Resilience Without Intolerance

While it is a natural reaction for young people to apply their learning and hadrocha to what they see being done by other groups or individuals and think that said people are in violation of halacha/hashkofa, it is the responsibility of mechanchim to not engender intolerance for other valid Torah groups who do not “fir zich” like they do.

While that is clearly not a viable educational option, the desire to educate children in a “breitkeit” where they are aware of every groups’ practices is not practical; it’s simply too time consuming, and it also can diminish the enthusiasm of keeping certain inyonim that they may emphasize while other groups completely ignore, such as washing negel vasser by one’s bed.

I started thinking about this issue quite a lot over yom tov, as I had a long conversation with a very promising young bochur. I had mentored him in previous years, when he had wanted to learn gemara on a higher level than his class; he was frustrated at the lack of iyun and lomdus in his Yeshiva, and he enjoyed how I explained to him a certain tosfos. While living in an area where there were both litvishe and chasidishe yidden, he saw his neighbors learning birkas shmuels, ketzos and the like. Since I have a beard and I speak yiddish, his father was fine with me teaching him, and his very intelligent son was very happy to learn with me. We didn’t discuss hashkofa very much, but he seemed to be a very well adjusted, healthy chasidishe bochur.

During this last conversation, something about him was different. We spoke in learning, but he was distant, far more on the giving end of the conversation without listening very much. Somehow it came up that I didn’t always have a beard, and that I only started growing one when I was 20. He said very plainly that there is a “pasuk” that says that if one even trims his beard that it is an issur deoraysoh, and that there is a mitzvas asei to have a beard. I told him that it is very important for him to have a beard, but that he should realize that a very large portion of klal yisroel does not believe it is necessary, and that in some yeshivos, single men are even discouraged from doing so (mine obviously was not one of them). They believe that is is an inyan, a spiritually significant practice that has its time and place. Others, including my rebbeim, held that it is generally a good thing and part of the tzurah of a Jew, but that trimming it is only a kabalah-oriented issue and does not concern average or even above average bnei Torah. I offered to show him the relevant sugyos in shas through the rishonim, down to the psak in shulchan aruch that cutting with scizzors, even when the effect resembles a razor, is permitted. The only issur is with a razor itself. Some poskim, including the tzemach tzedek, hold that the kabalistic reasons are important enough for it to enter the realm of halachik imperative, while most others do not. There were also opinions that held that if one removed his beard entirely, regardless of methodology, it would be assur because of lo yilbash – feminine beautification, but that too was rejected by the majority of poskim.

He answered simply that it is an issur deoraysoh and that gedolei Lita were simply unaware of this in their youth and all did/do teshuva when they get older and learn all about how it is assur medoraysoh. He then went into a lengthy disorganized discussion of how he thought psak halacha works, that dayanim routinely overrule shulchan aruch and that we are duty bound to follow what they say.

I told him that he and everyone else can learn halacha; it is accessible to all, not only those who have undergone training in psak (I didn’t get into details of my own training and experience in psak). When specific shailos arise, poskim apply their expertise, but we are not to accuse one part of klal yisroel of “violating an issur deoraysoh” because the poskim of another group say that something is forbidden.

I mean no animosity at all towards the chassidishe world and its chinuch; the same thing happens in the reverse very often – litvishe boys will think that chassidim are in violation of halacha in old practices such as davening late, etc..

Yet if this boy were taught that the yeshiva’s insistence on his having a beard was kabalistic and chasidish in essence and not halachik, he might think it’s not very important.

My question is, how can we train youth to be enthusiastic and resilient in their given mesorah, without teaching them things that aren’t true about their own or others’ practices?