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From what I hear, there is a serious problem of Tznius in lakewood due to the influx of non-lakewood type people who were/are (or their husbands) learning there. (The person who I spoke to compared the pizza places in lakewood to those hangout pizza parlors of the Five Towns) Perhaps it is time to start a new “branch/move” for the serious learners further out of town where ther is already a frum community but close to NYC (Allentown comes to mind as a possibility, maybe Scranton is a bit too far) where the cost of living will be much cheaper, and many of the issues with living in the “in” location will go away? If a large group moves at once, we may be able to re-create the community of 30-40 years ago where everyone wanted to follow the rules.
Just a thought.
Joseph, you are to be commended for your determination. You’re quite young but it’s interesting that the women and wives of many orthodox pre and post holocaust families did not adopt the tznius standards of today’s orthodoxy. This would even include the daughters and wives in chassidic families; of prominent rabbis; and even Rosh Yeshiva. Many if not most mothers of post war baby boomers did not cover their hair until their children started to marry in the early 1960’s and it just progressed from there. Someone once asked one well-known Rosh Yeshiva why his wife didn’t cover her hair. His response was something like: “So, do you want me to divorce her?”
Keep up the good fight.
Joseph: This will be my last post, bringing our conversation to an end. Let me just say that you have convinced me that the issue of women’s tznius is a deep concern of yours, as it should be every Jew’s.
I can hear that people like you may feel helpless in this regard, especially since many other men are not taking care of their own bnei bayis, and all men (and all women as well) are the unwitting victims. I continue to maintain that the “fight” must be fought with wisdom and gentle words, with an eye towards effectiveness, and not through insensitivity and the like.
I remember reading a letter to the editor in a women’s magazine (Binah) last year. (I don’t remember evreything exactly, but this is the gist of it.) It was written by a yungerman from Lakewood, I think. He began the letter, “Dear bnos chashuvos,holy daughters and woman of our community…” or something thereof, displaying tremendous respect and admiration to those he was adressing. He started off by expressing his appreciation for all women stand for etc., He then went on to recount a personal story where he went to the store and a woman reached to get something and inadvertantly exposed what should have been covered…” To make a long story short, his letter was so sincere, so heartfelt and most importantly, so bachovadik…He begged and pleaded with the women to realize what they were doing, how they were inadvertantly but surely causing men to be nichashal, against their will…etc. He ended with brochos to them, and again pleading for them to take it to heart.
Personally, I thought the writer was overdoing it. Why was it so necessary to take such pains to write like that, just tell it like it is! But I can tell you, Joseph, that the response to that letter were overwhelming. Women wrote that they had never realized what they were doing and how they resolved to be more careful in the future…That is the approach that works (imho!) and perhaps it is something like that that you and others like you can do.
Once again, it was a pleasure. Keep up your conviction and integrity in this confusing world we share. And may we all be zoche to restore hashem’s shechina in our midst.
To all of you out there, its been nice meeting you and sharing ideas. Hatzacha to all, and my opologese if I have offended anyone.
Fighting pritzus is where there is a problem? No one can fight it since someone calls it untzniusdik?? Fighting pritzus is a mitzvah for every man AND woman.
what is wrong is when bnei torah turn a blind eye towards the prevalence of pritzus amongst our people. this problem is epidemic. and someone must stand up and yell “enough!” it is every mans call of duty to bring this pritzus to an end. you are very wrong. when some of our sisters are sinning like this, and causing our brothers to sin with their sinning, we MUST become obsessed in our continuous and unending struggle to eradicate this plague.
This is the most absurd point I’ve read in a long-time, but let me try spelling it in simple language to you since you seem to fail to get a grasp of plain black and white English, and the other posters have given up trying to follow your circular arguments and explain it. First of all the very same cadre of posters who suddenly are ostensibly giving tochacha in an area that no wrong was done, are the very same who displayed opposition to the stringencies of tznius in the first place. In the face of being unable to answer the points, point-by-point, they’ve stooped to manufacturing a fault where none exists. I just read through the entire thread contextually. Think BIG asked for roundabout age and marital status because it makes a difference in perspective regarding the issue of discussion. And the compliment clearly was contextually made for understanding the halachos clearly. Do you really expect anyone to actually believe that these very folks are opposed to mentioning age/status (or making a compliment) between genders for halachic reasons!? Especially where that information is useful for the topic? This is the prototypical chosid shoiteh situation. It is hardly hypocritical to mention these points while in full adherence to every tznius stringency in the book. I am willing to say dollars-for-donuts that the attackers are the very same folks that will have far less vanilla inter-gender conversations. The only reason they even bring up these points, is because they have no valid arguments regarding this topic. And they know that very good and well (as much as they will now deny it).
The first attacker made the most absurd statement. He criticizes any man who dares discuss tznius! Why? Because he claims it is untznius for a man to discuss tznius! This is patently absurd on its face. The next one says that its not everyones danger that some women are dressing untzniusly. That is equally absurd. Then someone criticizes anyone who dares broach any issues he deems “controversial.” He defines this as tznius, raising children, and a whole litany of other issues he deems controversial and therefore not allowed for discussion. According to him you must accept the most watered-down standards the biggest liberal comes up with, and “aloha” accept it.
You call that tochacha? I call that a joke. Perpetrated by a cadre of folks being unable to elevate themselves to proper adherence, so instead they try to bring down anyone else whose standards they feel threatened by (without the other person even imposing anything on them!) It is no wonder people don’t bother responding to these kind of circular arguments (that will now undoubtedly be repeated in response to this comment, using slightly new words), as they are repeatedly made instead of addressing the issue at hand. And the thing about this, it is so obvious and self-explanatory, that the only reason these folks keep making these same false points, is to try to put those who do support upholding the proper tznius laws on the defensive and to keep repeating themselves. And that is why they are ignored. The points were made. If you care about the Torah you will follow it. If you don’t care about the Torah you will find 100 different excuses why the mussar was wrong, the person who gave it was wrong, and whatever other drivel you can conjure up. And for the rest of us it is unbeneficial to exert additional effort in convincing, where clearly they don’t want to be convinced of the truth, or anything for that matter. And that is why you can have the final word, and convince yourself in your mind that you are right. Nothing will ever change your perception of what you think is reality.
And one final point. I see a few attackers call those who support fully upholding the tznius laws as “very frum, “frummer”, etc. It is very telling that these “very frum” posters never called themselves any frummer than anyone else. It is the attackers who identified them as being frummer.
Just for the record:
I completely agree that it would be a good topic to EFFECTIVELY discuss – how to increase tznius awareness.
I completely disagree that “laypeople” (of the male gender) should be bringing up “specific” tnius issues relating to women in a public forum. My gut reaction to that was – that in of itself is UNtznius! I could understand a comment here or there – but obsessing about it…??
AND then presenting an attitude/comments showing a complete lack of “understanding” of the proper way to deal with the Tznius issue, and a contradiction of “really wanting” to influence Jewish women to higher/better levels of tznius… it reeks of pompousness, as if that person has “arrived” on THAT issue (relating to men).
So bring on the discussion of “Tznius Awareness”, heaven knows we need to improve in so many areas including this one.
So again, the topic is a good one, males should definitely be careful of that slippery slope of borderline-tznius interactions with the oopposite gender – online, or off.
The Big One,
I respectfully disagree with most of what you wrote. Tznius is something we need to work on and Joseph’s attempt to increase it is wonderful.
Maybe Joseph can continue to maintain his shefos and desire to bring more tznius in teh world and that even with all the great intentions one can still be nechshal and we can have compassion on those who don’t always pass the nisyon.
This is a fabulous thread. “Decorum among the noshim” rotfl. Maybe now that 6 years have gone by and you’ve solved the problem for noshim you can turn your attention to actual women (or don’t? Such dissonance)
Thanks for using interesting keywords in this discussion that helped Google lead me to this amusement park.
Yes, this was a good thread. I read through it a long time ago – Feif Un had told me I’d get a good laugh out of it.
It had Joseph using 7 different names to have conversations with himself, and make it seem like people actually agreed with him!
Just you.
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