“Bring Back the Vendors”

From the COLlive Inbox: I read with great interest, and, frankly, disappointment , about the expanded “no vendor” rules surrounding Simchas Beis Hashoeiva, building on last year’s initiative.

By Avremi Gourarie

I read with great interest, and, frankly, disappointment , about the expanded “no vendor” rules surrounding Simchas Beis Hashoeiva, building on last year’s initiative.

Let’s call this what it is. This isn’t really about the vendors. It’s about the atmosphere.

It’s about community leaders and educators attempting to “reclaim” the “holiness” of the event as they believe the Rebbe intended it. It’s about eliminating “undesirable” behavior, discouraging “undesirable” kids from attending, and restoring what is deemed a more “chassidishe” atmosphere.

Every one of those quotation marks is intentional. Read on.

It is true that Simchas Beis Hashoeiva has become a destination for young people whose intentions extend beyond participating in chassidishe dancing. There is alcohol. Illicit drug use. Boys and girls mingle. There is behavior and dress that do not conform to accepted community standards, that, at times, can themselves become arbitrary exercises in virtue signaling.

It has been suggested that many of these kids aren’t even from Crown Heights, and therefore somehow aren’t our responsibility, the ‘bums from Flatbush, Boro Park’ so to speak.

But many of them are from here. And kids from other neighborhoods matter no less.

They are our sons and daughters. This is their neighborhood. This is their outlet. This is their home.

And our response is to drive them away?

Have we lost our collective moral compass? Is the principle now simply: What we don’t see won’t trouble us?

This is a time to be kind and inclusive. ‘Shluchei Mitzvoh…..’ V’dal.

The reality, and I’ve verified this with musicians who are there, is that in the immediate vicinity of the dancing, the atmosphere remains chassidish, family-friendly, and wholesome.
Farther up the avenue and on the side streets, things can get a little hectic.

What an extraordinary opportunity.

Or perhaps I should say: what an extraordinary missed opportunity.

Take a page from the Shluchim playbook around the world. No encounter with another Yid is squandered. No person is written off because they aren’t dressed correctly, behaving correctly, or standing in the correct place.

And here, in Crown Heights, these are our own children, our neighbors, our fellow Jews, and we sideline them?

Why?

Because your seven-year-old might, oy vey, witness behavior you consider inappropriate and somehow be permanently scarred?

Here’s an idea: keep your child close. Dance with them for an hour. Take them home and put them to bed.

And as for what is happening on the surrounding streets – engage.

Let the frum people who are so concerned go out and speak with these kids. Invite them into your sukkah. Offer them something to eat. Start a real conversation. A pop up Farbrengen. Ask them how they’re doing. Listen to them. Perhaps some good might actually come of it.

But instead, I suspect that some adults experience the situation as a kind of failure, something they cannot control, something that reflects badly on them, something that “doesn’t look like Lubavitch.”

Maybe that discomfort is worth examining.

Today’s young people, yes, including the ‘difficult ones’, the ‘rebellious’ ones, the ones making us uncomfortable, are extraordinary. They are remarkably open, extraordinarily honest, and perhaps are trying to tell us something about pain, hypocrisy, alienation, and failures within our own community.

Engage. Engage. Engage.

That is what is being asked of us.

Not to keep Kingston Avenue “pure” in our minds. Not to sanitize the streets so we can tell/convince ourselves that we live in a Chassidisher bubble.

Grab the opportunity for hafatzah. Grab the opportunity for connection.

This is your moment. Don’t squander it.

Perhaps this is what holiness actually looks like.

“Mir tor nisht” can become an easy cop-out. Be wiser than that. Be welcoming, even when it is uncomfortable. Especially when it is uncomfortable.

We are living in extraordinary times. Be willing to participate in something messy, edgy, frightening, and potentially transformative.

As one fellow musician put it to me: Light up the alleys. Both physically and philosophically. Know what is happening. Have responsible adults present. Prevent things from descending into genuine chaos.

Absolutely.

But chase the kids away?

What, exactly, is Lubavitch about that?

A Gut Yohr

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