Anatomy of a Mockery

"All censure of a man’s self is oblique praise. It is in order to show how much he can spare. It has all the invidiousness of self-praise, and all the reproach of falsehood." - Samuel Johnson, quoted in James Boswell's "The Life of Samuel Johnson"



Last week, I attended a wedding. The bride's family and mine have been close for a long time; needless to say, my sisters and I were invited. Over the years, at Shabbat meals and semahot, I've gotten to know -- or at least recognize -- many of this family's relatives.

In the inter-'od-yishama,' food-getting period, when I and a certain young man were passing each other, we both stopped for what to me was an obligatory hello. He is married to the first cousin of the bride, and he was dressed in a black hat and a long beard; the smile on his face was genuine. I can't remember if he asked me what I did or if I was in school. I know he asked my age, and I told him. Twenty-two. Then, perhaps inevitably...

"Are you looking for a shidduch?"

My response came immediately: "Nooooooo." (If I were writing in pinyin, I'd write "Nó"; I didn't say the word very loudly, but I said it with a distinctly rising tone, beginning with my head down and lifting my chin on the follow-through. Ok, I think I've about overdone this image.)

A few moments pass, as the unexpected, irreverent, obnoxious response registers. I then said, (something like) "I know I'm supposed to say something like 'thank you,' but... [trail off]" And it was over.

Immediately afterward -- hell, even now, as I write this almost a week later -- I was glad, maybe even proud. It's hard to explain the emotion, because it was mostly a hop-up-and-down, yesssssssssss feeling, as if I'd done something so awkwardly magical, so brave, so clever. What a great story this will make! Let me text everyone!

But... alas.

Background time. It's not so much for having grown up in Flatbush that I so hate Flatbush; it's much more for having spent my young adulthood here. So the topic of dating and shidduchim and marriage is one I've long since thought, emoted, upchucked, and spoken (debated?) about. Still, was I making a point? NO! I would be lying to myself (and whoever my audience happens to be) if I claim to have taken some sort of principled stand for all that is moderate and normal and righteous. I wasn't. I lashed out from an insecure place, an aggressive place, a disingenuous place, and mocked this (I'm assuming) well-meaning dude.

Some more background. In the last year.5+, I've lost my religion, so to speak. Or not so to speak... I don't observe Jewish law, and I certainly don't affirm any of the various faith declarations I was educated to affirm. I am an apostate, I suppose. (A nice-sounding word, that. Uh-pah-steyt.) This leaves me in a particularly uncomfortable position in the Orthodox world. The trouble is, this dude had no way of knowing this. I mean, granted, I wore a kippah serugah; so, nu, he's modern, ach veis nisht, i know a mizrachi girl! So here I was, in my Ortho get-up at an Ortho wedding, being asked by an unknowing Ortho guy, effectively, if I'm doing what Ortho guys my age do... but I messed it up. I mocked the idea, the institution; and I mocked this man. Now, I have plenty to say on the idea and the institution, mostly bad. (Sorry.) But that's not where I was coming from.

In turns I've felt like a jerk, a hero, and a harmless nobody -- come on, as if this guy went home and cried about our exchange -- about how I dealt with it. And I ask myself, would it be better -- for me, for the questioner, for the oylam -- if I play the part of the religious-but-not-ready guy? "Thanks so much, but I'm really not looking right now. B'ezrat Hashem, when the time comes..." I'd feel like an ass. Am I, then, honest (and justified) if I mock the question and the institution, etc.?

Other things to say. No more for now. Thoughts?

Pax.