However, sometimes that is how I am made to feel.
By whom? Posters in this forum? People in the real world? I know none of us has a full picture of your experience, but it seems from your writing that a lot of the “my way or the highway” attitudes that appear to trouble you so much originate from teenagers or teenagers-at-heart. From dealings with teenagers in the present day to high-school experiences you’ve had. I never had the opportunity to attend a Yeshiva for high school; my only experience is with a public school. It seems, however, that there are unfortunately some common attitudes between both environments. For example, in a public school setting, one who does not wish to be ostracized must follow the clothing and other “minhagim” of the “in crowd.” B”H in the Yeshivos decent clothing and lofty pursuits are what’s considered “cool”, but despite that I do feel that the “in crowd” vs. “out crowd” attitude must go.
When my family and I first moved into our community, we met some extremely warm and friendly people. We also had some unfortunate experiences, rudeness, standoffishness, etc. The latter was extremely scary to us at first, since we were still relatively new to the “religious scene”, but we talked extensively with our Rav and let him guide us. We have B”H made some dear friends from the warm and friendly group, and we stay out of the way of the rudeness (and I believe that if they truly knew the effects of their words or actions on us, they would have acted differently). If we encounter a situation where someone tells us, “don’t you know that you should X”, or “I think the Y you are doing is wrong”, we thank them for the information and then take it to our Rav if needed and ask him what we should do.
Ultimately I have learned that most people are more concerned with what I or others think of them than vice versa.
I do have emotions and sometimes act very strongly on them, even if the end result is not completely logical. Consider it a failing on my part.
I don’t think emotions are a failing. Neither is all illogical behavior necessarily a failing. It was just saddening to me to sense that you felt hurt by a Yeshivish person or persons, and were coming to YWN to try and get others to heap more coals onto yourself.
No one has said that here, so obviously I cannot trot that out.
I was referencing a previous thread about loud and out-of-sync davening. In retrospect, I probably should not have brought that into this discussion.
It’s not that. Heck, the shul that I daven in when there is laining is a largely yeshivish-style shul with no talking… and I have never once ranted against it. On the contrary, it’s a warm welcoming atmosphere where people respect each others’ davening, do not talk or disturb and where I can actually hear the chazzan when he speaks.
That’s amazing that you have found a shul like that. I wonder if it would be worth it to trade in stress for footsteps and go to that shul for all of your davening on Shabbos?
Or perhaps get an associate membership at the other shul so you feel more empowered to say something about the atmosphere?
In other words, it’s not the fact that it’s yeshivish style… it’s the fact that they talk during davening. Had they been a chassidish shteeble, a Young Israel, an MO shul or anything else, I’d be just as bothered.
I apologize for mis-reading you. I interpreted your analysis of the attitude in that shul to be based on this portion of your opening salvo:
I know that you […] wear proper hats and jackets during davening and could easily quote gemarahs, rishonim and achronim that I’ve never heard of.