Friendly Rebuttal

Sweetest friends, my dear friend and chavrusa, baal hablog hamifursam Tikkun, Reb Shmulie sent me this correspondence and agreed that I write it in his name as he stands behind what he said [by the way, one of the biggest problems of the internet is anonymity. People say the crudest, most disgusting and irreverent things because they are anonymous, but that is another story. The previous writer didn't ask to be anonymous but I chose to conceal his identity for obvious reasons]. This is NOT an personal attack. It happens to be that I learned bi'chavrusa with the first writer some years back and know him to be a fine mentsch [much better than myself for sure], sincere and a yarei shomayim who only means well. I cast NO aspersions on him. Reb Shmulie also doesn't know who he is so this is nothing personal [also Reb Shmulie, Baal HaTikkun, is also a fine mentsch and baal middos and only wants to judge Jews favorably].

Also, we don't have time to waste on pointless discussions. We want to make changes for the better [see the words of Rav Kook on the top of the page of Tikkun with which we at Mevakesh completely identify]. So I urge people to add suggestions for practical change. Yes, it will require effort but you might make the world a better more pure and spiritual place!



Reb Ally! I believe that your original post on superficiality was beautiful, concise, and matim for everyone to hear. The guest post (the e mail that your friend sent you), however, left me with the impression that the writer has an axe to grind with the frum community. I could be wrong, but after repeated readings, that's just the feeling I got. This is apparent in the amount of times he (I am using that as a generic pronoun, although it's possible that the e-mail was composed by a woman) stressed that this problem is prevalent amongst "very frum" boys, who are "often more crude with the details", and are "not much to look at themselves." The writer brings up several other anecdotes that all level a serious accusation against the frum community. It seems like your friend feels that he has broad enough shoulders to bear the weight of such a kitrug; his exaggerations of "hundreds of suggestions" shows that he is prepared to lump the entire frum community into one homogeneous group.

This is unfair, untrue, and wrong. I don't have enough time right now to provide a counter argument to every point your friend made, but I will try to address some of his statements. Beforehand, I want to repeat that I do agree that there is a problem with superficiality, the problem is worsening, and we need to increase our sensitivity towards this issue. However, it cannot be attributed to any one particular group or community, despite the fact that a certain community may have a seemingly larger nisayon. It's disgusting and, in my opinion, it's actually worse in our community than in the secular society.This statement is ludicrous. While the perceived hypocrisy is very bad, to say that our problems with tzniut and superficiality are worse than the world's own issues in not true. Worst case scenario, we are the same, which is very bad, especially taking into consideration that we are meant to be a Holy Nation, with an emphasis on control. But that is a separate issue; what we are discussing here is the actual obsession with looks, not whether we are living up to ideals vis-a-vis the gentile nations.

One very frum boy even told me his rebbe told him the more of shas he knew, the [here he used a word that describes the weather in August as opposed to the weather in May] the girl Hashem would send him. This anecdote can and should be disregarded as out of context and possibly fabricated. We do not know what the context of this particular bochur's conversation with his rebbe was, we do not know whether the rebbe said something else that was misinterpreted by the botcher (an all too common occurrence), and we do not know this particular boy's nisyonot. It is very possible that if this story indeed happened, maybe this boy struggled with his shmiras einayim, and this was his rebbe's method of attempting to mitigate that strong desire by encouraging him to focus on his studies. One can question the rebbe's approach (if it happened as described, I do take issue with it), but to imply that this is a hashkafah that is passed on within the four amos of halacha is baseless.

I know one girl who inherently distrusts all guys now based on the fact that she thinks they're all motivated by physicality only... Well, to a large degree, we are motivated by physicality. That is the source for most of our struggles to make tikkun while we are here in this world. "All guys"? Does that include her father and brothers? Her male teachers? Or maybe just the few 'jerks' she went out with......and says she doesn't think she'll be able to have a normal sexual relationship when she does get married because her distrust of frum men has grown so high. Something is wrong here. This particular girl sounds like she has much deeper issues than the regular girl. I am loathe to say it, but there is a distinct impression of some sort of history of abuse. If that is the case, she cannot be used as a proof that there is a larger issue here. How does she know what a normal sexual relationship is, and that she won't be able to have one? And why specifically frum men? Some very important details are missing here; to use this instance would be misleading and counterproductive.

I know another girl, frum and still is, who often dresses more promiscuously now than she once did saying, "I don't really believe in dressing this way but I can't change the society I live in and this is the only way I can really date men." While men's expectations of how women should look and behave do play a role in determining how a woman dresses, to place the blame squarely on our shoulders is unfair. Many sources, including the Orchot Tzaddikim already describe the woman's ta'avah to dress a certain way for attention from men and women. We see that this is a natural urge or inclination in women, free of any conditioning from the outside world, akin to the appetite for food, or any other ta'avah. This is further emphasized by the fact that there is no cessation of the halachot of tzniut when there are only women around.If she is dressing that way, it is likely that a significant contribution to that is because she wants to. She has found a convenient "hook to hang her hat on".

I know another girl, also pretty frum that says she wears tznius clothing but tries to make sure it's as tight as possible. This is what we call a setira minei ubei [inherent contradiction]: Tzniut is not limited to lengths and how much skin is covered. A woman can be sheathed from head to toe in material, but if it is sheer, if it is a certain color, or it is tight enough to see the form of the woman's body, that is as much of an issue as anything else. For example: pants are no longer considered beged Ish by any standards, but because they allow us to see the form of a woman's leg, poskim discourage (if not outright forbid) women from wearing pants.As Rabbi Ron Yitzchak Eisenmann says "If her clothes are tight enough that I can see 'In God We Trust' on the quarter in her pocket, it's not tzniut!" If we think women are not noticing the attitudes of the men, they are. It is having an incredibly destructive effect on b'nos yisrael. It is messing with their minds, their views of relationships, self esteem, affecting their values and the way they dress. Because most of these girls don't learn about society's take on body image from Face book, advertisements on city buses, and the world of academia, and non Jewish music... In closing, Reb Ally, I have to question whether you should have posted this e-mail; it would have been better to just give a summary. Such strong accusations are very serious...

Love and Blessings!

Shmulie