Buy Me a Goose

There is a wonderful anecdote I found in a joke book.

It seems there was this parush (ascetic) who decided that he would bring his newborn son up to be a perfect tzaddik. So immediately after the child's bris, he isolated him in a room, and announced that only his mother would care for him. No other females were to come close to him - not the sister, or cousins, or anyone. When the child turned three and had his first haircut, new rules were made. Henceforth no female, including his mother, would be allowed to enter the child's room. Only his father and a rebbe would enter so as to teach him Torah. This regimen of pure Torah learning was carried on for 15 years. Even for his bar mitzvah, only a select group of ten men were allowed in to see him, to hear his drashah and to wish him mazal tov. When the young man turned 18, it became necessary to look for a shidduch. But before this could be done, he would need to go visit the rav of the town to obtain semichah. There was really no choice - he had to leave his protected premises and go see the rav. So, with a heavy heart, the father accompanied his son to the rav's house. As hashgachah (pratis?) would have it, on the way, they passed a group of pretty young ladies. "Tatte, father, what are those?" the young man asked. "Katchkes [geese]," his father replied, and they continued on their way. A few minutes later, the young man spoke up again, "Tatte?" he asked. "Yes...?" replied his father. 

"Buy me a katchke," said the son.

I take it as a parable for today's chevra. 

We grow up separated from the world, learning Torah in this idyllic, wonderful, separated existence. And then we meet the world, and want to buy katchkes...

The cognitive dissonance most yeshiva bochurim feel upon leaving the warm embrace of yeshiva is perhaps only matched by the rage and helplessness they feel to do anything about it. Some direct the cognitive dissonance towards the outside world, preferring to rant about "eisuv and his nisyoinois that ruin the fabric of yiddishkeit" while others turn it towards the "backwards, religious, crazy people who want to pretend there isn't an internet (or start things like the "Ichud haKehillos L'Maan Tohar HaMachane"). Either way, its an identity crisis that lasts a lifetime.

Perhaps the most striking indictment of Chareidi-ism (should such a thing, in fact, exist) is the fact that once discovering the katchkes, and realizing that all the wonderful holy brilliant self contained books they read don't stand up to reality nor prepare them for real life, instead of trying to cover lost ground and engage in reality, they condemn reality to some sort of mental institution in their minds. Perhaps instead of renting out Citi Field to figure out how to make the internet kosher, or spending $250,000 on a mechitza (one time use) for the Siyum haShas, we ought to ask WHY we are attracted to katchkes, and how we can live a normal, engaged, real life in a world where there are katchkes of all kinds, shapes, sizes, values, and ideals.