Labels for Less

      Sometimes I find Brooklyn a bit too much to stomach. I encountered a naive Brooklyn native this chag who had a disturbing way of defining liberal shuls. She defined a certain shul as being liberal due to the liberal  dress of folk who attend and  not by the height of the mechitzah or the hashkafah of the rav. I found it odd because I have attended yeshivish , modern orthodox and chabad shuls and unless there is an unusually low mechitzah or the hashkafah of the rabbi of the shul is liberal I would say they are all equal. I suppose I am in the minority but I have been to all and I don't find them all that different. Just because the people may dress differently does not immediately define how liberal the davening is . It may define the hashkofah of the congregants, but to me this does not define the actual strictness of the davening. I also think that the hashkafah of chabad and yeshivish are pretty similar if you take away the rebbe /mashiach issue. Maybe its just me though. I did not grow up in NYC and view Judaism a bit differently. Where I grew up anyone shomer shabbos would daven in the same shul together. Here everyone likes to label everything. Labels only mean something if there is an actual standard that everyone goes by, if there is no standard then what does any label mean?

labels for less

     I absolutely love all of the labels on frumster that try to define how religious someone is . The more categories they list the less I know what they represent, so I am always changing my label. There should just be a list of mitzvot and everyone should just check off which ones they observe and the degree of kavanah they have while performing them. 

     Sometimes there are singles events that have religious label requirements for attendees.  Some will just be for modern orthodox liberal, some just for modern orthodox machmir, some for modern yeshivish , some for traditional yeshivish.  Whatever.  Now, if you can actually figure out which category best describes you , then the organizer of the event might decide they know better and exclude you from the event for the group  you self identify with.  Two things have happened . Either you really don't fit the category, or the event organizer doesn't want you at the event. Or if you are really unlucky you are excluded on both counts. 

     I realize that the powers that be are only trying to make the event have a group where people will be the most similar, but sometimes its just best to have more than one category grouped together so there will be more people at the event and more will be more likely to meet. One can always tell who is a little more religious or less religious. You can always tell who is on the older end of the range and who is on the lower end. If you can't tell and you actually like each other and date, eventually  get engaged and  get married , well what category would that be? Oh, well at that point you won't have to attend singles events again and you won't have to fit into any categorical box.