Appearances: A Response to "Wearing Jeans"

Anon 99 wanted to post this comment on the "Wearing Jeans" post, but it was too long, so it did not let him post it. He makes a number of good points, so I am going to post his comments here with my response:

I do not wear jeans and have not since I was 10 years old. My wife does wear denim. The chiluk is that I try to always dress like I did when I was in Beis Medrash - hence I do not wear color shirts and wear dress pants generally (playing ball, exercising or on vacation is some remote place are exceptions as I am clearly not in Beis Medrash). For girls, although there may be a taboo in denim for some people, it is not a general held belief. Rather, there are people who say a girl should not wear denim and some who say who cares. No Yeshivish place allows their guys to wear jeans in Yeshiva and even outside yeshiva it is much more clear cut thing not to do.

Generally speaking, I find the statement it's not the clothes, the outside, rather it is the inside that counts, rather disingenuous. That statement is made to (1) lower the importance of outside appearance; and (2) make the people who value outside appearance feel like they are being superficial.

I actually take extreme exception to that statement. First of all, if using the statement in terms of actual looks/beauty, then I commend a person who actually adheres to the statement and quite frankly, in that case it is true. However, in terms of dress, the statement could not be more wrong. I truly believe that your inside impacts how your appear on the outside. They way you want people to look at you is the way you feel inside. Your mode of dress and the way you look tells the world what you are like on the inside. In other words, your inside is clearly important - the way you show your inside is your outside. So by looking a certain way - you are telling the world about your insides.

Let me begin by asking: If a girl (sorry female readers) is shomer negiah, keeps shabbos and kosher, davens every day, goes to shiurim and does a myriad of good things but does not keep tznius (and for lack of argument as to what is tznius, she walks around in shorts and talk top) - is that girl a "good" girl. The politically correct answer is yes. The real answer is although she does many good deeds, she simply cannot ignore the rules of tznius and be a good girl. She is breaking a clear important rule and she unfortunately gets lowered in status.

I wonder if anyone would argue in this case, "what about all her good deeds? Aren't her insides good? The only thing that she is doing wrong is an outside/appearance thing?" In this case, I think the more rational and unbiased thinkers would agree that this is a clear case where her actions, although many of them good, includes one inside deed that is reflected on the outside.

Moving this to another level, if a girl really cares about the halachos of tznius then she will be very careful in how she dresses, i.e. tightness, skirt lengths, necklines and elbows. The difference between the girls that really care about the details and the girls who are just trying to look good and keep within the minimum of the halachos could not be clear. I look no further than my own family where I there are clear differences in the manner of dress between certain relatives (ironically that are Stern girls) that dress with more care to looking "good" and less to ensuring that they keep the details vs. my more yeshivish relatives that somehow have no problems with their skirt lengths and tightness of clothing. The point here again is that their insides are manifested on their outsides. The relatives who really care about the details never have any tznius issues and the relatives who care more about looking good are walking around (and certainly sitting) with skirts just above their knees, clothing leaving nothing to the imagination and too much skin showing.

For guys: If a guy is in a Yeshiva where they only wear white shirts and he wears color - some people might say "what is the big deal, he is only expressing his individuality? Is that so bad - he is not breaking any halachos? Do we really need to be like that mindless drones from the famous apple commerical in 1984? Can't someone be a little different and not be looked down at?" My answer is these things are avoiding the point. Those questions are trying to accomplish the two things I wrote about above ((1) lower the importance of outside appearance; and (2) make the people who value outside appearance feel like they are being superficial) and avoid the actual issue. Why would a guy want to be singularly different than the rest of his Yeshiva? Being clearly different is making a statement. It is being porush yourself from your fellow colleagues. It is specifically saying I want to be different. Well then, if you want to be different and looked at through a different prism then you can't complain if people look down upon you for separating yourself, No one said you are a bad person - but you yourself are asking to be viewed differently. You are publicly stating that although your yeshiva brethren believe one thing - you want to express your different opinion and separate yourself. Well you did. Your insides are being manifested by the way you dress.

So coming back to the original point, there is nothing inherently wrong with wearing jeans. The issue is what statement are you making. If your society says that jeans are bad and you statement is thus I want to do what I feel is OK anyway - well that tells me about your insides.

There are two main points of clarification that I would like to make in repsonse to this comment, one about jeans and one about appearances in general.

Every society in the world has its own way of dressing. Style of clothing is different depending on culture, country, religion etc. Clothing defines what section of society you belong to. Dressing a certain way defines a person as “American” vs. “French” v.s “Israeli,” or “Young” vs. “Old.” Children dress differently than teenagers and than adults. The same holds true with in different sects of Judaism. Chassidish don’t dress the same way as non-chassidish, and so on and so forth. Whether we like or not, clothes define us. Though each person may have an individual style, we still dress to fit our general societal norms, because we will be labeled as weird if we do not.

Anon 99 is quite correct in his point that while dressing outside of a societal norm may not be wrong Halachically, it is still is a statement about where you feel that you fit in society. That is why dress is one of the first things to change when a person changes religiously- either becomes more religious or less religious. Some guys go to Israel and come back with black hats, while girls come back with opaque tights. Girls who become less religious drop their long sleeves and switch to short, and begin wearing pants. “This is who I associate myself with now,” is the statement.

The article about jeans, written by a Stern College student, is interesting because of the social demographic of Stern. There is a small percentage of Yeshivish students, who would never date a guy who wears pants, because that is how guys in their social world dress, and there is a small percentage of women who wear jean pants themselves, or even those who don’t wear pants, but wouldn’t think twice about a guy wearing jeans. In fact some of those might be skeptical of a guy who did not wear jeans for religious reasons. Then there is all of us in between, who are not really in one place or another.

I used to think I would never date a guy who wears jeans. Most guys I’ve dated are not the type to, though I never actually asked any of them. Since Stern, however, I have been surprised to discover that there are guys who are hashkafically on the same page of me, yet they wear jeans. I’ve only met a few, but that is enough to make me realize that for someone like me, who is in the middle, jeans are not a clear cut indicator of “this is where I fit in.” For others, jeans are an indicator.

The second point I would like to make is to connected to Anon 99’s first point about how appearances count, and it is not enough if a girl keeps all other mitzvot besides Tznius. The question I would like to ask is: Do appearances matter? The obvious answer is that yes, they do. But let me explain.

My high school spent a lot of time talking about tznius, and so I spend a lot of time thinking about it. Often the message conveyed was, “It’s not about what you wear, it’s about who you are inside. Tznius, by covering your body, places the emphasis on who you are inside.” It matters what you wear. Try showing up to a job interview in a t-shirt and jeans. Try showing up to a wedding in the outfit you wore to clean the bathroom. Try cleaning the bathroom in the outfit you wore to your friend’s wedding. This begs the question: If it's not about what you wear, then how can what you wear matter so much if it is really what is inside that matters? Why do our appearances matter so much?

My answer to this is simple: Your appearance represents who you are. No one can see who you are by glancing at you, so the only way to get a quick idea of who you are, people look at your appearance. How you look and how you dress is important because it represents who you are. But that is all, it represents who you are, it is not actually who you are. The real true important part is who you are. The bottom line is that as important as appearances are, who you are matters more. Would you rather marry an ugly nice person or a beautiful mean person? For anyone who hesitates- try spending a few days with someone who is mean to you, who puts you down, criticizes you, yells at you, and in general makes you feel like a piece of dirt. Trust me, you will then pick the nice person, no matter how ugly they are.

The issue with a guy who wears jeans is not about "it doesn't matter what he wears, it only matters who he is," the issue is that reversing that statement to say "it only matters what he wears and doesn't matter who he is" is equally wrong.

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Hashkafa Part 2

In my previous post I was talking about trying to define myself and how the two categories I was in between were Modern Orthodox Machmir and Yeshivish/Black Hat. I realized that there was one point I forgot to make, and that is why I was so hesitant to define myself as “Modern Orthodox.” The main reason why I was hesitant is because many people associate “Modern Orthodox” with what is really “Modern Orthodox Liberal.” What’s the difference?

Well, to start with what they have in common:

1. They believe in G-d and that G-d gave us both Torah SheBichtav and Torah Shebaal peh and that Halacha is binding for today. Although we constantly have to apply halacha to new situations that modernity presents, we do not change or allow halacha to evolve, which is what the conservative think. Some people get confused about that last sentence. A practical difference between application and evolving, is application means when electricity was invented we tried to see what Halacha would say about its use on shabbos, evolving means that since they didn’t have electricity, it’s OK to use on shabbos. I think that’s oversimplifying it, and feel free to correct me on this one.

2. They both agree when it comes to the philosophical differences between Modern Orthodox and Yeshivish, which I mentioned in my last post.

The difference between “Modern Orthodox Machmir” and “Modern Orthodox Liberal,” in my opinion, really comes down to a few things which the “Liberal” believe are halachically permitted, while the “Machmir” do not believe those things are permitted:

1. Women wearing pants and short sleeves
2. Women singing in front of men
3. Women covering their hair after marriage (they believe women are not obligated to cover their hair after marriage.)
4. Men and women touching/ Negiah
5. Perhaps more recently- women becoming Rabbis, although this is an extremely controversial topic, and I think it depends on what you mean by Rabbi or “Rabbah” or “Rabanit” or whatever.

Please feel free to differ with me on this, I am quite curious to hear what others think the differences are. Are there differences that I didn’t mention? What do you think the difference is? I think this is much less clear and straightforward as to how to define these categories. What are your thoughts? Again, please feel free to disagree.

Hashkafa: Modern Orthodox or Yeshivish/Black Hat?

A common question that people ask when comes to shidduchim is, “What is your hashkafa?” In case you thought that was a vague question and you weren’t sure what it meant exactly, dating websites are there to assist you by listing categories for you to choose from including: Modern Orthodox Liberal, Modern Orthodox Machmir, Modern Yeshivish, Yeshivish/Black Hat, Chassidish, Carlebachian. Some include Modern Orthodox Middle of the Road (short side rant: really? Modern Orthodox needs 3 whole categories?? Oh, and does anyone really categorize themselves as Carlebachian?) , and some try to incorporate more general categories such as “Shomer Mitzvot.”

When I first signed up for a dating website, I had to make the decision: What do these categories mean and which one do I belong to? I used to believe that labels were essentially evil terms created by those who needed words to express their prejudiced opinions. After all, if there is no name for a group, then it is much harder to define them and thereby discriminate against them or make sweeping generalizations. Then I changed my opinion because I became prejudiced and needed those terms. No, I’m just kidding. At least I hope I’m just kidding, but what really happened to me is I realized I needed to describe people in certain social groups, so I conformed and started using the terms that everyone else was using.

When it came to picking what category I fell into, I was torn. I grew up in what I would call a Modern Orthodox home, but as I grew older I became more religious and took on more halachot. My high school consisted of students who were Modern Orthodox and Yeshivish. “Modern” was used almost as a bad word, interchangeable with “less religious,” as in “Oh, they are frum, but they are Modern,” or “She’s modern.” I never defined myself as Modern Orthodox for that reason- in my mind it has a negative connotation. But I never defined myself as Black Hat either, since my family and community is not Yeshivish. But my choice came down to one of those two.

When trying to decide, I remembered something that one of my Rabbis in high school said. He was discussing the differences between “Modern Orthodox” and “Yeshivish” and I think he put it quite nicely. He said that there are 3 main philosophical differences between “Modern Orthodox” and “Yeshivish/Black Hat.”

1. The secular world: The Modern Orthodox believe that there is something to be gained by being a part of the secular world and that there is nothing wrong with it. Therefore they make sure their children receive a good secular education, and are more likely to own televisions and listen to secular music. Black hat/Yeshivish on the other hand, believe in more of an approach of separating from the secular world. That is why they are against television and secular music etc.

2. Women: The way that roles are defined for women in Modern Orthodoxy and in the Yeshivish world is very different. For example, MO emphasize the importance of women learning Torah and believe that women are allowed (and some would say encouraged) to learn Gemara. Yeshivish/Black hat encourage women to channel their energy privately, not publicly, in a more Tznius way. I’m not sure if my Rabbi didn’t explicitly state this, I think that one thing that falls under this category as well is the separation of the sexes. Modern Orthodox weddings will often be mixed seating, while Yeshivish/black hat will be separate. Modern Orthodox often send their children to coed schools, while Yeshivish send their children to single gender schools. This also includes interaction between genders. Many Modern Orthodox have no problem with guys and girls hanging out or being “just friends.” Yeshivish/Black Hat approach says that guys and girls should not just be friends and each gender should only have significant interactions with the other gender if it is for the purpose of marriage (or if they are related).

3. Israel- Modern Orthodox believe that the State of Israel is the beginning of the flowering of Mashiach coming- Reishit Tzmichat Ge’ulatenu, whereas Yeshivish/Black Hat love Eretz Yisrael and focus on it’s holiness, but are not such fans of the State of Israel because it is anti-religious.

Going over how I feel on each of these issues, I end up a little bit of both. On certain issues I agree strongly with the Modern Orthodox philosophy, while with other issues I agree very strongly with the Yeshivish approach. After attending Stern College, part of Yeshiva University and therefore a Modern Orthodox institution, I would say there are two other small differences that I have observed between the two groups, aside from those big three. (Feel free to disagree, as this is only my opinion.)

1. Approach to Studying Torah. The Yeshivish/Black hat approach to studying Torah is entirely from a religious standpoint. They view studying the Torah as a means to keeping Mitzvot, becoming closer to Hashem and spiritual growth. This goal has a large emotional component. Modern Orthodoxy agrees with that viewpoint, but also approaches Torah from an intellectual, academic perspective, where the way they study Torah is comparable to studying a piece of literature, except that they keep in mind that the Torah is from G-d and therefore the greatest piece of literature that could be written.
2. Approach to Halacha: The Yeshivish/Black hat approach is to be machmir whenever possible. They are completely devoted to doing as much as they can to serve Hashem. As I like to say, “If Hashem created us to serve Him, how can we not give up everything to do so?” Why not be machmir if you can be? They like chumrot and going that extra mile, taking that extra step to serve their creator. The Modern Orthodox approach is that being machmir is the easy way out. If you’re not sure what to do in a halachic situation, the easier approach is to just be machmir. It takes lumdus and intellectual effort to find a valid way to be Maikil and find a halachically permissible way to be lenient. If you are unnecessarily strict, then it might be too much. If something is permitted, why add on extra prohibitions?

So where does all this leave me? Am I Modern Orthodox or am I Yeshivish? Which one do I tell shadchanim? Which one do I put down on the dating website? I am a bit of both, since I am split when it comes to the philosophical issues. I understand both sides and think both sides are valid in their approach on all the issues- neither one is right and neither one is wrong. I have opinions of what I believe is right for me, but those opinions are evenly split between the two. And that is what I say when I am not forced to choose, but on dating websites I have to pick one.

There is another factor that went into my decision and that is the social aspect. Socially, my community is not Yeshivish. I am a proud alumnus of Stern College, which is as an institution is Modern Orthodox (this is not to say that there are no students who are Yeshivish, there definitely are. And the Yeshivish world looks down on them. Just kidding again, about that last sentence.) Despite agreeing with many Yeshivish outlooks, I had to face reality after much, much thought (a lot of thought). In the end, I selected Modern Orthodox Machmir. But since I do not define myself as “Modern,” I was not entirely happy (and I’m still not entirely happy) about picking this.

So what about “Modern Yeshivish,” you might ask? This category is the least well defined category of them all. It is my experience that some people think that “Modern Yeshivish” refers to people like me- partly Modern Orthodox and partly Yeshivish. But my actual experience is that most people do not define it that way. Most people define “Modern Yeshivish” as someone who grew up Yeshivish and then became more “modern” in the sense that now they watch TV and listen to secular music and they have jobs in the secular world (as opposed to learning in Kollel- another issue that divides MO and Yeshivish that I didn’t even touch upon) and are more involved in the secular world.

Since this happens to be one of the issues on which I lean more towards the Yeshivish approach, I do not want to define myself as Modern Yeshivish. Those are the two aspects that I am not. I’m not Modern and I’m not socially Yeshivish. “Modern Yeshivish” people are Yeshivish people who moved to the left, and I am a Modern Orthodox person who moved to the right. (Side point: Once someone tried to set me up with someone with this hashkafa, and after looking into it, it made no sense since we had completely different backgrounds and we were going different directions in our life. He had moved to the left religiously and I had moved to the right. I guess the shadchan thought we would meet in the middle. Completely illogical in my opinion.) Some people define “Modern Yeshivish” as both Yeshivish moved left and Modern Orthodox moved right, but I don’t define it that way.

My conclusion is to pick “Modern Orthodox Machmir,” when I have to pick one. (Side point: The counterpart should really be Modern Orthodox Maikel, and not “Liberal” or else “Machmir” should be changed to “Conservative,” but that would get way too confusing to be called Modern Orthodox Conservative, that would really mix people up. I think they should just go with Modern Orthodox Right Wing and Modern Orthodox Left Wing, but that’s just a technical point about how to call things, the definitions would still be the same.)

Why did I write about this? So now you can all stick me into a box in your brain and apply all the stereotypes about “Modern Orthodox Machmir” to me? No, I am writing about this because I think most people, once you’ve gone over the issues I’ve mentioned and how you feel about them, don’t completely fall into either category. I am writing about this to discuss my struggle to define myself and where I fit in.