken aback. Most of the yeshivas I was familiar with at that point in my life frowned upon any interaction with the female race. Many boot boys suspected of having girlfriends (well, at least officially). When R’ Sosevsky came to speak to us at Michlalah, he insisted that the policy in OJ is that one cannot be associated in any way with a member of the opposite gender. Well, ahem, we all know how strictly that rule is enforced…… (He also made some cracks about Mich girls who try to hide that “male voice on their voice mail”…) But it seemed to me that at Gush, no such policy existed…quite the opposite in fact. Suffice it to say that when I was there on Purim, Maish led his shiur in a comic round of “Our girlfriends zachur la’tov.”
My point, and I do have one: Regardless of my opinion on whether or not boys and girls should mix (and YES I do have a tendency to flip-flop on this issue…too many liberal influences in my life…cough :: Eli7 :: cough…), I would like to chime in on the discussion and state that I agree that it can be very beneficial for a bochur to be able to converse with his Rebbe about gemara AND girls...(oh yeah, and sports too ;-)
posted by Devorah @ 3:48 AM
1 Comments:
At 10:19 AM,
Anonymous said…
I agree that you need to have a rabbi that you can discuss these things with. After all, you need someone who can give you good advice on dating, etc. (and that's for girls as well as guys). BUT the question is where do you draw the line about what you can and can't talk to your rabbi about? Some would say there is no line, you should be able to talk to your rabbi about everything, but your rabbi is not and should not be your best friend. There are plenty of things - serious issues, even - that i needed advice about that i would have died before asking a rabbi about. And that's what friends are for. So i do think that a rabbi has to draw a line because you should respect your rabbi in a different way than you respect your friends. When you get too chummy with your rabbi and are busy discussing sports scores, then you can't respect him in the way that you should. After all this rambling, i'm just saying that in principle, yes "it can be very beneficial for a bochur to be able to converse with his Rebbe about gemara AND girls" but only if it's done in the proper way as a mentoring relationship, not as a friendship because your rabbi should not be your friend.
Eli7
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