Brooklyn Nights

“I hope you don't mind me saying, but, and don't take me the wrong way. I'm not preaching or anything, but you're not living up to your potential”, she says rather apologetically. We are in a Brooklyn bar talking with some friends, drinking, doing what other kindred spirits do on a lovely Thursday night. Someone was even kind enough to bring cholent for everyone. We noticed them earlier, a group of four young ladies, or girls. “Probably Lubabs” our own ex-Lubab exclaimed. When I got up to refill my gin one of them, approached me, apologized, and confronted me. “You're not living up to your potential”.

I am genuinely confused at first. Is she one of these who think that I as a Chasid am missing out on the world, that I have no idea what it looks like on the outside, that the outside isn't only bar food and blindfolded pinatas. Wait, I tell myself - knowing that I'm a little bit tipsy, could she be referring to my 'heresy', but how would she know that?

“No, no, I don't mind at all”, I say. “But what exactly do you mean?”

There are three other girls there. They avoid my glance. One even looks down. They must not feel comfortable with what she is going to tell me I realize.

“You are not living up to your FULL potential”, she explains.

I'm not that drunk, I think, she just isn't really doing any explaining.

“What do you mean? What IS my potential?”. I make sure to smile, lest she takes my insistence as a sign of annoyance.

“Your Frum way of life”.

“Oh, and how would you know that I am not?” I genuinely want to know. Obviously, they are here too, hanging out, drinking, listening to the Mariachi just as we do, so what made me stick out as a non-frummie. I look back at the table I just left, at my crew (As Diana called them), they are fully immersed in a conversation, passionate as only ex-frummies and wannabe-ex-frummies can be.

“Come on, I saw you.” she says. I remain puzzled. She takes notice apparently, and says “I saw you shaking hand with the women in your group”. Oh, yeah. I did.

I do what I do best in this situation. “Look”, I say, “I eat chazer on Yom Kippur, so, clearly, there's more than a missing potential here”.

She is no longer apologetic or shy at all. She's opinionated, slightly judgmental but full of spunk. Just the way I like my arguments. Soon my friends notice the verbal scuffle and gallantly join me. Her friends don't leave her to our mercy and a full fledged discussion argued in the most passionate of ways emerges. It lasts for an hour or so before everyone's spouse calls to ask why the late hour.

The tall Blond girl cannot resist, it seems, She calls out to me “I can only say one thing, deep inside you're hurting”.

“I know”, I say, “but it's not only inside. It's right there in the open!”

It is my turn, my last turn to show them. I call out to the girls who turn back “you know guys, with all due respect, and I'm not saying it to hurt you, you failed miserably in the commandment of da ma shatoshiv”.

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I once heard Penn, or Teller – the talkative one, say that a real good natured believer would always try to save your soul, after all if I am convinced that my friend is going to be in a lot of trouble would I not try to save him, even if, for the moment, he considers me a bother?

When the argument was over, after I came home and the gin left my brain I thought about this argument, and how I cannot blame P. for coming across as judgmental and opinionated. I looked at her as a genuinely good soul who only tried to do me good. So although she left early because she couldn't bear the counterarguments, I believe, she still scores highly in my book for trying.

They wanted to know if I told my wife where I am going, what I am doing, and with whom I hang out. I don't tell her. Not because I want to hide it from her but I respect her enough not to hurt her. I believe it to be a mean and painful thing to tell a frum spouse on Shabbos “I am going to watch a movie now”. It may not be ethical to hide the kind of conclusions I came too, but flaunting it is quite something else. If she asks me I will tell her, but she doesn't ask, and I would rather not tell. She has an option, she reads this blog.

So yeah, when I hugged one of the girls we hung out with goodbye, and the frummies confronted me, asking if I would tell me wife that I shake hands or hug women I told them no, I would never tell her. Why would I hurt her? Would I tell her every time I break a commandment?

There are certain moral laws that govern ethical people that I would be expected to be upfront with someone as significant as a spouse. Cheating on, lying to, stealing from, badmouthing her are things that are wrong, but things that are inherently part of the 'outside' world such as lighting up on a shabbos, going to a movie theater or shaking a woman's hand is not something I must feel bad doing just because it hurts her. All I can do is avoid flaunting it.

Okay, if you are still reading. I don't like chazer, or other kinds of trief meat. As you know, I am not even crazy on kosher meats. Same with seafood. Yuck. And what I really do on Yom Kippur is not the point (as you know I was in Shul with the kids), it's what I WOULD do that counts.