Is Individuality Dead?

How do we develop individuality and creativity and uniqueness in a world where you have 6,000 people in your grade, you have a thousand people in your block, I'm assuming, let's say you're living in Lakewood, you're living in Muny, or you're living in San Jose, but you're you're in a yeshiva that has 500 people. How do you strike a balance between being socially with it and normal and upto-date and you know you're one of the guys but you're also an individual and you're you have your individuality and your imagination your creativity which I think are integral components of being of achieving greatness. I don't mean becoming a how do someone maintain or create individuality in a world where it's so easy to just be like everyone else. So I think the challenge you're referring to is really a challenge that you know happens in when Baham are younger, right? If you look at people that are married 30 years old, 40 years old, we don't really have that question because everyone's doing something different. Everyone has their own family. There's a lot of individuality. But in Yeshiva, they're all wearing their white shirts and their hand jacket and they're learning and doing the same thing. And by the way, for that reason, some buckram try to find individuality through, you know, they can't wear a colored shirt in most yeshivas, but try to find socks. Maybe they could sneak in a black sock with a stripe, whatever. So I can have my individuality. No, but that's my point. They're screaming. So, so, so I want to explain, but I want to I want to tell those bakam and I want to just share the idea. You know, I allow a little bit more of my yeshiva individuality with with dress, but the individuality clothing is a very cheap way to express individuality. I'm not knocking it for someone that needs to do it, but at the end of the day, if what makes me different than you is that, you know, we look pretty much right. We're both wearing black jackets, white shirts, no ties. So, we look beards, we look the same. you know, you look a little younger, less gray hair, but you know, if our individuality is that I'm wearing different clothing than you, that's pretty weak. Individuality is not in clothing. Individuality is in our thoughts and our actions. Now, while we're are younger, a lot of our actions are going to look the same. But as we get older, that thought process, that development that you're working on yourself, if you've been working on your midos, for example, if you've been working on yourself as a person, as you get older, Hashem, you will be able to give and offer and express and your individuality will shine. While you're in yeshiva, there's limited opportunities for individuality to shine. And if you're and if you try too hard, it's, you know, you just stand out. But inside yourself individuality is found inside the person and then it blossoms as you get older. So it's very important you think for yourself. You could think you know you could think for yourself. Your shashiva gives a schmoo on a certain topic. I get in trouble for saying this and you don't agree. You don't like it. Individuality means that I have a brain. My rebi taught us aes he taught us that just because your rebi said something you need to understand it. You have to be responsible for it. If your Rebby tells you to do something, if your Rebby tells you to shoot somebody, you have to understand what he's telling you. You can't just walk around my Rebi said it. You have to own whatever your Rebi taught you. I'm not saying there's never a place to say I don't understand my Rebi said it. But you have to own it. So this Bakar who you want individuality when the Rashiva is talking, try to understand what he's saying. If you don't understand it, go ask him. If he doesn't have the time for you, talk to some other Rebi or Ra and say I don't I don't know if I understand this. Even in Gumarra learning so many times the Rebi says in the tess in the garumar and I don't like it. So bakra like conforms like okay but that's that's what the rasha said. No that's not Tyra Tyra is yours. So individuality is in our mind. We have to teach Bakram to have individuality in their in their thoughts in their development. It doesn't have to be with clothing. You know, every Shiva could have its own dress code. But to teach them to be independent thinkers, that's what my rebi taught my rebiere was a very unique person. And he really taught us to be to think for ourselves and that's why barrage his are quite different. But the funny thing is that a lot of times people can actually spot us out and say, "Oh, you probably learned by great terror because there's a unique maybe the stands out the uniqueness." But but he taught us to think for ourselves. So you mentioned that clothing is probably the cheapest way of expressing yourself. You also mentioned that it typically weeds itself out when one gets into adulthood just because of the nature of having kids and a family makeup. But you you do see so many 40, 50, 60 year olds who they're going to wear a $5,000 tie, which is essentially their way of saying, "I'm gonna spend $5,000 for you to approve of me." Or, "I am going to spend a ridiculous amount of money on a $500,000 car," which it's not that much more comfortable than a $40,000 car. It's a $500,000 you're going to spend for other people to observe and say, "Hey, this guy is unique. This guy is impressive." So it seems like a major you disagree that it's not coming from there. I disagree with you that that's their goal. Their goal is not to establish individuality. Their goal is to receive approval. Their goal is to receive. And that goes back to what I said before. Our job as parents and foremost I think this most important thing in as I mentioned before is to build people's self-esteem. When we don't feel good about ourselves, we look for other people's approval. If I wasn't the biggest, but now I'm very successful financially. And by the way, many of them suffered when they were in yeshiva being the and now they have a chance to finally get people's approval. Now they have a chance to get the Rashiva coming asking him for money and be honored. I'm not saying people get honored for this reason. It's a to get honor but people want to establish themselves to get other people's approval. I wrote a whole English safer on if you saw it. It's called run after the right. The more someone feels good about themsel the less they need other people's approval as well. If we really work on ourselves we become more intelligent. Oh cuz I'm driving a fancy car and everyone is impressed. That's a reason to that I should feel good about myself. Right? Isn't it like the people you should be embarrassed? You should be embarrassed. They It's you have to spend that much money. You know, I'm not Listen, I'm not judging any petty people. I'm very against judging people's spendings. You know, people say, you know, um why is he flying private? Why is he spending the money? I don't judge any people's spendings. I don't have the kind of money, so I don't have the opportunity to to withhold. If I had the kind of money and was not spending it, we could talk. I don't judge people's spendings. that many of those people are so generous with stuck and such giving people. I don't judge other people's spending. I think people only judge other people's spending because they're jealous etc. Unless they're a RV who's trying to be mik his his kahila you know it doesn't bother me. I don't look I don't think so I want to say like this I'm just saying I'm not judging why the guy's driving his fancy car. Is it just to get a people's approval etc etc etc. But there's no question that there's a lot of that. And you'll say, "Well, isn't that shallow?" Like, you know, that this is what this is uh this is what uh you think is is valuable. They have the fancy car. But I don't it's not just about the car, right? If if I I heard this from someone else recently, so it's not my idea, but it's quite simple. If I'm driving $500,000 car, then you understand that I'm running a successful business and I feel good about myself that I run a successful business. So instead of taking advertisements out there and saying I have a successful business, my car, my watch, my suit, my bar mitzvah, my wedding shows that I'm a successful person financially. But I will but I will say that if we were giving the co to people when they're younger, people would have a less need for it and less interest in it. And also there's another thing here. if the people around us in general weren't so listen if you had people I'm not you know I'm not saying I'm above gashm but all I could tell you is that and again obviously I'm I'm a so I'm just just giving an example but if everyone around a person was like me they're not pulling up with a $500,000 car I'll probably make them feel good because I'm nice so it's a it's such a nice car but at the end of the Hey, they're not bringing me the car. Hopefully, they'll bring me a garum. They'll give me a a vart because they know I'm not going crazy. So, we have to raise we have to raise people to feel good about themselves because they're yidden and proud Jews. And if we we were more proud of being Jews, we'd be a little bit less proud about things like money.