Shlomo24 wrote:
Hatzileini Na wrote:
Shlomo, for better for worse I am well aware of things that bother me. The confluence of many factors from different areas of my life has made me always feel like an outsider and different. In many areas of life I'm an outlier, often positively so, but always in a way that makes me feel different. And in the Frum community where conformity is (whether explicitly or implicitly) encouraged, and certain forms of personal exploration and development are not encouraged, standing out rarely felt good, even if it was for something positive.
the so called conformity of the frum community isn't supposed to be a code of laws. the conformity is suppose to be something that you want to be part of . for example, all soldiers have the same uniform. if one doesn't feel connected with the community then he will have problems with the conformity because he may feel like someone is telling him a set of riles that he doesn't agree with.
also, if there's insecurity involved (which everyone has to some degree) then standing out at all won't feel good, because you may feel like you are being examined. not feeling good about standing out has nothing to do with conformity. example being in overly structured communities, such as in the communist towns of Russia, many people stood out for there cause. they did not feel bad about their standing out, but they were upset with the conformity. and vice versa, ppl who have issues with standing out but no issues with conformity.
in your case you had problems with the frum community ( i am not saying that you aren't frum, you just had issues like many ppl do) so you felt like you were being a conformist. however, you had insecurities so you did not want to buck the trend and stand out, even though you may have really wanted to.
what could help is dealing with what you see as issues regarding the "me v. frum community" relationship and also trying to be more assertive in areas that you feel need change.
hope this helps. KOT!
![](https://guardyoureyes.com/components/com_kunena/template/default/images/emoticons/new/smile.png)
Thanks for the thoughts. I've been giving this a bit of thought which is why I did not post immediately. Hopefully some of the ideas I am thinking come through and make at least a little sense.
I definitely think that are highlighting a valid point. Conformity does not need to be negative, that is definitely true. I think you are also hitting on a point that I have spent a lot of time thinking of and that is that the challenge of peer pressure can be created in an environment even if all the people involved are not trying to make it that way, or are happy with the situation. For example, if everyone in a school is happy acting a certain way, it creates a standard that others may feel pressure to adopt, even if no one in the group was trying to create that standard.
When I talk about conforming, I'm not really talking about things like dressing a certain way. I'm referring to things like the fact that most mainstream Yeshivas focus on Gemara for the vast majority of the today, and teach Gemara in similar fashion. If one is looking for a Yeshiva that focuses less on Gemara it is either because the school is more "to the left" and or because it caters to weaker students. This means that for many kids (and parents) there is no real choice on this. Further, the way that Gemara is taught is fairly consistent across Yeshivas (to the best of my knowledge) despite the fact that there are other ways of teaching. In Kiruv Yeshivas, they spend far more time focusing on the skills needed to understand how Gemaras work and are structured. And Ramchal wrote numerous Seforim (Derech Tevunos, Sefer Hahigayon and Sefer Hamelitza, which were recently published in a single volume with English translation) that discuss the internal logic of the Gemara and logic.
Similarly, there are certain subjects that get little attention in many Yeshivas, including "secular" subjects and subjects related to art and creativity. For students who are intellectually curious, and/or who appreciate and connect to art and artistic endeavors, their strengths get overlooked if not dismissed and mocked.
A common result is that kids who do not thrive in the specific areas that the Yeshivas focus on, end up feeling negatively about themselves, and struggle to find their self worth within the system, resulting in them struggling emotionally, or leaving.
The ridiculousness of this reality is highlighted when one notes a number of facts:
1. Long before people like Howard Gardner highlighted the idea of "multiple intelligences" Chazal spoke about "Chanoch L'Na'ar Al Pi Darko." Further, the Gemara indicates that even a trait like a desire to kill can be fundamental and so such a person should become a Shochet and the like. Yet in Yeshivas we rarely take the time to acknowledge these differences. (Now I know that Yeshivas has severe limitations financially and practically as a Rebbe is trying to balance the divergent needs of a classroom of students, but at least the talents can be acknowledged.)
In many cases, the areas of interest are ones that Gedolim have thrived at through the generations and can be taught from a Jewish standpoint. Sefer Hamelitza from the Ramchal is a guide to grammar. Studying the Piyutim, Kinnos and the writing of so many Meforshim on Chumash (Maharal comes to mind immediately) is a study in poetry and metaphor. (In fact, the Seforim write that the whole physical world is a metaphor designed to teach our physical bodies about Hashem, since the physical cannot connect directly to the spiritual, but can be taught through metaphor.) And many of the Gedolim through the years were highly knowledgeable in the science of their day, as they needed to understand how to apply Halacha.
I'm not sure where I want to go with this, and it's late so I'm going to stop here and maybe continue tomorrow...