Version History

There’s been a lot of talk lately about the whole 6’7’ thing.

I recently overheard someone saying, almost in disbelief, “How could it be that 20 year old bochurim are koching in such a shtus?”

And honestly, on a simple level, he’s right.
You’re 20 years old (or even older) — what exactly are you doing?

But at the same time, it felt like something was off in the whole conversation.
Like the main issue was being completely missed.

Because since when did bochurim not have shtick?

Let’s not pretend.
Of course, the job of a bochur is to sit and learn, and in his free time do hafatza vechulu — not to play games and fool around. That’s clear.

But anyone who’s actually been in yeshiva — especially someone who’s a little more “involved,” living what people call a “bochur lifestyle” - knows that there’s a whole way that things work.

There’s a way we speak.
A way we act.
A way we do things.

if it's not like that by you then ask any bochur, and he’ll tell you that the second he gets home, he automatically cuts out half his vocabulary just to be able to speak normally to his family.

And it’s not just lomdishe terms.

One of the more interesting (and honestly, ridiculous) things you’ll see is how bochurim copy mashpi’m or magidei shiurim. The tone, the expressions, the whole shtick.

It’s a little off.
It’s a little funny.

But as long as it’s not coming from a bad place, it’s fine. More than fine - aderabe.

Each yeshiva has its own vibe, its own mashpi’im, its own hanholo, vechulu - and that’s what ends up shaping a bochur more than people realize.

Now obviously, we’re not comparing this to - lehavdil - minhagim, which are part of Torah.
But there is a certain tzad hashoveh here.

Minhagim aren’t random.
They shape a person in a deep way - there's a reason that the ma nishtane starts with matbilin, just like the ben chomesh lemikra knows certain things not because he learned them in cheder, but because he saw them in his house. It’s just how things are done.

I’m not saying this is the inyan of a bochur, and I’m definitely not saying this is the job of hanholo.
But the metzius is that even the most serious things in life come along with side elements — things that aren’t the main point — and that’s not only okay, it’s sometimes even part of the process.

A person isn’t only shaped by davening and learning.
He’s shaped by the conversations he has — even the ones that are, let’s be honest, complete shtusim, because its not only about you're chavrusa its about your circle ve'aderabe .

So if that’s true, then what exactly is bothering people about 6'7'?

They’ll tell you it’s empty.
That it doesn’t mean anything.
That it’s random.

But that’s not really the issue.

The issue isn’t that it’s a shtick.
The issue is where that shtick is coming from.

Because not all shtick ares created equal.

There’s a difference between something that develops naturally within our own inyanim — something that grows out of the world of living in yeshiva, of bochurim — and something that’s imported from somewhere else entirely.

And again, I’m not comparing shtick to lehavdil minhagim.
But just like a minhag isn’t stam random — it comes from somewhere, it reflects something deeper — so too, lehavdil, the shtick that bochurim have carries a certain something with them, something that only another bochur will chap because he is a bochur too.

-And honestly balabatim never really grow up either, they just get caught up in other things-

But when something like 6'7' gets picked up, it’s not coming from that place.

It’s coming from a completely different makor.
A goyish makor.

And that changes everything.

Because the problem is not that it creates a “vibe” (and I am specifically using that term).
The problem is that it creates the wrong vibe.

People think the issue is that there’s no meaning.
But that’s not true. We’ve always had things that don’t “mean” anything.

The real issue is the source.

When something comes from a place that’s disconnected from our way of life, from our mindset, it carries exactly  that with it — whether we realize it or not.

Even if the words themselves are empty, the atmosphere isn’t.

And atmosphere matters.

A person might say, “What’s the big deal? It’s just two numbers.”

But it’s never just the numbers.
It’s what’s behind them.

So when people reduce the whole discussion to just another “shtus,” they’re missing the depth of what’s going on.

Yes, it’s a shtus.
But that’s not the problem.

The question is:
what kind of world is that shtick coming from -
and what kind of world is it quietly creating?

And unfortunately sometimes when speaking to a bochur you're not sure if he is currently learning in a yeshiva or not.

Because a person isn’t only shaped by what he learns and what he thinks,
but by what he casually repeats without even noticing.

because in the end of the day its the "bull-shoves" and little shtick that really stay with you and make you who you are