Attitudes Toward Socializing... and Socializing Attitudes by Rabbi Jeremy Wieder
There has been a great deal of concern expressed recently in our community about relatively new problems of social interaction between young men and young women and in particular, the process of dating. In speaking with students in Yeshiva and Stern Colleges, many of whom expressed the distress and discomfort they feel in this new environment, I have heard a number of recurring themes.One primary lament is that there are few venues in which collegiate men and women meet socially which are both in keeping with their (appropriate) religious sensibilities and free of pressure to reach premature decisions. "Good" students typically shun co-ed events or programs. For some this is a choice - they are genuinely and sincerely convinced that such events are inappropriate or they are too busy with their night seder (learning) or other responsibilities; what seems more problematic is that many others follow along because they are afraid of being "branded" as "not serious".
In the absence of social opportunities many young men and women feel compelled to resort to some variety of the "shidduch system" in order to meet potential spouses. There is certainly nothing problematic when such a system is informal, i.e. friends introducing friends. But when the system starts to resemble an official "shidduch system," with professional shadchanim (matchmakers) and "rules" and negative consequences for those who fail to participate or conform, serious problems begin to emerge. The system does not work well for most in our community. Certainly if an individual wishes to follow that route there is nothing wrong, but because a generally maladapted approach has become a peer-enforced norm, our young adults are subject to extreme social pressure and emotional angst.
Witnessing the anxieties these new mores appear to produce I have wondered why they are being adopted by so many of our young adults. What are the sources of these new attitudes and why are our students receptive to them? I have turned to students who feel uncomfortable with but constrained by contemporary assumptions about appropriate modes of interaction between men and women in general, and dating in particular, in an effort to understand.
In reflecting on their experiences many students cannot identify a specific source but simply point to an attitude which they typically absorb while spending the year studying in Israel, although some have already been exposed to similar messages while in high school, and their experiences in Israel may serve as a catalyst to act on them. They internalize this attitude even if they do not themselves hear any lectures or preaching on the topic because peer pressure from those students who have already absorbed the message wields tremendous influence over them.
Some have been able to articulate more specific messages being conveyed to them. Young men (again, in high school or in Israel) hear that young women are their yetzer hara (evil inclination) and exposure to them is dangerous to their spiritual health. Young women absorb the message that, at their core, men are primarily interested in them as sexual objects; in order to avoid this dehumanizing objectification, interactions between men and women must occur only as part of a most carefully controlled process with the sole purpose of finding a compatible spouse.
One popular charismatic preacher makes the rounds of many of the women's seminaries "revealing" to the young women that they are basically naive and don't seem to "get" the fact that the guys who would hang out with them are primarily interested in sex, irrespective of anything those guys might tell them. And, unfortunately, this message resonates with them because it affirms what many of them have seen in their teenage experience, both in the larger culture and - to our great anguish - in their own experiences during their high school years. (In the absence of such a backdrop, the preaching would more likely fall on deaf ears.)
Most of the young men and women who in response to these messages impose upon themselves strict limitations and restrictions on their interactions with members of the opposite sex and in dating sincerely wish to do the right thing. But very few of those who have gained their respect explicitly address the topic of relationships and dating and those who do tend to do so without nuance or subtlety. As a result our most earnest and sincere young people aren't given an opportunity to recognize that there can be, especially as they approach marriageable age, appropriate middle ground which avoids the perils of both extremes.
We must address these issues in a variety of ways and from multiple perspectives if we are to solve this problem. A long-term approach will involve careful consideration of the experiences of our young men and women before they even go to Israel, which render these problematic messages credible and predispose them to receptivity. It will also involve dealing directly with the purveyors of the harmful attitudes being fostered before and during students' sojourn in Israel.
But there are also steps that we can take in the short term to ameliorate some of the distress our students are experiencing. Here I wish to propose several ideas, suggested to me by students, to address the problem, as it already exists. The Rabbinic leaders to whom our youth turn for guidance should:
1. Convey to young men and women that halacha is well aware of the potency of human sexuality and has instituted measures to safeguard us from giving unbridled expression to our passions. Within the context of "fences" such as yichud and negiah, though, there can exist a middle ground between inappropriate socializing and the shidduch system.
2. Create halachically appropriate social venues and use all of their suasion to encourage young men and women to participate. More activities whose primary purpose is for some other cause, a chesed/social action project or an intellectual endeavor, for example, need to be created. These events, whose social component is incidental, are more productive and less pressured than "mixers" and busy young men and women are more likely to attend.
3. Explicitly convey to young men and women that they should not shy away from these events because they are not frum. We need to emphasize that while it is perfectly acceptable to go about dating by being set up, that is no more "kosher" than meeting people in a less pressured environment. Kesheim she Partzufeihen Shonot kach De'oteihen Shonot - one size does not fit all people, and therefore it is important to create an environment in which various appropriate options will be available to the young men and women in our community to facilitate their finding their soulmates.
Rabbi Jeremy Wieder is a Rosh Yeshiva and instructor of Bible at Yeshiva University. He is also a doctoral candidate in Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University.
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