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What is the origin of the custom to wear a black hat to shul? Is it just a fashion accessory? i just relocated to wesley hills and many people in the kehila wear them i have never. what should i do?
Jews have uninterruptedly customarily worn a hat or other near full head covering since ancient times. You, too, should follow the kehila’s custom.
Joseph, what’s your source that Jews “uninterruptedly customarily worn a hat or other near full head covering since ancient times”?
It appears that that gemorah about wearing a head covering implys that it was a novel idea, or at least most certainly not a common minhag. And even then only when davening.Hats were invented in 2003.
You think Jews davened bareheaded in the Beis HaMikdash times?
I have seen pictures of the kohen gadols head dress and it wasn’t a borsolino . My question is why isn’t a nice black kippah good enough
joseph: I can’t tell fromm the OP if he doesn’t wear a hat at all or only doesn’t wear a black hat.
wingnutlb: I wear a black hat as do others in my shul. Some where blue or grey hats. Some (especially in the summer) wear the white straw hats. And some only wear a kippah with no hat. BTW, I daven in a shul in Flatbush.
Eliezer, the Kohen Gadol, as well as the other Kohanim and everyday Jews, wore more than what just a yarmulka would cover.
Unless you want to be just another “blackhat”, think out of the (borsolino)box…think BIGLEY…go to Lebovitz and get yourself a few of the most elegant black fur streimlach
If you look at photos of yeshiva types before the war, you’ll see that their hats were generally non-black. Since the photos are black and white, you can’t tell whether the hats are gray, brown, or some other color, but there’s no way they’re black.
Gadol, there’s no e in bigly. Just ask the bigly orange guy,
Joseph, if the amount of the head that’s covered were that significant, we’d all be wearing football helmets to daven. If you should follow the kehilla’s custom, would you wear a kippah seruga if you happened to be traveling and the only shul in town was MO?
Maybe most men back in the day wore hats. Why take them off at shul? When approaching nobility, nonJews would take off their hats before the royals. By refusing to remove their hats, JewIsh men put Hashem before all. Maybe they brought that back to shul, showing that Hashem is above man.
Also, perhaps taking off a hat would have gotten messy. They could have gotten mixed up, and storage was lacking. They could be big investments, and not something to just toss to the side. Perhaps holding one’s hat would also get in the way of davening, especially when it comes to reading from the siddur.
LB: You are very close. The Mishna Berurah in 91:12 sates that “in our time, one should wear a hat on his head like he goes in the street, and not just with the ‘small hat’ that is under the hat because that is not the way people stand in front of important people” meaning that people did not go into important meetings without a hat on.
http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49623&st=&pgnum=244The question is, can we now state that since in our time it is more of the norm to go with only a yarmulke can one daven without a hat? In my shul we have those who wear hats and those who only wear yarmulkes.
Maybe some shuls need to put extra hats in the hallway before you enter the shul, the same way some old shuls have extra yarmulkas in the hallway.
Joseph, you didn’t answer my question about davening in a MO shul.
LB, married men who wear black hats generally remove them when they enter shul for shacharis since they don’t wear them with a tallis. Sometimes they do get mixed up.
Tuition, your MB quote is very interesting since hats are generally not worn these days. In the old days, every downtown (remember those?) had a store that specialized in men’s hats.
“In the old days, every downtown (remember those?) had a store that specialized in men’s hats.”
Hats used to be necessary for survival, to keep you warm in the winter and cool in the summer. These days, we’re usually never far from an indoor, comfortable place.
Yehuda, that’s like asking if you daven in Kehilas Rangers if you must wear a Rangers jersey since everyone there does so in line with that shul’s “minhag”.
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