Reply To: The world is in a state of Geula- and don’t misunderstand us!

Rso (and the follow up from syag np)
“CS, do you really think I am stupid or do you just simply not understand?

Me “Tznius and yiras shomayim are things that are all around and permeate every aspect of our lives…”

Rso: “Yes, yes, yes. BUT you can’t have kedusha IF you don’t have tznius in clothes. There may be mass murderers out there who dress in yeshivishe levush, and there may be people who dress chassidish who eat dovor acher on Yom Kippur (c”v to both). BUT if you see a group that does not dress tzniusdik then YOU KNOW that they don’t have kedusha regardless of everything else. And Lubavich is unfortunately well-known as having the lowest – and by that I mean against halacha – tznius of women in the chareidi world. (And btw, I mean it when I say “unfortunately”. It’s not something that makes me satisfied that I can use as a weapon.)”

So to your point rso I would say that i agree with you that those dressing less than fully tznius and mixing casually etc it does show a lack of kedusha all around. So if the chassidish of Chabad did that you would have a good point. My response was that:

A) the chassidish don’t have this problem.

Personally, I have to schedule and notify my husband, may Hashem bless him, whenever I have a (even married) friend over because he won’t come home if she’s here, and if he is home, he stays in our room until she leaves.

Now he might be a bit more refined than average, but with me and my friends, if my husband is hosting a mens shiur or farbrengen, I’ll also stay in the room, or go out, but if he’s having a friend over and I need something from the room, I’ll go and get it but I won’t talk to his friend.

Now we do host shabbos meals with both genders and well both share things at the table, but we don’t schmooze with the opposite gender.

B) as to the numbers game, people in your community dress tznius REGARDLESS of their lifestyle. Ie if they’re watching movies or worse they still look the part of a fully frum Jew (and yes that is a good thing) whereas in Chabad those who do those things, you see it reflected in their dress and behaviour, like the litvishe world. So it’s not a fair comparison.

C) if you want to know why we don’t do the communal pressure thing so at least we should all look the part regardless of personal lifestyle, it’s because we think it results in bigger problems, namely

C1: you throw out the baby with the bathwater. Ie you end up pushing Jews who were shomer most of the mitzvos or even all, but not up to communal standards, out of the community and very likely out of Torah observance completely.

C2: you discourage those who struggle with whatever standard there is (let’s say no smartphone) from getting help as that would give them a bad name in the community which would then punish them or their children. This results in

C3: a life of deception for those struggling, which obviously begets even worse issues, and a tendency to get worse instead of better.