Mixed dancing | Imamother

amother

Amethyst

Sun, Jul 29 2018, 6:38 pm

I’m not looking for a personal psak.
I shared the background of my question as an aside. I realize now I should have just posted the question without the story...

I want to know if anyone can tell me “rabbi so and so says it’s ok because of xyz.”
Or “Sefer something mentions it’s not a problem” or alternatively that it is problematic.

penguin

Sun, Jul 29 2018, 6:40 pm

I was just at a wedding where a man (older) was sitting on the women's side, clearly watching the women dancing. I was thinking about whether there was a tactful way to tell him that many of the women would appreciate if he would not be there...

However, if you are just dancing mildly (as opposed to wildly, with a lot of hip movement etc) I personally don't think you're doing anything prohibited.

You'd have to ask some men if they find it provocative. It's certainly not listed anywhere in the Mishna Berurah.

In fact, on Tu B'Av, the girls used to go out and dance and say "Bochur, sa na einecha". I heard someone say this could only happen in the time of the Mikdash when men had enough kedushah to look at girls dancing without a problem. But also the bochurim had to be told to look!

amother

Wheat

Sun, Jul 29 2018, 6:45 pm

amother wrote:

Things are generally acceptable unless they specifically aren't.

penguin

Sun, Jul 29 2018, 7:08 pm

Quote:

My Rav doesn't even allow dancing in front of a male photographer. He told us to get a female photographer for the women and male photographer for the men.

We would do this lechatchila if possible but bedieved I think we consider the photographer 'torud b'melachto'.

Ellie7

Sun, Jul 29 2018, 11:30 pm

When we got married, there were several logistical issues with putting up a mechitza for dancing. We asked our mesader kiddushin what to do and he said that so long as the men and women were dancing far enough apart that it wouldn't devolve into mixed dancing (women and men dancing WITH each other), there was no problem.

LovesHashem

Sun, Jul 29 2018, 11:39 pm

pesek zman wrote:

Honestly, this sounds very unusual (for the circles you described) but let's be honest: simchas dancing is hardly dancing. It's walking in slow motion round and round. I'm not s big simcha dancer so it's not hard to convince me NOT to dance but I don't think I'd feel exposed or guilty of anything if men saw me dancing.

Technically yes, but there's a LOT of jumping, moving in ways that are DEFINITELY not tznanua, and at more and more wedding I see girls really dancing, not just circle dancing. Modern dancing, breakdancing, etc.

shabbatiscoming

Mon, Jul 30 2018, 1:46 am

OP, that is most definitely NOT mixed dancing. Mixed dancing is either one big circle with men and women in it or line dancing with men and women together, not two separate circles with me men in one and women in another.

As you said the crowd was a ex chasidish one, I think you have your answer, that no, you most probably will not find any rabbi who says it is ok, in the yeshivish world, but that the crowd did it anyway as they really did not care one way or the other.

JoyInTheMorning

Mon, Jul 30 2018, 2:51 am

amother wrote:

Separate circles with no mechitza was standard outside chassidish circles until 25 or 30 years ago. Then the yeshivish world started imitating chassidim (for various reasons) and standards changed. Look at old wedding albums.

This exactly. People understood that the men's circle and the women's circle stayed separate. There was no need for a mechitza.

As far as men looking at women? Back then, everybody danced in a tzanua fashion. A man could look at women dancing in a circle and not see anything they wouldn't see when dealing with women in ordinary life.

IMO, that's the way women should dance. There's no need to do a full on the floor leg exposed kezatzke or do covered-up belly dancing. You know what I mean - the moves are belly dance moves even though the women are covered. That's not modest. But ordinary circle dances? Not immodest at all.

amother

Lavender

Mon, Jul 30 2018, 4:16 am

amother wrote:

We are not chassidish. Nobody would have called us yeshivish. There was no such term back then as far as I can remember. I guess you’d have called us jpf if the term existed back then. Married over 30 years. Please come over and have a look at my wedding album. You could also check out my siblings and friends’ albums. We all had mechitzas at our weddings and the men and women danced on separate sides of the mechitza. This was not in NY in case you’re asking. I had friends there though and they all had mechitzas separating the dancing at their weddings too.
In the early years of Jewish settlement in America, early 1900’s it was very hard to keep Shabbos. A lot of people got here and left everything behind. There’s no way we can pass judgement on people who felt they had to work on Shabbos to put food in their children’s mouths. We can only look up to the ones who stayed strong. Even among those that tried to observe Shabbos there were few yeshivas, no bais yakov, none of the infrastructure our community has today. Mitzvah observance became weak.
What bothers me is people looking back at what was going on then and deciding that what was done back then was okay, and deciding that everyone did that. Both are not true.

amother

Tangerine

Mon, Jul 30 2018, 4:26 am

amother wrote:

I'm about your age. I guess we travel in different circles.

Btw, my grandfather ran a yeshiva in the 1930s (and for many years after) so I know something about the condition of American Jewry. Amazingly, many Jews came from moderate homes in Poland and dancing in separate circles with no mechitza was the norm.