THE CELLPHONE – CHASIDISM’S TRUE MORAL ENEMY

My son, albeit a modern orthodox young man, is not what you would call a Lubavitcher Chasid. Yet, he recently married a most sweet and exotically beautiful Syrian bride on the steps of 770 Eastern Parkway, the world headquarters of the Lubavitcher/Chabad Chasidim. He was regaled in full Chasidic garb, she wore a classically modest gown and thick “deck-tichel” (veil), and I even got to wear my fedora.

You must know that Benjy getting married in a Lubavitcher ceremony made me tremendously proud. I kvell. I say this neither gratuitously nor with apology. Since 16, I have been close to Chabad, and they have been a consistently positive influence in my life. The Rebbe’s divinely enlightened wisdom and guidance literally saved my life. Is the Rebbe still alive? Certainly. He lives in my soul.

Simply put, Lubavitchers are my people. Thus, my reverence does not preclude me from lighthearted laughing at some of the Chasidic communities’ idiosyncrasies. Knowing as I do the typically robust Lubavitcher sense of humor, I assume that (maybe) they would be laughing along with us.

One of the mandates of a Chasidic wedding, as you likely know, is that men and women are separated from beginning to end. This I can understand for the ceremony, as it is a sacred time of worship. I might even understand it during the smorgasbord – universally called “the sh’morg” – extravaganza, when vodka and other libations flow freely and might loosen the tongue to speak licentiously to the opposite sex.

(Let me digress for a moment and talk about this binge called “the sh’morg.” The sh’morg, not the pious words spoken to the bride and groom by the Rabbi, is the true yardstick of a bounteous wedding. The lamb-chop station. The pasta station. The stir-fry station. The sushi station. What is it about Chasidim and sushi? Once I heard a landsman in beard and payes announce that the faux crabmeat “tasted just like the real thing.” A-ha.)

End of the sh’morg. Back to the festivities.

I can even see how during the dancing the separation is justified, as skirts and tzitzis go swirling in the frenzy.

But, I will never understand why men’s and women’s dinner tables must also be separated by a nine-foot mechitza. I mean, what immorality could possibly be perpetrated by pious men and women sitting next to each other while fressing on a nine-course glatt-kosher bacchanalia? After an orgy of more faux-crabmeat, prime rib and Viennese pastry, I certainly do want to go to bed, but not with someone else’s wife, or probably even my own. And take a Tagamet first.

Let me tell you what really ought to be banned from Chasidic weddings: Cellphones. Separated as they are, cellphones are the only way that men and women are able to communicate with each other during the evening. How many times have I seen husbands and wives innocently use their cell-phones to determine when to leave the reception? Or, “Did you call the babysitter? “No, I thought that you called that babysitter.”

Cellphones for innocent purposes, you say? How do you know that Yankel or Reizel is not clandestinely calling a paramour for a tryst the next afternoon at the Pierre, and doing it under cover of the din and the raucous Chasidic music? Or that Sh’muel isn’t calling in an inside trade on a new offering of an Oriental hi-tech, Kin Ah Hora.

Please, please tell my Chasidic friends that I am just having a good time at their expense and that I need to dunk my mind in the mikvah. But, also remind them that I, like they, can always tell the difference in the look in a man’s eyes when he’s hungry for strudel or for something more toothsome.