The-Word-Well

Suburban Economics

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The more I live, the more I see it’s true: There are no perfect choices, no life path that is completely right. More accurately, there are various costs, and various rewards, associated with certain choices.

The economics of living has been on my mind because people keep sending me interesting links. My friend W sent me this one, about two middle aged Jewish women in the LA area who earn their very significant living on dying. The Shiva Sisters provide bereaved, wealthy Jews with meals and the other million little shiva logistics which are so comforting not to have to think of when you are mourning.

The service is obviously essential in any Jewish community, but W does it in my community for free, as a Hesed (Act of Kindness), and I imagine many other communities like mine have their own shiva committees – kind ladies in Land’s End parkas who schlep low chairs and high candles, cover mirrors, organize meals, make sure everyone knows the time of the funeral and the times the families want visitors, get the rabbi to bring by the appropriate books. Etc.

That this is a paid service for our swankier, more secular American brethren makes me sad, mostly for W, who could be a millionaire by now. But never mind. That is the price that community pays for total religious freedom and absolute privacy: They have no strict communal standards of behavior short of lawn length (wear and eat what you like on whatever day you like!) and kids do not drop by unannounced at all hours of the day to play, thereby dirtying $50,000 hand-woven Chilean rugs. But they pay for shiva, and I’m guessing every play date must be repaid in a timely fashion.

In my mostly Orthodox, middle-class, suburban community in Israel, you are likely to get soup from a neighbor if you have the flu. If you have minor surgery, you’ll get a squadron of ladies cooking your family dinner for days. Major surgery or prolonged illness, and you are looking at a brigade. W’s committee swoops in at the first sign of a mortal event (I affectionately call her ‘The Angel of Death.’)

In health, too: You will never have to ask more than two people before you find someone willing to take your 6-year-old for the weekend while you go away for a Bar Mitzvah. Small kids wander freely looking for friends; play “dates” within the community are rare because playing just happens ad hoc, wherever a mother or babysitter is home to let you in. Oreos (thankfully, now Kosher, and heavily imported) ensue. Twelve-year-old boys take the local bus to get burgers, and the street is a sea of pre-teens every Friday night, socializing in the warm evening with few concerns about weirdos and cars (very few people drive on the Sabbath where we live), and too many concerns about their hair.

All of this caring and freedom for younger kids comes with a price: Very little privacy, very little personal space, very little room to declare more than minor theological or practical religious differences – best to keep those to yourself or among very close friends. Our community is Modern Orthodox – people work in very advanced sectors of the real world (engineering, medicine, law, academia) and many of the women learn religious texts on a level that exceeds that of many of the men. Still other women walk around in jeans and a bunch of the guys get together to play poker. Most people are aware of (or even actively engage in) popular culture. We read mostly everything.

And yet, discrepancies between the genders certainly exists, and it also takes very little to create a scandal, as the borders of acceptable behaviors and utterances are quite deliberate, mostly as outlined in the system of Jewish Law and Tradition. It keeps our kids safe and earnest (reward), and keeps creative, free-thinking adults somewhat less autonomously operative than they would be elsewhere (price….although some would strongly argue: another reward.)

I have a recent example, but the local Orthodox among my readers would be mad at me for talking about it, and the non-Orthodox among you wouldn’t believe me, anyway. Let us just say that even on Purim, the most permissive day of the Jewish year, it is best to remain tuned to a Disney frequency if you don’t want to get in trouble. In general, I spend a good bit of time just trying not to get in trouble. Maybe I care too much about what people think…But as words and reactions and observations are large chunks of my job, it is hard to ignore them.

Striking a balance where kids grow up with a real knowledge of and pride in their heritage; where the community is supportive; where acts of kindness are second nature and yet – individuals have total freedom, significant privacy, and ultimate independence – is fairly impossible. These costs and rewards are pretty much at odds. I must say that Modern Orthodoxy does a much better job at balancing these values than the Ultra-Orthodox; religious coercion is certainly at a bare minimum here.

But still – one must know that communal warmth comes with communal heat, just as residential cool comes with a lonely chill.

Some choices help you fulfill your job in the world, and some help you avoid doing so. A person’s central challenge is to choose a life based on an accurate assessment of whether she can afford the price for the sought after reward, and, perhaps, to identify if the reward is keeping her at her most productive, or simply keeping her quiet.

And sometimes, a person’s job is to identify that none of it is about you any longer at all. That is a conclusion that bears an enormously high price, but hopefully, an equally high reward…apparent sometimes only later. Much later.

Ask W about the things she’s seen and heard after someone is gone, and you know it’s true. I suppose it’s mostly worth it.

Continue reading these:

• On Tragedy…..and Triumph
• Falling back up
• Development Town
• “…I Don’t Want to Imagine a Life Bound in That Way…”
• Note to Self: Part 4