A Shirt of Many Colors
I just wanted to say that I read Rabbi Ari Enkin’s most recent article about wearing black, white or other colored clothes for Shabbat and Yom Tov. It was an outstanding article, and I can’t say enough good things about what you wrote in the article.
There was a similar article printed in The Jewish Press as part of the regular feature, “Is It Proper To……?” In this article different questions are posed to various rabbonim. One of the questions posed a year or two ago to the rabbis was whether it is proper to wear different colored (other than white) shirts to shul on Shabbat.
The basic gist of their responses was that as long as it is a nice button-down shirt with a collar and is clean, then any color shirt is fine. One person then wrote a letter to the editor saying (I am paraphrasing his remarks) that wearing a shirt of any color other than white is disrespectful. He further stated that the current trend of wearing solid-colored, button-down shirts (with neckties) in colors other than white is indicative of the moral decay of societal values and lack of derech eretz and shows a lack of decorum in shul, and that we should endeavor to return to a more “Torah true” way of dressing and only allow white shirts to be worn to shul at all times.
I have many long-sleeved, button-down shirts of different colors and shades that I regularly wear to shul. I also have 70 brightly patterned tie-up bow ties and several hundred (yes you read that correctly) neckties which I wear to shul. I wear sneakers (running shoes) to shul because it is a two-mile walk to get to shul on Shabbat and Yom Tov.
I guess that I wouldn’t be welcome to daven with that other reader.
Tzvi (Harold) Rose
Via Email
A Tough Nut to Swallow
In last week’s Jewish Press (Feb. 23), Moshe Kolat asked the following question in the Tweets and Memes of the Week: “What’s the Bracha on swallowing your pride?” I would suggest, “Boruch…hameichin mitzadei gaivah.”
Rochy Fried
Far Rockaway, N.Y.
Enough Already
As somebody who grew up in the Orthodox Jewish community during a much simpler time, a time of common sense without all the added rules and regulations when it came to dating, marriage and shidduchim, I was taken aback by a recent ad I saw for another charity in our communities. Basically, the content of the ad was that there are families that simply cannot afford to give a “Yes” to a shadchan, since the first date alone will cost over $160 after a car rental, gas tolls and parking. These families are barely able to pay for last week’s groceries, so your donation of $165 for an entire date can help make a shidduch happen – or even $72 for a car and a coke.
This was the last straw for me, and though this letter may prove controversial, I am hoping that there will be some leaders in the charedi community who will start speaking out against this unhealthy system and start promoting common sense because not only is this method of dating and marriage unsustainable, irresponsible and reckless, it is also unhealthy for the family system.
So let’s try to think outside of the box – a box that has left many people out of the dating pool, especially young men and women whose families cannot afford to go into debt to follow these made-up rules, or have left many parents under a lot of financial stress, because even though they might agree with me, they are too afraid to challenge the status quo.
Over the past several decades, the rabbis and rebbetzins in our Orthodox communities have convinced a couple of generations of kids that the previous model of a young man having a job to support a family before he gets married is not the proper derech, and that the young lady should be the primary earner for as long as possible to enable her husband to learn. This has led to several results, including that the parents are now expected to do everything they can, including going into debt, to make that happen.
In turn, we are raising a bunch of spoiled entitled children, infantilizing them, especially the sons, and creating total exhaustion in the young women who have been brainwashed in seminary that they can “do it all” in order to support their husbands. Of course, I highly suspect many of these young women wouldn’t buy into this nonsense if they weren’t initially promised the fancy multi-thousand dollar kallah trousseau packages that have now become a custom as well. Let me just say this, we have come a long way baby from the trousseaus you saw in Fiddler on the Roof.
When a woman is told to have tons of children while working full time so her husband can sit and learn as long as possible, something has got to give – and that is the breakdown of the traditional Jewish family as babies are dropped off in crowded “playgroups” as early as a couple of months old, skipping those early crucial years of mother/child bonding and the nursing experience, both of which are important for a child’s emotional and physical development.
Meanwhile, many of these young women are often so exhausted when they come home from work that they don’t have time to cook truly healthy and nurturing meals. No worries, the fast-food industry will be there to provide processed sugar-laden cereals for breakfast, maybe some pizza for lunch and then some chicken nuggets or mac and cheese for dinner.
And now you have guys close to 30 years old sitting in yeshiva without any future plan of how they are going to support their future wives, and young women who have been indoctrinated to not even consider going out with a young man who can support them. And as a result, you have yet another organization enabling this nonsense under the guise of tzedakah, to the tune of $165 a date, because even though the bachur doesn’t work or have a plan, he still wants to show up in a nice, rented car when he comes to pick up Shaindy or Gitty for a date! (G-d forbid he should be seen using his parents’ older model or even taking a bus or an uber.) Outrageous!
Rebecca Chesner
Baltimore, Md.
