Old/New World Discourse: Old World vs. New World style

In this busy season of sma'achot (lots of folks schedule weddings and other happy events for the days before the Three Weeks, rather than choosing to wait for the span following that inauspicious period), it's useful to reflect on the contrast between Old World and New World newlyweds. My husband and my experiences, versus those of the children of our Israeli friends, is a case in point.

My life with Computer Cowboy, B'ayan Tov, began before our chuppah. We talked to rabbis, made plans for our ceremony and seudah, and took care of some of the details related to the business of feting lots of friends and relatives. We also shopped for furnishings, and located our first apartment.

I would like to believe that had we lived in this Holy Land, at that time, instead of in a more materially-focused society (life in the New World is not "bad;" merely, it lacks, in my esteem, the palpable depth of life in this Old World), we would have made other choices. I would like to believe that our celebration, necessarily, would have been more streamlined and that our first home would have been more austere.

Whereas our bedecken was an unfussy ceremony and our chuppah had been constructed from a tallit and four poles, the professional photographer, the canapé table, and the matching gowns for attendants, in hindsight, were extraneous. I think. Too, that we would have survived the celebration intact without our name posted on the hall's marquee.

Per our first nest, while it would have been difficult to improve upon the modesty of our initial gear, given that our total joint possessions, beyond our books (see "Books, Part I and Part II," Jan. 9, and January 7, 2007, respectively), our clothes, and our other humble, student-era artifacts, consisted of such items as: a handful of plastic crates, a hot pot, and some pillowcases, had we lived here, instead of there, I would like to believe that we would not have wanted more than those items. As it were, we newlyweds unabashedly yearned for a curtain for our kitchenette's window, woven placemats for our table, and a matching bath mat and toilet bowl cover. We lived in a society of entitlement and felt that our new home deserved as many embellishments as did other dwellings.

Toward that end, among our wedding gifts (I did not become "the queen of gift exchanges," the woman who would and could trade in frivolous for functional, until after the children were born), we elected to keep several crystal bowls, a toaster, which we would hardly ever use, and a set of expensive stemware. We recommitted ourselves to regular prayer, but did not, at the time, even think about immersing ourselves in learning.

In brief, our first physical furnishings included: beds, a dresser handed down through two generations, a hammered together desk, a trunk (upon which we sat), two folding chairs, a used sofa (purchased from an irate householder who was busied discarding his soon-to-be ex-wife's stuff) and two, towering cacti. Our initial spiritual furnishings, unfortunately, were even more limited; we had a shul membership and an extended invitation from the local chapter of Hillel (then, Chabad was not so prolific).

In contrast, many Old World newlyweds are content to live in caravans or in "basement apartments" (some of which have been illegally constituted from bomb shelters), and to live in such locales on Israeli-salaries. These same young people, unlike my husband and I, are rich where it matters; these Israelis have daily access to: shiurim, kollel, Daf Yomi learning, the kevarim of Tzadikim and the Kotel. Here, in the Old World, freshly married youth are able to immediately, regularly, and easily to gird themselves in the kadosha of the land and in the practice of the Torah. Their aspirations and concomitant actualizations of the early part of their lives vary greatly from the experiences my generation had in lands far away.

Tonight, I hope to make a kallah happy. Computer Cowboy and I look forward to dancing at the seudah of the daughter of a friend. We Israelis look forward to celebrating a union nourished in choices well-suited to the princes and princesses of our people.

Little Smile:

I recall, some years ago, when during a not-so-incidental skirmish with a neighboring country, our local government announced, visa via radio, that due to a high number of civilian casualties, home command was having trouble gaining the indigenous population's trust. Go figure.

Response to Readers:

Christy in Norfolk, thanks for the compliment!