What does it mean to you?
What makes a person frum?
When can you confidently say that you are an orthodox Jew? Religious?
Its not when we are perfect..because none of us are perfect. We all make mistakes. We all slip up. Some people care some people don't.
When you are in school with a large group of Jews, some more modern some more yeshivish..its difficult to explain to the non-Jews in the class why it is that you don't touch men..but she does..why you cannot study and shabbat but he does..It can be very confusing.
When I was first looking for an apartment/roommate when i was moving, i emailed this girl on Luach.com about the apartment. Turned out she was going to be in the same school as me doing the same program. It sounded perfect! My my was i wrong. Perfection was the complete opposite. BH, through our email correspondence I could tell that our personalities would not click and that this would not be a good shidduch.
Throughout the original correspondence she kept reassuring me that she was a nice, frum, BY girl, she liked to have fun and that she has lots of friends..etc etc etc. As the first semester moved along, I noticed that the girl is absolutely anal when it comes to everyone and everything. People in the class are constantly talking about how annoying she is. That aside..rarely does her skirt cover her knees, she happily touches guys and collarbone is usually quite conspicuous. All that aside..OK it didn't so much bother me..
Last week we had a class social. People brought food, games, karaoke..a good time was promised. The only person in the entire class who did karaoke? this girl. Not only that, she moved on to play twister with the guy she was dating at the time..wearing a pencil skirt.
I ask you..I'm trying to be objective here and its hard to be non-judgmental. If you saw all this, would you consider the person frum?
Not that it matters, the labels are not what is important. But when a person chooses to categorize him/herself as frum..what kind of behaviors do you expect?It puts me in a hard position when people in my class ask me why I don't sing? or if in the past i had mentioned that we are not allowed to sing in public and then..this happens. Its hard to answer people's questions honestly without incriminating other people in the class..Its a fine line.
Does orthodox mean only shomer shabbat? Kosher?
I'm just baffled...what do you think?
When can you confidently say that you are an orthodox Jew? Religious?
Its not when we are perfect..because none of us are perfect. We all make mistakes. We all slip up. Some people care some people don't.
When you are in school with a large group of Jews, some more modern some more yeshivish..its difficult to explain to the non-Jews in the class why it is that you don't touch men..but she does..why you cannot study and shabbat but he does..It can be very confusing.
When I was first looking for an apartment/roommate when i was moving, i emailed this girl on Luach.com about the apartment. Turned out she was going to be in the same school as me doing the same program. It sounded perfect! My my was i wrong. Perfection was the complete opposite. BH, through our email correspondence I could tell that our personalities would not click and that this would not be a good shidduch.
Throughout the original correspondence she kept reassuring me that she was a nice, frum, BY girl, she liked to have fun and that she has lots of friends..etc etc etc. As the first semester moved along, I noticed that the girl is absolutely anal when it comes to everyone and everything. People in the class are constantly talking about how annoying she is. That aside..rarely does her skirt cover her knees, she happily touches guys and collarbone is usually quite conspicuous. All that aside..OK it didn't so much bother me..
Last week we had a class social. People brought food, games, karaoke..a good time was promised. The only person in the entire class who did karaoke? this girl. Not only that, she moved on to play twister with the guy she was dating at the time..wearing a pencil skirt.
I ask you..I'm trying to be objective here and its hard to be non-judgmental. If you saw all this, would you consider the person frum?
Not that it matters, the labels are not what is important. But when a person chooses to categorize him/herself as frum..what kind of behaviors do you expect?It puts me in a hard position when people in my class ask me why I don't sing? or if in the past i had mentioned that we are not allowed to sing in public and then..this happens. Its hard to answer people's questions honestly without incriminating other people in the class..Its a fine line.
Does orthodox mean only shomer shabbat? Kosher?
I'm just baffled...what do you think?
I hear. But I also think that we are no one to judge other people's connection to Hashem. Perhaps because I've seen it all, I just try to focus on what person DOES do. For example, a Rabbi once made a comment, "Why do some women leave some of their hair our (in Israel mostly), it doesn't cover their hair!" and I raised my hand and said, "At least they are covering their head."
ReplyDeleteThe truth is that you will always be "off the derech" to someone else. In the Yeshivish world I would probably be considered off their derech.
Labels are tough because no one fits perfectly into a box. People also change/grow. I think that each person should try to do what they think is emes and however they define themselves, zehu, then thats how they see themselves and thats how they are.
Frum means belief in God. And that has many levels.
ReplyDeleteIf I go to Williamsburg, there are people there don't think I'm a frum Jew. Does it mean that I'm not? My frumkeit is based on my own personal relationship with the Eibishter.
I know plenty of women who are not considered "frum" by the rest of the world, for how they dress. But they have such a devotion to Hashem that is beyond description. They are kind, they are gracious, they are refined.
Then there can be a woman who's dressed in every possible way that can be considered "acceptable," but she is not frum. She talks as though what happens in the world is from her own actions. She speaks cruelly to others. She says her children are married because of things SHE has done, instead of thanking God. That's not frum.
As an aside, when it comes to kol isha, it is not that a woman cannot sing. It is that a man cannot listen. The onus is on him to leave the room, not that a woman cannot sing. If you choose not to sing, that is something else.
"Your guf, and my neshama." In the end it is for none of us to decide who is frum and who is not. That is not our job. Our job is be the best Jew WE can be. Not someone else.
Call me crazy - but is Judaism and the definition of being religious strictly an external one? If this girl from your class prays every day, studies torah, id 100% scrupulous in her business dealing and 100% honest in her actions - does that matter less or more?
ReplyDeleteI STRENUOUSLY disagree with anyone who says you are only as religious as you look. Yes this girl sang (!!) and touches boys (!!) and her collarbone is exposed (!!) - so she isn't frum? What about her inside? Besides the fact that she's "annoying", what else do we know?
As externalazation becomes more important, and internalization less, we have watched Judaism go completely off the rails. As we watch rabbis remain silent about major issues such as sexual abuse, stealing and spitting on little girls, but go insane over the idea of going to watch a jewish concert, or a baseball game in lakewood, we should wonder where our own set of ideals are coming from.
There is a saying, I forgot it exactly, but its something like 'everyone less religious than me is a sheygitz, and everyone more religious than me is a nut'.
ReplyDelete