The Yiddish Guide to just about Everything--part #1

English was not my first language. Although we also spoke others, Yiddish was the preferred language when I was young. And like other languages, Yiddish is chock full of idioms and metaphors. Some of these idioms are from a time period well in the past and may not be used by modern speakers of Yiddish. Languages adapt to the circumstances of their speakers.

In Europe of the 19th and 20th centuries the military, particularly the army, had great significance. The time periods were marked by many armed conflicts. The military provided many of the idioms and metaphors used by Yiddish speakers. The military was not a meritocracy but a type of aristocracy; regular soldiers were conscripted from among the "lower" classes, and officers came from the upper classes. Officers had power, authority, education, came from monied families and looked terrific in their beautiful uniforms. They were required to have polished manners, to have social graces, to be able to converse intelligently, and to be as good in a ballroom as they were on the battlefield. Thus officers were "ideal men," at least that is the romanticized view.

Yiddish, the military and shidduchim came together in an idiom, an idiom that illustrates clearly that some of the issues in shidduchim were around long ago and are not just modern problems. The phrase is "Zie vill an offitzeer mit a shtraimel"--she wants an officer wearing a shtraimel. The "pshat" of this idiom is sometimes explained in different but related ways. One explanation is that she wants the best of both worlds, worlds normally in conflict with each other. Another explanation is that she wants two things that are mutually exclusive--officers were never frum Jews and frum Jews could never be officers. But the simplest explanation is "she wants too much," "she wants the impossible," "she wants what hasn't been created yet."

The idiom clearly refers to a woman. There was a lesser used idiom that referred to a man, but I overheard that idiom when I clearly was not supposed to, used by a few men who would have been horrified to know that I heard it, and I would never myself have repeated it, and certainly not in writing on a blog. It has its equivalent in the English "prostitute with a heart of gold" idiom but was far more pithy.

Clearly those who were involved in trying to make a shidduch for their children or who were observing the shidduch process were frustrated. The answer to "What do women/men want?" was "too much." Funny, we use different words today but we are still saying the same thing--those looking for a shidduch want too much. And sometimes there is truth to the "offitzeer mit a shtraimel" dilemma.

We build a picture in our minds of the "perfect," of the "ideal" person we would like to marry. We imbue that person with all the positive midos and characteristics we can think of. We sally forth secure in our thoughts that such a person exists--we are just going to have to look hard to find him/her. And we are disappointed when the person whose image we have in our minds doesn't seem to exist anywhere where we can find him/her.

Last I looked, custom built people were not an option. Of course, there was the Golem mi Prague, but the Golem turned out to have plenty of problems also. And Dr. Frankenstein's creation turned out to be more "monster" then "mensch."

There is no harm in thinking about what an "ideal" life partner would be, as long as we recognize that "perfection" is a philosophical idea, not one that is found in the real world. In truth, perhaps what we ought to be doing is going to a second step. Okay, here is the "perfect" person--now what will I--also not a perfect person--be willing and able to live with. It is not about what we "deserve" but about what is actually available in the real world.

We need to get practical, as painful as that might be. We need to replace "offitzeer mit a shtraimel" with "This is doable." Maybe then we can also say "And they lived happily ever after."