Here There and Everywhere

[debka_notion]

I seem to have bopped around quite a bit this weekend thus far, and it is not quite over. Friday night I went to davenen at the Seminary, which felt very empty and sort of scattered- it was a seminary shabbat weekend, so this makes sense. So I bopped out of there pretty soon after davening actually finished and walked over to the Bayit to have dinner with a friend there and his older sister who is a friend of mine from college, and had seligdavis "chastise" me for coming for one of the meals when he's out, when I didn't come to his meal- which confused me, as I hadn't been invited to the meal he was talking about. But all was amicable, and dinner involved some very amusing discussions of standard Jewish text sorts of things, but well, the funny bits, for the most part. I have no idea what happened with the people at the other end of the table, I'm not sure I actually even met them, but whatever. I did acquire a recipe for tofu pot pie out of the meal, and saw that my host made it in a disposable regular rectagular baking dish, which means I could do so as well, which means I could make either that Or a regular vegetable pot pie even though I don't actually have anything ressembling a pie plate. After dinner we went to part of the Pizmon concert, which was lovely, and hung around and chatted afterwards.

Said conversation included a discussion of the Ortho-clone phenomenon. I don't know what's behind it, but it was something we had all noticed- that while certainly there are lots of folks with actual distinctive personalities in the Orthodox world (if you're reading this, this category probably means you, presuming that you're one of those folks Coming from the Orthodox world), but that there are also lots of folks, especially the girls, who seem to have been shaped into about the same person: they know the same people, had the same experiences growing up, talk about exactly the same things, and few of those things have much depth, and continue on in that pattern. It means that they in some ways Can't interact with other folks because they are out of that system and Can't talk about all the same people that they all know from school and camp, etc.

Saturday morning, davening was a very different experience from usual- there was a Senior Sermon, and enough people were expected that the chairs were rearranged into all straight rows, and as many chairs were crammed into there as possible. I was not particularly looking forward to it, but didn't really feel like figuring out where else to go, so I stayed. It turned out to be a very nice service, and the sermon itself was actually interesting and productive. The friends from the previous night showed up, and we chitchatted after shul until they went to lunch and I left for lunch.

Lunch occupied the rest of Shabbos- nuqotw hosted a very pleasant meal with a similar crowd to some of the meals last week (calliope_epic and her SO, mbarr taylweaver, Steve and her SO, Steve-who'd-also-been-at-dinner-Friday-night, and some other folks). Many of us ended up hanging around, realizing we had no particular Saturday night plans, and creating some- watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail together. So it turned into quite a pleasant evening as well. (Pleasant seems to be my over-used adjective of the day.)

Sunday I got up and headed to my parents' place to visit (the first time I've ever gone home for an afternoon visit: we weren't exactly sure what to do with an afternoon-sized chunk of time, but it was good to be home and see them), and returned in time to have a bit of dinner, sort of, and head to dancing. This meant that I wasn't back in time to do my usual learning with Steve, but as neither of us are so fond of the teaching of this week's guest teacher, we decided that I'd bring the books and we'd learn during her teaching. This worked quite well, although it probably reinforced the "wow, those folks are weird" thing that most of the folks there already have about us, I'd think. And then there was a bit of dancing, and then more teaching, including a triple's dance where I was displaced in my triple, without much objection, as the steps seemed easy and I don't usually like being told "dance with these people, you have no choice in the matter", even if that means that one is assured people to dance with- maybe I'm a bit of a snob about such things, but I like when I can at least Choose when I want to dance with folks who don't know what they're doing. So there was a lot of chatting, for quite a while. But dancing eventually picked up.

Today has been minyan, a surprise visit from Steve, and some napping. I found myself pretty exhausted. Plans for the rest of the day: groceries, plan a get-together for Saturday night, do some homework, attend a talk at 7 and go dancing after that.

Comments

[arib.livejournal.com]

Wait... you know mbarr?

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

The marvels of social networks- we've met at a series of Shabbos meals through a few of the other folks on that same list of folks.

Hey- it's not like I know You through any sort of rational way either...

Ortho-clones

[ploni-bat-ploni.livejournal.com]

Re: Ortho-clones.

Yeah, I just can't deal with those types of girls. Not only are they clones in every aspect of their character, they also look the same.

I am definately a femme, but those girls bring out the inner butch in me. Get some emancipation, yo! Or otherwise I'll strange you with my tefillin.

Sorry. Ahem. Oops. End of rant :-)

Re: Ortho-clones

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

Hmm- they don't make me want to be male, or masculine: they just inspire me to go talk about something obscure and/or geeky, often sci-fi related, although sufficiently weird Judaica somehow also sometimes works. That, and to wear clothing with Patterns and a bit of a personal touch rather than all solid colors matched in exactly the same ways in exactly the same styles.

[hotshot2000.livejournal.com]

"Said conversation included a discussion of the Ortho-clone phenomenon."

It seems like any sufficiently well-developed sociology will lead to such phenomena. Gangsta culture, hippie culture, goth culture, etc., all come to mind as having definite modes of dress and "looks", social networks where people know the same people and have similar experiences, etc. (What's interesting is that those cultures, to different degrees, pride themselves on "individualism" as oppposed to Orthodox culture, by and large.) It's fine to rant against the phenomenon if one (such as myself) is a perennial outsider and likes it that way, but to limit it to one particular sociology seems too narrow in scope.

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

Possibly so. But there's something that feels different about this- hippy or goth culture is something that one picks, and at least those folks I've known involved in such seem to have some set of issues that they talk about, even if they all agree. But then, I've spent less time as someone who sort of fits into those cultures. Maybe I just haven't seen enough in them.

I think it's that a. this is a culture I see pretty often, and b. it's a culture that I value, and that I think promotes serious thought about ideology and practice and the ins and outs of Torah in its assorted forms- and these folks see themselves as more Right/Correct Jews than I or many of my friends, and yet their religion seems to be a matter of acceptance and not something for thought, and that nothing else seems to be a matter for thoughtful discussion either. I don't care if they all end up agreeing, but I never even hear those folks processing at all. And put together with the way they dress the same way, etc, etc- well, it may well happen elsewhere, but it frightens me inside my own culture.

[hotshot2000.livejournal.com]

Starting with your last point first, that makes a lot of sense and helps me understand where you're coming from. One of the things I'm reacting to is what seemed to be an unreasonable demonization of a universal (and potentially useful) aspect of cultures, which also lacked acknowledgement of the same phenomenon in one's own culture. (I'm sure you can pick out characteristics of a JTS-clone/Conservative-clone.) In terms of processing, while I heartily agree that processing is an `ikkar of a thoughtful human being, (a) processing everything all the time is impossible, even for the most muvhar bivnei adam; and (b) it can be hard for an outsider to notice when processing has occurred, which leads me to my second point . . .

People always get to pick what they want to be a part of, subject to economic (money, time, effort, etc.), intellectual, emotional, and other factors, all of which are informed by one's experiences and reactions thereto. (Let's not get into the IMS[omewhat]I[nformed]O fruitless free will vs . biological/psychological/sociological determinism debate! :-) ) This is as true within Orthodoxy as outside of it. There's also the caution that what looks uniform to an outsider is probably quite nuanced (often unreasonably so) to an insider.

While I share your fear of cloning (being particularly individualistic myself), I think a more productive approach might be to figure out why and how cloning occurs and whether people can be made more consciously aware of it and thereby put it to good use. (E.g., I would like to become a hesed-clone -- that is, doing acts of hesed without conscious thought and processing each time.)

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

Processing is of course impossible every time- but I'm thinking a lot about the folks I went to school with for college, and I saw of them a significant amount, and they Never seemed to process. And while I'm aware that they've had all their life to process all the Jewish stuff in a way that I haven't, well- I just don't think you can do All your religious processing before college.

Honestly, I can't pick out a JTS/Conservative clone type. They seem to fall into other sorts of clone-types- at JTS, the NYC thing, and previously the folks who weren't thoughtful in the Conservative movement seemed to not be involved enough to be so significantly shaped by it. Unless you want to see the pattern of thinking and talking a Lot about the practice egalitarian ritual on a personal level as a clone-behavior, which well, I could kind of see.

As for the "one's own culture" aspect- I think part of what bothers me is that I want them to be within the scope of how I see my culture: I don't want to have to see my religious culture as just the Conservative movement, I don't think that that's fair or productive. And well, I share more in my life with them than with non-halakhically motivated Jews. So even breaking down the Jewish community that way, this is forcing me to make the Orthodox community into an Other, when I'd rather not do so as much. Does that make any sense?

I like that last idea. But it does lose what I think is what makes me nervous about this whole clone concept: they then come across as monolithic and impersonal. And I Hate the idea of not being able to see a person's individuality.