Increase in OTD Children… are made to feel like second-class citizens,

Menachem Melamid – Still waiting to see the name of gedolim and poskim who say that knees and elbows do not need to be covered.

Statements based on wishful thinking with nothing whatsoever to back them up only serve to cloud the issue when it is indeed clear cut.

“One thing you can not fault Judaism for, is that we always spell out precisely what is d’oraisah, d’rabbanan, and chumrah. These halachos are spelled out precisely in the poskim.”

Poskim? Who actually asks pokim? Who actually reads halacha? Most people here get there psakim from the CR! And if the CR says it is assur diyoraisa to have elbows uncovered then it is! (Thank you Sam2 for refuting this)

Like NP asked, lets hear the name of even one posek or godol who allows knees or elbows to be uncovered in public. Just one, please.

Always runs with scissors fast, I think what you are writing about is a very normal feeling for a baalas teshuva. Everyone goes up and down in their frumkiet, thinking how we could do better. Focus on the things that you do, don’t let the yatzer horah get you down and depressed. Thank you for sharing with us here in the coffee room and I wish you hatzlocha.

To Non Political and Stamamen – I have not responded to your requests for names of accepted poskim intentionally. One of the great problems of our generation is that people have not followed the advice of the Mishna in Pirkei Avos – “asei l’cha rav”. The purpose of my post was to advise people to go to their own Rav for pisjei halocha – not anonymous Internet discussions. Anyone who uses the Coffee Room as his Rav is like a wanna-be surgeon operating with the guidance of a highschool biology book.

Soliek, +1!

Scissors, ???? ?????. We FFBs have our share of ???????. At least you know there’s nowhere to run back to. Please realize that the negative you encounter has nothing to do with frumkeit and all to do with inner-city bigotry, narrow-mindedness, and conspicuous consumerism. I know many OOT (and OOUSA) FFBs who are even frummer than the ones you live amongst, and they’re open-minded, accepting, and well-mannered.

Sam, “Not everyone agrees that the elbows and knees must be covered…”

Of those that don’t, 50% of their kids text on Shabbos.

Menachem: No such posek or godol exists that allows public display of knees and elbows. They are all assur. It is black and white in this case. You wont find a single one. At most there is a discussion of where the knee and elbow begins. Hence the inability to name one, cloaked in a claim of not wishing to name even a single one.

One more thing to add to my list – when people around them concentrate more or what they look like on the outside than what they feel like on the inside. It is more important to be a frum yid on the inside than make a fuss over the livush and appearance on the outside. You can change a person from the outside in but not from the inside out. That is a biggy. As one young woman told me “After my mother died when I was 11, they were pointing to my top button that was open, but my heart was but three inches away and it was shattered into a million pieces but they didn’t speak about that. Not one of them asked about my broken heart and how I was doing, they were only concerned about my open top button.”

Always Runs: Please forgive me if you feel I am out of line. If you have an issue with the internet do you feel it is safe for you to

ccess all the time?

I agree with aries. I also think another reason some girls go off is because they feel like second class citizens. Women are not seen that way in Judaism, but (especially with what’s been going on lately) there are many men who, through behavior and manner of speech, give the wrong message.

I did find, via google, one lenient source. Not normative halacha, though:

The best development I’ve seen on this is Rabbi Yehuda Herzl Henkin’s Contemporary Tseni’ut. It appeared in Tradition 37:3 (2003), as well as its own book. The Tradition article is available online, paid subscription required. Here’s his conclusion, as relates to your question:

A typology can be established, then, as follows:

Before i respond, to all those arguing about frumkeit and halacha and yelling at everything being said that you don’t agree with, YOU are on the internet right now conversing with men and women. Be a little less judgmental perhaps.

I agree with those saying the women of the 60s and so on were extremely frum! My grandmother wore a scarf/hat, didnt cover every lose hair, but i can safely say was as frum if not frummer than any woman i know now! Times do change yes and we roll with the changes, and i understand that. But lets not call some of these chumras Torah. Not having a design on your boot is NOT halacha Popa, neither is the kind of nylon tights a young girl is wearing. I had a friend in a BY type school, she was told that if any of her married sisters were seen on the street in makeup, that she would be kicked out of school. In what way does this make sense? Her parents want her to learn torah, she wants to, but her older married sisters who happen to live near hers actions can result in her termination at school? I just don’t know how society got this way.

Ok, so this is a perfect example of ???? ????? ?? ????. The point of the thread was whether schools can in good faith exclude children of parents who do not conform to its standards of chumrah, but the first few poster took it too far, and applied it to halacha as well. So we spend 70 posts arguing what the halacha is. hee hee hee.

So, back to the substantive issue.

What do you all think about a school which excludes children of parents who either

A. Don’t keep the community’s level of chumrah (ex. maybe a mainstream Lakewood school refusing a child whose mother wears bright colors.)

B. Don’t keep some actual halacha. (ex. shabbos. Or doesn’t cover her hair).

Let’s assume the reason is, that they are afraid the kids will influence their kids negatively.

So, I assume it is possible that the kids will influence the kids. Then, the question is the balance of what the chances are of bad influence, versus the damage to the excluded kids.

I’m a little hesitant to say the school isn’t usually justified, since the only places this happens are in areas that have other schools which are more appropriate for the other kids anyway.

emuna, you must be young to say such things about 30 years ago. I am married 34 years and I can tell you that even though there weren’t so many brands of wigs, most women wore wigs. Also, I graduated Yeshiva of Brooklyn in 1969 and if you look at my graduation pictures, you would see that MOST of the hems only touched the top of the knee.

In my opinion, a big difference from those days to today is:

1) there were so few children that schools WANTED any warm bodies.

2) Most people were more open minded because they say what WWII did to the Yidden spiritually as well as physically. Most people had family that wasnt’ frum anymore after WWII.

So much of today is shtiyut (stupidity). When I got married, it was considered a major faux pas to wear black to a wedding. Now? And why is it ok for the Chosson or kalla’s sisters to wear colors but not anyone else? When I got married, during the summer about half of the Aguda where I davened wore straw hats! And we were still an Aguda shul.

People should not send their child to a school were the child is the frumest or the least frum. A MO parent who wants to send their child to a Chassidic yeshiva is looking for trouble. The same with a Chassidic parent who wants to send a child to a MO school.

WE HAVE ALL GONE CRAZY! I also have problems with people who wear “the uniform” then walk into a store and treat the staff like dirt. I have problems with people who wear “the uniform” and then do things that hurt people. Like the heads of a certain major frum organization that threaten to blacken reputations of people that threaten their power. Then these people sit there self-righteously and wonder why people are off the derech. DUH?!

OK, I’ve raised my issues with things, here is my answers: In places where there is a choice (like NY), schools have a right to restrict their school to people who uphold their levels i.e. Cholov Yisroel or not, denim or not, sleaves all the way to the wrists or 3/4 sleaves, white shirts or not. In places where there is not choice (like many places out of town), schools cannot deny a child a Jewish education. If your community school isn’t frum enough, MOVE. You can’t scream that everyone should change for you.

Schools also have to realize that if you squeeze kids too much, they will rebel. SOME things must be allowed. Pick your battles.

Sorry for the long post, but this bugs me alot!

The very frum women never revealed their knees and elbows in public. Not 60 years ago, not 30, and not now. There were shomer shabbos women 60 and 30 years ago as well as now that publicly display their knees and elbows and above. They are doing an aveira. Now. 30 years ago. And 60 years ago. The same a aveira. It wasn’t any more correct then than it is now. And there were very frum women 30 and 60 years ago that would never reveal their knees and elbows in public. Even when sitting.

The type of discussion and heat of the discussion right here would be enough to push anyone OTD. The absolute black and white and no shades of grey arguments of all those who are so sure they are right and no two ways about it. Well I have news for you, YOU weren’t there back then and YOU don’t know what was going on. The norm back then was mixed seating and it was a big effort on the part of the Gedolei Hador at that time to change things to where they are today. And if you think that all communities have shifted over like NY, NJ and Eretz Yisroel you are wrong. From the people that I have met from Chicago it is still the norm there. Which is just an example of the NORM of the time as was the style of the day. Women in general were NOT as immodest as they are today, so it wasn’t all that much of an issue as it is in today’s society.

Women did NOT necessarily cover their hair in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s. Sheitels were just coming into their own in the late 60’s. I remember when my own mother put on her first sheitel and started covering her hair. It was when my cousin got engaged and asked his mother to cover her hair because of the family he was marrying into. His mother told my mother (her sister) of the request so she complied as well. She told her sister-in-law (my father’s brother’s wife) and she complied as well as her own sister. This was the domino effect of the time.

I have photos of my FIL and MIL from the early years. My FIL was a Rav who was a mechaber of a sefer (not too shabby) and he didn’t even have a beard. My MIL wore a hat over her very visible hair. When I got married he had a full beard and you couldn’t see a loose hair on her head. Photos of my sisters-in-law when they got engaged showed the knee very obviously, these were Bais Yakov girls who also wore braids.

Please don’t spout what you don’t know. You weren’t there, you didn’t live through it, so don’t jump to judge. There were many gedolim at that time who, believe me you don’t even come up to their “knees” and never will. For you to denounce the women of that time and come out with judgments that they didn’t follow psak halacha is being motzi shem rah on an entire generation of frum eidel women. Basically our mothers and grandmothers and I for one don’t appreciate it. If NOT for them you wouldn’t even be here nor would ANY of you be the frum people that you are. If it wasn’t for them re-establishing frum kehilos and yiddishkeit here in the United States and abroad, If it wasn’t for their pure and selfless emunah and bitachon in Hashem which wasn’t easy at that time, none of us would have what we do. So please, stop being so very smug and all knowing because you really don’t know all that much.

aries. So well said. None of us were there, who are we to judge. Baruch Hashem we didnt not grow up in the 30’s 40’s. It is because of the women in those times, in the US, that halacha and yiddishkeit has been kept, we should be PRAISING them, rather then discussing just how short there skirts may have been, or just how many hairs were sticking out of their hats. When did Torah become a contest? I don’t want my daughters to think that the most important part of there morning is to see who can get the puff of hair in front of their headband higher, as is the concern of many a young bas Torah in BK or Monsey. Something has happened to our priorites, and it needs to change.

America was a spiritual wasteland until after WWII. The gedolim before the war recommended against moving to America because one was likely to throw their yiddishkeit into the Hudson River as they passed the statue of “liberty”. It was only later when gedolim like R. Aharon Kotler, Satmar Rebbe, R. Moshe Feinstein built Torah and yiddishkeit here that many people stopped doing various aveiros. So it is no raya that people were sinning in the 30s and 40s that that somehow made it right.

Respectfully, a refutation means quoting sources, not quoting what you feel the halacha to be. There has been more heat than light shed so far, so I thought it prudent to actually look up the halachos. Those here who are still oseik in torasu umenaso, feel free to correct me where I am wrong and add in additional mareh mekomos.

I read through OC siman 75 with mishna brurah last night and this morning. I also took a look at the aruch hashulchan.

Mishna brura makes it clear that all areas above the knees and elbows must be covered. The heter of less than a tefach of elbow only seems to be in regards to saying krias shma, not if a woman is allowed to walk around like that. Rav Shlomo Zalman Aurbach holds the elbow itself is like the area above it (dirshu edition notes). This point isn’t clear in the mishnah brurah. The Rem”a paskens that even less than a tefach is assur for saying krias shma if it’s not your wife. Aruch hashulchan argues on this.

The mishna brurah makes clear that there is no tzad heter for showing legs or arms if everyone does it, as they must be covered.

The mishnah brura also says that less than a tefach of the area above the knee is assur even if it’s your wife, since it causes extra hirhur. The aruch hashulchan argues, and says it has the same din as the arm. Rav Henkin quoted above says that less than a tefach of above the elbow is muttar lechatchila, but it seems to argue on Rav shlomo Zalman, who says the elbow itself must be covered even though it’s less than a tefach. Rav Henkin had a “limud zechut” (as in, “I hold it’s assur but perhaps they won’t burn”) if it’s more than a tefach but the sleeves are tight so the body can’t be seen. However, this seems to contradict the gemara which says tefach be’ish ervah. The Chazon Ish holds you need to cover from the elbow to the hand, but he seems to be a daas yachid on this. If there are any relevant igros moshes on it, please let me know. I hope to go to yeshiva soon to check them out.

Sam, “Not everyone agrees that the elbows and knees must be covered…”

Of those that don’t, 50% of their kids text on Shabbos.

If we weren’t so judgmental about the parents then many of these kids would be in frum schools and would not be texting on Shabbos.

Popa beat me to it, but I’ll also respond to the point of the OP.

How many kids really are in public school because the local cheder or Bais Yaakov didn’t accept them? There’s a lot of room between the frummest schools and public school! The parents who don’t dress according to chassidish or yeshivish standards of tznius rarely want to send to these schools. Their kids are in MO schools.

And those who do want to grow and send their kids to a school which has ideals which are frummer than their own, have a choice to make. Either get rid of the TV (for example) or don’t expect to be accepted.

A school has a right (some would say an obligation) to shield the kids from the more sheltered homes from being influenced, through other students, by the very same secular influences they are moser nefesh to keep out of their own homes. (I’m not referring to a case where there are no other frum schools; that’s a different story)

I blame the parents, not the schools.

mdd, outrageous? Not quite, they understood that Teaching Torah comes along with derech eretz, something many have forgotten today!!! Also they understood the quality of people form the inside out, as I said before and they weren’t trying to outfrum the frumest. It was a time for healing and rebuilding one step at a time, and that is something that this generation needs to learn as well.

Learn to pick your battles and you will have better success. What is more important the neshoma of the child or the levush?????? Will the children from the home of a family a little to the left influence the other children or will the other children have more of an influence on them AND will the child who learns in this yeshiva influence their parents?????

Why do the yeshivas have such a lack of confidence in themselves and their students that they fear so much from a young innocent child that is a little bit different than them? Look at what SHUVU has done in E”Y with russian children. Parents don’t even have to be frum and there children go to Shuvu schools started by Rav Pam. The children all learn about Torah and Yiddishkeit and the childrn turn Frum and influence their parents to do the same.

When a child comes to a school, the school gives the rules to the parents. If they agree then so be it. Why are they so afraid? The child has to conform to the rules. It is so sad how everyone is running around chasing their tales being busy with everyone else’s business. Does the yeshiva want to know if the outwardly “kosher” parents cheat on their taxes? Take off their yarmulka when in the presence of goyish business associates, act differently on vacation where Hashem does NOT exist (Miami, Hawaii, Caribbean, etc.) after all, how does that influence their children???????? What about the administration themselves? Are they perfect beyond scrutiny?

Give me a break, this is the hypocrisy the kids see and are turned off by. Not only the kids that are affected by but other kids who see it and are disgusted by it. It is just plain “stinkin thinkin”.

To Jothar – I am impressed that you researched the sources. I cannot understand why chatrooms and the Coffeeroom are taking the place of research and asking one’s Rav. The reason that Shimush Talmidei Chachomim is so important is that we need guidance to know how to apply halocha in any given situation. If someone has not been guided in how to derive halocha from sefarim by his rabbeim – even research in sefarim is insufficient. Ezra HaSofer did not leave Bavel for Eretz Yisroel as long as his rebbe, Boruch ben Neriah was alive.

1- We must all have a real live rebbe for guidance.

2- those who are able should research the sources like Jothar.

3- I was fortunate enough to be educated by the Gedolai Yisroel, not Internet chatrooms. I suggest that every man and woman connect to qualified rabbanim and madrichim.

4- I learned from numerous Gedolei Yisroel that we must not “bash” other Jews (even if minimally observant) – no matter how strongly we may disagree with them.

5- I was fortunate to see the pleasant way the Gedolei Yisroel related to “not yet frum” Jews and nochrim.

If we all start behaving like we should more of the secular Jews will desire to copy our ways, and we will cause HaShem’s Name to be beloved.

Many good comments here. Another case in point: Before the seforim of the Chfetz Chaim became widespread, EVERYONE was talking lashon hora, including the biggest rebbetzins. Does that make it right?

Menachem Melamed, saying “research in seforim isn’t the same as shimmush talmidei chachamim” is not a taanah to uproot the halacha as stated by the mishna brurah,the aruch hashulchan, and every other mainstream poseik. Which “qualified rabbeim and gedolim” of yours argued on the halachos I stated? I can’t find any.