Would We Want It Any Other Way?

I

recently heard a speaker urging people not to get stuck in the toil of everyday life, of work and career, of pursuing gashmiyus, and instead to make our lives more spiritual and Torah-focused. Yet I couldn’t help but bristle with a bit of defensiveness as I thought of my husband who works day and night as a primary-care physician. As the primary breadwinner in our family, he contends with a grueling schedule — and I know that in many families, both parents work equally hard. Working to support our families and the religious lifestyle we live is intense, demanding, and unrelenting.

I often think back to the time when my husband decided to leave his yeshivah in Eretz Yisrael and continue his learning in the States. One of his rebbeim shared an observation: “I had a talmid once who went to that yeshivah in America. He then decided to go to medical school. I guess he was really into gashmiyus.” An uncanny, unintentionally prophetic comment of sorts, since my husband did end up going to medical school a number of years later. But trust us, it wasn’t for the gashmiyus. Baruch Hashem for the many frum doctors of the world who go into medicine for the most altruistic reasons, alongside their desire to support their families.

It’s not about having the extra money to build one’s dream house or pay for the yearly Succos in Israel. This is simply about what it takes to pay the bills and raise a frum family in 2019. We don’t mean to allow the grind of everyday life, of working exceptionally hard day in and day out, to overwhelm, but it seems it’s inevitable these days in order to survive.

So what does the frum grind look like for so many in our communities? Parents are putting in long hours on the job — typically with both parents working. We generally have large families, including children with various educational, emotional, and medical needs. There are communal demands on our time, as our shuls, schools, and organizations need us to volunteer our time and energy in order to function. And of course, there are constant financial demands. Each month seems to have its own additional expenses. We go from camp shopping to back-to-school shopping, to Yom Tov expenses, to seasonal clothes shopping. In addition to the tzedakah requirements during the times of Rosh Hashanah, Purim, and Pesach, there is dinner season for ads and yearly tzedakah campaigns for our local and national institutions. Other financial demands unique to our way of life include myriad religious expenses, day school tuition, Shabbos and Yom Tov preparation, kosher food for large families, seminary and yeshivah costs, paying for simchahs and the accompanying gifts, and supporting married children. Not to mention that residents of large Jewish communities on both the East and West Coasts deal with exorbitant mortgages in frum neighborhoods, even for more simple homes. And have we forgotten the question of saving for retirement, or even saving for higher education for our children?