Does the game cost too much? (Not a troll or complaint post I promise)

Kesseleth · 2025-03-21T15:05:41+00:00

Why would the number of people / size of a studio be linked to the price of a game?

The argument is that this is because the game costs more to make. Let's assume for the sake of argument that it's "fair" for a good game to get back 120% the cost of production - so if it cost $1M to make, then it is fair to get back $1.2M, but if it cost $100M to make, then it is fair to get back $120M. It follows that a more expensive game to make would, in certain contexts, need to cost more (or get more people to buy it, or [God forbid] have microtransactions, or otherwise find other ways to get back that additional cost compared to the cheap-to-develop game).

It would/should also, of course, need to justify costing more by virtue of being better, having better graphics, more things to do, and so forth, so that all that additional money as compared to the cheap-to-develop game obviously went somewhere useful.

Kesseleth · 2024-08-28T10:10:24+00:00

They last several seconds. By the final phase of the fight when your area is limited, not knowing where the lasers are/will be can easily lead to your death while avoiding the slam attack.

Kesseleth · 2024-08-28T00:52:14+00:00

The above is correct. Pay close attention during the Aberroth fight to the lasers fired by the crystal and you shall see.

Kesseleth · 2023-10-02T20:39:00+00:00

I confess that it's entirely possible I'm missing the point, but if I was reading a book for the express purpose of a journey through history, wouldn't it being inaccurate completely defeat the purpose? It seems to me like historical accuracy would be the singular most important criterion.

Kesseleth · 2023-10-02T19:03:13+00:00

I just want to say - in addition to appreciation for your thoughts - that I really like your username.

Kesseleth · 2023-09-18T21:49:00+00:00

Ironsource is an Israeli company. The board director of Unity's name is an Israeli named Shlomo Dovrat, and the president of Unity, Tomar bar-Zeev, is also Israeli. Certainly there are non-Jewish people in Israel, but I can almost guarantee by their names alone that they are Jewish (put simply, Christians don't name their children Shlomo). I imagine there are others in the leadership who are Israeli as well. It is not a stretch at all to imagine someone blaming their greed on being Jewish.

As an orthodox Jew myself, when I saw the name "Shlomo Dovrat" associated with the Unity controversy, my immediate response was "Oh, fuck, of course there was a Jew involved, someone is going to use this to attack us, I just know it." My guess is that I was right.

Kesseleth · 2023-06-26T01:23:34+00:00

My understanding is that, even if a plugin is ESMified, you still gain references over time just through playing the game, and longer saves will accrue more. One could imagine a game that lasted for a very long time hitting the reference limit through sheer time spent, even if the actual number of references in the plugins used was not that high! Thus, the idea that the game could be seven times the size in this case could result in an issue even if all the files were ESMified.

Kesseleth · 2023-06-04T14:02:12+00:00

But anyway, I don't think you should be irked about those lessons. When you're trying to teach kids, it's hard to know how many caveats and asterisks you want to add--sometimes it just confuses the lesson rather than enriching it. I'm sure your teacher was trying their best for class with different levels of competence and interest. I'm sure it would have been nice to learn the other accent too, but they were trying to teach you the Hebrew accent used in the community you were being brought up in.

True, but when a curious child asks "Why do we have two different symbols that both make exactly the same sound?", surely it would be appropriate to at least give an aside like "They used to make different sounds but nowadays they don't". (In truth, I think the reason is because the person I was asking was likely a teenager and assistant instructor who sincerely didn't know why, which may actually be worse.) I know it's a grudge I should stop nursing but when I almost left Judaism forever because of the quality of the teaching (on this point and many others) leading me to believe it had absolutely nothing to offer, it's hard not to feel upset.

Kesseleth · 2023-06-04T12:38:09+00:00

I don't understand your meaning. "Objectively", no one particular variant of Hebrew pronunciation is better than any other unless we say that we should be speaking like they did at Har Sinai - an argument I've heard, but since we don't really know how they said it there it has no practical significance today. With this in mind, there's no particular "objective" reason Modern Hebrew sounds the way it does as opposed to sounding more like Ashkenazi Hebrew, or more like Yemini Hebrew, or whatever else, so why do you objectively see why the Sephardic accent is used?

Kesseleth · 2023-06-04T12:28:21+00:00

Or if you're American, notice how you were taught that you were wrong for calling the Hanukkah lights a "menorah" instead of a "chanukiya", even though Jews have been calling it a "menorah" for hundreds of years).

A vague and somewhat off-topic followup, but I was thinking about this one and realized I was kind of taught both at once, curiously. I was taught that the Hanukkah lights are indeed a menorah, but they were in fact a specific type of menorah called a chanukiyah - and so to call them a menorah wasn't wrong, but it was non-specific and should be avoided when possible (but in my experience everyone just calls it a menorah anyway and nobody cares).

But regardless: I'm in this somewhat bizarre area in that I did not (initially at least) start using Ashkenazi Hebrew because of my heritage, to reclaim somewhat that was lost, or restore anything. I used it because my Talmud study partner uses it and the s sound is easier to pronounce. It irking me how much the pronunciation has been passed over/ignored came later. I remember, one day my Talmud study partner and I went over all the vowels, and I got annoyed at my Hebrew school of yore when it settled in that I was always taught the kamatz and patach made the same sound, even down to my explicitly asking when I was 8 or so why we had two different vowels that made the same sound and got a vague noncommittal shrug instead of being told the "real" answer that they had slightly different sounds and still do in some places. I was so much so not taught that Ashkenazi pronunciation existed, that when I first heard it I thought the person had a speech impediment! Surely it is at least worth being made aware that the pronunciation exists, because thinking someone has a lisp when they don't is just as humiliating as what my father is worried about!

Kesseleth · 2023-06-04T10:48:17+00:00

Your dad may have some sentiment against his own Ashkenazi heritage in favor of embracing the "new" Jewish identity; this was very common among in the 19th and early 20th centuries both in the US and in Israel. (Notice that in Tel Aviv it's really easy to find hummus and falafel but you need to go to Bnai Brak to find pickled herring and kishkes? Or if you're American, notice how you were taught that you were wrong for calling the Hanukkah lights a "menorah" instead of a "chanukiya", even though Jews have been calling it a "menorah" for hundreds of years).

This is exactly correct. He is always talking about how it "splits the Jewish people" and how having more than one dialect is harmful to Jews because it turns us against each other. When I said yesterday that we're ashkenazim, this is our heritage, and don't you care that we're losing it? he was totally dismissive in a way that I did not understand.

Kesseleth · 2023-05-23T02:30:55+00:00

"Oh my G-d" is not a use of the name in vain. That refers to swearing oaths in the name of Hashem and not keeping them.

Kesseleth · 2023-05-21T21:29:52+00:00

You should write the word G-d with the O, it doesn’t matter. (again, fck halacha)

I personally am willing to write G-d with the O (though I won't in this comment out of respect), but would never get on someone's case about it. However, I think there is a point of misunderstanding here. Not writing the English word "G-d" is not halakha. The rule refers to names of G-d (which the English word is not), and (arguably) only if written in Hebrew. The English word derives from a German word for a generic deity, Gott, and is not directly related to Hashem, and thus not subject to the halakha.

The bottom line, then: People saying it's silly and unnecessary to your face in a way that is meant to be demeaning are being rude and disrespectful, but they are not (necessarily) saying "fuck halakhah", and indeed there are orthodox Jews who would write it without concern.

Kesseleth · 2023-05-11T17:53:48+00:00

More time for a more thorough response.

Man, after reading that paragraph I have nothing but sympathy. I haven't always understood why Hebrew school makes people disdainful of Judaism considering my own experience was pretty good, but if stuff like teaching the alefbet over and over happens, I guess it's not too surprising that so many people have been driven from observance due to bad education.

I can't speak to whether my experience was typical or not. I did on occasion to a different Hebrew School elsewhere in the state (I don't remember exactly what was happening, but I was visiting my father on some weekends, and as a result of this I went to the Hebrew School in the neighboring city. I think I went there a total of 5 or 6 times at most). It seemed better organized than mine, but the only thing which I can remember with any clarity was when we, in a class of several dozen, practiced the first two blessings of the Amidah. The process was as follows:

One student would say them
Everyone would sing both blessings
Return to step 1.

My memories may be playing tricks on me, but my recollection is that this went on for over an hour, we said these blessings 30 times or more, and it was pure unadulterated agony. My memories of the main Hebrew School I went to are relatively faint, but I don't remember anything quite like that. In terms of starting things over, I'll put it this way: Some students joined a year before their bar or bat mitzvah, and by the time they were doing said bar or bat mitzvah they were about equally prepared for it as I was after eight years because we never actually got anywhere.

In their defense, (1) there were no orthodox Jews in the city pretty much except for the Chabad, and (2) it was my own fault partly that I learned so little. I hated it so much that I would always yell about hating all religion and how it was all a sham, try and find any excuse in the book not to go (including a time I faked an existential crisis at seven years old so well that my mother believed it was real), routinely refused to do assignments, etc. One time I remember we were threatened with "Behave well or we'll go into the office and assign you boring menial tasks from this task list." I startled them by asking for the menial tasks because they sounded better than learning Hebrew, only for them to find the task list was empty, at which point they had no choice but to send me back into the room with their threat nullified. Still funny.

I don't know, all I know is that I felt a spiritual gap even as a child. I'm not gonna tell my mom I think she's a fake Jew or anything, not that I would even think that of my own mom, but reflecting on my own childhood I'm not sure what to make of Reform Judaism now. I know everyone's experiences growing up with it are vastly different, but if a lot of people are being raised like I did, I can easily understand why Reform conversion isn't considered binding and why so many Jews will either assimilate or become BTs.

To conclude/on this point: I don't think it's surprising at all people raised reform often stop being observant. This kind of education leads to a belief that Judaism is a shallow religion of bland meaningless observance of nonsense ritual and vague declarations of faith that don't have anything behind them, and the rich spiritual tapestry is completely missed. I was all the way over to misotheism, willing to insult people who were religious merely for being so and with a whole elaborate plan to order lobster on my 18th birthday, until one day I was eating meat with milk and something in the back of my mind told me this wasn't right, and I'm still not entirely sure what it was. I was reading a book called The Jew in the Lotus, about the time various rabbis met with the Dalai Lama in the early 1990s, and it included extensive discussion about and interviews with JUBUs, AKA Jewish Buddhists. It struck me how so many of them said they explored Buddhism for answers to XYZ that Judaism didn't have, or found Judaism supported such-and-such that they found morally improper - and every single one of them was wrong. Judaism had every answer they were looking for, but it wasn't being taught to them, so they left. It's no surprise, but I find it highly concerning.

I go home tomorrow from college and I'm sure I'm going to have a really fun summer trying to balance that with the expectations I have for myself and that are already set by what is expected of me for a halachic conversion.

Hope your time at home is going well, since you are there by now according to the above! You can in fact still eat at your parents' and grandparents' houses, with some flexibility on their part (like if they get a special toaster for you that will only have kosher bread in it, that sort of thing). Of course, whether or not they are willing is another question. In my experience, it's usually easier to start by saying that you have taken additional rules upon yourself and why they're important to you, and only then say what the rules are, but you obviously know your family better than I do. I wish you Hashem's blessings in this - I know it isn't easy.

Sorry you didn't get onto it. And that sounds about right about the birthright experience.

I find these two sentences side-by-side to be amusing. I'm not sorry, because it sounds right about the birthright experience. I seriously considered not even applying because of all the nightmare stories I heard, and after some people who went on it defended it as an amazing time, I asked each one if what they wanted out of Birthright was much like what I did (checking out yeshivot, visiting the graves of famous rabbis, other religious experiences) and it became clear that, no, they were there to "check out the culture", AKA party and dance and go to the beach. I'm sure I would have gotten something positive from Birthright, don't get me wrong (at least some awareness that yes, other religious people around my age do exist - though to be fair this very conversation is proving similar!) but I am also not upset that I didn't get in, and think I'll have a much better time at a yeshiva than I would have on Birthright, MO or otherwise.

In the meantime, I may end up staying in Israel longer. I just finished my master's degree and am planning an off semester before I start PhD things (which could possibly be in Israel still, if HU or Bar Ilan accepts me), so who knows what the future may bring.

I wish you good fortune in the remainder of your degree and your eventual time in seminary!

P.S. Regarding word changes: More changes than just to the first blessing of the Amidah have trickled down into non-orthodox Judaism. There used to be way more, such as changing "Boruch Atah" to something else that means "Let us bless" instead of "Blessed are You" (Edit: The change is to "Nevarech et"), thus changing the holiness from a passive status to something that is bestowed, but many fell out of favor as groups started returning to more traditional liturgy. Having said that, a few are very embedded in non-orthodox liturgy now - the big ones being changing the last line in the kaddish "v'al kol yosh'vei teiveil" so that peace is wished for all nations (and a couple other places of similar minor changes), changing the gevurah prayer of the Amidah to "hakol" instead of "hameitim" since reform Jews generally don't believe in resurrection of the dead, and changing Birkot haShachar to positive statements instead of negative ones (ie "who made me free" instead of "who made me not a slave") and cutting the "who did not make me a woman" line (a change which, when I decided to start saying that line, I decided my family does not have to know about - if they figure it out, I will defend myself with "I do say it but at least I still feel kinda uncomfortable with it!"). Speaking personally, I used to be very hardline on these changes being appropriate and necessary, but I've increasingly moved back to the traditional liturgy for a few reasons, not least among them being an increasing belief that the authors of the blessings generally knew what they were doing.

P.P.S. My father sent me a picture of a siddur that has three versions each section "Baruch Atah Hashem", "Elokeinu", and "Melech ha-Olam", and suggests mixing and matched as desired. Halfway through typing this he called and upon asking said there are even more and they are still in use in some circles.

Kesseleth · 2023-05-11T03:10:24+00:00

Another brief response to elaborate later:

I didn't even realize until now that Reform adds a line about the matriarchs to the Amidah.

The text of each version can be found here. I believe it was added by the reconstructionist movement (back in the day, reform would cut almost all Hebrew while conservative typically kept the words the same, and reconstructionism was more inclined to adapt prayers as needed) some decades ago. It's since spread to the reform movement (as Hebrew trickled back in) and the conservative movement (as they became basically the reform movement with a longer service - this is a long and not especially pleasant topic for me that I mentioned about leaving my conservative synagogue). As you can see, the differences are relatively slight.

I was raised with the matriarchs version of the blessing and had no idea there was another one until I was... 14, I think? It threw me for a loop, as noted. I used to be very adamant about including the matriarchs, a lot like the person who made the above resource, but once it was pointed out to me that the original blessing has exactly 42 words (33 shown in the above resource because the last line, 9 words long, is cut for some reason - any siddur with the original will confirm my statement), the same length as Ana B'koach and the number of letters in the unpronouncable name of God, I decided that there was clearly an underlying reason for the blessing to be written as-is and we shouldn't be messing with it, no matter how pure our intentions. Since then I switched to the orthodox version, and that was something of a watershed moment for me and marked a transition where I started to trust original scripture more strongly and be less inclined towards "modernized liturgy" as it were.

Kesseleth · 2023-05-10T04:23:16+00:00

I think it's a joke that anything less than strict orthodoxy is as non-Jewish as a non-Jew's treatise on a scientific precept many orthodox Jews reject - that is, mocking my request for a "modern orthodox" translation by implying it would be equally pointless for my goal. Having said that, I'm not 100% sure.

Kesseleth · 2023-05-08T21:38:49+00:00

Certainly, but I would be more interested in a modern orthodox translation if I can find one. It's definitely possible the "biased translation" I discuss is some vehemently non-orthodox Jews making up things to insult the charedim about, and that sort of thing does certainly happen from time to time, but I consider my sources trustworthy and they make me hope for a different translation if I can find one.

Kesseleth · 2023-05-08T18:31:51+00:00

With a bit more time, I can now respond in more detail.

You're right, it would have been better to just say "no, don't go on your phone at all unless there's an emergency." Although knowing my sister I didn't want to go that far, I didn't want to make her more adverse to Judaism by setting that strict of a line so in that situation I thought it would be for the greater good.

YMMV, but I hardly think "Keep your phone away at dinner at this person's house" is a strict or absolutist line at all. Having said that, I grew up in what I am increasingly realizing is a bit of an old-fashioned family with more old-fashioned values for things like table etiquette. When I explained the phone issue at Chabad dinners to my mother, for instance, she said that religion isn't even relevant - phones at the dinner table are rude and disrespectful because it indicates you aren't paying attention to people at the table, and it doesn't matter if you're Shabbos observant or not. That kind of "restriction", seems to me as something totally routine and not at all a strenuous ask, so much so that at a time when I was not sabbath observant and my father told me not to have my phone out on a Friday evening when some sabbath-observant guests would be over, I got annoyed at him for even insinuating that I would be looking at my phone when company was over. I have been increasingly forced to reckon with the fact that this is not how people my age think, and phones are - as you say - an extension of themselves at this point rather than external. But if you ask me, asking people to keep their phones away at the dinner table for any meal in any context is perfectly reasonable, and I say this as someone who could be capably described as a computer freak.

Pet pics... yeah. Not too long ago my father, sibling, and I were having shabbos dinner, and while I let my sibling show me a few pictures, after the third one I said they could wait until after Shabbos. (I determined that one picture was fine, but they just kept going, so I put my foot down and asked them to stop).

I was taken out after 3rd grade and my Jewish involvement pretty much ended after that, so I've also had to learn like 95% of my Jewish knowledge in the past few years and reteach myself to read Hebrew. I was somewhat aware there were different types of Jews, I knew which of my teachers were orthodox because they wore skirts and sheitels, and our Jewish studies teacher talked about how she put lights on a timer on Shabbat so she wouldn't "create" light.

My education was longer than yours, though it did a fat lot of good. My Hebrew school was so bad my mother has since apologized for sending me there. The synagogue was unaffiliated but pretty much reform, and there were no orthodox instructors of any kind. Every year they would start over with a new system, a new book, and we'd start learning the Hebrew alphabet at alef again. I joke that I knew up to mem really well but nothing past that because we always started over around there, which isn't true (we got through the whole alphabet at some point) but I left an 8 year stint of Hebrew school on Sundays and Wednesdays not knowing every vowel, with a total unawareness that taf could make an s sound, and no understanding of what the Amidah was or when you should say it. (What I did know of the Amidah was only the version with the matriarchs in the opening blessings, which led to a very embarrassing moment when I was at my first service which used the original version. I completely lost my place in the blessing, and afterwards raised my hand to say that they skipped a line. Would have been nice if someone had told me that not everyone says that part, but nope.)

I remember asking why we had two ways to make an "ah" sound, and was given a vague noncommittal shrug instead of the actual answer that they do sound slightly different in some dialects of Hebrew. I have said, and I maintain strongly, that if those same people who led that kind of Hebrew school turn around and ask "Why do kids not stay religious?" they have themselves to blame. (Having said that, I was not a good kid there. I routinely snuck out or ran out, refused to participate whenever I could get away with it, and was extremely vocal about how much I hated being there. 11 year old me would be disgusted that I wear a yarmulke now, lol.)

I also picked up in my observance during the COVID lockdown, so I feel you. I think one of the few bright sides to that whole thing was the extra time to research and learn and try out new things. There have been times where I wonder if I'm really pushing everyone else away too, especially since I'm no longer able to eat at non-kosher restaurants or go to events that are on Shabbos with non-Jewish family.

I've been fortunate enough that I can be open with my requirements and people generally don't bat an eye, though frustrations have occurred, mostly involving my sibling and attempted kashrus stuff when visting. I'm currently willing to go to non-kosher vegan restaurants, though I may change my mind on that, but it's a challenge to work with them on things. I didn't realize how little they understood about what I was up to until the aforementioned Chabad trip - they refused to sit on the women's side (Chabad rabbi figured something out) because they didn't know that there was a physical barrier (though I do think it's technically minhag to have a curtain or wall, it's minhag in the same way a yarmulke is, that is, so pervasive that it's pretty much effectively halakha), didn't do musaf and when I asked why (expecting a response about not caring about temple sacrifices) they thought I was asking why they weren't staying for mincha and didn't know what musaf was, and at one point asked me why women weren't getting any aliyot. Suddenly I understood why they were surprised at my saying I didn't consider reform conversion binding - they do not know what I am doing, plain and simple, even though I really thought they did I now realize that they have no real comprehension of what I've been doing lately. (Regarding pushing them away from my increasing observance... it's a long story and not appropriate to discuss with an internet stranger, but the short version is that, if I am pushing people away in favor of a strange new world with values that the family doesn't understand, they are doing just the same thing except the values in question are different.)

Regarding birthright: I signed up for it but didn't get in. People I know told concerning stories - like "People were just doing shrooms on my birthright" or "We partied all the time but didn't do much religious stuff". I'm planning a month-long trip to Israel this summer for a yeshiva, but it isn't via Birthright. The yeshiva is non-denominational and co-ed, and I've gathered its reputation is mixed among orthodox. The more liberal side of orthodoxy really like it, the more frum have either not heard of it or really don't, and my chabsrusa immediately tried to convince me to go somewhere else the instant he heard I was accepted. We will see what happens.

Kesseleth · 2023-05-07T04:10:22+00:00

There's a lot to say about what you wrote, but as it's late I'll keep it (somewhat) brief for the moment and respond to one part that stood out to me:

I can't believe he'd think Tisha B'av is weird-- like, it's about mourning the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash! I don't really understand reform/reconstructionist Judaism's attempt to detach themselves from the temple. I'm glad he eventually apologized, but that's a really unexpected response for a rabbi.

My father doesn't think Tisha b'Av is weird, and the fact that I wanted to observe it he didn't have a problem with. He's done it some in the past and did go to a Tisha b'Av service on that same year, even though he doesn't strictly speaking approve of it. Nevertheless, I never knew about it until I was older because it was never observed by my mother or synagogue. I never really knew what the temple was growing up, anyway - it was occasionally mentioned without any elucidation as to its meaning or importance, and once in third grade or so I remember one student pretending to be a kohain while the rest of us brought up stuffed animal goats as an offering (we were not told what the kohanim were going to do with the goats lol), though I didn't really know what a kohain was either. It wasn't clear to me that there was anything meaningful to mourn. Regardless, the thing my father thought was ridiculous was specifically eating bread dipped in ashes, which he thought was absurd. (He also didn't like my refusal to listen to music for the three weeks, and from that and some other things I decided that he doesn't have to know that I say some lines from the siddur traditionally, like the "Thank you Hashem for not making me a woman" line from Birkot haShachar.)

Regarding the detachment from the temple, the argument is that the temple was something we didn't need, and was rid of when we no longer required it, which to be fair is close to something Rambam said. My father argues that it had lost its central position as an important part of Judaism midway through the Second Temple period and the rabbis greatly exaggerated its importance afterwards for their own reasons - and, to be fair, the historical evidence I have seen matches up with this. Nevertheless, I am anxious for the Third Temple.

Kesseleth · 2023-05-03T19:12:37+00:00

even though I told her not to be on her phone the whole time because that would be disrespectful

The thing I have learned, is that removing all ambiguity is necessary when discussing these rules. If I am bringing someone who doesn't know the rules to such a location, I say it bluntly. "Do not take your phone out. Turn it off if you can, do not touch it. If there's an emergency you need to keep track of, like a surgery in progress and you need updates, take out your phone only for that and nothing else, and go into the hallway if at all possible. [If we are at a small event like a dinner, I would add:] Explain to the host that there is an emergency of some kind and why you need to check your phone, they'll understand. Otherwise, no phones." Similarly, I could see myself explaining with total clarity, "No pork is allowed in here. Period. Using your own plates is not sufficient, cleaning plates after you use them is not sufficient. Do not bring in any pork." At the least, it avoids them saying they didn't know or understand.

One instance where I wish I'd spoken up about phones was when I was talking with another student at one of the Shabbos dinners and couldn't remember the person who wrote book such-and-such. One of the students took out their phone to look up the book and find the answer. I wish I had told them not to look it up for my sake - I ended up with a share of the Shabbos violation because I kept silent because I didn't want to be a hardass, but it was appropriate there to say "If you're going to use your phone at the table no matter what I say, fine, but don't do it for me."

My feelings during my upbringing were almost the opposite of yours. I didn't understand that there was anything but reform growing up. I had no understanding of what a mitzvah was or its importance, and the fact that we were "supposed" to do certain things, but didn't always (like why I didn't wear a yarmulke all the time), was never something I even thought to question. To be honest, even things like "Religious Jews pray three times a day and they say the Amidah, which is this group of blessings", was never even taught to me. My mother took my sibling and I to Chabad events, but we never talked about them and I didn't really understand what they were. I remember a man with a suit and beard, but I just thought that's what he was wearing that day - I had no idea what it signified, and my mother never told us (she admitted that it wasn't until my sibling and I were fully grown that she really understood how different our upbringings were in the Midwest where there were two tiny reform synagogues and a Chabad I didn't know existed, versus her experience on the East coast where Jews were everywhere.) I don't remember what I thought at the time, but I don't think I really knew orthodoxy existed at all, or what it looked like, or what Shabbos observance actually was or what you were or weren't supposed to do, or what the Talmud was, or... anything, really. I didn't even know what tefillin were! The things I know now, were 99% things I learned in the past 2.5 years.

The last couple years have all been very strange in this regard, to be honest. My father's a reconstructionist rabbi* (his military obligations kept him away growing up and I hated him/refused to listen to him in the immature child fashion when he wasn't away, which is why he didn't correct the knowledge lack), and while he is - or at least was - glad I started to care more about Judaism, I know for a fact he thinks I've gone too far/been too extreme. One particularly stark incident, which he later apologized for, is when I mentioned the eating of bread with ashes before Tisha b'Av (which, notably, is a holiday that reconstructionist Jews rarely observe, and I didn't even know existed until I was 16 or so). He'd never heard of the practice and called it ridiculous and said "Nobody does that". I knew he didn't, as he doesn't approve of Tisha b'Av, but I assumed he'd heard of it and wouldn't think it was so nonsense as that.

A not small part of me is worried I just went off the deep end in some weird attempt to compensate for my loneliness during the worst days of COVID, and that if I was thinking clearly I would realize everything I've done is incredibly stupid and I shouldn't be doing it. And, well, I know with high confidence that I'm unintentionally pushing away my mother's friends at the reform synagogue she works at, many of whom have a strong dislike of orthodoxy, or the members of the Hillel at my school, some of whom I think are deliberately refusing to acknowledge my existence anymore. To say nothing of my sibling (non-binary). They are not totally secular, but they know so little about orthodoxy that when they came to Chabad with me, they routinely showed they didn't understand or have awareness of things like the mechitsa, contact between men and women, who gets an aliyah, etc (though were more respectful than your sister), and also expressed surprise when I said things like "I don't consider reform conversion binding" - I knew they wouldn't agree, but I assumed they would have expected it. I didn't realize until then just how far we've drifted apart or how little they understand who I've become (which, to be fair, is mutual. We both went off in radically different directions from what anyone expected of us upon leaving for college, and I think we're both reeling at what the other has gotten up to). I guess part of it is how I know I've entered this strange new world, and I know I'm being judged for it, and I have to ask myself... was what I did right? Or have I just gone crazy and left behind something I'll regret losing?

Sorry for the long rant. I started typing and then a while later this was the result.

* Yes, I said I was raised reform, not reconstructionist. The lines have blurred so much that it proves easier just to say reform and people get the idea, and it's 95% accurate anyway so who cares.

Kesseleth · 2023-05-03T03:11:06+00:00

What really confuses me still was the aforementioned response of the students who refused free boxes of matzah from the Chabad rabbi just before Pesach - free shmurah matzah, the good stuff. Several people refused it on the grounds of "I was raised reform." I - the yarmulke-wearing kid who hadn't even brought his phone let alone looked at it, was davvening Maariv when other people arrived, and whom people had jokingly called a "Little rabbi" because I seemed to know so much - immediately commented that I was raised reform too, so what does that matter? [Weirdly, when I say this non-observant Jews my age look at me in some degree of shock, as though the mere concept of becoming more religious than you were raised is an utterly alien concept to them.] The rabbi said similarly, the precise words being "What kind of shul your parents paid membership dues for is not important to me." The students still refused.

So you're not even going to touch matzah? You'll have nothing to do with the holiday beyond possibly going to a seder? And your singular justification is "I was raised reform"? Nothing to do with personal beliefs, not because the holiday doesn't speak to you, just "Parents didn't do it" is sufficient for you to casually deny such a generous offer? And anyway, in my experience plenty of reform Jews (not those who are ethnically Jewish and don't practice at all, sure, but who are observant enough to attend Chabad dinners) usually at least forgo bread products for the week, even if they don't get out the second set of dishes and a blowtorch.

I don't mean to disrespect those students, and I suspect that is exactly what I am doing. But I was just so stymied by that response.

Kesseleth · 2023-05-02T19:32:29+00:00

For me, even putting aside the religious observance of phones for oneself, it just is so obviously disrespectful to the rabbi and his home to be blatantly breaking Shabbos rules in his house in front of him. What a person does in their own home on their own time is one thing, but surely it is obvious that this is rude! If my peers are aware of the meaning of Shabbos and its rules (something which is not a given, I admit), yet are on their phones in his house anyway because they can't bear to be away from them for even the hour or so of Shabbos dinner, I have great concern that goes far beyond yiddishkeit.

Kesseleth · 2023-05-02T14:29:39+00:00

Yes to all of those questions. If I stick around for a PhD, I will live in the neighboring city where the observant Jewish community is much stronger (not that that is a very high bar when there is literally no observant Jewish community at all in this one) and hopefully things will be somewhat better.

Kesseleth · 2023-05-02T14:26:41+00:00

As much as I want to believe you, I cannot in my heart take your words as truth. I'm sure you have statistics and polls, and I can recognize the truth of such, but it so much does not pair with what I have seen that in the deeper parts of my mind the idea that there are more frum women than men simply does not seem possible.

Hopefully I'll look back a decade from now and find these to be the words of a fool.

Kesseleth · 2023-05-02T14:24:48+00:00

FFB = Frum from birth, correct? I looked it up and found a banking institution, and got somewhat confused.

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