Should I NOT say the seats are taken? Seriously?

m in Israel

Tue, May 13 2014, 5:39 am

DrMom wrote:

Assuming I spoke to this bochur politely, I wouldn't feel bad at all. He is being too sensitive.

To those who say it was okay to tell him your family's seats were taken, but not the other family's seats:

That simply shifts the role of saying "sorry, these are taken" onto someone else. What does that accomplish? Plus, the other family might have gotten annoyed at you, esp if you had already acknowledged their presence and seen they were sitting next to you. "What, didn't you see us sitting here? Why didn't you say something to that guy who sat in our seats?"

Don't beat yourself up over this.

Because it is much less hurtful to "defend" your own seats than to "save" seats for others. If you say "I'm sorry, we were sitting here", you are simply keeping what is yours. If you say "those seats are being used by someone else" it can be interpreted as "we'd rather sit near them than you". Obviously that is NOT what OP meant. But to someone new and feeling out of place it is a very likely message. If the other couple didn't specifically ask you to save the seats I don't see why they would expect you to do so. For all you know they may have seen relatives at a different table and gone to join them.

OP, I don't think what you did was terrible at all -- but now you know for next time that it might be worth handling it differently. I think inviting the man over is a great idea. The fact that he came over to your husband makes me think he is reaching out to you and would appreciate an invite.

jflower

Tue, May 13 2014, 6:08 am

Children should not be taking up seats when there are adults standing, period. DH stopped davening in a shul where the rabbi didn't take a stand against young fathers seating several children at kiddush tables while elderly people stood. Not kosher, and no derech eretz.

Parents can have their kids stand nearby, or move plates of food & their kids to an empty table not being used for the kiddush. Or they can feed their kids at home. There is no excuse for an entire family taking up so many seats. Adults come first.

DrMom

Tue, May 13 2014, 6:32 am

jflower wrote:

This fellow wasn't elderly. He was in his 20s!

Also, the OP didn't say there were no other seats available, just that the particular seat this bachur wanted was already occupied.

I maintain my pov that this guy was too sensitive. And to complain to your DH about it? Good grief. That's the kind of thing my 5-year-old might do, but not an adult. Unless there is something very weird going on here, that is just ridiculous.

watergirl

Tue, May 13 2014, 7:00 am

I disagree with the idea that kids cant sit if adults are standing. My current shul often has large kiddushes in a tiny basement. Its standing room only, with the exeption of a few seats. Yes, the elderly must sit first. But imo, then come the young kids who need to sit in order to eat with out dropping cholent on their clothes. I always find a seat for my kids, and stand next to them.

Op didnt tell us if there were other seats available, just not the ones the bochur wanted. If it was a whole room with lots of empty seats, whats the big deal? If he was left standing while they sat and ate, its different. We dont know.

Also, the couple shouldnt have put that pressure on op. The husband could have stayed to guard their places while the wife washed and then the other way around.

There is a lot that we dont know in this story. Op, Dont feel bad.

amother

Tue, May 13 2014, 7:18 am

watergirl wrote:

Standing with your child sitting and eating is different than these big families taking up all the seats. Your child took your seat and was presumably there for the cholent eating and then vacated the seat when the need was no longer there to protect their clothes.

That couple may not have realized that washing caused pressure on OP. Of all the things that ever went through my mind after dovening was the fact I was pressuring someone by washing. Who knew?

paprika

Tue, May 13 2014, 10:41 am

DrMom wrote:

Here's a similar scenario. Your collecting tzedakah for somebody and your calling everyone on the block. You call one woman, and she apologizes for being right now in a position that she can't give you any money. Then she adds that her neighbor (which is the next person on your list to call) can't either give you anything right now. Did the woman do a nice thing? She just spared you from making another phone call.

Let everybody speak for themselves.

amother

Tue, May 13 2014, 10:44 am

paprika wrote:

And also possibly saved the neighbor the embarrassment of saying she is unable to give. So? You think this is wrong?

black and white

Tue, May 13 2014, 10:56 am

amother wrote:

And also possibly saved the neighbor the embarrassment of saying she is unable to give. So? You think this is wrong?

I wouldn't say anything about the neighbor, amother.
some nights there are knocks after knocks on the door from meshulachim, and although BH we are in a position to give sometimes it far exceeds the quota for the day.
I still dont turn anyone away if not with money than an offer of cold or warm drink. And they are extremely grateful for that. Some have been walking all day without being offered anything.
So don't mix into your neighbours ability to speak for herself. She may not be able to give money but she could offer them something else.

Last edited by black and white on Tue, May 13 2014, 11:02 am; edited 2 times in total

amother

Tue, May 13 2014, 11:54 am

paprika wrote:

I guess it depends how it is said. If you say it this way, to save her embarrassment, I wouldn't do it for a different reason. I wouldn't talk in someone elses name and make them into a nebach. Those that can't give have their own style of saying it to keep their self-respect. But that's for another thread.

OP here.

See this is just the thing. So many times you want to do the right thing and help someone out and you end up hurting someone else.

Getting back to the kiddish, had I let the bochur sit down in the other seats and minded my own business, the couple would likely return and think we are jerks for not saying anything.

Its like whatever I do is wrong. Can't win.

That's why really I think the best suggestion was that I should have given my own seat and protected the couple's. And I should have thought of it. In my defense, I wasn't feeling great and my kids really don't eat well unless they have their own place, but like I said, I would have moved for an old person or a friend that needed a seat. Even a very young adult I could afford the same courtesy to in the future.

But I do often find myself in these situations where I try to be nice to somebody and upset somebody else. It's so hard sometimes.

invisiblecircus

Tue, May 13 2014, 12:51 pm

A similar thing happened to me at a bar mitzvah and I ended up eating the whole meal standing while some of the chairs (which I was told I may not sit at as they were taken) remained vacant for the whole time I was eating.

OP, the best thing to do would probably have been to say "oh, those seats are taken but lets pull up an extra chair for you." In the heat of the moment though, with kids around and not feeling great it's not easy to analyse what to do in a split second. Don't beat yourself up about it.

I understand the bochur feeling hurt but I think it was odd that he later complained to your husband about it!

STMommy

Tue, May 13 2014, 1:42 pm

OP please don't be so hard on yourself. I would have done the exact same thing (and felt the same way afterwards so I'm one to talk Smile

I think what to do now is think about how you wouldn't change anything you did, because another man might have found another place to go, and not cared nor given it a second thought, but since this man was bothered enough to say something to your DH about feeling unwelcome, come up with a way to rectify that, as other posters have suggested. But move on.

Chayalle

Tue, May 13 2014, 1:44 pm

I think there's a BIG difference to saving seats for a couple that just went to wash and will be back in less than a minute...and saving seats for people who are not present and are presumably gonna show up.

This is one of my pet peeves. For example - I hate coming to shul on Simchas Torah, where if you are not there within the first 5 seconds of Hakafos (I mean that quite literally) you will end up standing in the back, while half the seats in shul are empty because some young kids are sitting with their feet across the seats saving the whole lot for family members who haven't yet shown up. However I do understand saving your mother's seat for a few minutes while she takes a younger child to the bathroom, etc...

OP, the young man is super sensitive. Maybe some other solution would've been adviseable, but I do think you did the right thing by that couple, since those were their seats. What were they to do, if they were washing and had no motzi?

DallasIma

Tue, May 13 2014, 5:09 pm

Just have to jump in here. As you can see from my screen name, I live in Dallas, Texas. When we first moved to this community 10 years ago, I really didn't know anybody. We hadn't quite moved into our house yet (it had been vacant) but my husband was away so I decided to spend my first Shabbat in the new house by myself, and I went to the closest shul, just around the corner. What a lovely experience. First of all, other women noticed that I was new, and they welcomed me. In our shul, people do have places where they usually sit, but there's no such thing as "this is my seat" (other than on the High Holidays, when there are reserved paid seats).

The really good experience came at the Kiddush. A family was celebrating their daughter's bat mitzvah, and it was a sit-down Kiddush. I didn't really know anyone and couldn't find a seat. Well, the mother of the bat mitzvah noticed that, and she came over and insisted that I should sit at the center table with her and her family and the Rabbi and Rebbetzin. So that's what I did.

I will never, ever forget that. I felt so welcomed and honored, I was overwhelmed. Over the years I've mentioned to this woman that I have never forgotten her kindness and I never will forget that. In fact she just lost a close relative, and I made it a point to attend the funeral and then to pay her a shiva call a couple of days after that. She told me that that meant a lot to her, and I replied that I can really never repay her for her kindness to me so long ago.

I'm also the sensitive type, and I can empathize with that bochur. IMO it was better for him to say something to OP's husband than to bottle it up and let it fester. Why to the husband instead of the wife? Maybe he felt it was more tzniut and he could talk man-to-man. It doesn't matter. I think OP should reach out to this bochur and invite him over. Then it's up to the bochur to accept or not, but that would be on him. I also think, if I were the OP, I would ask mechila from the bochur. It's not easy but it's a wonderful thing to do and it makes peace among Jews.

Incidentally, I don't think my opinion on this is relevant here, but I also want to weigh in about kids sitting and adults standing. I'm in my 60s so I'm from an older generation, but I don't think kids should sit while adults stand. I think kids should be taught to respect their elders and "rise up before an older person" just like it says on some of the buses in Israel.

That's my 2 cents.

amother

Tue, May 13 2014, 5:12 pm

DallasIma wrote:

Sounds like Shaare. Am I right?

jflower

Tue, May 13 2014, 5:21 pm

DallasIma wrote:

I agree. Even if the adult is 20 years old, a small child can get up. In my view, derech eretz trumps convenience/keeping kids' clothes clean.