My son went on a three-day camping trip this summer. For
three days he walked from campsite to campsite, didn't have
access to normal washrooms, didn't bathe, hardly slept,
didn't brush his teeth. I sent a fresh bar of soap with him
and he returned with it fully intact. In other words, he had
a great time.
Some of the happiest times of our lives are when we're
roughing it. Camp, setting up house as newlyweds, or
vacationing on a shoestring. When I was a university student
in Montreal (pre-B.T. days) I lived in a section of downtown
called the Student Ghetto. It was very romantic and
idealistic to share an apartment with a girlfriend and live
as a `poor student.' If you go to yeshiva or seminary, you
get a similar experience. So why is this lifestyle so ideal
and wonderful in specific frameworks and considered the
blight of poverty in others?
There are a number of psychological explanations: It's okay
when you're young; it's only for a few days / months / years;
it's a choice, not a last resort and when we put our mindset
to it, it has different connotations. But the nitty-gritty is
that if we can survive it and even enjoy it under one set of
circumstances, we should be able to survive it under
others.
Now before you give up toiletries and indoor plumbing, I'm
not saying that you cannot have these things, only that you
do not have to have them or any other `basic amenity'. We get
used to a certain standard of living and can't imagine living
any other way. A friend of mine told me about a woman who
used to take three trips abroad and today takes only one, as
part of tightening her belt. For her, this is truly cutting
corners, but it's a reflection of what one woman has adapted
herself to. Any lifestyle, rich or poor, is first and
foremost a matter of habit.
There's a story about a rich man who used to sit out in a
dung heap every day with the poor, to accustom himself to it,
should he ever be reduced to poverty. There are people who
grew up poor and though they came into money, they still live
as if they were poor. They don't need more than what they
were used to.
Last year, I took my son abroad. Saved up, went into debt,
saved up, pulled all the stops and went to Canada, the United
States and Europe.
This year, he went to (the aforementioned) day camp with his
youth group and friends, visited kivrei tzaddikim, got
a brocha from R' Kanievsky and did the local summer
attractions. I asked him the rhetorical question, already
knowing the answer. "You had a better time this summer with
your friends than you did last year, didn't you?" He
shrugged, "Just about," he answered. And if you compare the
two lists, you'll notice that what was more fun and cheaper
was also better for his spiritual growth.
Forgive me as I wax nostalgic again. One of my favorite
summer pastimes was walking with my girlfriend to get an ice
cream, as a teenager. The return trip took about an hour. One
year, it was pouring rain and we frolicked in the puddles and
arrived at her house drenched. That's one of my favorite
summer memories, and I was also taken to Europe.
Many people already know that less is often more and that
many gedolei hador grew up in abject poverty. While
it's not necessary to live under turn-of- the-century
standards prevalent in Eastern Europe or the Yishuv, we can
lower our standards a bit and still enjoy life, maybe even
enjoy it more.
I'm not suggesting we all become homeless, but if we think
about the possibility of `roughing it' on a more than once-a-
year basis [maybe at the occasional end of the month when the
money's gone] and not panic about what emotional scars this
may leave on our families, we may be giving them an
experience that money can't buy.
