Anglo -
You will visit relatives and acquaintances and be expected to socialize politely, eat with your napkin in your lap, sit up straight at the table, chew with your mouth closed, and be a "conversationalist".
Jewish -
You spend most of your time with people you already know.
As Mr Rogers said, there is only so much that children can process and cope with.
Sexualizing children is being protested in response to the obviously offensive books found in school libraries today.
But there are subtler ways to disturb children.
A single mother with a boyfriend, a single father with a girlfriend, with poor boundaries between them and the children, can make kids feel disturbed without anyone taking notice or asking why.
Modesty in Islam and in Judaism hold by the concept of keeping boys and girls from a young age separate, and never in seclusion with each other.
The religious Christian family will likely not have a boyfriend or girlfriend hovering around.
But the secular person scoffs at mores of modesty, even subtle ones, like the dating single parent in which the significant other is socializing with the children, like coming over for supper, going out to a movie together, these are actually subtly erode a child's boundaries.
The child feels disturbed, and he has no voice to explain why, because of the modern scoffing at modesty.
If you are a dating single parent, there is no reason to involve your children and all socialize together. It subtlety disturbs them
"The personal is the political"
That concept meant originally that your basic needs like education, housing, can only be met via political action.
It has devolved to mean that if you make an off handed comment about your feelings to a liberal, she will evaluate your comment in light of its political application.
Brookline Massachusetts, 1970’s and 80’s, public schools, we were being groomed to be activists, and we did not even know it.
It is the fact that we did not even know that we were being groomed, and the way this assumption affected relationships, that bothers me.
It was indoctrination, of introducing basic assumptions without letting on what was happening.
What is good about the Abrahamic religions is that they fess up what they are about in the conversion process. A convert or a newcomer to Judaism, Christianity or Islam must state the basic tenets of the religion they are converting to.
Secular liberal humanism gains traction through indoctrination, not admitting what it is all about.
No one said, in Runkle school or in Brookline High, that the education we were getting is in order for you to think in an activist bent, become future activists, and interact with others according to their politics.
State a stray thought to a liberal, they bring it to its political application. It ruins relationships, and they do not even see it.
Here is one, “I think sexuality is flexible, and that people can be influenced to be gay or straight.”
This is just something I noticed among my acquaintance in high school and college.
Your stray thought will be pounced upon in order to warn how this thought will be applied politically, a modern liberal’s answer will be, “but you have to support gay marriage!” “or “you have to support gay adoption!”
You were just observing the world, but if you are next to a modern liberal, that stray thought will be pounced upon regarding its political application.
You cannot share thoughts, you can hardly breathe, near the modern liberal. And it ruins relationships.
You can only be the one who pounces, the activist, convinced that you will always be the victor, the activist on the right side of the fence.
But if you start thinking differently from the modern trends, and make a stray comment, you will find yourself suddenly marginalized.
If you want to be an activist, to even use your interpersonal interactions as a platform, you better assume that you will be on the right side of the political fence, or bend and sway with every trend that blows, switch horses. An example of this is allowing "trans-women" to compete against biological women in sports. That is an obvious blow to womankind, but leading feminists are not condemning it, because they just conveniently switched horses, got onto the right side of the social trends.
You trusted them, and then you discovered that Gloria Steinam and the like - were just trendy, that is all.
You may wonder what an extended family gathering is like.
I did not know, only found out in my adult years, as I spent more of my childhood with my New England Anglo family than my Jewish family. The New England family declined, and I want to tell you about it.
In my own story, my Anglo relatives in New England were not an extended supporting
network. They were also not religious Christians, they very rarely
mentioned religion: being a Protestant was a back drop, but not a topic
of conversation. This was a good thing a century ago, when moral values permeated society anyway, as it was a code
of tolerance for other Protestant sects, but it turned into - no passing down religious values, and this meant a vaccum that was filled with post world war two secularism as preached in public schools.
Of course my extended Anglo family was small, but even a small extended family could have gotten together for happy times, and we did not - gatherings such as Thanksgiving day were tense and intrapersonally competitive, even before our exposure to liberal-left culture, beginning in the 1960's. The noble New England family imploded because of its lack of family unity, which was based on an assumption that family members compete with each other, and do not complete each other.
The
New England family had the concept of reciprocation, if someone invites
you, you need to invite in return. This is actually not fair for less
financially well off relatives and aquaintances.
There are Anglo second cousins I never met, a great uncle I only met at one of the rare weddings in the family.
Anglo alienation was partly due to its former wealth. A few centuries ago, the question was - who was going to inherit, say the parcel of land in an English estate? As they came to the New World, and rebuilt their wealth, the question became, who was going to inherit the family silver? The fine china? The choice antiques? Old English families are intrapersonally competitive. They brought that assumption down to the present day. It is a mark of honor, that you can make it on your own, that you must not be beholden to anyone - you can see this theme in the Little House on the Prairie series - never be beholden, cut your coat to fit the cloth, someone else's troubles are not my lookout. There was no charity for other people, there was say for the church or external worthy causes, but not for individuals.
We had no pride in being
of English and Irish ancestry, or in being Protestant, or in being
American. I am a Daughter of the American Revolution yet never heard
about that organization, nor was any effort made to join. We did nothing
special on Memorial day. That lack of pride wears away at your family
unity, your sense of self, and confidence that one should have as a
birthright. You cannot blame the Left, this began in the 1950's.
So the liberal left individualism had something to graft itself onto:
1 - do
not be beholden, this is related to: charity is given to institutions but not to individuals
2 - intrapersonal competition,
3 - reciprocity - meaning you had to exactly match what you were invited to, which is sometimes not possible.
It was just individualism in a different form - first, formal Protestant New England, then, liberal individualism.
If you grew up in an individualist relativist culture, most of your time was probably spent cultivating your academic abilities and not so much time on family.
So what is it like in a family-oriented society? Well, gatherings are not marked by intra-personal competition, but by the basic assumption that family members need to get along with each other in order for the extended family to be strong.
The traditional Jewish world actually contains much variety. Some hold that their rabbi is a bridge, one group holds that their rabbi is the messiah and will soon be revealed, some that he is just very learned and anyone can achieve a high level of learning. Some hold that the state of Israel is premature and should not be recognized, some hold that the state is the harbinger of messianic times.
An extended family gathering in the orthodox Jewish world means that people with very diverse philosophies come together. But what do they do at family gatherings or at weddings/bar mitzvas and the like?
Here is a snapshot, and ideas to help Americans, at least, what is left of them:
1 - no mentioning your religious philosophy or politics, that is, those who revere a certain rabbi do not mention it to those who do not hold by him.
2 - Serve tons of food. Anglos tend to count portions and chairs - DON'T. Instead, just throw a bunch of chairs around a few tables and serve platters of food.
You should bring food storage boxes to take some home: that is expected (remember the scene in Fiddler on the Roof in which Yenta visits Tevya's home to propose a marriage match, is offered cookies, and takes some home with her? Yup, that is to be expected.) You take turns socializing and sometimes sit on the side for a while until it is your turn: first, the close family members interact, then, people move around from table to table to interact with those who are more distantly related and those who are friends and acquaintances. Do not sit yourself down at the beginning with the sisters and sisters in law - wait about an hour, then you can move to that table after one of them vacates their space to speak to a second cousin.
Just showing up to a wedding or bar mitzva is in itself a good deed. You do not need to sparkle. You may be on the side line at first but as the evening progresses someone will converse with you.
3 - There is no concept of reciprocation. You are invited to celebrations or Sabbath or holidays at someone's home with no concept that you have to invite in return someday.
I grew up liberal-left, Brookline Mass, in the 70's and 80's. In a relativist world, everyone is poised to impose, as people are recreating reality all the time, creating new truths, and now, the new "truth" is that gender is fluid. This is actually a horror. The modern secular world cannot even define what a woman is. I am witness that feminism in the 70's and 80's meant pride for women, a generation later, you cannot even define that word.
In the liberal relativist world, interactions are a stage, a platform for imposing and spreading the new reality, whatever that is.
4 - Privacy - In the orthodox Jewish world, there are teachings against gossip, and gossip is broadly defined, plus there is a huge value on privacy. You do not point out say who is divorced, who is adopted, who converted to Judaism. It is also forbidden to remind people of their former failings. This stems from a story in the Talmud in which Resh Lakish, a repentant former bandit, is learning with rabbi Yohanan. They are debating whether a certain item is a sword or a knife. Rabbi Yohanan acquiesced, saying, "a bandit knows the tools of banditry". This embarrassed Resh Lakish, he left the path of Torah, and reverted to his old ways.
With that context, that is, the teachings against divulging personal information and gossip, orthodox Jewish family gatherings are not platforms for imposing, like we were groomed for in the secular relativist liberal world.
When you assume that Truth is not something you invent, but that Truth flows through you, your whole attitude to interpersonal interactions is completely altered. You do not impose.
You relax and eat. It really works.
I am happy in my orthodox Jewish world, but sad for the implosion of the noble New England family, its negative effects on the individual and on America itself.
When I attend Jewish gatherings, I think of my WASP cousins, who are fading from the map of history, and am reminded of what could have been.
Home school your children. This is probably best nowadays.
If you cannot homeschool, then when you return from work, have your kids lay out their school books and notes and go over what they learned that day with them. Be vigilant. Ask what they learned that day, both regarding book knowledge as well as interpersonal interactions.
Be aware of the content and context of what your kids are learning in school, in the facts they are learning and what the atmosphere of the school is like. Give them a buffer between themselves and the school, so that they can identify when they are hearing propaganda versus tools to learn truths. Do not trust the school, do not leave the responsibility for your child's education in the school's hands.
