Why Josh Can't Be Left Alone

Here, here ... you'll get no argument from me.
 

Cute pix from what appears to have been a lovely simcha. It should be soon by you, Joshele.
 

I agree, to some extent. My long standing theory is that you aren't suppose to enjoy yourself at someone else's wedding, not like your own. Your own is for you - your favorite colors, your favorite food (or your parents), things like that. That being said, people often put a lot of work into the "other" stuff because a lot of people don't necessarily enjoy the substantial stuff - as well as for other reasons. Granted our wedding was different than most, but for example my mother spent many hours incorporating my chinese heritage into parts of the wedding, like flowers or the food or table runners from shanghai. We also used the color red for its chinese significance (and cause i like it). anyway, some people go to wedding and may not feel comfortable dancing for some reason or don't know a lot of people. we often put time into the other things in the hope that people have a good time, despite the truth that weddings are really only for the couple. kind of "they may have a horrible time, so i'll feed them good food". right. i'll shut up now.
 

i guess that's why we all love anysara and soulmate so much- because we know what they have is real, and their wedding will be about them and people who truly love them and want them to be happy.

even if they won't have cake...
 

You know, I've been blessed by the opportunity to attend very different kinds of weddings -from the shnazziest of the shnaz to the most basic and stripped down. The barometer of whether or not I (or anyone else at the wedding) enjoyed the night was the level of simcha. A wedding with the tastiest food, most cordial service, and exotic flowers but no exuberance and spirituality is sorely lacking. I remember one wedding I went to that was in the "cheap hall near the airport" -all I remember was the glowing warmth, contagious excitement, and the holiness of the chuppah. One of the best weddings ever. May everyone's wedding merit these amazingly significant components!
 

As a long time reader of this blog and a man who spent many years in Yeshiva and then Kollel I commend you for your desire to maintain your Yiddishkeit in the corporate world and the struggles you face daily. I would also like to commend you for finally writing a post that does not mention your need to date, your unrealistic and sexist criteria for a future wife, your fixation with physical appearances and your ongoing assumption that every young frum woman is dying to talk to you or there must be something wrong with her. As a therapist I can tell you your statements in this regard sound very much like the man who claims the woman walking down the street in the mini skirt was asking for sex, so he rapes her. Women, frum or otherwise are not objects. I have been thinking of suggesting your blog be changed to Why Josh Can't Be Left Alone With My Daughter as I am the father of a teenage daughter and I got a call suggesting you as a match, based upon what I read in your blog I don't think I would consider you a good match for her. As a young man portraying himself as a Ben Torah I would suggest you rethink your presentation and clean up your act. You may choose to delete this comment but doing so will only confirm you read it.
 

okay, anon, you are kidding, right??

if not, i suggest you 1) run, don't walk, to the nearest therapist and get yourself an appointment to deal with your hyper-cirical nature, your freudian interpretation of even mundane things, your distorted view of the evil inherent in others (actually a reflection of the evil in you that you don't want to own up to...), and your strong need to criticize others when nobody is interested in your opinion. and 2) quickly befriemnd an MD because you appear to have some issues that the right medication may help with.

if this blog offends you so much, why do you read it? and if you are such a big ben torah yourself, what are you doing on the internet?

obviously you have too much time on your hands and you need to get a hobby.

i suggest quail hunting.
 

BB - Down girl! Not everybody is so quick to let me make her daughters giggle. It is not productive to attack people.

Anon - A fair description of my reaction to your comment was that it definitely came out of "left field." I am glad you have been reading my blog, and I appreciate your recognition of my daily efforts to make a Kiddush Hashem.

I take issue with your critique of my recent posts for three reasons. After reviewing my writing, no more than 11 of my last 50 posts had anything even remotely to do with Jewish women. So purely statistically, I'd like you to recognize that my blog has hardly been tunneled towards women.

On another level, it is frustrating to receive (anonymous!) comments critiquing my choice of topics. Obviously, you make the choice of visiting, but the blog is really my tool of expression, not yours. That being said, if you prefer the discussions not pertaining to my views of gender issues in the frum world, I would encourage you to add to the dialogue in those posts where I address other issues. Perhaps if I see more interest in those posts, I will spend more time exploring those issues.

Finally, even if I do focus overly so on men/women issues in the frum world, I don't think it's unreasonable. You may be a married father, but please don't forget that I am a 25 year old single frum man. This is where I am in life. These are the issues that matter to me. It wouldn't surprise me that a married man would tire of hearing of these issues. This is the same reason I don't enjoy reading about the problems of changing diapers on the married peoples' blogs. They say young men think about women 90% of the time (and the other 10% they are lying). So I hardly find it overwhelming that 20% of my posts are dedicated to the topic most affecting my daily life.

As far as your analysis of my views on women, I would disagree with your conclusion. While I will admit to having a lot to learn about women, as well as a lot of character refinement left on a personal level to accomplish, I don't think you are correct. I certainly have certain pop culture expectations to deal with in finding a real spouse, but I don't feel that your conclusions can even be drawn from what I've written in posts or commented on various blogs. I may not be a therapist, and I very well may need to visit a therapist, but I just don't see such sinister aspects revealed on my blog. You do know that I write tongue-in-cheek, right?

One of the benefits of my blog has been in expanding my network for Shidduchim. If that at the same time helps eliminate Shidduchim that aren't worth pursuing, then that too serves a purpose. Should I be offended that I'm not a good match for your daughter? With only one bashert out there, I guess I'll be very offended. I could do an entire post about why I don't think parents shouldn't be involved in Shidduchim, but I don't want to bore you...

Your most confusing point, though, is that as a Ben Torah I should "rethink my presentation and clean up my act," the implication being that my presentation and act are contradictory to being a Ben Torah. What should I change? Should I alter my personality to better fall in line with what you are looking for for your daughter? Or should I simply mask my true personality so that you'll think I'm a good match for her?

You should know that I don't blog anonymously because I believe that I am responsible for every word that I write. My name is here to show that I am proud of my identity and my personality. I don't want to develop an underground anonymous personality that isn't on par with what I espouse offline. So I believe I consistently carry myself. The only question is what are you hiding?
 

I didn't mean to ignore the rest of you. I'm glad many of you are also disturbed by the loss of focus on what is important at a Frum wedding. OJ, BB, and EC, it's nice to know that there are people who can just enjoy the glow of simcha, whether in the most posh hotel or at a simplistic hall. Carla - Obviously, if you are not making your decisions to please others, but are recognizing the traditions and values that are important to the bride and groom, then you certainly understand what a wedding celebrates!
 

Bravo on an excellent post. I too, have experienced many weddings that were low on all the ostentatious trappings but high on ruach and simchah, and those were the best ones I have experienced. Now, if there is a really nice shmorg I will definetly enjoy it, but these physical luxuries shouldn't be the top priority at Jewish weddings. I've had a few friends who would have liked to spend less money on fancy things so they could invite more people, but their fathers were too into putting on the "wedding of the century" to impress their friends and corporate clients. Shouldn't making a wedding for your child be about giving the chosson and kallah the most simcha possible, not keeping up with the wedding "Joneses"?
 

Anon - I wanted to clarify a few points from my earlier response. I realized that your comments could be read as criticizing not a one-dimensional choice of topics, but on a consistently skewed outlook on those topics. If this was your intent, I would still respond, as above, that I believe you misread my arguments. I am in fact polemicizing against the double standards and unhealthy assumptions in frum gender relations.

This brings up another point, that it can be very hard to judge a person based on their blog writing. I've seen numerous misunderstandings online due to the one-sided nature of blog dialogue. It certainly would pay to clarify further if you are interested in getting to know people, whether for shidduch purposes or otherwise.

Most importantly, I want to thank you for leaving your comment. I don't want you to feel for a second that your remarks weren't appreciated or were perceived as offensive. A blog thrives on feedback, and yours was critical but respectful, and I appreciate it.

Jewboy - I agree that people can incorporate luxury into a wedding. It's presence adds or subtracts to the beauty of a wedding no more than its absence. It is the values celebrated that will always shine through and make a wedding memorable or forgettable.
 

Josh - I want to commend you on your well thought out, menshlich response to Anon. It's easy to get angry and defensive. It's easy to delete unflattering comments. As you said - you're putting yourself "out there", for good or for bad, and as any person with some degree of fame, you'll get both positive and negative responses. I like you, even though you do have "unrealistic and sexist criteria for your future wife" - lol
 

MH - Thanks for the compliment! Does that mean you know of any hotties to set me up with? Just kidding. But what would life be without unrealistic criteria? There'd be nothing to talk about!

Treifalicious also left a comment, and I'm not sure what happened to it, but I wanted to thank her for her kind words as well.