What is Orthodox?

  When the auspicious announcement went out the other day that announced that women can never be accepted as an orthodox Jewish rabbi I was unmoved. I guess this is because I have zero desire to be a rabbi.
     What bothered me more is the discussion of blogs and what is orthodox Judaism and what is not. I hate when people like to say that modern orthodoxy is almost conservative Judaism. It is not. Even in the stone age when I was a kid conservative Jews did not keep shabbos at all. Perhaps they kept kosher to some degree , but that's about it. A conservative shul  may have had more traditional service but they also  used a microphone on shabbos. It was a lot closer to reform Judaism. I do not think that much has changed except for the fact that conservative Jews have shifted more to the left and have become less observant. One could say that many orthodox Jews have shifted to the left and have created open orthodoxy or partnership minyans because the conservative Jewish movement is way too far to the left for them and they want to be more liberal than orthodox Judaism. Just because someone may be far to the left as far as being an orthodox Jew that does not mean they are interested in open orthodoxy or partnership minyanim. Then again, there are those who are not so strict as an orthodox Jew but not as lax as a conservative Jew . I think that open orthodoxy is filling that gap. A lot of it is about semantics. No on likes their brand of observance to be insulted, but in the end people will remain in the denomination they feel comfortable in and won't care much about what others think anyway.

hooked on srugim

ever since i saw the first three episodes at the israeli film festival in november 2008 i fell in love with the israeli tv show srugim.                          srugim is about israeli orthodox singles in there late 20's early 30's living in  jerusalem . it is amazing to see a tv show that shows life as a single orthodox jew. though one of the characters is otd, the rest are not which is what makes this show unique. it is so cliche to chronicle someone who is otd. to chronicle someone who is frum and single and is sincere  is much more of  a challenge.
srugim has been shown on the jewish channel with subtitles and it is also on dvd. the only drawback of the dvds is that they are in the israeli format and not in the us format.
 between friends who have cable and friends who have the dvds i have managed to see all of the first season and most of the second season of srugim. 
i would love to elaborate more about the episodes, but i don't want to ruin it for you.

why i am modern orthodox

i have many friends who are bt who will say that they always feel most comfortable with bts or people who are not frum. i think that often this is the case. no matter where we go we feel  most at home with the those who share the  values we have grown  up with even if we have changed alot since back then.
i grew up modern orhodox and even though i had  a ten year stint as being more yeshivish i returned to my more modern orthodox roots. why is this you ask? well first and foremost i do not have a new york accent so everyone always assumed i was bt. very annoying. and then i  did not get married before i was twenty five which is another reason i cant blend into the yeshiva world. i always felt like someone was watching me when i was in the yeshivish scene and it wasnt that i felt i was being watched by g-d. when i am in the modern orthodox world i am considered one of the crowd. no one doubts that i am religious. i dont feel like im being "watched" all of the time. i feel like i can be myself. i enjoy yiddishkeit but i also enjoy secular culture. i dont think that it is a contradiction.

modesty

years ago when brittany spears was breaking out of her "good girl" mode (i know its hard to remember) a co-worker of mine who had a daughter who was a brittany groupie and was very upset about brittany's more risque music videos. at that point her daughter was not to watch any more brittany spears videos.

another day, this same co-worker was outraged with the styles for children's clothing that were around. they were selling too many provocative styles for little girls.

during the low slung jeans and skirt phase many non-jewish co-workers of mine complained. who wants to wear something that shows your stomach when you have a big stomach? or in during the frigid weather of winter, how are these styles practical?

ive seen well-heeled rich ladies with daughters wearing jeans with their underwear showing and i wasnt the only one passing them on the street appalled.

if you knew me in real life you would know that i only wear skirts or dresses and do not go mixed swimming, but im not the poster girl for the tznius police either.

i believe that there is a concept of modesty, for society in general.

i think that bais yaakov must give a course on makeup application that i missed out on in the modern orthodox schools i attended. (im not sure how this fits in with this post, but ive been dying to rant about this , so im including it here)

modesty is more than long sleeves and long skirts. its about not being flashy or too sexy in personality and style of dress.
one doesnt have to be dowdy to be modest. example: katie couric: modest, paris hilton:immodest, princess diana: modest ,sara fergeson:modest, pamela anderson: immodest, madonna: immodest.
people choose to harp on tzniut in clothing because its easier to focus on than perfecting the actual midah of modesty. giving tzedakah without fanfare or holding a position of kavod without being haughty are much tougher than not wearing bluejeans. i aspire to reach the truest level of tzniut..... someday.

who is a jew?

the age old question , who is a jew? well, i would like to add another one of my own. who is a frummie? well, as in the frumster religion categories, its all subjective.
i grew up outside of new york where anyone who was shomer shabbat and kept kosher was called frum . and to be frum where i grew up it was alot harder than those who are frum in the new york area. there were alot less frum people where i grew up. and guess what , the yeshivish people had to mix with the modern orthodox people because the community was that small.
truth is, new york has alot of outside influences that a smaller city does not have. hence all of the ny shtick, chumras of the months etc. people seem to feel they have to get involved in these because they think it helps them stay frum.
even though people in the new york area are more outwardly frum than i was growing up, i probably led a much more sheltered life. there were no madison avenue billboards with un-tzinius photos where i grew up. there werent any billboards period. no one took public transportation where i grew up and there was no "street life".
i think that the people here go overboard with leaning to the right because they are afraid . i believe everyone should be whatever degree of frumkeit they prefer. and no i dont believe that we all have to be cut from the same cookie cutter mold.
i think that alot of the yeshiva rebels and orthoprax people in the new york area probably would not be frum if they lived out of town, but there would be alot less fanfare made of it.
some who are orthodox, dont want to say that they are frum because they feel it has certain connotations that they dont like.
to me, the original definition of frum from my childhood still holds true.

the rabbi's daughter

during pesach i had alot of time to read. one of the books i read was the rabbi's daughter by reva mann. its an autobiography. while reva mann is a captivating writer, its unbelievable that someone would want to broadcast such a revealing self-portrait. apparently reva mann is the daughter of a modern orthodox rabbi in london. she was quite a rebel while she was in high school, but at age 25 wound up at a women't baal tshuvah yeshiva--- neve yerusahlayim. she doesnt outright name the yeshiva but by her description of it and where it was located (bayit vegan) and her naming of the neve "niche"(its real name) where the bt women would by their frummie clothing, its quite obvious. anyway, while at neve the author is trying to give up her old ways and get married to someone so she could live a torah true life. unfortunately the man she married was so frum he deleted the necessity for any romance even though they somehow managed to actually have three kids. sex to her husband was only a halachah , not to be enjoyed. eventually they divorce and the author finds a nice jewish druggie to hang with. somewhere along the way it is mentioned that the author has an older sister who is mentally retarded, and that her father was the son of the chief rabbi of israel. though reva's parents did not like her former life of a drug addict and sex fiend, they didnt approve of her yeshivish lifestyle either. in about the last two pages of the book i found out that after reva leaves her druggie rebound guy when her children are small, she takes an extended break from dating. it seems that even after the divorce she maintains some level of frumkeit. most of all she seems to be a lost soul. while i do admit that it was a riveting tale, i felt almost embarrassed for the author reading her story. even though these things may have happened , why tell the entire world?

foreskin's lament

i finished reading foreskin's lament by shalom auslander on thursday morning. how appropriate.though not planned. i wasnt actually sure if i would like the book, but i did. the book is about an ex -frum guy who has a son , but isnt quite sure if he wants to give his son a bris, and the internal philosophical dialogue that goes on within his head as he makes his decision. the book also tells you how a guy like him came to be who he is today. it was quite fascinating. like many of the ex-frum i know, though he no longer has the outward trappings of a frum jew , he isnt able to extract it from his head. some reviewers i read mocked shalom auslander's rebellion because they said that he wasn't even yeshivish , so what was he rebelling against. i disagree. no matter what level of yiddishkeit one hails from one can feel oppressed. look at woody allen and phillip roth. i hail originally from outside of new york and i can tell you that being modern orthodox where i grew up was equivalent to being a satmar chasid in new york. orthodox is orthodox no matter how u slice it. if you are shomer shabbat and and keep kosher you are a religious freak to most of the world . so i do understand where shalom auslander is coming from. what was so much fun about the book is that he is speaking about frumkeit from the inside instead of as an outsider . though i wouldnt mock like shalom auslander does, i can understand the inside jokes. what is fabulous is that by the end of the book he realizes that he still believes in g-d despite all of his rantings.
the only thing that surprises me is how praised this book is in the secular world . i wouldnt have enjoyed it as much had i not grown up frum or been familiar with the frum community.

down memory lane

last night i went to the jewish music cafe. blue fringe performed. i think that they were one of the best groups ive seen perform there. their music reached deep into my soul. and i cant say that about much of the music ive seen performed there. but im not trying to gripe. ive always liked attending the music events there because they remind me of my junior high and high school days. the bands are predominantly comprised of young men who are y. u. types. the audience is a mix of yeshivish and more modern orthodox types, heavier on the modern orthodox types. it reminds me of a more relaxed point in my life before the new york religious idiosyncrasies blackened my spirit.