Yichus
Does a substitute for a personality actually work?
I am not defining this word because it is not a real concept. It is spiritual crack cocaine for insecure families who accomplished nothing in the last two hundred years and need a fantasy lineage to feel special. Even simply hearing the word “yichus” makes your neurons commit mass suicide. Five to ten IQ points drop instantly, which is catastrophic for people who started their lives with the intellectual horsepower of leftover cholent.
The only people who say this word with a straight face are the ones who peaked in utero. The guys who list their great-grandfather’s rabbi as their personality. The girls who think having a cousin who once got a l’chaim from the Rebbe makes them royalty. The families who walk around Crown Heights like they are the Windsors, except with worse teeth and no accomplishments.
Every “yichus family” shares the same three traits:
Zero self-awareness.
Zero originality.
Zero achievements that did not involve birth.
Their entire identity is basically: “My ancestor did something impressive, so I get to coast forever.” It is generational nepotism disguised as holiness.
Using the word “yichus” unironically is the frum way of admitting you bring nothing of worth to the table. You are saying, loud and proud, that the last meaningful contribution from your bloodline predates electricity. You are telling the world that the only thing you inherited was delusion.
If the highlight of your resume is “descended from,” you are not important, you are background noise with a last name.
And if you actually brag about yichus, congratulations! You are not a deep thinker, you are not refined, you are not anything, really. You are just a living museum exhibit of what happens when people outsource their entire self-worth to a dead relative.