Chivalry & Yiddishkeit: A Foreign Concept

If you are going to find non-halachic reasons to justify calling Torah behavior “boorish”, I imagine Hashem is NOT pleased.

I doubt very much that Hashem thinks of derech eretz as not being in accordance with the Torah. The behavior of MANY frum people is extremely boorish at times, and they use the Torah as an excuse for their ill-mannered and obnoxious ways. That is why we have a concept of chosid shoteh. My husband’s elderly aunt fell in the street in Boro Park. At least a dozen able-bodied Yeshivah bochurim and men passed her by, seeing she could not get up by herself, and refrained from “negiah” even in a clear emergency. She had to wait for a woman to approach her to help her up, even after asking for help. THIS is YIDDISHKEIT???????? Unfortunately, this aunt was not frum, and the chillul Hashem that occurred as a result of these great tzaddikim refusing to help an elderly lady in distress, was that for the rest of her life she had no respect for any aspect of frumkeit, and offered many a “bracha” to obviously frum people whenever she saw them. How would you feel had it been your mother, wife, sister, or daughter over the age of 12?

On the other hand, I was shopping recently, and had my hands full, and a yeshivah bochur (well past his young teens) held open a door for me and offered to help me with my bags (I didn’t accept, but I was very delighted to see this, and told him his mother brought him up right, and should be very proud of him). Frum does not = bulvan unless you allow it to. A behaima will always find a justification for his or her bad behavior, when there is none. Our mitzvos are designed to make us BETTER human beings, not worse ones.

Chuck, with all due respect, you have never seen a person in “frum attire” doing something extremely improper?

and Yes, I have seen people play the “frum” card when it is improper to do so. How many people lie or say “well telling you would be loshon hara” when one is looking into a shidduch (btw, real gedolim have a LOT to say on the subject of people playing the lashon hara card at the wrong times). Have you not seen people pushing and shoving in order to be one of the 1st ten people in shul for minyan? Do they get more schar the harder they push?

The torah is Kodesh, some people who CLAIM to represent it are chelbona.

Chuck, with all due respect to you, IMO, your thought process about this issue is less than correct. The Torah mehalech is not the problem. It is the people who misinterpret the mehalech to justify their own bad behavior, and twist the truth, bending the halacha to fit their ideologies, who are actually the left-wingers.

yank, your diagnosis and your treatment are not compatible. If the people are self-centered then teaching derech eretz won’t help, they will only view derech eretz as “that which people need to treat me with” People need to be trained to have a higher degree of awareness. Awarness of themselves, of their spouse, of their situation and their surroundings.

I was not alluding to chivalry!!!! I was talking about being a mench. One has NOTHING to do with the other!!!!!

I always found it humorous that another way of referring to chivalry is knights errant

A self centered individual is one who lives on their own planet. Nobody else exists.

Learning to treat others equally and fairly is like learning a foreign language. Until the child learns this “foreign language” they will be miserable lonely creatures who will grow up into spoiled unrealistic adults.

If a parent knew the language they would probably not be asking the question.

More than this, they will not know what on earth I am talking about.

charlie brown: i don’t know if this is what you’re looking for, or it’s a step for those who are already not self-centered. but my parents will often say to a kid, teaching them to be considerate, “if (whatever pushed them to do it) happened, would you want him/her to do it to you?”. it helps them see it from the other’s perspective, i think.