Labels, then, at least on the surface, seem to wrap everything up in nice, neat packages, but at what expense to truth and accuracy? What exactly does it mean when we say he’s Lakewood, he’s Brisker, he’s YU, she’s Bais Yaakov, she went to Brovenders? What good purpose do these one- and two-word labels serve? After all, HAFTR has a kollel and Mir has some young men who sit but don’t learn.
In the 1970’s and 1980’s, many Young Israel rabbis wore a kipa sruga. Today, attend one of the National Council of Young Israel Conferences and you’ll see almost all black hats, maybe two grays and one kipa sruga. Those who davened in Aguda shuls in the 1970’s in Brooklyn and certainly out of town will remember the predominance of gray hats – often worn by the president and other askanim.
Wasn’t it only yesterday that the Center seemed to be holding up rather nicely? A Center in which the level of one’s midos was more important than the color, size or shape of one’s hat. As in religion, so in politics: at one time socialist sabras and survivors of Hitler’s Holocaust, the militantly secular Hashomer Hatzair and the religious-nationalist Bnei Akiva, all joined together for the sake of a Jewish state. There was a Center.
Today the Center has all but given way to the extremes. Maybe this is just a natural evolution. Agricultural societies evolve into technological ones; Wall Street goes through cycles linked to the economy; cooperation and fellowship among Torah Jews morphs into harsh denominationalism.
Speak to haberdashers and they’ll tell you black hats are a relatively recent market trend, taking over from gray hats only fifteen to twenty years ago. What will be the next color hat?
People need to be comfortable with themselves, secure in their own skin, in order to find their place in the community. Dr. David Pelcovitz often speaks of the resilience of human beings, the inner strength people have that carries them through difficult times. Dr. Abraham Twerski is renowned for stressing the importance of self-esteem and positive self-image.
As long as we’re comfortable with who we are and what we want to be, and as long as we don’t feel pressured or compelled to be someone or something we’re not ready to be or don’t want to be, we can be in the Center, the Right, the Left – or anywhere else on the spectrum.
And please, let’s leave the labeling to clothing and food, not people.
