The most universally loathed Jewish gathering- the Vort

amother

Tiffanyblue

Mon, May 22 2023, 5:38 am

watergirl wrote:

The thing that stood out to me the most about your post is that the linen store lady was gossiping about other customers. Instead of being happy that people finally have the ability to treat themselves to something like that, she gossips about them? It’s humiliating enough to have to use tzedakka coupons, now, people should worry they are being talked about after they leave the store?

You don't think that the fact that tzeddakah is being raised to buy $500-$1000 sets of linen is a problem?

I think making a big deal of the Vach Nacht is weird. Why do I have to party with you twice within a few hours? If I'm coming to your Bris, please don't invite me to a Vach Nacht.

asmileaday

Mon, May 22 2023, 5:40 am

amother Tiffanyblue wrote:

I think big vachtnachts are ridiculous too- if you can't afford it.
I appreciate being able to go to vachtnachts though because most of the time I am unable to attend the bris because of timing.

Bnei Berak 10

Mon, May 22 2023, 5:41 am

watergirl wrote:

"I made my money in a yashar way, I can spend it and enjoy it the way I want", which is true! And it's those who make lavish simchas that also give tzedakkah lavishly.

Haven't yet heard the shiur.
Here we have the individual thinking vs the community thinking.
I'm a big fan of takkanot even if I'm Litvish. IMHO please spoil you money on gifts and what not but please do it AFTER the wedding.

Bnei Berak 10

Mon, May 22 2023, 5:45 am

nightingale1 wrote:

Who is it “loathed” by? The parents or the guests? I don’t like “loathed” and “vort” in the same sentence.

If one is under pressure to keep up with the Joneses but doesn't have the money I can see how one starts to loath it.

amother

Mon, May 22 2023, 6:06 am

I like to people watch by Vorts and I usually observe that the vast majority of people have a super short interaction with the baalei simcha, and are then at a loss of how to kill time until they can leave.

amother

Gladiolus

Mon, May 22 2023, 6:13 am

watergirl wrote:

The bold - I thought he said the opposite - that he spoke about this and he was approached by men, asking him to start a thing where the WOMEN need to sign and agree not to do XYZ at their simchas, and he said NO, no one should have to sign and make it a THING, they should just do it, and people will follow.

I didn't mean anyone should sign up or commit publicly. I thought he said just do it yourself. After enough people do it, it makes change happen.

watergirl

Mon, May 22 2023, 6:14 am

amother Tiffanyblue wrote:

You don't think that the fact that tzeddakah is being raised to buy $500-$1000 sets of linen is a problem?.

That was your take away from my comment? I was talking about how the linen store lady was gossiping about her customers. That should never happen.

watergirl

Mon, May 22 2023, 6:15 am

amother Gladiolus wrote:

I didn't mean anyone should sign up or commit publicly. I thought he said just do it yourself. After enough people do it, it makes change happen.

Right, he said that people should just make a decision to make more modest simchas, to wear Shabbos clothing, etc. And to be a quiet trendsetter.

Iymnok

Mon, May 22 2023, 6:21 am

As I’ve seen in my community, a vachtnacht is boys coming over to say shema with the baby. They get a pekele. Some men come too.
A whole party with women too is far from my experience. I’d feel bad for the new mother.

amother

Starflower

Mon, May 22 2023, 6:44 am

The title is clickbait. Listen to the speech - it is so accurate. We are breaking under the weight of the extra financial pressure our community has put on ourselves. Our communities are so shallow and busy with gashmius. I hate having to shop for clothes and gowns for Simchos! I hate how stressed me and my husband always are because the frum lifestyle just isn’t financially sustainable unless you earn several times a normal salary.

Some things we can’t help, like tuition, but vorts, vacht nachts, fancy weddings spending a hundred grand for one stupid night no one will care about in a few days? What is wrong with us.

Rabbi W is so on point.

amother

Moccasin

Mon, May 22 2023, 8:11 am

Lowering standards, imo, begins from the bottom up. Allow me to explain:
When a big gvir makes an over the top simcha, that same gvir gives over the top tzedakah. They are supporting mosdos and deserve to make an affair in alignment with what they give. Their names are anyway plastered all over the place so it's not the affair making the statement, it's already the name association with all their sponsorships. We expect their simchas to be on a grand scale.

I grew up as a child of klei kodesh parents. My grandparents were also in klei kodesh and paid for the clothes that weren't hand me downs. Our home was simple as were our simchas. My parents raised us in a way that we felt like it was a badge of honor to be simple because in those days that was practically a flashing sign that your father was a rebbi, rav, kollel yungerman........Whenever we complained our parents reminded us that we should be proud of who we are and we are showing the hamon am what it means to live as a nation that is tznius and doesn't flaunt itself. I don't know how my parents did it but we really were proud to be the children of klei kodesh and most of my siblings are in klei kodesh. At that time, the chinuch kids were the "poor" ones in the class

We both started in klei kodesh for many years, I still work in a school but for a few reasons my husband went into business. It didn't work out for him to remain in chinuch. It wasn't a financial decision. BH we are comfortable but with our higher tuitions, not as much access to rebbi deals like chasdei lev (I do get some benefits from other chinuch discounted programs because I work in a school), no government subsidies we can't really afford more than the chinuch families.

But we are all so brainwashed that chinuch families are poor, chinuch families can't afford food for yuntif, or nice brand name clothes or camp, or simchas or...or ....or.... that we assume they are the poorest of society. Since I have so much family in chinuch I'm speaking from experience.

So then they make a nice simcha, not over the top like the gvirim, but nicer than some working families. And you start thinking, if they're poor because that's what all the articles say, and we're busy getting the message that we need to tip them and give them gifts because they don't get paid much and businesses give them discounts and they get pesach practically for free and then they're able to afford such a nice simcha then what's wrong with me that we are working and we can't afford the same? I don't want to appear as even poorer than the poor so we try to make our simchas at least as nice as theirs.

Here's the problem- we're not on equal playing fields. When it was time for my daughter's vort, I asked a very close neighbor who had just made her daughter's vort in a very nice simcha hall, and was a beautiful affair about costs (we have that kind of relationship) she told me she can't really tell me because the simcha hall gives it to klei kodesh for free and all the vendors she used gave chinuch discounts and the music was her husband's former talmid so he did it for free since they're in chinuch and basically she couldn't even tell me regular prices. After I called all these vendors myself, I realized that for us, a middle class family, no one was offering us discounts and it was unaffordable for us. Our vort was in our house, very simple comparatively, and yes I felt stupid that I couldn't even make a simcha like the poor chinuch families. People feel pressure to at least live up to that standard since rabbeim are considered poor. But if the poor are getting discounts and freebies for luxuries, how should the middle class afford the same?

Then for the wedding there was an add on sheet of upgrades we could do. A sibling had recently made a simcha at that hall with all the upgrades and I was talking to her about how expensive all the upgrades are and how all the poor people have the upgrades so it is considered normal to do and how can we look poor by not adding them? Her response? She never got an upgrade sheet. It was all magically included in the price sheet. So basically chinuch families had upgrades included and the rest of us had to pay for them! We stretched ourselves to do it because of my daughter and it takes a lot of gevurah so not feel stupid for making a simcha simpler than a rebbi does.

Therefore, if chinuch families led the march to simpler simchas, the rest of us middle class wouldn't feel stupid making simple simchas.

As for the poor lady who received vouchers for very high end linen- I agree the store was wrong for announcing that but when I'm giving tzedakah it's for people to live with necessities. I can't afford high end linen myself but I should give tzedakah so someone else can? Why? To me that's a luxury and that's not what giving tzedakah is about! Maybe once in a while I would gift someone something I can't afford myself but that's after careful consideration due to hakaras hatov.

amother

Gladiolus

Mon, May 22 2023, 8:20 am

Well, I will bli neder make as simple a simcha as possible while still keeping shalom bayis & shalom other side iyh.

The money that would have been spent can go to help with good causes for the couple and community and those in need.

The poorest aren't those in chinuch or on programs. The working poor are the poorest. And its embarrassing therefore the top are the trendsetters.

little neshamala

Mon, May 22 2023, 8:25 am

amother OP wrote:

That’s the point of the shiur. Put out some cake for a vort. Don’t put societal pressure to borrow or beg and spend thousands on a vort followed by thousands on the wedding followed by thousands on shabbos sheva brachos, foisting a budget appropriate only for the wealthy few on the masses of middle and lower class of our communities.

I really wish the onus for the trendsetting wouldnt be put on the wealthy.
Speaking as a non-weathy person, I really think this message needs to be addressed to the middle and lower class. Do what you can afford, or what you want to do. Why in the world do I have to follow other people, wealthy or not?? Where is everyone's self confidence? Where is the ability to live your life the way you want? Stop pressuring the wealthy, they are doing nothing wrong by living within their means!
Its the lower and middle class who are messing up here, by spending on things they cant afford and thus setting the lower/middle class bar at a different level.
Everyone just do what you want to do, and thats it!
UNREAL that tzedaka collections raise money for brand name linen. UNREAL.
This is not a wealthy person problem, this is on everyone else.

amother

Sage

Mon, May 22 2023, 8:27 am

I actually agree.

Why do I have to go to say mazel tov at a lechaim and a few days later go say Mazel Tov again at the vort? I just wished them Mazel Tov on their engagement. Then I will of course go wish them mazel tov on the wedding…
Of course I’m happy when someone gets engaged but I don’t think it’s necessary to have a lechaim and also a vort.

I actually felt this way many years ago when I got engaged and I insisted that we only have one lechaim/vort. It wasn’t in a hall… it was in my parents tiny house… and it was nice.

Having a lavish vort is really like an engagement party but calling it a vort and not an engagement party makes it sound more kosher.

amother

Calendula

Mon, May 22 2023, 8:31 am

amother Moccasin wrote:

This makes a lot of sense. Basically, vendors etc who give discounts are essentially making it difficult for everyone.
If not for the discounts, more lower/middle class would be making regular simchas. Instead theyre offered the chance to make a higher end simcha at no extra cost.

amother

Mon, May 22 2023, 8:38 am

Vort and chasunah are the hardest because it is the first interaction with the other side so it will s really hard to push for a simpler event that is below the standard.

amother

Sage

Mon, May 22 2023, 8:40 am

amother OP wrote:

Vort and chasunah are the hardest because it is the first interaction with the other side so it will s really hard to push for a simpler event that is below the standard.

Not if everyone starts doing things this way.
In general, people like to follow the crowd and do what others find to be the norm.

Genius

Mon, May 22 2023, 8:54 am

People in chinuch are somehow richer than the middle working class. Think free or subsidized tuition and vouchers and stuff for Yom Tov.
I don’t think our communities have to cut down on the spending. We need to approach this as individuals.
Saying that the rich need to lower the standards is just turning everything on its head. Rich should make simchas according to their standards and everybody else should make according to theirs.

amother

Royalblue

Mon, May 22 2023, 9:13 am

Someone here touched on a huge pet peeve of mine - the vacht nacht. I keep talking about this to people IRL and everyone looks at me like I fell on my head that I think the vacht nacht should go back to kids saying shema and getting pekellach. The end.

What we’re coming out with also is that people in klei Kodesh are a lot more comfortable after discounts than the working middle class. So the ones to blame are really the tzedakah organizations. Stop making fundraisers and guilting the poor middle class into donating money that then goes to fund lavish Simchas that are more ostentatious than your donors can afford!

watergirl

Mon, May 22 2023, 9:18 am

amother Royalblue wrote:

Please someone explain this to me. When we made a vacht nacht, kids came over, said shmah, got candy, goodbye. The first time I'd heard of it being a THING was when my husband's ex had a baby with another husband and they made a huge thing, but I chalked it up to just a weird thing she did... no one in my community does more than shema, candy, leave.

What do you mean "go back to"? When did it change?