Shidduch Series #6: Learning and Working - the Feedback (Ep. 120)

hi i'm devon rolofsky and welcome to the raviolovsky show and whether you're watching with our friends over attorney time whoever you watch or listen to your podcast we're excited to have you along for the experience now uh first of all we have a sponsor this week it's sponsored anonymously and uh i can't tell you how meaningful this is personally as this course for wholovsky that's me and his family and his students so imagine that somebody is not only sponsoring the podcast but doing it as a squish for me so who could ask for better than that i uh i have been in schools where people bid on the aliyah that they're going to give to the rev you know which is uh an amazing thing and certainly something that i uh i uh i'm i'm touched that somebody would have that consideration for me so we're in the middle of our shidduchim series and uh i have have a lot to get to but i've received a disproportionate amount of uh mail as you can imagine on this topic and uh um i've separated them out because i'm not going to deal with every single aspect of it right now but uh my last podcast where i talked about the idea of um marrying a learning boy or someone who's gonna learn long term or somebody's gonna be working uh definitely elicited an enormous amount of response i've tried to organize them and i i want i want you to hear what people are saying what people are thinking and then i'll respond to it but i want you to at least hear this is a selection some of these are a little long i tried editing them down unsuccessfully so some of these are a little long but i think that they are important because i think and this has been my experience every person who writes me and tells me that they listen there are many many others who don't and i bump into them and they say oh i've always listened and i've always wanted to say something and okay number one in your most recent podcast you spoke about working versing versus okay that's right in your most recent podcast you spoke about working versus learning voice and i felt like you like most people left out what the real girls were looking for boy and learning actually want there are a lot of sincere girls out there who say that they want a learning boy when they really mean is they want a spiritually strong boy girls are told in seminary that the outside world today has a stronger temptation and a stronger pull than ever before and unless a boy has a constant connection to torah he won't be able to withstand the pressures of the works place and the world at large we are told that a boy needs to start off learning in a marriage so he can create a connection to torah in this new stage as well since the transition from single to married life can affect people that even boys who learned well beforehand can get caught up in the outside world if we don't start off this new stage in our life with a strong torah connection uh somebody told me this once and more than once that the push today for everybody to learn in parallel is because uh the world is so bad out there we just have to keep everybody in in color just uh to protect them even guys who may not have chances to learning even people who may not be getting a secret from learning but you don't want them out there you got to keep them in the basement i have heard this but this only works if the boy who is learning is allowing himself to be a vessel for the torah while he's doing his years of learning if he's willing to toil in the torah and work on it so that it can change him real girls are scared of getting bench warmers whose heads are out of the door as soon as they step down from the crooked so they end up wanting or asking for quote long-term learners just to filter out the fakers some are misled and think that a family reputation can help figure it out as well since a boy from a good happy family saw miss serious nephesh return understands what it does for this person but asking for a long-term learner doesn't always work and then boys end up thinking that all the quote good girls want boys and learning but if you ask real girls who have depth and passion for torah themselves they'll say they actually want boys who no matter what their husband is doing is connected to torah and who actually went uh and see the torah as their main passion the profession uh is an expression of his love for torah and judaism by using the kokos hashem gave him and by fulfilling the torah obligation to support their family years and support dollars don't matter to real girls who want husbands who start off learning all those girls are asking for learning because the seminary teacher told them to well the boys are pretending to learn to get support um that started off with pure intentions and then warped if we reminded people why learning is important and also push people to be in touch with themselves and allow them to follow their true passions then the whole issue could be avoided i tried explaining this to shah khanim and other people and they don't understand it at all i'm starting to wonder if i'm the only real girl out there oh there are others like me who are equally as frustrated at 23 and still single i tell the above to every shadow who asks me working or learning and hardly any of them seem to understand what i was trying to say they usually end the conversation with oh so you want a long-term learner you know that's impossible because your parents can't support i'm not very popular along with holland but that doesn't mean that i will back down from what i know to be right hashem will assembly someone who sees things the way i do when the time is right so what's her point in a nutshell a point in a nutshell is a lot of people are asking for a learning boy because that's the only way that they know to express a boy who's serious about his rookney is who's serious about spirituality unfortunately there are people who may be very good learners they may be choosing to go into learning because you know that's what they're supposed to do but they're not getting that spirituality from it right that's what she says second one i'm doing the longer ones first i approach this question honestly and do not mean to contradict to please tell me if i misunderstood my lessons or if the lessons have changed when i was in seminary in 2004 almost 20 years ago i feel that we were taught very strongly that color was not a death sentence give it five years and then re-evaluate we memorized the song akiva like we were encouraged to spend shoppers at call out families homes and see how they do it and succeed it was taught as an ultimate goal there was also no wishy washing about the hardships we taught and saw in homes lots of kids sleeping in one room beds in the living room second hand is the only option watering down the juice slicing the bread thin iced coffees were meant only for the rich we learned the importance of color and its supremacy in jewish life and any other choice that would be a compromise true we learned that if needed there were other ways but it was made out to be a compromise i feel that this is how it was taught to us as such our life choices followed suit as my husband learned full-time and i studied a field which would for sure have a job for me during studies and afterwards we tried hard to live within our single budget as newlyweds without familiar support emotionally or financially subsisting on peanut butter sandwiches during the week it was difficult but it didn't come as a surprise now with the family size my husband has entered the partial for panason not easy and not successfully yet though when we were dating the comments he responded where hashem will provide and we will have a muna that's what has rebellion toward him learn and don't worry about the future did we make a mistake yes there are difficulties no they weren't surprises and we weren't blinded although in our seminar in yeshiva words years both of us learned strongly we're both from very moderate backgrounds that it's either learning or the highway now 13 years down the line and my husband needs to enter the parnosa parasha and it's very difficult did we make a mistake we were always under the depression that the the those would be the words in the modern world we grew up in and we should take a leap of faith and have a moon in the way of life and how things would work out am i mistaken did i miss something or have things just changed number three thank you so much for your amazing podcast i have been enjoying them since the beginning my question is like this when i was in shidduchim i wanted someone who cared about a buddhist hashem and had your shamaya now we're married 15 years and we have no money my husband can't find a job if i were in shidduchim now i would say i'm looking for an ambitious bella bias who's willing to support me and my kids is there something wrong with me was i not in touch with my goals at the start of marriage was i too idealistic i'd appreciate any insight i just finished listening to your fourth episode of the [ __ ] of series i have a daughter in shidduchim who's looking for a working covey eating boy problem is they don't make them like they used to the same way that the girls are told to marry learning boys the boys are told that they have to learn and not have a parnosa plan what a girl supposed to do um what about going into habassa satori would you put that in the same category of learning or do you see it as a happy medium you're in clay kodesh please address that too and here's the last one that i want to read thank you for your podcast i had no idea that musician supported my position but i'm glad to hear it does when i had to leave yeshiva and israel i felt such guilt but my rebaim assured me that i was serving hashem in the best way for me as the years went on i did my best to concentrate on doing whatever i do in hashem's service i help people it's what i do for a living and this is what i do in my spare time i always told my children it is the highest service we can do as bene israel i told my children whatever you do do it for rats and hashem and you will spend your entire life as a kiddish hashem i've made many suyum of the years learning when i got a chance my mishnais has been my constant companion because of your question and answer shiurim i've been able to give comfort to my colleagues and patients as they have dealt with some of the most difficult situations including illness assault and even death okay so yeah yep we were all taught the same thing we all talked the same thing yeah rocco seeks out maybe a keem of 40 years old amma earth can't read olive face she's rich she's beautiful she uh she's smart she says i'll marry you if you uh go off and learn talk and they make an arrangement 12 years means he'll be 62 when he comes back her father disowns it he says what are you going to do i'm not giving you any money she says i'll sell my hair he says you know that's not like a steady income and for 12 years she's living without her husband and abject poverty and finally after 12 years her husband who's already quite a bit of a double gohan was on his way back he had 12 000 tell me at this point so as we say in french yeah he was really quite successful and he has his wife say if my husband was here right now i would tell him to go back for another 12 years and so he does so she doesn't see him again until he's 74. and all this time she's wearing rags you know absolute poverty beautiful i would love for any seminary to field the phone call from the parents who say what did you do to my daughter so what do you mean she found some forty-year-old amaretts and told him if you would go off and learn torah for 12 years she would sell her hair and live in poverty to support him what did you tell her well i mean it's it's an ideal it's an ideal i okay listen i'm a parent i support my children's decisions i have to say you know if my if my daughter came home with a 40 year old guy who can't read me make an arrangement for him to go away for 12 years to say to say i don't know if i'm with the program yeah we teach this you want to hear something terrible obviously you wouldn't listen to my podcast yet happy talking trust you hear these emails a lot of people follow that advice they learned for five years 10 years 15 years and suddenly they can't there's no way they can't they can't make uh bread a little bit of bread appear out of out of thin air and they suddenly find out do i know john's waiting for them hello shriner who is one of the most exceptional people that i know those of you who've been to israel and know shrine as bakery uh hillel runs it and um and he himself is a tremendous time of hawker and he runs this business and he does a tremendous amount of pressing and he says to me every week i have from people coming in looking for a job he says i can't hire everybody this is people want to work people want to try to be able to support their family after years of learning now yeah i why are you learning you should have a time chief of time is extremely goal oriented you you did not have the option to sit in the basement and learn forever that was not the value yeah it wasn't it wasn't sheep it's learning this more sitting the the yeshiva until you're 90. says i learned from my rebellion i learned more from him i learned the most from i tell me you need to tell me them in order to grow but it was more than that they felt that they had a mission a mission to go out and save cloud israel so uh yeah so there was there was an attitude that we were training for something for hubbard's i am i don't know if you picked this up i'm something of an extremist right they're hints there's some of my past podcasts to this but i do i tend to be a very black and white person yeah and uh i became firm at 12 and as soon as i made the decision to come from i knew i was i'm a rabbi because you're gonna do it do it that's my attitude [Laughter] original was gonna be a rub that was my plan and one of the time they told me come on shiva okay come on shiva uh as time went on i realized i did not have those skills i ended up going into keira which was tailor-made for me you know i have uh i had a boundless amount of energy and certain cure organizations are more than happy to suck all of that life out of you like vampires and after 10 years i retired back to eritsel my plan was to learn for a few years and then go into rap bonus be a rabbi um and i just i couldn't i couldn't the learning was going so well i just couldn't keep it up and so i morphed into and uh where i found that i had uh unusual skills and uh i still did some of the camera if i did and at some point i started lecturing and i you know it's okay so i but i i was always goal-oriented to me it was never the the sitting and learning the base match wasn't the end it was it was uh a process to be able to go on and be able to do things and that's why when i would have uh students would go out on a date and they the boy says i want to learn long term and they say why what do you want to do they were like i i just got alert yeah so there's no question today and i spoke about this last time that it's very hard to find somebody who is willing to make the decision upfront that i'm going to work and have your shamayam and that's why when this girl writes and she says when i was dating i thought i wanted to marry a boy with your mind did i make a mistake no no no no you did not should you have had some kind of a plan of course you should have some kind of a plan uh you have yeah it's a nylon so here's a terrible story i wanted to share with you there was a bright-eyed bushy-tailed uh i don't want to call him a balchuba it came from from family but it was a miss khazenk yeah he he became stuck super stork and he went to cinderlearn and he was going out you know a bunch of girls and uh he was crunching the numbers because he was a very smart person he's crunching the numbers and he comes to me and he says i don't see how i'm going to make it if i stand learning he says so when i talk to different rebellion they say you have to be talking and then i asked them how do you pay your bills and every single one of them has some outside form of income that's what his parents support him this guy was left a building this guy's got a yarusha this one's got this you know everybody's got something in the background i have nothing how am i supposed to make it i don't know what to tell i i uh have tremendous seated ishmael because gave me a gift that people want to listen to me it is something i do not take lightly because i can't stand listening to speakers someone said to me once why are you such a good speaker i said because i'm such a bad student yeah some people drone on i don't know i i can go to my mind you know i have to keep it interesting well i'll fall asleep yeah so kushbach but it's all it's all just it's it's it's a gift from a college barrel good bro i always tell the story my father my father had a business he was going to divide up the business among the boys who were in business i was not the business he says for you son but you said i have something special he used to he loved to gamble go to atlantic city play cards play dice and there's a game there called craps where you have to get 7-11 which is a natural and then you have to get your number and then you have to measure that anyway he was sure that there was a system that you could develop um to uh to uh bet a certain amount and cover your bets this one that way that you would always win and he would pull me aside he'd pull me aside from time to time and he'd say to me son the boys are going to get the business and the boys will get the building but you're going to get my dice system and this way anytime you need money just drive down to atlantic's and put down money because and he reminded others of this very often you will never succeed in anything and if i don't come up with some way to help you make a living you're going to starve to death and by the way i have integrated this into my sum total of uh of my mathias it was actually a tremendous gift yeah because uh i would be insufferable if i ever stopped to think of how many people write me and talk to me and tell me you said this changed my life used to this would change my life if i ever stop to think about it forget it luckily it doesn't matter what anybody says because i hear my father saying ah like it's like you'll never succeed in anything why somebody says to me i listened to your recordings from 30 years ago you sound exactly the same you haven't picked up any affectations or anything i said yeah because i'm not none of this stuff affects me you know one of my daughters spent a couple of years in america she came home once for a trip she goes abby you know you're famous i said get out of here no no really i meet people i say oh rabbi yolovski's like oh but none of that goes in because a lot of you so i used to say i have a father up in heaven and he said the same thing that my father down on earth said you're a lawyer and if i don't come up with some way to support you you're going to starve to death so he gave me the ability that people are willing to pay me money to listen to me talk yeah once upon a time [Laughter] i used to go places and speak and you know very exciting but uh i was i was clever because i made sure that my career collapsed uh at least eight months before corona buyers hit so this way i didn't lose anything you know it was like in the economic downturn the two and thursday of 2008 when everybody lost their investments my only investment was my overdraft on my checking account and it was untouched so i came out unscathed i didn't lose anything my overdraft was still there you know so uh you know but uh so yeah i have an ace in the hole what if i didn't have that you know a very difficult thing so this guy says because i find everybody's got something on the side now this this young lady writes i'm married for 13 years with eating peanut butter sandwiches and iced coffee is a luxury you know things are very very difficult am i wrong no you're not wrong and and i did not stress this the last time but i will the east is considered the most important position because it's the rising sun so it represents leadership and who goes on the east of the camp yehuda yehuda is kingship and with him goes isakha and zvulin yisaka are those who learn torah and zwollen are those who support tiger are they important the most important who sits up front tamidekami a hundred percent i i if a person says to me i've decided that i want to sit and learn whatever the whatever the consequences are and the girl says i want to live that life what am i going to tell her that's wrong i'm not going to tell you true i can tell you it's wrong i'm going to tell you be real like this other girl wrote and she says i don't want a guy in learning i want a guy with your shamayam so if that person has your mind because he's sitting and he's learning dr monty stern is a very famous individual he uh he's one of the top people in implants dental implants and he's a tremendous tomahawk he's close to so many good old he can tell you stories of golem that he that that he had personal charm with just amazing amazing things and he said to me you think i'm a dentist he says i do hesit all day that's what i do i i have people walk into my office who gave up the hope of ever eating an apple they're on the teeth and they walk out with new teeth they can eat an apple i'm i'm you created lots of different people with all kinds of different lackings so you need somebody who's going to run a grocery store and you need someone's gonna be a baker and someone's gonna be a butcher and someone's gotta learn torah and somebody's gonna you know be a doctor somebody told me once he says i was a lawyer i gave it up to sit and learn and eventually i went he says if i were to just stand nobody would pay me attention to me but because i had a real job and i gave it up so now [Laughter] much more than if i just sat and learned when i was in yeshiva there was a fellow who was 40 years old he had been learning from the time he was three forty years old he was a show nation sat in the back of the base of management answered questions during prep time and he was thrilled to have that job don't get me wrong yeah massive time of cough so uh so if you if you're willing to do that what am i going to tell you that's not an ideal for sure it's an ideal does it go about a pedestal sure it goes up on a pedestal but not everybody wants to live on a pedestal and you got to be real you're gonna decide whether or not you are in a position to handle that lifestyle and be honest so the mother writes me and says well there are no good boys today i don't want to say there are none none is too strong a word there's some but i think the system is designed in such a way to discourage a good boy like like someone said certain people go into learning because they think that's the only way they're going to get a good girl so i have no choice the sentence managed to learn even though i have other things that i would like to do so i had a girl and uh she was um looking to marry a ben tire boy and learning and uh she was a uh secretary for a cube organization and the shankhanum told her type of boy you're looking for doesn't want a girl who's uh who's in a uh what he called the curative organization quit your job and get a regular job in the diamond center or something like that you know a nice jewish girl supposed to be my little cured so she calls me up and she said she's like should i quit my job i said who are you working for partners in torah she's not going out into like you know uh ben yehuda street trying to get guys to come to yeshiva she's the secretary for partners in toronto where they arranged caruses over the i said are you being effective she says yes i said are you helping spread torah she said yes i said i don't know what to tell you my god doesn't punish people who do russian hashem that's not my god there are other gods out there perhaps but my god the god of the jewish people of the old testament my god doesn't punish you because you're doing the right thing and one of my expressions i used to do all the time was you can never be wrong by being right can't be wrong by doing the right thing you're helping people come close to torah and you think the only way that you can find your [ __ ] up is if you give that up can't be it can't be six months later she made married yeah not all my stories have endings forget about heavy endings but this one does but what am i supposed to do i'm i'm i'm i'm doing the wrong thing by doing the right thing you don't see how crazy we are if a boy is has a sense of responsibility i'm talking about a good boy nothing with a bummy boy i'm not a good boy he darvens he's covea eat him he has nice meadows he's good to his parents he's involved in you know but he wants to support his family not everybody likes peanut butter sandwiches some people are allergic i had a young lady who was married to a guy learning she really thought that's what she wanted then she said i told my husband i said i can't wake up in the morning knowing i don't have a diaper for the baby i can't do that i can't live that way so if you can't live that way is it is it admirable will we sing a song about you a hundred percent we tell stories about you sure will you go on the east will you sit on the mizrah 100 but be real and decide what it is you really want that's why i say if you say to me didn't they teach us that learning is the ideal yes they did and yet when somebody decides that he's leaving and he's going into business because he has to support his family and then the community looks down on him you want to hear a horror story sure you do this fellow started ashore one of the new neighborhoods in that show i don't want to get too specific stardustral with a couple of other people he found them a place he helped raise money for it these other guys weren't in a position to raise money to raise money he got somebody to donate furniture he got you know sparring he put the other whole show and eventually he brought and after a few months the rev said you can't be the god by here anymore she says why he says because you're a working boy only african diving for the ahmed and he said but i but i started the show i hired you i know but this is this is a minion a working voice i mean i'm not saying you can't dive in here but you can't can't dive into the armored you can't you can't be the guy by here that we can't i don't know it doesn't make sense to you does it make sense to me in my uh my time as a famous speaker traveling around every now and then i'd be asked to speak at one of these luncheon learns lawyers accountants investment bankers schedule time in their day to be able to get together and listen to a [ __ ] robot run around the ritziest areas of the cities to learn with these people an hour and they tell their secretary hold all calls for this hour i'm with the rabbi on rare occasions i've been dragged to these uh morning uh coil him these people before they go to work at like five o'clock in the morning some other ungodly hour when milkmen and garbage men are wandering the streets oh and also a bunch of successful business people who all getting delivered together to learn for two hours and then dive in the morning some genius decided that oh they would gain a lot from hearing me speak about the joys of coffee um [Music] it's uh it's nice to uh see everything everybody um everybody here [Music] hello i think it was very special music yes yeah that was inspiring diane gilten was supposed to he used to give enough yummy five o'clock in the morning he says he says to me why don't you come i said five o'clock in the morning he says yeah well you're just going to sleep then right you know i was much more of a night person you know i was like and just before you go to bed you could give to the w [Laughter] there was a time when clydesville was a board made up of different shapes you know that little toy that they get for kids there's a hole that's like it's round there's a hole that squares a triangle like a star and you get different pieces and you have to put them into the right hole and today we have a toy it's only a matter of round holes so if you're a round peg and you fit in it's perfect if you're a square peg then we bang it into the hole until it's chipped and then say there's something wrong with the piece and twist it away that's not a it's not a learning point mike tress was coming back from europe after the war and he sees a host in the airport he says can i borrow your feeling so sure so he opens up his code and he doesn't have a shirt and he starts putting the telling him guys the same thing afterwards he says he says to me says listen you're not supposed to adopt him like that he says i know but what could i do i went to the dp camps and nobody had any shirts so back in america i got shirts i gave them all my shirts he looks down he says i gave him my shoes he was wearing slippers he said that's what remember what do you think about everybody's feeling i gave away my smell into somebody because they have to fill underwear i kept my coat because i was afraid i would die by the bus [Music] as we saw in the missiles of china can can they all reach the highest spiritual levels yes is it admirable if you decide that you want to live a life of simplicity like thoreau out in the wilds yeah beautiful on walden's pond great but you gotta be real don't marry who you're supposed to marry mary who you want to marry go for the best for you who's there some people want to find the best husband and father some people want to find the best wife and mother and some people want to make the best [ __ ] that's not what it's about all right we've got more to talk about but uh i just wanted to read some of the responses because i think it's really important to talk about this and it could be there'll be more to say on the subject in any event that's it for this week if you want to find out more about the show you can go to my website rabbiourolowsky.com you can leave a comment you can ask question you can donate uh sponsor an episode in honor of uh yourself or me or anybody else that doesn't have to be about me but you know uh a special shout out to anonymous thank you very much and uh that's it i'm devin arlowski and this is the robbie alaski show it's the rabbi orlovsky show torah and simbra ready to go the rabbi orlovsky show knowledge and wisdom will help you grow lots of fun in every episode and we don't have to rhyme no it's the rabbi orlovsky show on rabbi orlovsky.com torah anytime you two and more it's rabbi orlowski show torah and simply ready to go it's the rabbi orlovsky show till next time till we meet again throughout my orolowski show it's the rabbi yolowski show it's the rabbi orlowski