What were they thinking?

Please, do not listen to what they are telling you. The Kinnus Hatmimim in Beis Rivka-Campus Chomesh tonight was a failure. A massive failure. If the goal had been to arrange a place for bochurim to come and socialize in a relatively chassidish environment with free food and drink then it was a success. And you know what? I don't think that would have been a bad goal to have. But the goal of this particular kinnus was for all the bochurim in Lubavitch to sit down like tattelehs and listen to a ton of super-boring speeches for hours and hours and hours. Ridiculous, I know. The only person the olam paid attention to was the Rosh, and that's because he talked about guts on the ceiling, or something like that. I got there in the middle of Rabbi Perlstein's speech, and it got so bad in the middle that Rabbi Gancz came up to the microphone and tried to get everyone to shut up. Poor Rabbi Perlstein, how often can you fix your kapote while someone is trying to get people to be quite so that they can listen to your speech? Regardless, he spoke for way too long. All the speakers did that. And did any of them tell any jokes or at least stories? Somehow it's gotten into people's heads that it's chassidish to chazzer every sicha in the book, but that telling chassidishe maasos is for Chabad Houses. Hello people, you ever read the Friediker Rebbe's farbrengens? Today's speakers aren't the Rebbe, they can't say chassidus for six hours. They simply can't pull it off. And you want to know a little secret? The sichos people paid attention to the most by the Rebbe's farbrengens were the political ones. Why? That's just the way people are.

What was really sad was that Rabbi Holtzberg, father of Gabi HY"D, spoke, and no one listened. No one even knew he was speaking in English. And whose fault is this? It's not the bochurim's fault. They see their friends, they go over and chat. No, it's the fault of the organizers. You want to have forty people sitting on your dais? Enjoy. But don't have ten speakers, have two. And make sure they're interesting. Then people will listen. Seriously, it seems like they think they're producing a show for sleeping seniors, not for a ton of 15 year olds. Which brings up another point. I was older than 94 percent of that room. Scary.

Anyway, now that I've got that rant out of my system...but wait, there's more! I understand that you're shushing me. Really, I do. But when you're shushing me so that you can hear better what your friend has to say? And you're in your middle sixties? Please. I talk, you talk, we'll all be happy. And what's with JEM providing a translation for only half of what the Rebbe said on the videos? Kasriel Shemtov's funding ran out in the middle?

The good news is, I did convince a friendly semi-relative to start blogging, and this is the result. I must say, I am extremely surprised at the result. I was firmly convinced that it'd be an ode to ties or something like that, but in fact it's a very nice dvar Torah. I'm impressed. All my blogging people should go check it out and comment obsessively. Oh, yeah, a word to the wise, comment moderation is ridiculous.

I also managed to farbreng with Rabbi Mottel Friedman. All right, it was more like a heart to heart. Mushy, I know. The same can be said for my conversation with Motty Beenstock, who is getting married soon to Rabbi Melech Zweibel's niece. I thought you should know that. Possibly the only inspiring moments of the event were watching hundreds of tmimim jumping on the tables and dancing like nobody's business. All that youthful innocence...before they've been perverted by reality. I used to be like that. Good times. Pity the rest of the event stank. I get that a lot of work was put into it. But sometimes you just have to wake up and smell the coffee, realize that you're not meeting the needs of your audience. Art is great, but if no one's buying it, then it's worth nothing.

After this exciting attempt at religious endeavor I made my way to an apartment for an intimate farbrengen with Rabbi Mendy Schapiro and about fifteen friends. In the beginning I decided that even though it was likely to be a rocking farbie and certainly blog-worthy it would be a waste to blog it live, because sometimes I need a little inspiration too, and it's impossible to listen to a farbie while you're transcribing it. I turned out to be correct, but unfortunately I fell asleep in the middle and left early. Still, the homemade peanut butter cookies were out of this world, and it was really nice to see my friends who were there. One thing I remember that Rabbi Schapiro said was about how we work hard at something, whether it be learning a sicha or doing a job, and we think, "OK, once I'm finished here I can go to sleep. I'll be done." But the fact is, you're never done. Life wasn't meant to be easy.

Sure, I know that this is a bit obvious, but that's the genius of the Rabbi. Tell me something I know in the back of my head and show me why I have to pay attention and realize that I have the answers inside me already, I just need someone to bring them out.

Another thing he said that comes to mind was that whether a person is a bochur, or dating, or a chassan, or married, or whatever, the way to deal with the situation can be found in the Rebbe's works. Without these, no one has any chance of doing what the Rebbe wants. So yeah, that was really nice. Oh yeah, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that it was TanyaChaz's 21st. Happy birthday Chaz. Keep on thinking I'm the greatest guy of all time.

Once I left that little nest of love I had a nice little heart to heart with Big Fan for, oh, two hours, plus some conversational banter with Lucky Wolf and this guy's younger brother, who appears to be going for the Matisyahu look, minus the white peyos. And yes, I have no idea why I know who Jordan Farmar is.

And that brings me back here, blogging late and feeling a bit like Yud Shevat has passed me by. Has passed us all by. I hate to admit it, but Mottel has a point. We need to shape up, and we need to shape up now.