What does it mean to take a “gap year“? Does it mean that you spend your year working for an American clothing company specializing in basic ensembles that are perfect for yeshiva dress-code compliance? No, but wouldn’t the employee discount alone make this a worthwhile endeavor?
For the record, the GAP store has nothing to do with a taking a gap year. The GAP store created its name as a tribute to the “generation gap,” a term from the 1960’s referring to the intellectual, social and moral divide between the youth and their parents. The generation gap still exists, as evidenced by the respective tastes and tendencies of today’s young and old, but there are ways to bridge the gap. See, e.g., the Broadway hit “Hamilton,” a musical about American history sung mostly through rap. Does this mean that if we want greater inter-generational understanding, we should create a hip-hop version of Fiddler on the Roof? Or just modernize the songs, like this: “If I were a rich man, yubby, dibby, dibby, dibby, dibby, dibby, dibby, dum. All day long I’d double my income, if I were a tech-stock man.”
Back to our main question: what does taking a “gap year“ actually mean? Does it mean that you spend twelve months in a row studying Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board? No, but if you do spend a year learning the GAAP as part of your quest to become an accountant, then your Jewish parents will likely schepp nachas on principle. What principle you ask? The GAKP, i.e., the Generally Accepted Kvelling Principle that if your child becomes a doctor, lawyer, accountant or a similarly high-level professional, then you have something to brag about to your friends every chance you get.
In case you are wondering, in the world of accounting the GAAP principles include regularity, consistency, sincerity, permanence of methods, prudence and good faith. An argument can be made that these accounting principles sound more like a resume for the perfect spouse. Imagine a personal advertisement (in a newspaper or on-line) as follows: “Looking for my bashert, someone who will treat me like a financial statement and who will honestly, faithfully and lovingly assess my assets, recognize my revenue and balance my sheets.“
Back to our primary question: what does taking a “gap year” mean? Does it mean that you spend 365 consecutive days hanging out at the Delaware Water Gap, where the Delaware River cuts through a large ridge of the Appalachian Mountains and not far from the Pocono Mountains, Pennsylvania’s answer to New York’s Catskills Mountains where the Borscht Belt once thrived? No, and as an aside, if the Jewish resorts in the Catskills were in the Borscht Belt, then were the resorts in the Poconos the Sour Cream Belt?
Of course, in the Jewish world in the United States, taking a “gap year“ typically means that a student who has graduated high school takes a year of self-reflection and exploration before beginning college, a job or the next phase of life. The “gap year” has become very popular, as some do everything they can to delay entering young adulthood, desperately clinging to their remaining youth as it inevitably slips through their aging, increasingly veiny hands. Thus, in this sense, the gap year is sort of a stopgap. Others use the gap year to achieve a new level of maturity and responsibility, hoping that a year of independence will instill a greater commitment to becoming more well-rounded, sophisticated and thoughtful. A few use the gap year so that they can sample every delicious morsel served on Ben Yehdua, at Machane Yehuda and any other restaurant or market named Yehuda.
No matter what the precise reason, for many the gap year is a treasured time of growth intellectually, socially and religiously/spiritually, which can magically help even the most lost souls find what they are looking for, often in the most unexpected places, people and experiences. (Yes, children may come home with a new hashkafa but that should be fine as long as they acknowledge that “kibbud av va’em“ is non-negotiable.) In many cases, by year’s end the gap has been filled, creating a bridge to a new and exciting opportunities. But, like many bridges, there is a toll and a rather steep one at that: your childhood. (Imagine seeing that charge on your next E-Z Pass bill.) For this reason, not everyone fills the gap and crosses over. Some stay behind for another half or full year but eventually they too must face the music and, as they say in the U.K., mind the gap.
Final thought: If you take a gap year in the United States to fix your gap teeth, then the program should be called “Diastema in the Diaspora.”
