The notion of intelligent life throughout the galaxy has captured the imagination of theorists, pundits and the president. President Clinton's response to the historic find was, "I am determined that the American space program will put its full intellectual power and technological prowess behind the search for further evidence of life on Mars." He pledged billions of dollars to support the exploration of extraterrestrial life.......I think the money would be better spent trying to find intelligent life here on Earth......I'm not sure that has been fully confirmed, yet. Listen, Mars, shmars...I'm still not convinced it's not the pet rock I lost 20 years ago.

NASA is scheduled to launch an unmanned probe this November to bring home a sample of Martian soil, in their search for little green men. The launch coincides with the November elections because Clinton has booked first class seats for Hillary if he loses the presidency. For years science fiction enthusiasts have insisted that we have intermittently been visited by aliens, and that there has been a conspiracy by governmental agencies to cover up the truth. I agree and I'm worried. If John Gray is right that would explain why my husband turns green everytime he eats my potato kugel. Besides I'm convinced that Martians have been sending down rays for years. How else do you explain poodle skirts circa the Fifties, the music of the Sixties (at least, now I know why they call it rock 'n roll), the social revolution of the Seventies, the thirty year obsession with the Rolling Stones, and Ross Perot.

Not surprisingly, we've got our heads stuck in the clouds and have forgotten to come down for a landing. Reality bites and it's not about a planet that is 141 million miles away. We have convened a scientific community obsessed with the ramifications of species and organisms on other planets when we haven't created an international community that can tolerate and respect their diversities and complexities on Earth. NASA chief Dan Goldin announced, "We're now on the doorstep to the heavens. What a time to be alive!" While he's rockin' around the clock, maybe he could take a look at that black glob in the back of the fruit bin in my fridge. If he tells me "It'salllllive" he can have it with my blessings, but only after he washes the bin, my cleaning lady won't go near it.

Astronomer Carl Sagan noted that these findings raise the "possibility of a universe burgeoning with life." Big deal. Come to 13th Avenue on the Sunday before a Yom Tov and you'll find out more about a universe burgeoning with dangerous and unique life forms than you'll find in a lifetime behind a microscope. Visit a nursery school class in any bais yaakov or yeshiva and you'll find out more about germ warfare than any bioengineer.

The pursuit of other-worldly phenomenon reflects the trends in education today; teach abstractions, speak abstractions, invoke abstractions, proffer idealism, but render reality an afterthought. Unfortunately, reality consumes our lives and entertains anything but secondary significance. The dogma has invaded the realm of frum education and has left a generation ineffectual in maintaining composure or dealing productively with reality. Mrs. Rothman emphatically states her objections to this methodology, "I worked through three pregnancies. That alone is an unparalleled 'joy', however it was compounded by what I experienced on a daily basis. I had pretty normal pregnancies, however, throughout each pregnancy I have a tendency to pass out if I stand too long.

"My route to work every morning involved taking two buses, on either of which I rarely got a seat because they both were transporting teenagers to bais yaakovs and yeshivos. I got on the bus every day and witnesseda gaggle of girls either davening or studying for some limudei kodesh test. The boys pretended not to see anyone that engaged their peripheral vision, but I wasn't easily ignored in my pregnant state. I think once someone offered me a seat, and it was a goy. I couldn't take the stress or exhaustion of the commute anymore so I tried a different route. Same story different players. The bus was filled to capacity with girls traveling to another bais yaakov." Occasionally, it is wise to entertain realistic environments that may be conducive to virtuous situations so as not to be completely out of touch with the real world.

Have we immersed our children in idealism untempered with realism that has undermined the infrastructure of their moral and ethical conscience? Mrs. Forman alerts us to her experience. "My neice had a solo in a production so she invited me to enjoy her performance. I took my baby son with me, and as I'm opening the door to the school with one hand, I struggled trying to maneuver the carriage with the other hand, ten girls file out and step around the carriage. Not one offered to assist me with the door or the carriage. In fact they hindered my entry because each one had to awkwardly step over the carriage. I was aghast at the lack of derech eretz - if not outright chutpah. I just don't get it. These kids sit in class for a minimum of seven hours and somehow they just don't make the connection between what they've learned and what they're supposed to do. Why?"

We have orchestrated the mantra of entitlement for a generation of children who don't have a clue as to how to deal with the real world. They are consumed with the concept of "es kumt mir" - I deserve it for being so frum, so wonderful, so perfect. Parents contribute or initiate this phenomenon by injecting their own assertions. Mrs. Grossman has a teenage daughter who is nearly impossible to discipline, yet who regulary is allowed privileges that should not be accorded her. In desperation Mrs. Grossman consulted her friend for suggestions, "I don't know what to do. She won't listen. She's absolutely impossible. What should I do?" When her friend suggested that she refuse to permit her to go on a scheduled ski trip, Mrs.Grossman insisted, "Oh, I can't do that she's using her own money. That wouldn't be right." The friend complains, "Get real. For years Mrs. Grossman has been complaining about her unmanageable daughter, but it's always the same. She won't revoke privileges that she asserts will deprive her child. By doing so she implies that there are specific areas that her daughter has free reign and can do whatever she wants. And in a parent-child relationship it is crucial to implement discipline that will cogently suggest that if you cross certain lines you will have to endure consequences that may be most painful."

The singleminded pursuit of idealism discharges a discrepancy that has ultimately provided fertile ground for a generation that is self-consumed and defines inconsistencies that are out of this world and anchored in virtual rather than actual reality. Mrs. Zimmerman confides, "I had two little children at home under the age of two. Getting through the day was a matter of sheer survival. I worked full time, then came home to a houseful of chores. My husband came home every day and sat down to learn from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm, or what is commonly referred to as rushed hours. It's a non-stop marathon from serving supper, to giving baths, to putting them to sleep. I was terribly resentful that my husband, having the entire evening ahead of him, chose those hours to learn. I want him to have a seder, but why did it have to be at the most hectic hours of the day. Finally, I asked a Rov if I was allowed to disturb his learning to ask for his help. He assured me that it was entirely appropriate. My husband however insisted that I was interrupting his seder and that I was wrong." Being idealistically virtuous seems to have overshadowed the necessity of being realistically virtuous to the detriment of all concerned.

Mrs. Pretter confides her own encounter with the misappropriated reality of misguided virtue, "I had just attended a wedding and was waiting outside for my ride home. Suddenly the door to the catering hall burst open and out came a stampede of men. I moved aside just in time not to get injured. Unfortunately, I didn't move quickly enough to satisfy one particular individual. The man announced, 'Der Rebbe kimt' and gave me an elbow in the ribs that I will not soon forget. I had moved out of the way, and would have moved further if I had been forewarned. But he was obviously not satisfied that the path was adequately free for the Rebbe." I am certain that the Rebbe would not appreciate the M.O. the individual had pursued to avail him of that extra measure of kavod that was assumed by the degradation of someone else.

The only thing real about some of the virtuous behavior these days is how really obnoxious it is. How obnoxious have we become in the solicitation of virtue and how out of touch are we with the reality that must be assessed? Mrs. Weiss explains, "Our twelfth grade yearbook was purged of any mention of the Holocaust. It seems that the administration did not want to appear even remotely in favor of a memorium that might be misinterpreted. The Holocaust was presented as a punishment to Klal Yisroel and they didn't want to glorify a punishment. Furthermore, the faculty intoned that Holocaust stories were cliche, and they all revolved around the same theme, so instead we published parodies of Shakespeare, a poem about a computer, and several other banal pronouncements. I still don't get it. Here we were Bais Yaakov girls, of which at least 50% were the children of survivors, and we were to pretend as if the Holocaust was not of major historic and emotional importance to our lives. That year I was made to feel that it was unimportant that my parents survived the Holocaust. How deplorable!" Being in Holocaust denial isn't any less painful than dealing with the issue head on.

That denial has fostered a generation that is completely clueless to tragedy of the Holocaust. Recently a friend remarked, "I could not have stood by and watched as my children were taken away." When I asked her what she would have done, she responded, "Anything." When I explained that if anything was not an option, what would she have done, she countered with, "Something". And when I explained that if something wasn't an option what would she have done, she painfully answered,"Nothing". And I explained to her that that's exactly what survivors did, they made something out of nothing.

We seem to have become entwined in the rhetoric of virtue that deems no exclusions or limitations beyond the consummate considerations of the ideal. Mr. Friedman discriminates in his analysis of the ideal. "I get grief every time I go to a simcha or away for a weekend. My sister called she needed a ride to a simcha and was angry because I refused to pick her up; never mind it's 20 minutes and 180 degrees in the opposite direction. Another time my wife and I went to Lakewood for Shabbos and had four requests for rides back to the city. I turned everyone down, and they all glared at me like I was some monster who didn't want to do a mitzvah. I have no problems doing mitzvahs, but not at someone else's expense. With a houseful of children, my wife and I rarely have time to ourselves. That hour and a half back to the city is like a date for us. We talk about the Shabbos, and what we enjoyed and what we didn't. Now would you invite a third person on your date? I wouldn't either, and that's why when I'm out with my wife I prefer not to give rides. In my book it's no mitzvah."

The lack of symmetry between virtue and reality undermines the coping mechanism of many who presume to be able to entertain the ideal but have extreme difficulty negotiating its configurations. Mrs. Meyer explains, "We were conditioned to believe that if we were virtuous we'd get whatever we need; they forgot to tell us about tuition. We were all encouraged to go be teachers and support our husbands in Kollel. They forgot to tell us about working on our due dates, going back to work when your baby still doesn't sleep through the night and you've had three hours of sleep, dragging children to the babysitter, never going on vacations, working forever, financial and emotional stresses that could kill a horse, homework, housework, overwork,and burn-out. You know if someone had even hinted as to what real life was like, I could have better dealt with it. Instead, I feel like we were set up for a fall. Oh, and for those of you who still believe that tuition is a manageable expense especially for those whose finances aren't adequate, dream on. Tuition averages $3,000-$4,000 a year whether you're in business, chinuch, or kollel, and there is a minimal deduction, if any, for siblings. Had I known what I know now I probably would have done things differently from the start. Ignorance isn't bliss, it's very painful." Reality bites, and it bites hard.