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| The uniform look of the Yeshiva world |
Mishpacha is an unabashedly Charedi magazine whose
values are reflected in its publishing policy and editorial content. One
obvious example (one of my pet peeves) is its refusal to publish any pictures
of women, regardless of how modestly they are dressed. But this has not stopped
Shoshana from expressing views that seem counterintuitive to the Charedi
Hashkafa.
On a variety of subjects her views align with my own Centrist
perspective. That happened again in last week’s column. It was a well-reasoned
approach to another one of my pet peeves: uniforms. Not the kind worn in the
military, but the kind worn by Charedi Jews of various Hashkafos. From the
black-hat Yeshiva world to the bekeshe and shtreimel wearing Chassidim.
The uniforms worn by some of our people are a double-edged sword. On
one hand they symbolize belonging. They identify your worldview and that of
your peers. Dressing that way announces that you want people to recognize that
about you.
On the other hand, uniforms can also be divisive. They say
to those who do not dress as you do that their views are likely different from
yours. Which often leads to being judgmental - not in a
positive way.
Even though I never heard of it, there is apparently a
popular Jewish song that captures this problem through a repeated line in its
chorus:
“I don’t need your bekeshe, I don’t need your bekeshe /
The only thing I need is you.”
The idea, says Mrs. Friedman, is that uniforms are not and
should not be the basis for judging a person’s character. She puts it this way:
It’s a message that rings true with all of us: Don’t confuse outer trappings with inner connection. Don’t confuse your “you” with what you wear. Don’t overemphasize the uniform — be it a bekeshe, a Borsalino, a Bais Yaakov dress code, a specific color (or lack of color) shirt — and forget that what Hashem really wants is a heart pulsing with emotion and commitment.
I can’t begin to tell you how many times I have said
virtually the same thing. And yet dress codes have become de rigueur in just
about all the various Charedi communities. So much so that if you vary your
dress even slightly, you risk being expelled from that community. Socially if
not formally.
To take just one example - walk into any Lithuanian-style
Charedi Yeshiva and you will see a virtual sea of students all wearing the same
white dress shirts and black pants. They all wear the same style black hats outside the Beis HaMedrash. While white shirts, black pants, and a black hat are
not uniquely Jewish articles of clothing, they have been adopted by the Yeshiva
world to such an extent that if one deviates even slightly—say, by wearing a
light blue dress shirt - they may be suspected of heading in that direction of no
longer being observant. You will never see a blue shirt on a student in a
black-hat Yeshiva.
The sad corollary to this is that those of us who do not
dress in this fashion will be suspected of not being fully aligned with a Torah
Hashkafa. No matter how sincere our Emunah or how dedicated we are to Torah
observance.
The irony is that there are more than a few in their community that wear ‘the uniform’ and do not themselves live up to the ideals that their uniforms are supposed to represent. Mrs. Friedman puts it this way:
For those of us attuned to shallowness and hypocrisy, the song sounds a very authentic note. These days, so much money and effort go into achieving “the right look” — and so much status rides on the nuances of every demographic’s unpublished but very real Style Guide — that it’s easy fodder to mock when unaccompanied by a parallel focus on interior perfection. Come on, how does spending all that money on a shtreimel automatically make you a holy Jew? Why assume that a black hat is loftier than a baseball cap, when you don’t know how much chesed their respective wearers perform? If I daven a beautiful Shemoneh Esreh, does it really matter how long my skirt is? And who needs that bekeshe anyway?
I could not agree more. The requirement to look Charedi has
been raised to a level where it has lost all meaning. If someone wears ‘the
uniform’, he is often given a pass regardless of his inner character. I cannot
count the times, for example, where I have seen black-hat Yeshiva types get
drunk at a wedding and create a massive Chilul Hashem. After which I occasionally
hear apologetics from a favored teacher
trying to explain it away with one nonsensical justification or another. Which
in my view only adds to the Chilul Hashem.
Please do not misunderstand. I have seen this kind of bad
behavior by young people from all demographics. From Charedi to Modern Orthodox,
to secular Jews, to non-Jews. But when a community sets itself up as the most
devoted to Torah observance and identifies itself that way through its manner
of dress, their bad behavior becomes a much bigger Chilul Hashem than the same
behavior from someone whose dress does not proclaim such religious devotion.
That being said, I also agree that ‘dressing the part’ is
not inherently bad. Provided one dresses that way out of conviction rather than
out of habit or social pressure. As Mrs. Friedman puts it:
Choosing to dress a certain way means choosing to self-identify a certain way. Not just to observers, but also to ourselves. That uniform shows our affiliation and alignment with principles and ideals. It demonstrates our desire to be part of something bigger, more historic, than our small and temporal selves.
That is true as well. If you believe in the ideals and
principles of a group identified by its mode of dress, and you want people to
know that those ideals and principles match your own, it is not unreasonable to
‘look the look’.
At the end of the day, though, one must know that identifying with certain ideals and principles by wearing the uniform of that group does not and should not lead one to view those outside their orbit as lesser Jews. Even slightly!
One can - and should - adhere to the principles in which one believes, while at the same time having the humility to know that there are other sincere, devoted Jews whose views are not identical to one’s own, who are nonetheless just as legitimate in their devotion to serving God. And are to be respected no less than then their own peers.
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