Tamar's life felt all wrong. Did the Sorting Sheitel make a mistake?

“Sometimes I think we sort too soon.”

—Albus Dumbledore

I always avoid checking my watch in front of my students. A YIN isn’t supposed to have a Versace watch, even as a gift from her chassan. Instead, I glance over my eighth-graders’ heads to the clock on the white wall behind them and clap a cubic zirconia–adorned hand to my mouth.

“My goodness, I didn’t realize how late it was. The Sorting is starting in ten minutes!”

The girls have been avidly focused on my dissection of a Rashi-Ramban machlokes, but at the word “sorting” they all jump up. The annual Sorting is the major social event of the city, and all of the girls’ educational institutions, elementary and high school, gather for it. (The boys have their own separate Sorting ceremony.)

This year, it’s Shaarei Bnos Chochmah’s turn to host, and we’ve been getting ready for it for weeks. As I lead my class through the hall, I note the fresh wall hangings — pictures of rabbanim, deep philosophical quotations, essays by the younger students, and research papers by the older ones. Our intellectual prowess is on full exhibition for our less academically inclined guests. Secretly, I think it’s a bit too in-your-face, but I suppose we have to show off somehow. We certainly aren’t going to win any bragging contests for our buffet table.

I avert my eyes and give a little sigh as we pass the humble display. Disposable white plates filled with rugelach and chips next to bottles of off-brand soda are what Shaarei Bnos Chochmah is offering in the way of hospitality. I tried arguing against this in the staff planning meeting. “The girls from schools like Tiferes V’Yofi are used to elegant food and elaborate buffet arrangements. Shouldn’t we make them comfortable by providing them the service they’re used to?”

But I was outvoted. “Tamar, you might be right from the standpoint of hachnassas orchim,” Mrs. Sternheim, the principal, said kindly. “But we have a strong hashkafah about materialism, and we can’t compromise our values even for guests.”

Mashy Lipman, sitting next to me, muttered audibly, “Frankly, it would do those Tiferes girls good to see that life isn’t all about the latest exotic food trend.”

I knew a lost cause when I saw one, and quickly nodded my assent. No point in risking their suspicion that I actually enjoyed elaborate buffet arrangements myself.

The auditorium is a cacophony of noise. Most of the chairs have been removed, to utilize as much floor space as possible for the influx of people. Only one section, on the far right of the stage, is set up with folding chairs, for the parents of the girls being Sorted.

“We’re supposed to sit on the floor?” I hear a shrill voice from behind me. “But my skirt is dry-clean-only!”

Even before turning around, I know that the voice belongs to a PICY. Sure enough, I see a girl with a gleaming blonde ponytail, Gucci glasses, and a Tiferes uniform shirt eyeing the auditorium with disdain.

My own students roll their eyes at each other. “Too cool for a washing machine?” one of them smirks.

I don’t know if the remark was intended to be heard by the PICY, but she turns and says, “Well, of course, you YINs couldn’t care less about the way you look. You probably never do anything so gashmiyusdig as brush your hair.”

My girls’ eyes are narrowing, and I hastily direct them to our corner of the floor, far from the PICYs.

I scan the large hall. Most of the girls in the room are wearing uniforms, but their group identifications are starkly clear even without them. The high school students sitting in a tight circle next to us, with their flowing hair and floor-length skirts, are clearly MOSHes. And those buttoned-up, braided girls swaying to an impromptu kumzitz in the middle of the room — they have to be FLOFFs.

There are more, but the number of categories has expanded so much over the years that I find it hard to keep track. I pull out the cheat sheet I snagged from the office this morning — they printed them out for the first-time parents here today — and look down at the long list of acronyms.

YIN — Yeshivish Intellectual Nonmaterialistic

Well, that one I know, obviously. I’ve been a YIN ever since my own Sorting, seven years ago (in those days, they Sorted after eighth grade).

PICY — Pragmatic Image-Conscious Yeshivish

My eyes stray once again to the loud group of girls across the room. Sometimes we YINs refer to them among ourselves as SICY for Shallow, and that’s not an unfair assessment. There are enough designer shoes and bags among them to fill a Fifth Avenue boutique. I stare at the chattering group, at the way they hold their heads, swing their hair, finger their necklaces — at once self-assured and supremely self-conscious… I blink, shake my head and look back down at the sheet.

MOSH — Modern Orthodox Shtark

FLOFF — Floaty Farfrumt

ONJ — Open Non-Judgmental