The Pious Ones

I read The Pious Ones and thought it was quite good. The author, a writer for The New York Times, describes himself as "a fairly assimilated Jew who nevertheless attends synagogue and observes many biblical traditions," and yet he looks very favorably upon Chassidim. He puts a positive spin even on things that don't seem so positive.

His first chapter, about Yitta Schwartz, refers to a NY Times article he wrote about her: here . He said that the less than prominently placed article ended up at the top of that day's list of most emailed stories and stayed on the list for many more days.

Making Money

Ami magazine has a column which features a successful businessman.  He is interviewed and is asked how he got started, what was the best advice he received, how he handles stress, etc.

Many of the people interviewed are chassidishe fellows (occasionally yeshivish) who formed a business from scratch and are making lots of money, without any advanced schooling and degrees and sometimes without much English. I get a kick out of it.  They have guts, they work hard, they love what they do, and they demonstrate that parnassa is from the Aibershter.

Heartwarming Tales of Chassidim

The sudden death of the Glaubers was shocking and tragic.  A ray of light within the darkness was how positively this Satmar family came across in the secular press.  The husband was described as calling his mother daily to see how she was (she had given birth two weeks before the accident).  And in later news items, a letter that he wrote to his parents on his wedding day was publicized.  It was beautifully written.

This probably did not fit the stereotype of Chassidic men.  It was heartwarming to see something favorable written about "ultra-Orthodox, Chassidic" Jews when, sadly, they are more typically written about in negative ways.

Around the time this happened, someone told me a beautiful story, also one that breaks the stereotype of the Chassidic Jew in Brooklyn.  Shortly before Shabbos, a man noticed a woman standing on the corner of a Boro Park street, looking bewildered.  Although he is the type of person not to notice his own daughter on the street, he went over to her and asked her what she was looking for.  The woman said she was looking for a locksmith in order to make a Shabbos key.

He explained that all stores were already closed as it was almost Shabbos and did she have a place for Shabbos? She said she did, but gave him her card and said she'd be very interested in coming for Shabbos.  She told him that she was a gentile studying to become a Jew.

The man actually followed up, which I find so impressive.  He called her rabbi who affirmed that she was sincere.  He emphasized that she needed to be among frum Jews and spend Shabbos, etc. with them.  The man invited her and she subsequently came numerous times for Shabbos and Yomim Tovim.  She eventually converted (this goes back ten years) and married a baal teshuva.  She lives in Brooklyn and has three children.  The girls attend one of the Beis Yaakovs and the boy is entering the Mirrer yeshiva.  And it was a Chassidic man, who generally doesn't look at women, who extended himself when he saw someone who needed help.

Guarding His Zeide's Path

Rabbi Thumim, the Alshtadter Rav of Boro Park, arrived in New York in the early 1940's and attended yeshivas Torah Vodaas.  This is a memory from those early years in yeshiva as recounted in an interview in Mishpacha magazine:

"I was a frumme bochur and I didn't want to eat the yeshiva's food since the shochet had no beard.  R' Heiman called me over and told me that he felt I was being too stringent and that I needed the nourishment of wholesome meals.  I said, "Rosh Yeshiva, with all due respect, I am a bochur who is all alone in this country.  If I drop the minhagim of my father's house, I am lost.  I have to maintain the beard, the chassidishe shechita, all of it, if I hope to guard my zeide's path." 

R' Heiman said he was right.  As to what he ate, his mother sent him sardines which he would share with another chassidishe bochur who also did not eat the yeshiva's meat, Levi Yitzchok Horowitz, son of the Bostoner Rebbe.

Mind you, Torah Vodaas was an exemplary yeshiva! The food was 100% kosher.  And yet, a bochur had the pride and backbone to forgo good meals in order to preserve who he was and what he stood for.  What sort of chinuch creates teenagers like these?

I'm a Regular Jew, how about you?

Some belated post-Purim musings:

A typical Purim costume is someone, child or adult, dressed as a Chassid.  With long pei'os, a beard, black coat and a Chassidic hat, preferably a shtreimel, the person is instantly transformed and readily identifiable as "one of those."

I found it amusing to hear about a genuine Chassid walking down the street on Purim with his children who were dressed as yeshivishe people with down hat and pei'os behind their ears.  Why amused? Because it seemed to "even the score" for a change.  For all those people who view Chassidic garb as a costume, whether on Purim or other days of the year.  For all those who refer to themselves as "regular" and Chassidim as another brand of Judaism, the implication being of a lower status to the "regular," "authentic" frum folk.  Guess what? Chassidim view themselves as "regular" and other frum Jews as "other!"