continued from previous post
I had a long talk with one of the women responsible for the brochure. Her number was on it and I conveyed to her the negative comments I'd heard and she
welcomed that.
She said 35,000 copies of this issue were sent primarily
to schools all over the U.S. and the world. Some shuls got them too.
I brought up 4 negative
comments:
1) It blames women and women resent that - she agreed that she
would not want to be singled out for blame either, and she asked me whether I
had seen flyers around directed at the men (I hadn't).
2) What about
other issues like stealing etc. - she said anybody can work on improving any
area they like. They focused on this because the rabbis they consulted
with, when asked what the women should focus on, told them tznius.
When I
said that in addition, tznius is a public transgression, unlike certain other
aveiros, she added that breaches in tznius directly cause others to sin
which is not the case with most other aveiros.
3) People take exception
to the cause and effect message - she said that until she saw it in the sources,
the Chofetz Chaim for one, she would have agreed, but what can you say when the
sources directly attribute tzaros to lack of tznius?
4) About people
thinking it's a negative message - she said two things: A) we need a wake-up
call B) if you read all the material you see many positive things too
She sounded like a sincere woman who was truly troubled by the tzaros of
Klal Yisrael and who, upon the guidance of rabbonim, chose to work on upgrading
our tznius as a volunteer.
It's 12 years later. I think we can all agree that what we want are
RESULTS, not to be yotzei "hochei'ach tochi'ach," and not to make people "feel
good about themselves." Has tznius improved since then?
If a softer, gentler approach is what people, they need
to demonstrate that it's working. We see that the communities which are
tougher on tznius have women and girls who actually dress according to halacha.
In the communities that try the gentler approach, the results are not obvious.
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