Bad News is Everywhere

"Bad news is everywhere, shut my eyes, shut my ears and mouth; cause I know there's a better day coming blowing in from the North and the South." 

-Moshav Band

It's a terrible truth that bad things are everywhere. It was news of one of these bad things that made me question, as I tend to do, the the frum community's practice of marrying of their children when they're extremely young. 

The "news" was of a very young married girl who suffered a miscarriage. A horrible thing to happen under any circumstances, but when I heard of this particular case (not that it was the first that I'd heard) I found myself thinking about how horrible it was for this girl, who really is still a child herself, to have suffered such a tragedy. I asked myself, "Why are parents so eager to throw their children into the 'real world' by marrying them off so young? Yes, the wedding is a great simcha and it's a wonderful thing to celebrate, but what about after the wedding? Once married, these young children cannot be protected from the evils of the world anymore."

With bad news being everywhere, yesterday I heard another piece of "news" that broke my heart. Without going into details, a young girl in the frum community got married and almost immediately found out that her new husband was not who she thought he was. They are now discussing divorce.

This girl is still practically a child yet she is already faced with a failing marriage. She, who was sheltered in the frum community all her life, has been intimately exposed to a person and a situation that she could have been protected from if her parents had just let her have a few more years to grow up. Maybe if she'd had a little more life experience she would have been able to recognize the signs in the man who is now her husband, and the marriage could have been prevented. 

Her wedding was a great and joyous occasion, and as long as it was all lace and chocolate decadence everything was wonderful, but the "honeymoon" ended all too soon, and now the wedding is being seen as a tragedy for this girl who now has to deal with things that no child should have to deal with. 

In some frum communities there is, "a better day coming, blowing in from the North and the South," where getting married a little later (at 22, or 23 - young, huh?) is becoming more acceptable, but there are still so many communities that run to marry off their children in their teens. 

Parents, I'm begging you to look ahead for your child and consider that maybe they need to be eased into real life, instead of thrown into it abruptly with marriage. A beautiful wedding, while wonderful, is not enough to ease that transition. Children need a chance to grow up a little bit before they are married off and are immediately expected to act like adults. Think past the simcha of the engagement and the wedding (no, I'm not talking about grandchildren) and consider whether your child could use a little more time as a child before they have to start having children of their own. 

Jewlicious!

Israeli dancing to rap music by Y-Love. 

Club dancing in flip-flops. 

A Breslov chassid dancing with modern Orthodox and non-religious guys. 

It's the Jewlicious Festival, and it's nothing if not fascinating to watch. 

For a "Jewish Woodstock," as LA Blueprint website called it, it was a lot smaller than I expected. The crowd in front of the stage was maybe 10 or 15 rows of people thick, with the rest of the room consisting of people just meandering about, dancing, or just watching. 

Some group (or maybe it was just one performer - I couldn't tell) named "Kosher Dillz" was rapping away on stage and I wasn't especially impressed with the cries of, "Oy vey all day!"

Dov Rosenblatt, of the band Blue Fringe, came up, and things started to get much better. Dov has a nice voice, plays guitar really well, and gave a very good performance. When the Moshav Band came on and sang a song with him, you could feel the excitement in the room growing. 

Then Moshav came on. The room was packed full and when Moshav started playing the crowd started moving together for the first time in the evening. Their music and charisma made it impossible not to be drawn in. The audience was so involved in the performance that they were practically breathing together. Without a doubt, they were the highlight of the evening. 

It seemed to go downhill from there. After Moshav left the stage, the room emptied out. The next performer, a German-Jewish pop singer, had a depressingly small audience, and when I wandered outside I found out it was because most of the crowd went to join a drum circle. 

My first drum circle. I was so NOT excited. But with the choice between a Jewish-German Britney Spears, dancing provacatively with a guy wearing a kippah who she called on stage, and a drum circle, I decided to just sit on the side and watch. 

The drummer wearing the, "60 Years of Getting Chai" did freak me out, but it was when the shofar came out that I knew it was time to leave. 

A dreadlocked-hippy playing a shofar in a drum circle fueled by the fumes of weed wafting through the air... That was just too much for me. Call me intollerant but it was so far out of my realm of normal that I didn't know what to do with myself. 

In spite of the scary parts, I had a pretty good time and I'm glad that I went, if only to see all different kinds of Jews coming together to dance and sing. 

Next time, though, can we do it without the drugs and alcohol, please?