(no subject)

[seekingferret]

Here, wrestle with a dating etiquette dilemma thing I faced on Thursday.

It was another match from that Jewish dating site designed to mess with my head. I showed up at the restaurant about ten minutes early. While waiting, a guy comes up to me and says that the shul a block away is short for its minyan, and will I join them? In general, I find this a very difficult request to turn down, because it means turning down fellow Jews when they need help trying to fulfill a Mitzvah. On the other hand, the prayer service will be twenty or twenty five minutes long, and I have to figure that making your date wait that long is not exactly the recipe for a good first impression. On the first hand, maybe this will show my commitment to Judaism? Hard to predict.

I called her up and told her that if she didn't mind, I was going to go help these people make a minyan. She said she didn't mind, so I went, and met up with her half an hour later after the service was finished. (The extra ten minutes was because I was actually person number nine, and we had to wait until they tracked down person number ten) Still not sure it was the right choice. I mean, I suppose it was: I would have felt a lot worse if I had turned down the request and they had been unable to make the minyan. But I feel it was a rude thing to do to my date in any case.

Also tied in with my complicated feelings about mechitzas. Obviously I could have invited her to come to the service, too, but she wouldn't have been counted in the minyan and the shul has a crappy white curtain in the corner with enough room for a couple of women to huddle behind in the Beis Medrash where they hold afternoon and evening services, so I really didn't want to suggest it. I hate that just because we don't count women for the minyan, so many shuls make their space so unwelcoming to women who actually do want to pray. But I felt like a sexist going off to pray with the menfolk without at least offering the invitation for her to participate, and probably it was in fact a sexist thing for me to do. *shrugs* I don't know.

Comments

[dragonfly]

Not the average dating dilemma I read about on my f-list. ;)

I'm not a Jew, but I am a girl, and I'm trying to put myself in her shoes. So, let's see: I'm interested in finding a nice Jewish man to date and consider for a more serious commitment. I use a Jewish dating site, and actually find someone to meet for a date. I'm a little nervous about the date -- anyone would be -- and he calls me to ask about delaying the meeting so he can help someone form a minyan.

...

If it were me, I'd be relieved to have the extra time before having to meet the guy. Either to primp some more, or because I'm chronically running late anyway, or just to settle my nerves. Would I want to be invited along to the shul? No. I say no, because I'm nervous enough, I don't want to deal with an abrupt and last minute change to the agenda. I would certainly not be offended that he thought it was important to help out some fellow Jews--that's why I'm looking for a Jewish guy, right? Yeah, I'd rather he go, take care of that, and give me a little unexpected breathing space before the scary date.

But that's me. FWIW.

[lannamichaels]

Honestly, she wasn't there, so I think it was fine. If you'd been on the date and someone had come up to you and asked you to make the minyan, I feel like it's rude if only one of you goes, but it was just delaying the date. If she'd offered to come along and meet up with you at the shul, that's one thing, but it sounds like she didn't.

Also, "missing a date to make a minyan" totaly shows your commitment to Judaism. :P

[cahn]

Huh. Yeah, when I think about what I would think in the closest-to-equivalent situation (if I were matched up on an LDS dating site and the guy had to help with a priesthood thingie), it works out to be a good thing overall, and something I'd totally understand and even rather have sympathy for -- and it would absolutely show his commitment to the religion, which would be a plus.

Of course, it might depend a little on how much time was wasted for me -- if I were halfway to the restaurant and had to wait around for half an hour, I might be a little annoyed, but if I hadn't even got started yet (or there was good shopping around or whatever) I wouldn't care much.

About inviting her to come... hmm... if you'd known her for longer, I'd say to say exactly what you say here. Since it's a first date, yeah, I dunno. No good answers. Although ideally if she had wanted to come along she would have said something (though intersex religious communication doesn't, of course, always work that way).

[jetpack_monkey]

Huh. This totally explains why sometimes when I'm waiting for the bus, there's a guy who sometimes comes up and asks people if they happen to be Jewish.

Stuff learned!

[seekingferret]

There's actually a more likely alternate explanation for that. Jews don't really believe in proselytizing, but they do believe in trying to bring non-observant Jews back into the fold, a process called kiruv. Asking if you're Jewish is typically the first move a person performing kiruv does, because they have no interest in trying to convert non-Jews. The next move is typically asking if you have time to perform one mitzvah today, and they'll try to convince you to take a few minutes to put on Tefillin and say a blessing.

But it's possible that they were looking for people to help make a minyan. That also happens.