The Vanishing American Bochur

(With apologies to Alan Dershowitz)

You can still spot them, now and then: Friday morning, clambering aboard a Mitzvah Tank, blaring Nichoach on loop; ducking out of the Kollel late at night, sefer securely tucked under the arm; or massing outside the NCFJE international headquarters Wednesday afternoons. But in many ways, the American 770 bochur is a breed endangered, disappearing fast.

Don’t be fooled by some op-ed on your favourite Chabad news site harping on about the shidduch crisis. There is no yeshivah bochur glut, but a serious shortage: ‘Bochur’ doesn’t connote marital status, but a transcendent idealism, a carefree, yet impassioned, single-minded devotion to things like Torah, Chassidus, and the Rebbe; unfettered by constraints financial, social and familial. So in a certain sense, the guy with the natty Borsalino tilted just so and smoothly tucked-in shirt in front of you in line to buy sushi, isn’t necessarily a bochur. And in case you were wondering, the young men spilling out of the Mikvah at 7:25 in the morning, towel slung over the shoulder, bounding across the Parkway, to the disapproving frowns of morning commuters, may well be 770 bochurim, but invariably, they aren’t American.

So what happened? These bochurim have been captured in reels of film packing the bleachers of farbrengens with the Rebbe and dancing with abandon on Hey Teves, immortalized in song, story, and on the front cover of The Rebbe’s Army. For generations, their existence has been taken for granted, assumed; their presence in Lubavitch assured. But what about now? What has made the ages of 22 and up such an inhospitable climate for the American Bochur?

The truth is, of course, that a bochur is not born; he is made. For a hundred years, the yeshivah infrastructure, with its attendant mashpi’im and mashgichim, has been in place to cultivate, nurture, guide, and inspire young temimim to access their true potential. So it has been, and so it still is, in many way, as bochurim in mesivtas and many zals throughout the world continue to grow and advance further in the ways of the bochur. Until, that is, they reach 770.

The fact is, that for those unfortunate bochurim outside of the Israeli ‘kvutza’ program, the yeshivah at 770 is no longer the spiritual oasis it once was, but more of desolate wasteland, without oversight, without guidance, and by now without expectation. How can some fresh faced intrepid bochur, just returned from a year or two on shlichus, and especially after smicha, be expected to achieve anything with such rampant levels of neglect? Are they supposed to feel accountable to this make-believe hanholo? Are they to report regularly to some phantom mashgiach?

While in recent weeks there have been faint stirrings of progress in these areas, far more fundamental issues remain soundly unaddressed. Even if there were to be a semblance of a curriculum or direction in learning provided, sitting and studying Torah an entire day is somewhat of a challenge if you don’t have a seat. It isn’t much easier staying a Yeshivah that doesn’t provide a place to stay. But in 770, bochurim spend hours hunting for spare spots, moving to fresh seats, fighting over contested territory, retreating to distant outposts like Yagdil Torah and the kollel, like some primitive nomadic tribesmen. Securing a prized bed in the dormitory at 1414 is an even greater challenge. Months of enduring a sadistic game of telephone tag with the dormitory office sometimes come to end when a bochur waiting for a bed is abruptly informed, “Sorry, we’re full.”

Which yeshivahs do that? Does Bunoy accept bochurim, only to tell them that they to learn what they like, they are to seek board somewhere in Paris, and they may prepare their own food? How is a bochur supposed to feel part of a yeshivah, he is officially enrolled in, when the entirety of his interaction with hanholo is, “Sorry, we’re full”?

Full? Filled up when? Filled up by whom? Apparently, policy assures space only for bochurim signed up to Kvutza. Perhaps there isn’t room for everyone, but whatever happened to ‘First Come, First Served’? Maybe bochurim who plan on learning can be given rooms before mashgichim in Manhattan restaurants in need of space to store the fruits of their H&M shopping expeditions.

Taking care of foreigners at the expense of other bochurim isn’t some elevated form of charity, it’s the product of a twisted conception of selflessness. In this inverted world, neglecting your own to give to others is somehow more noble, and to do otherwise shameful. Taking care of your own first isn’t bigotry. It’s normal, never mind that it’s mandated by halocho. It’s this kind masochism that sees misguided Israeli politicians evict families from their homes and endanger Jewish lives so not to offend Arab sensibilities.

Even if local bochurim were not given some sort of preferred treatment, as is the practice of schools and yeshivas worldwide; even if the Kvutza program didn’t have a place reserved for learning outside of 770, as was the case some 20 years ago; even if non-Israeli bochurim could rely on a room in the 1414 dormitory, as was the case before the fire there in 1989, when bochurim were first moved into basements; why should they be treated as inferiors? Are some bochurim somehow more equal than others? Are some beards blacker than others – or whatever the appropriate metaphor?

Of course, much of this discussion would be moot if the hanholo of 770 would be able to offer all 98 beds in the dormitory at 749 Eastern Pkwy to prospective talmidim. But, for some reason, 749, although owned by the yeshivah, remains “out of their control”. Whatever that means.

Whispers of change have begun to be heard in 770, and real solutions can still be found. A 23 year old single Lubavitcher can still aspire to be something more than a tzenter on a billionare’s yacht. But without action, it’s just a matter of time before another bochur is slowly reduced into a quivering, gelatanous mass of Kahn’s coffee, food stamps, Buncho bagels, pressed shirts, and shiny belt buckles.

That might not sound so awful, and possibly comedic, and maybe that isn’t doing it so tough.

But on any given Shabbos, take a look around 770. You’ll find some bochurim there, along with a few others, long after the main minyan has ended, still davening. And while all around them old men drink their inhibitions into stupid noise,;while the indifferent talk about the football; and while the disillusioned look for new shuls,;they stay in their places, but a few feet higher, their eyes shut tight, and their minds on bigger things. And on Friday nights, you can find them in seder, hours after everyone else has gone home, lost in a maamer, committed. That’s what a bochur can be, it’s what bochurim still are, and if that isn’t worth anyone’s support, then it’s hard to know what is.