Rabbi Weissman

EndTheMadness Chapter 3: The Elimination of Natural Meetings

Plus interesting war-related items from the State of Amalek

On February 26, 2003, about four months after the EndTheMadness website went live, we had our first event, a symposium at Yeshiva University, where I was a rabbinical student. An audio recording of the event is embedded above. It is packed with common sense and true Torah guidance, the likes of which you won’t easily find these days. It should be required listening.

In 2007 I wrote a five-year retrospective, in which I described this event as follows:

One of the key moments in the development of EndTheMadness into a real movement was our first event, a symposium at Yeshiva University in February, 2003. At that time ETM still consisted only of me, our webmaster, and a bare-bones web site. All we had to look forward to was the occasional signer of the covenant from some random part of the world and e-mails supporting us or blasting us. It was fun, and we clearly had gotten some people’s attention, but it didn’t seem like very much was happening.

I realized that we needed to counter the ridiculous messages that dominated the educational landscape with an event that would send the right kind of messages. I had been fortunate to come across rabbis who said things that needed to be heard, but for some reason they weren’t attracting enough of an audience. They needed a forum dedicated for just this purpose.

I had never organized an event in my life, had no parallel experience, no partners, no one to guide me, and no real idea what I was doing. Consequently, those out there who say things like “I’d love to help, but I’m not someone who runs events” should understand why I consider it an excuse, and not a great one at that. But more on that and related matters in Part 3.

At that time I was attending classes in YU with Rabbi Moshe Tendler and Rabbi Allen Schwartz, and was impressed with not only their Torah knowledge, but their sensibility, ability to relate to communal issues, and their willingness to say what they believed without apologies. (Of course, it would be disrespectful to even give the impression that Rabbis Tendler and Schwartz need my approval; I am merely taking you through my thought process at the time.)

They both accepted my invitation to participate in a symposium on dating and shidduchim, as did Sandra Gross, an informal matchmaker and mother of a friend and fellow semicha student. The student council secured a location at YU for the event and a supportive administrator arranged to have the speeches professionally recorded. I insisted that the event be open to the entire community, not merely YU and Stern students, and the powers-that-be agreed despite the fact that this was unusual for an on-campus event organized by students.

The event was called for 8:00 PM, and at 8:00 PM I was the only person in the room. Do you think I was a little concerned? Yeah, maybe just a little. Then David Ebin walked in. David is the President of the Stony Brook Hebrew Congregation, and I used to frequently stay at his home to layn there on Shabbos. It was a pleasant surprise to see him, and I hoped he didn’t drive all that way for nothing.

Fortunately, by 8:10 a nice crowd had begun filing in, and before long we had a standing-room-only crowd that was estimated at over 300 people. It remains to this day by far the largest event ETM has ever run. There were quite a few people from nearby communities who attended, and I’m happy to say that although there were two large blocks of chairs with a row in the middle, men and women occupied both sides of the room together. No one misbehaved, either.

The presentations were powerful, more than I even dared to hope for. The audience was actively engaged, there were far more questions and comments than time to address them all, and quite a few people lingered long after the event was over. The recording of this event is available on the ETM web site, and I urge everyone who has not listened to it to clear an hour and a half and share in the experience.

The New York Jewish Week ran a page-3 article about the event and the Jerusalem Report ran a feature article shortly thereafter. The Yeshiva University Commentator ran multiple articles on ETM, and “End the madness!” became a common refrain for people experiencing difficulties finding a compatible chavrusa.

One of those late-night Jewish talk shows that no one listens to ran an hour-long show to discuss “the madness of the shidduch world”. The host bent over backwards to not mention EndTheMadness or me by name, even though he made reference to a “recent symposium” and even had Rabbi Schwartz on as a guest. (To his credit, and probably to the host’s dismay, Rabbi Schwartz gave proper credit to ETM on the air for organizing the symposium.)

On the one hand, it was flattering that others wanted a piece of the momentum that ETM had galvanized. On the other hand, it was the beginning of a disturbing trend of other groups and organizations wanting to go it alone and reinvent the wheel so they can take all the credit for themselves, rather than give credit to ETM for paving the way and working with us or openly borrowing our ideas. But more on that as well in Part 3.

With this one event ETM placed the so-called shidduch crisis squarely on the front burner and brought many of the related issues out into the open. For one thing, five years ago it was controversial to criticize the inappropriate questions that are typically asked by and about singles. Today it is mainstream, even fashionable to criticize the “tablecloth” question and others like it, and I think ETM is largely responsible for that.

Here is the next installment of EndTheMadness Guide to the Shidduch World:

Chapter 3:  The Elimination of Natural Meetings

Please go here to read:  https://chananyaweissman.substack.com/p/endthemadness-chapter-3-the-elimination

Some recent war-related items for your consideration:

Nir Davori accidentally showed a fake video on News 12 that allegedly showed American planes over Iran - but the video was not real footage at all. Internet surfers quickly identified it as screenshots from a computer game.

Another intelligence failure. Just laugh at people who think this matters and carry on, sheep.

Eerily reminiscent of the balcony cheers they did during Covid for the heroic doctors and nurses who were starving and murdering patients in isolation. The main thing is for the oppressed masses to maintain morale and cheer for their oppressors.

More copy-and-paste from the Covid playbook:

Two weeks to flatten the curve.  And this:

Israel is the only place in the world forcibly shutting down Yeshivas. Jews have more rights in Germany.

Isn’t it remarkable that IDF soldiers are desperately begging for food, clothing, and gear the same as they needed to in 1948?

Here’s a comment to a Jerusalem Post article from 2023:

Nothing has changed in the IDF since I was called up 50 years ago on Saturday Oct 6th 1973 in the afternoon at the start of the Yom Kippur War. We arrived in the evening at our infantry battalions mobilization base near Ashkelon - no meal or even combat rations was waiting for us, only uniforms (most were old & threadbare and should have been torn up & used as cleaning rags) no jackets or coats and very old ammo belts, water bottles & pouches, a mix of WW2 British type steel helmets & US WW2 helmets (I was lucky to get a US paratroop version with a chinstrap cup). We were given 7.62mm FN rifles and six 20 round mags & 9mm Uzi’s with five 25 round mags for NCO’s like me but no ammo for the rifles & only enough 9mm rounds for 2 mags. There was no tents even for the officers, we got one dirty old & worn wool blanket & slept on the cold & dirty concrete floors of the empty vehicle sheds. Our units transport was supposed to be trucks & jeeps but they were not at the base & in the morning we got no breakfast so the officers who had their private cars with them organized a collection from the troops of a few Lira (our old currency) each & went into a bakery in Ashkelon to buy us pitta breads & humus and tins of tuna from a supermarket. By mid-morning on Sunday 7th Oct a dozen Egged busses from the bus station in Ashkelon arrived to take our unit to our reserve brigade headquarters near the Rafedim airbase in the Sinai a 12 hour journey on clogged roads. Nothing ever changes in the IDF!

Meanwhile, the regime continues to earn record billions off tax-funded, state-owned weapons manufacturing companies. Keep supporting this racket, suckers.

The IDF should stop sending soldiers into death traps in malfunctioning equipment, without proper gear and food, for no clear objective or justifiable reason. 

If it saves one life it’s worth it.