the new metrosexual

a few years ago the news was peppered with articles about how men are now starting to care about their looks much like women. oh and these men are not gay either. well this shabbos i came across a new phenomenon or at least a new phenomenon to me. apparently yeshivish teenage boys are just as interested in dressing in designer duds as yeshivish teenage girls. this came as a total shock to me. i understand why a charedi girl would be interested in fashion. after all thats one of the few kosher interests she can cultivate. the average bais yaakov graduate can don makeup better than an elite model and is always decked out in the latest  tzanuah fashions.then again, they are girls and girls usually are concerned about clothing and dressing fashionably. now the boys want to get into the picture. are sports now being frowned upon by the yeshivas? is it that young yeshivah boys have no other outlet left other  than the choice of what brand of white shirt he should be wearing? is the reason they  over focus on their wardrobe because the do need to actually get dressed? otherwise  they should only be focusing on torah subjects.
im  all for yeshivah boys showering and being concerned over their appearances. it just scares me when any male is as gung-ho about fashion as a woman.of all issues for men and women to be equally interested , fashion should not be one of them.. this of course is only my opinion.

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.

the women's minyan

i just read naomi ragen's play the women's minyan. despite the controversial title, it was more sad than controversial. it was a play about divorce and spousal abuse in the haredi community in israel . often when haredi women want to divorce their husbands the husband ends up with the children. or at least according to this play. i dont really know what the truth is. i do believe that a woman leaving her husband due to spousal abuse would be courageous in a community that shuns psychological help and doesnt always admit it needs psychological help. to admit there was spousal abuse in a family would be too open and that would prevent many from seeking help. in general abused women often stay in abusive relationships longer than they should.
divorce in general can deprive both men and women of their children. sometimes people stay in relationships far too long for this alone.
the issues raised in this play certainly are food for thought and hopefully a catalyst for change.

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?

monsey madness

one experience i have not endured lately is a monsey bus excursion. i would say i miss it as much as one misses having a tooth filed...as in not at all. its the easiest way for me to get from mid-manhattan to monsey.or so i delude myself. the ride to monsey from the diamond district on erev shabbos isnt so bad now that the only passengers are allowed to put up the famed mechitzah(which is a sheet) and not the driver. on friday afternoons i had found that the mechitzah wasnt usually up. i dont mind if the bus has a men's side and a women's side, what i object to is the actual mechitzah itself . on motzei shabbat however, the mechitzah is usually up. when the mechitzah is up i make sure to get a window seat so i dont get hit in the head with someone's suitcase. when people walk down the bus aisle with a mechitzah up, they dont realize that there is someone on the other side of the partition and they will hit you in the head with a suitcase if they are holding one. another one of my pet peeves is when a man stands in the aisle of the bus on his side of the mechitzah and you are sitting in an aisle seat and the chassid in the aisle is suddenly sitting on your shoulder because if you cant see that someone is on the othere side of the mechitzah then they must not be. apparently negiah doesnt apply if its through a sheet/mechitzah !!?