What are My Clothing Saying about Me?

In a write-up about a ger who is a Chassid and dresses as one, he says that when he first saw Chassidim, he did not relate to their clothes but then:

"I had a shift in thinking when my father came to visit me in Israel.  We rented a car and when my father asked to speak with the manager, he came out in a button-up shirt as opposed to the polo shirts of the regular employees.  My father commented how the manager has to dress better because he has responsibility.

"I thought a lot about it.  Doctors have a lab coat, accountants and attorneys wear dark suits, athletes have team uniforms.  In business school, when I spent a month at Domus Academy in Milan, I learned how designers sell people on the idea of dressing as an identity - 'I'm a person who wears brand X because it's an identity statement.'

"Everyone, from the president to a drug dealer, wears clothes that send a message about who they are and how they want to be seen in society.  When I realized all this, I thought: This is the team I want to be a part of, so I should wear the team colors."

***
What a good question to ask when trying on clothes: What message does this convey about me?

I want to look like this because ______________.

This applies to men, women, boys and girls.  Why are you buying that for camp? Why do you wear that length, that style, that color?

The answers might surprise us.

Who Are We Really?

I read a poignant story in an October issue of Hamodia's Inyan magazine, written by R' Avraham Y. Heschel.  It begins with a story that the author tells of a man, we'll call him Shimon, who protested nearly every week in shul, complaining that he should get the second aliya. 

The problem was, the rav of the shul was a Levi, but Shimon felt that as a Levi too, he should have a chance at that aliya.  The rav even frequently told the gabbai to let Shimon have the aliya at least some of the time, but the gabbai refused, saying it was the rav's aliya and Shimon had to make do with occasionally getting maftir and only receiving Levi on the rare occasions that the rav was away.

This went on for years.  Shimon remained a member of the shul but was always bothered about not receiving the Levi aliya.

One day, Shimon came to shul all excited about his older brother, we'll call him Yaakov, having received permission to leave Russia and come to America.  The rav told the gabbai that he absolutely must give Shimon's brother the second aliya, Levi, on Shabbos, and the gabbai agreed, considering the special circumstances. 

When Yaakov was called up he seemed puzzled.  He asked why he had been given this aliya.  The gabbai said, well, your brother is a Levi, so I assumed you are too.

Yaakov chuckled and said, "He thought he was a Levi? Shimon was a little kid when he had to run away during the war.  He doesn't remember.  We are not Leviyim."

R' Heschel says the story is true and he heard it from the rav of that shul.  He goes on to write a powerful lesson from the story.  For years, Shimon was upset because he thought he should be getting the second aliya.  Actually, the second aliya was not his and he could have had any of the other aliyos.  "Shimon's problem was that he didn't know who he really was."

Many people are stuck deep in negative feelings, struggling with painful memories or a difficult life.  They are convinced, he says, that they are not capable of moving forward, that their problems are too great, their hurts too deep, their challenges too mighty for them to live a relaxed, happy life.  But, this is only because they really don't know themselves!

to be continued

Who Am I? part 2

continued from previous post

The article continues with the story of a girl from a wealthy neighborhood going to seminary in Eretz Yisrael and being amazed by the simplicity and purity of the kollel families there.  Over her year in Israel she heard about the idea of a woman supporting her husband as he learned.  She decided that this is what she wants.  She knew she couldn't manage for more than five years, but she was excited about this prospect.

Then she returned home and went back to life as she always knew it.  She thought about all the things she would be unable to have if she lived a kollel life.  She wanted a Torah home but wondered how she could support a family.

She consulted with rabbis, kollel wives, teachers, etc. and received a variety of comments, some of which supported her lofty goal and some of which knocked it.

"I didn't know what to think.  Was I just on a seminary high? How could it be that I was so sure about something a short while ago, yet now I was so tormented? Which was the real me? Am I the girl who really needs all these luxuries, all this money, all this stability and practicality .. making my seminary decision just a hasty, foolish, idealistic thought? Or am I really the seminary girl who 'saw the light,' and felts as if kollel was the right lifestyle to live, and I am just hesitating now because I'm back home?"

She concluded that a kollel lifestyle was not for her and turned down shidduchim suggestions with wanna-be longtime learners.  She wanted her husband to learn during their first year of marriage and take it from there.

Who Am I?

continued from previous post

I read an article by Malka Weisman about a girl with well-educated parents who herself was an ambitious student.  She had her sights set on an Ivy League college.  She worked hard and scored high on the SAT's in order to have a chance at winning an academic scholarship to a very expensive school.  She won the scholarship but her parents were still faced with hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay which they couldn't afford.  She took the SAT's again to get an even higher score and did all she could to achieve her goal.  In the meantime, she prepared to go to seminary in Israel.

She went to Israel and loved it and her classes.  But when she heard ideas that contradicted her secular educational goals, she chafed.  As time went on, she began to wonder whether her plan of attending a secular university was a good one for a bas Yisrael.

During Pesach vacation she received the exciting news that she had been awarded a full scholarship, but at that point, she wasn't that sure she wanted to attend it any more.  It was a wrenching decision, made after much agonizing, but she gave up the scholarship and decided to go to a program attended by frum girls.

Then she went back to the US and began to feel regrets over her decision.  People told her she had been brainwashed but she said nobody forced her to make this sacrifice.  She made it because she believed it was the right thing to do. 

"And I wonder, throughout all this, if I was really me when I made that decision.  'Me' is the academic girl who values education, who doesn't settle for anything less than the best.  'Me' is the girl who was accepted into the university of her dreams.  Who was the strange entity who 'changed her mind? If that was me, then who am I? Am I the person who was so excited to get accepted to my dream school, or the inspired seminary girl focused on the one, true, straight, Torah path in life? This is my identity crisis. Which person am I?"

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!"