טפילי אמונה
Inspired by a comment to the preceding post:
It would be fun to compile a commented list of shifts from the ikor to the tofel, which includes some of those "tricks".
Let's warm up with some gymnastics:
1. Shmoozing, realising people say "Omen yehe sheme rabo...", and standing up at Yisborach, throwing disdainful glances at the one or two guys who don't stand up for Kaddish. Very funny.
2. Standing for Borchu, but sitting down while or even before answering Boruch H' hamevorach.
3. Standing up for Shiras ha-yam at Oz yoshir. (Originally, there was no standing whatsoever, and then, the standing was for and at "Lecho H' ha-gedulo" until "umhalelim leshem tif'artecho".)
Others:
4. Performing whole "Hm hm hm" conversations and jokes with charades and pantomimes, often with tiring repetitions because the other one doesn't get it, between netilas yodayim and motzi, but not saying "OK, you sit here, and you there" or "Would you pass me the salt, hon?"
5. Kedusho: "Singing Mimekomecho..." as if it was your last Shma, culminating in "Meshiach tzidkecho", and then mumbling "Yimloch..." at best, or not saying it at all.
Remember this is not about charedi bashing or a general "what I hate in my shul".
Please add your own favourites!
It would be fun to compile a commented list of shifts from the ikor to the tofel, which includes some of those "tricks".
Let's warm up with some gymnastics:
1. Shmoozing, realising people say "Omen yehe sheme rabo...", and standing up at Yisborach, throwing disdainful glances at the one or two guys who don't stand up for Kaddish. Very funny.
2. Standing for Borchu, but sitting down while or even before answering Boruch H' hamevorach.
3. Standing up for Shiras ha-yam at Oz yoshir. (Originally, there was no standing whatsoever, and then, the standing was for and at "Lecho H' ha-gedulo" until "umhalelim leshem tif'artecho".)
Others:
4. Performing whole "Hm hm hm" conversations and jokes with charades and pantomimes, often with tiring repetitions because the other one doesn't get it, between netilas yodayim and motzi, but not saying "OK, you sit here, and you there" or "Would you pass me the salt, hon?"
5. Kedusho: "Singing Mimekomecho..." as if it was your last Shma, culminating in "Meshiach tzidkecho", and then mumbling "Yimloch..." at best, or not saying it at all.
Remember this is not about charedi bashing or a general "what I hate in my shul".
Please add your own favourites!
posted by Phillip Minden at 11/01/2005 01:55:00 p.m.
4 Comments:
I tried to post this on DovBear, on the thread reagrding Chasidic dress, but Helloscan kept messing everything up. Therefore, I am posting it here.
Here are my notes from a shi`ur given by Rav David Fink in 2003:
STUDENT: Minhag shel ha-chasidim be-malbushim, ha-shtraimel ve-ha-spodik, ze gam kein kasheir mipnei ze? She-ze lo haya mi-techila la-yehudim.
(laughter in class)
RAV FINK: Lo. Ze lo ha-she'eila. Ha-she'eila ze lo ha-shtraimel ve-lo ha-spodik. Ha-she'eila ze ha-kova ha-shachor shel yemei chol. Mei'eifo ze ba? In the days of the Chidushei ha-RI"M-- the Chidushei ha-RI"M was the founder of Gerrer-- Chasidut Gur, which was by far the largest chasidic group. They were the largest chasidic group before the Sho'a-- Poland was more or less wall-to-wall Gerrer Chasidim, and today, they're by far the largest group-- in all of the world they're the largest group; there are not many left in Poland, I suppose. The Chidushei ha-RI"M, who was a talmid of Rav Simcha Bunim of that town that only people who come from there can pronounce it-- how do you pronounce it?
VARIOUS STUDENTS: Prschisskha.
STUDENT: Prshh-khsh-prshh. OK. People who come from there know how to pronounce it. He was the founder of Chasidut Gur, back in the days when the Czar, in Peterburg, made a gezeira neged ha-yehudim, insisting that the Jews of Poland, which were under the Czar in those days-- the Jews of Poland were ordered by the Czar, commanded by the Czar, to wear Western dress. Now, this upset the Chidushei ha-RI"M terribly, as it upset many others. And-- he did not want his Chasidim to wear goyish dress, and therefore, being a very clever person, he thought of a solution. The solution was: he sent a shali'ach to the court of the Czar in Peterburg with a petition to the Czar, saying: “O Czar-- dear Czar. Could you kindly give permission to your loyal subjects in Poland to dress like your loyal servants the Russian serfs?”
STUDENT: Who were the serfs?
RAV FINK: They're the slaves, on the farms.
STUDENT: What year was this?
RAV FINK: This was two hundred years ago-- less than two hundred years ago: a hundred and seventy years ago.
STUDENT: Before they freed the serfs.
RAV FINK: Right. -- Now, this put the Czar in a difficult position. He couldn't say: “No. Don’t dress like my serfs.” Right? So he said: “OK. The Jews of Poland have a choice. They can either wear Western dress, or they can dress like the serfs in Russia.” So the Chidushei Ha-RI"M told all the Chaseedim to dress like the serfs in Russia. And that's the source of the weekday chasidic dress: the hat, the coat—
STUDENT: The black hat?
RAV FINK: Yeah, that's the kind of hat.
STUDENT: Ha-kova shachor hu biglal ze?
RAV FINK: Yeah, that's where the kova shachor comes from.
STUDENT: Pshhhh.
STUDENT: Ani agid et ze akhshav shama.
(Rav fink laughs.)
STUDENT: So, the long coat and everything—
RAV FINK: Yeah, yeah, it all comes from that. -- If you're interested in pursuing this issue, there's a whole chapter in Yitzchak Alfasi's book Chasidut Gur-- Yitzchak Alfasi -- a lovely chapter in the book -- he tells the whole story, with all the sources.
STUDENT: What did Chasidim dress like before then?
STUDENT: They must have worn shtreimels all the time.
STUDENT: Even during the week?
STUDENT: All the time.
RAV FINK: No, no. Shtreimels-- believe it or not, there was originally a rational reason to wear a shtreimel.
STUDENT: It's warm.
RAV FINK: It's warm, right. A shtreimel is a good hat in the cold, Polish winter. A shtreimel-- anyone, a goy, a Jew, anyone who could afford it, would wear a fur hat, because that kept you warm. And today, the shtreimel-- it doesn't matter: you can walk in the snow, walk in the rain; I mean, nothing bothers a shtreimel. I mean, it's mink-- sobol. Sobol. They make it out of sobol, no? Sobol. Mink. Sobol. Sobol.
STUDENT: But why davka on Shabes? It's not cold during the week?
RAV FINK: No. Kov'd, kov'd, kov'd.
STUDENT: So, you're allowed to tolerate the cold during the week.
STUDENT: That's not ma'asei ha-goyim.
RAV FINK: Since it's a beged of wealthy people, someone who wants to be mekhabed shabes with special dress-- so that's a way to be mekhabed shabes: the way wealthy people dress.
STUDENT: You're talking about reasons for allowing a particular practice. What makes some reasons valid, and others invalid?
RAV FINK: In a moment, we're going to see a list of reasons, and once we get the list of reasons, then we'll be able to generalize. In a moment we're getting a list of reasons.
STUDENT: But what did Chasidim dress like before that incident?
RAV FINK: They dressed like Jews.
(laughter in class)
STUDENT: What did Jews dress like?
RAV FINK: If you're interested, I encourage you to go to the National Library. In the National Library, there's an art section-- the art section of the library; there's a whole shelf of books on the history of costume, the history of dress. There's a whole section in the art library of the National Library. The books are organized by century. And there you can-- we have books of Jewish dress, books of goyish dress. And if you want to see the people dressed in any particular time or place, they have all the pictures there in the art library.
STUDENT: Would you say that if you put a classic picture of a serf up against a classic picture of a Chosid, it would be hard for us to tell the difference?
RAV FINK: Correct. How does it work, incidentally, in London today? As long as the Jew was living in a shtetl in Poyland, where the Jews dressed differently from the goyim, and you could tell whether or not someone was a Jew or a goy at a hundred meters-- a glance at a hundred meters will tell you whether or not someone was a Jew or a goy, because they dressed very differently, in that context, if a Jew would start dressing like a goy, that would be be-chukoteihem lo teileikhu; that would be imitating shtus ve-hevel shelahem, and definitely osur. Take the same Jew, and fly him to London, where, in London, you see someone in the city, or Picadilly circus, walking down the street wearing a tweed suit and a bowler with a tightly furled brollie-- have I got that right? They actually walk around like that, or it's only in the pictures? They really walk around like that? If so, they have no sense of busha. The, uh—
(laughter in class)
Ah. If you see someone walking down the street, there's no way to tell by looking at him whether he's Jewish or a goy, because in the context of London dress, that uniform, that style of dress, is neutral, and conveys no message at all about the religion of the wearer. Therefore, in London, or New York, the Igros Moshe concludes, it's OK to wear civilian dress. There's no chiyuv to be dressed in a way distinctively Jewish; there's only an isur to dress in a way that's goyish. But what makes it goyish? It makes it goyish only if you are copying them. If Jews also dress that way, it turns out to be entirely OK.
Now, it follows from this approach of the Igros Moshe, it follows that the first ones who changed were truly wrong. It was osur for them to have done so. Had they asked, they would have been told: "No. It's osur to change into gentile-style clothing." But once many had done it, and now it's no longer possible to tell who's Jewish and who isn't by looking, now, all of a sudden, it becomes muter. Now, when the hundred-and-first person asks the rav: "Can I change from a long, black coat and a big, round hat into ordinary gentile clothing?", now, the answer is yes.
STUDENT: If those-- say one of those first Jewish people had dressed in a way that had identified them as being Jewish, say, the men wearing a kipa, or the women wearing kissui rosh, would that have been muter, in any case, because it would have been clear—
RAV FINK: In the shtetl? Ah, no-- as long as they're wearing something that makes— that identifies them as being Jewish, that's OK.
STUDENT: Because if you walk around New York wearing jeans and a T-shirt, the first Jew was also wearing—
RAV FINK: Something which identifies them as a Jew would save them from the isur.
STUDENT: If it was a convert, since that was what they were wearing before, does that make a difference?
RAV FINK: No. No. Once he's a convert, he's ke-tinok she-nolad dami; now everything starts afresh.
STUDENT: Rabbi Fink?
RAV FINK: Yeah.
STUDENT: So, do we count non-observant Jews in this, or only observant Jews?
RAV FINK: Only observant Jews.
STUDENT: So, at first, the suggestion of the Chidushei Ha-RI"M was an isur, also.
RAV FINK: Yeah. Yeah. But that was a little bit different, because there were no Russians in Poland at the time, so wearing the Russian garments in Poland did not give anyone the impression that you were a Russian goy. And since they all did it at once, so there were no ‘first people’ who were osur.
STUDENT: Why was that less harmful than having people dress in Western dress?
RAV FINK: Well, he wanted the Jews to be different from the goyim. The idea was as follows: Rev Yehuda He-chósid, from the Ba'alei Ha-Tosafos, says in the Seifer Chaseedim that someone who wants to be a chósid should dress in a distinctive, pious fashion. The reason is that the clothing will influence your conduct. If you dress in a particularly pious fashion, you will be embarrassed to do anything osur; and therefore, your clothing will keep you on the straight and narrow. And therefore, even if you're not such a great tsádik, it's OK to dress like a tsádik, because the dress alone will force you to behave that way.
STUDENT: Does that work today?
STUDENT: So, he wants them to dress like slaves?!
RAV FINK: Of course it works today. If you insist that people dress in a three-piece suit, all of a sudden they'll start behaving differently than if they're in a T-shirt and jeans.
No, the original minhog is to sit, as do the Sefardim and Oriental communities and some Yekkes.
The halocho doesn't command or prohibit either.
I'm afraid I don't understand your second comment.
Here's one:
At the schul where I prayed on the Second Day of RH, there was a woman blowing shofar. Apparently, she missed one of the קולות in the תקיעתא דמיושב. The shul needed to figure out what to do-- after all, we all know that it's a mitzva d'oraita to hear 100 shofar-blasts on each day of RH. (Note for the sarcasm-impaired: no such obligation exists.)
For some reason, the בעל שחרית approached me, and asked me what should be done. I said: "I'd like to absent myself from this issue", because I didn't want to get into the whole issue that women aren't obligated, etc. In any event, even למאן דאמר that women can fulfill men's obligation in shofar (assuming that such an approach exists), the תקיעתא דמיושב aren't so important. It's the ones in musaf that are important. This is especially true in shuls that blow 30 קולות in Musaf (as opposed to ten, as required by Gaonic מנהג).
Anyway, after the berakha of מלכיות, the caller and the תוקעת got onto the bima, and the תוקעת blew the following set of קולות:
תקיעה / שברים-תרועה / שברים-תרועה / תקיעה.
Then, the תוקעת blew a normal תש"ת and a normal תר"ת.
This way, they thought that the could be-משלים the 100 qoloth. Of course, in doing so, they messed up their תקיעתא דמעומד (though probably not בדיעבד, because the only problem is הפסק).
How about those who stress the word את of את תורתו in the berocho after the aliyo?
Or particularly absurd, Russian BTs who try to lengthen the ז of תזכרו in the last paragraph of the Shema, but actually say תסססססכרו, and nobody tells them?
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