#shlichus

1. Me in real life

I come off as much more talkative here, probably. I’m pretty quiet until I get to know people and even once I do, I’m often still a bit quiet in group settings (one-on-one, not so much). Though constantly meeting new people on a regular basis throughout my time in EY has upped my smalltalk game. 

Other than that, probably about the same. In real life as on tumblr, a lot of people seem to perceive me as a person to come to with Judaism questions (though on tumblr it’s a mix of halachic and conceptual whereas in real life it’s more often halachic - basic halacha I mean, not to answer a real shaila, I’m not qualified for that! or occasionally chasidus/Chabad things from non-chasidic Jews), and in real life as on tumblr I’ve had people tell me I should be a teacher. 

2. Qualities of a shaliach

Well first of all, the ability to regularly interact with frat boys is only required for campus shluchim. A lot of shluchim aren’t serving a campus, so that’s not a quality necessary for all of them.

The most important quality is a LOOOOOOOT of ahavas yisroel, for two reasons:

Chabad houses literally exist just to help and create a community for other Jews, and not just frum Jews, but every single kind of different Jew with every single kind of different life story, background, current situation, etc. Shluchim live and breathe to help their fellows. If you don’t have a whole lot of ahavas yisroel, you’re just not going to have the energy to spend your whole life helping all these random people, many of whom you may only meet once or twice and then never see again. A shaliach also needs to be able to relate to and understand Jews who maybe aren’t quite in the same mindset as them, and ahavas yisroel accomplishes that. A good shaliach can see the pintele yid in every Jew, no matter what, and relate to that person wherever they are at.

No one who isn’t truly invested in the mission of shlichus will be able to handle the difficulties. Shluchim don’t have easy lives, and they could have things a lot easier if they stayed in a nice cozy frum community. Many shluchim live far from a community - either in the same city as one but not within reasonable walking distance, in a location where they may very well be the only permanent frum residents in the entire country, or somewhere in between. They may have to have kosher food shipped to them, drive hours to get to a mikvah, and so on. There is an online school for children of shluchim in remote locations, but they often don’t have access to a local frum school. They are often far away from their relatives. They have to spend a lot of time fundraising to keep afloat and run their programs. Granted, some shluchim face greater challenges than others (the campus shluchim here, for example, happen to live in an actual Chabad community while still being right near the campus they serve, and then you have Chabad of Central Africa in the DRC), but it’s not the easiest possible life to choose and only ahavas yisroel for the Jews they are serving can power them through that.

Don’t underestimate yourself XD

Maybe you’ll find the secret and maybe one day you’ll be a campus shlucha and be able to do it :-P

Oh I don't think it was something wrong with how they were doing things. They were close with other students. Just not me.