My last post on this topic.
Halacha is that one wears bigdei Shabbos on shabbos. It’s not violating a melacha, but such is kavod shabbos, and such is kavod hatzibbur. At the same time, it’s not a melacha, and a genuine desire to wear bigdei Shabbos comes from an elevated understanding of Shabbos that many do not have, and cannot be expected to have. If a teenager dresses down a bit for Shabbos because this is where he’s holding, then good for him. If a baal teshuva or someone from an out-of-town community does that because that is the normal mode of dress, then someone who does that is not making any kind of statement. I judge such people favorably. Somebody who is an adult and knows better, and is just doing it to be lecha’is in-your-face “I’m better than you”, gets judged differently. There is a reason why Zimri, who was boel aramis befarhesya, (“Hey, if Moshe can do it so can I!”) gets treated differently from someone who slips in private. A kid who wears a white bedsheet and a white hood to look like a ghost gets judged differently than an adult parading down 125th Street in Harlem.There is also a difference between dressing down in one’s house( where one is not trying to make a statement) and doing it while giving a public shiur in a place where the minhag is not that way, in order to be lehach’is and play “holier than thou”. I do agree that too many of the former category are unfairly judged when they are not trying to make a statement. If Cantoresq was a teen poster I would have a lot more sympathy, and my reponse would be much different. Yelling at someone who cannot be expected to understand kavod shabbos is like yelling at a color-blind man for not discerning between green and red. It’s counter-productive. This was also the reason I refrained from posting in this thread the first few days.
As for the “kids in black and white acting worse on Shabbos”, I don’t see how 2 wrongs make a right. Furthermore, one expects different things from kids (who don’t understand) than from adults who do understand.
Furthermore, Cantoresq declared, in an earlier Purim thread here, his belief in the old anti-religious screed that Purim is a made-up holiday as part of a conspiracy to eliminate Nicanor Day. Such apikorsus is beyond the pale of Orthodoxy, and someone who makes such a statement need not be judged favorably.Denying the validity of one of the 24 books of Tanach can’t be good. I doubt there is anyone else here who calls himself Orthodox but says megillas Esther is sheker. Nobody, no matter how Orthoprax , can espouse such beliefs and expect Orthodox people to judge him favorably.