Different levels of religious observance (frumkeit)

Hashem decides based on the person’s challenges, upbringing, etc. (Rav Dessler, “Kuntras Nekudat haBechira”).

A Jew has many obligations.
You are asking about what is beyond these obligations.
What I heard and read from multiple sources is that regarding what is considered stringencies or optional is that one should do what is appropriate for his spiritual level. Over time, one can raise their spiritual level and thereby “raise the bar”, so to speak.
Doing what is beyond one’s real level at the time can do real spiritual damage.

The Chasam Sofer interprets לא תעלה במעלות על מזבחי don’t elevate yourself higher than your status, people expect from you, אשר לא תגלה ערותך עליו, so that your faults should not be revealed.

We also discussed here a balance between different area – should you spend more effort in chumros in one area while you disregard others?

It is a hard question. On one hand, it is silly to see someone who, say, dresses machmir and then parks his car on a sidewalk. On the other hand, everyone naturally has certain talents and interests and should not throw them away. If someone is a talented piano player, you would not want him to work day and night on his science classes. Similarly, yes, Avraham was given a couple of tests that went against his middah of Hesed, but he still spent most of his life in hesed, instead of kicking kids out of home or threatening them with knives. Those were tests, not lifetime occupation.

SO, I think, as long as you realize there are these trade-offs between being machmir in something special and your general level, and them consciously select where to be machmir, you are OK. But if you are simply following “popular” chumros and not examine yourself, you are not.

To practice doing chumros right, choose your own one chumra and train yourself on that. Preferably, a private one and that is not done at expense of others. For example, I am counting how many people I can wave through in front of me in traffic. The reason for this chumra is that people are generally polite when walking and looking at each other faces, even in masks: there are no red light on sidewalks! But if we don’t see faces of drivers, suddenly it is wild west.

Turns out this is not an easy one. Sometimes, I am in a hurry and either forget or feel that my time is more important. Sometimes, I have more kids in a car than the empty school bus I meet – why should I let him. Also, I seem to be doing it better when kids are in the car and I can “teach” them (or really show off?). Also, what do you do when the drivers behind you get annoyed by you slowing the traffic down by letting people in? And what about people who do not understand your blinking to let them in and continue standing – do you wait partently for them or not?

The danger on both meikel and mahmir side is to make sure you are not deluding yourself when making decisions. We see here lots of people, including myself, who will not change a position on an issue even when offered a strong argument against. So, then, how can you trust yourself?

According to a Rav who errs on the strict side himself: if you commit to strict halakha, you can usually look up a sefer and you will know what to do. If you commit to humros, you are in danger. Should you, for example, do another humra at the expense of your family? I did not have a chance to ask him about an obvious way people handle that – join a community and buy books where not following humros is considered gehenom and your questions go away.

The Ksav Sofer compares us to climbing a ladder as Yaakov Avinu’s dream having the potential to shteig, elevate from the ground to the heavens being below or above the malachim. I think the above from Yserbus123 means that the importance is the effort one dispenses to elevate oneself. Do this elevation stepwise otherwise you falter as the Chasam Sofer above.

The Mesilas Yesharim says that when we love someone like a father, we want to do extra for him to please him even if we don’t get a reward for it. We love Hashem, who is a father to us, so we want to do extra to please him and specially in the ten days of teshuva drinking chalav yisroel, as we want to be judged not by hair splitting, exactly what we deserve.

ujm, it is shocking that none of your chumrot examples involve mitzvos being Adam LeHavero. It is all focused on yourself. Well, maybe tzniyut is to make it easier on other people’s eyes, but probably more on maintaining your own status.

I don’t think it will help if you add a couple of extra things there, your current unbalanced list is a good indication of improper motivations. Maybe this is something to think about.

I really wouldn’t group cholov yisroel together with the fundamentals such as tznius that you mentioned… it’s really not high up on the list for most people who aren’t already machmir on it. It gives the impression that “well, since i eat ou-d it’s ok for me to do XYZ”

ujm> very sad that you think Bein Adam Lamakom is chopped liver, Very sad, indeed, as Bein Adam Lamakom is as important as Bein Adam L’Chaveiro. Furthermore, it’s quite disappointing that you fail to recognize that not dressing provocatively in public is very much a Bein Adam L’CHAVEIRO issue.

Maybe I was not clear. Possibly as RebE points out because I was to tactful. I am not rejecting items on your list and not saying that mitzvot bein Adam L’makom are not important.

I am pointing out that it is unbalanced. And I admitted that tzniut has an aspect of L’Havero. This is just a sad re-telling of an old joke about a guy whose milk was taken in beis medrash despite a notice of “DO NOT STEAL” until he wrote also “halav stam”…

So, again, I am suggesting not only to add items to your list, but also to review your motivations for these chumros, as the unbalanced nature of the list reveals some core problems. Just superficially adding things for balance will not fix the original hesaron.

We seem to sometimes take positions to oppose our challengers – Reform does Tikun Olam, so we withdraw; others insist on faith, so we re-focus on performing mitzvos. L’Chavero is something that secular society does both on personal and societal level, so we unconsciously value them less.

“L’Chavero is something that secular society does both on personal and societal level, so we unconsciously value them less.”

Where do you come up with these fruit cake notions? And present them like they make sense?

Yes, higher religious observance will lead to greater rewards in Olam Haba. The question is, how do you define religious observance?
Joseph gave some examples, but as usual, he is just serving is own views. For example, he listed eating/drinking only cholov Yisrael. How do you know that when giving your din v’cheshbon, you won’t be asked, “Why didn’t you enjoy the wonderful foods that Hashem made available to the world?” Joseph, will you really be able to say that it was due to being machmir for proper reasons, or will you have to answer, “Because I wanted to appear more frum than many posters in the YWN CR”?

Avi, do you really think that humanity has progressed in the past few hundred years and not regressed? If people were engaged in fighting the yatzer hora and Knowledgeable of his tactics, they would see what chazal say that in regards to a yefas to’ar, a person js incapable of holding themselves back. If you want to know how soldiers have “progressed” beyond our righteous forebears, see Rav avigdor miller’s “awake my glory” page 105, quoting “a history of the Israeli army”, by zeev schiff, page 124. He (schiff) writes “entering the army at age 18, for most young women means their first experience away from home snd their introduction to *****(znus). At headquarters there is much socializing encouraged by regular army officers. Frequent parties are held and the easy going familiarity promotes a **********(culture) that is distinctly jewish”

….seems like the jewish army is a whole lot better off today. Indeed the world with its baby-killing, child castrating, tor’va embracing, immodesty-championing culture is far superior to the past when they *gasp* had slaves!

I do agree with the sentiment about jumping too fast though.

Also, UJM – I don’t know if accepting a chumra automatically equals a schar. Sometimes shu”a says “tavo alav bracha”…sometimes not. When halacha recommends it as a matter of practice then definitely! Schar and onesh aren’t by volume of action alone, as the rambam in hilchos teshuva makes clear – it depends heavily on quality of action, both sin snd mitzvah. So if someone takes it on and is ready for it, he will definitely get schar, but someone making a laundry list of chumros would be better suited to examine the spiritual deficiencies that he has – working on middos is a mitzvah too!

Avi, there are currently more slaves than there ever were in all of human history. Just because governments outlawed slavery, it didn’t magically disappear. It’s gone beneath their radar

DaMoshe- i agree with you on your take of the situation but I disagree about the CY part. It isn’t quite the “chumra” you (and AAQ) make it out to be. It just hits a reflexive chord so you lose your objectivity about it, which helped me draw the conclusion that perhaps that was indeed his real motive in this creepy thread.

Avira, I saw in Maasei Hashem, why eved avodim, we are avodim, so kenaan will be an eved to avodim, to us.

The Torah is called cheirus, freedom from the yetzer hara.

Avi, you’ve never heard of human trafficking? There are so many variations of human trafficking, not just of females. There is slave labor on the market everywhere! From India and China to right here in the USA under your nose. Just look up the stats from the FBI. And that’s just illegal slavery. There are dozens of countries which approve of unofficial forks of slavery. They just use loopholes, extortion, or merely call it a different name. Here are some: China (they enslave people outright), India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, EGYPT, and TURKEY. These countries approve of enslaving people. I’m not talking about indentured servitude. And there are so many others which turn a blind eye.

My point is there are massive numbers of slaves today which dwarf the number of slaves throughout all of human history. So have societies truly progressed past slavery when it has increased exponentially?

Ujm – klal yisroel accepted on themselves to keep glatt in America (many in Europe did not), as part of strengthening kashrus…cholov stam by contrast was accepted in most yeshiva communities, with the exception of giving it in yeshivos as per the psak of rav moshe. The chazon ish is said to have been maskim to the heter as well. Eating non-glatt would be a total pritzas geder, whereas cholov yisroel was not universally accepted. In out of town communities, the majority of yerei’im veshlaymim dl not keep cholov yisroel (this is changing in places with larger communities, such as baltimore)….the comparison is off in my opinion.

Having known many fine lower east side kolel families, talmidim of rav dovid zt”l who eat cholov stam, I can’t judge people who are maikil, though if someone is maikil in cholov stam, he should be following a rov like rav dovid (they are in the minority) who do not hold that it is an important chumra in every aspect, and not shop around for convenient opinions. I personally am makpid on cholov yisroel, as my rebbeim held to be.

Avira> klal yisroel accepted on themselves to keep glatt in America (many in Europe did not), as part of strengthening kashrus

this is probably true, but if we define “klal israel” broadly to include various people who eat kosher but whom you may not necessarily respect, moev to glatt is probably due to marketing strategy of certifying agencies who want to have a broad standard accepted by stricter communities, I believe somewhere in the 80s, possibly also re-definig “glatt” to minimally acceptable, and even down to proverbial glatt chickens.