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KonMari
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How familiar are you with KonMari?
Read the book, but nothing else  
 34%  [ 15 ]
Watched the show, but nothing else  
 40%  [ 18 ]
Read the book and watched the show  
 25%  [ 11 ]
Total Votes : 44



levlongnprosper




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Feb 05 2019, 8:25 pm
Has anyone else read the book or attempted to implement the system? In so many ways yiddishkeit feels very stuff-oriented. I'm curious to hear the thoughts of other women here.

My DH and I watch shtus ( TMI ) and we also watched the netflix show, and it inspired my stuff-loving DH to want to try it together, and I think it brought us closer in a way, and we're both loving having more space. Has anyone else had other experiences? Good or bad?
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thunderstorm




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Feb 05 2019, 8:28 pm
There has been a recent thread on this topic.
https://www.imamother.com/foru.....54620
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levlongnprosper




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Feb 05 2019, 9:27 pm
thunderstorm wrote:
There has been a recent thread on this topic.
https://www.imamother.com/foru.....54620


Thanks, I did a few keyword searches on here and nothing was coming up Confused
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zaq




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Feb 05 2019, 9:30 pm
I don’t believe that Yiddishkeit is inherently stuff oriented. Just the opposite, really. It’s inherently a very portable religion, which means having less stuff to tie you down. Our very Mesorah was once mostly oral, which is about as non-stuff-oriented as you can get. It is we ourselves who have loaded ourselves down with material goods and continue to crave more and more, claiming to be doing it all leshem hiddur mitzvah.

Here I’ll give you a forinstance. My parents had ONE challah cover for maybe fifty years. When it started wearing out I made them another to replace it. My kids, even the newlyweds, all have several. There’s no reason to own six challah covers. Hiddur mitzvah is satisfied by having a NICE challah Deckel, not six challah Deckels. My dad had ONE becher that he got as a wedding gift. Hiddur mitzvah is satisfied. My son got three for his bar mitzvah, one as an engagement gift from his kallah and one as a wedding gift. Nobody needs five bechers, and the mitzvah is not more mehudar because there are four more bechers sitting in the curio cabinet. But it’s accepted if not outright expected that a balebos will have a collection. That’s not hiddur mitzvah, that’s human acquisitiveness and love of luxury and excess.

The proliferation of Judaica, genuine and fake, is all about marketing and making money. By Genuine Judaica I mean items you actually need for completing a mitzvah: Shabbos Liechter, Chanukiyah, mezuzah case. Fake Judaica is the unnecessary frivolous stuff that people invent like special boxes to hold the shards of your tenaim plate and acrylic plaques or leather folders with random brachos on them. If you have a siddur, you don’t need a leather folder with kiddush, another with havdalah, a third with the brachos for Chanuka Licht, and a phony mahogany and silver plaque with the bracha for Shabbos licht. I call this “religious clutter”, a category Marie Kondo knows nothing about.
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amother
Green


 

Post Tue, Feb 05 2019, 9:41 pm
zaq wrote:
I don’t believe that Yiddishkeit is inherently stuff oriented. Just the opposite, really. It’s inherently a very portable religion, which means having less stuff to tie you down. Our very Mesorah was once mostly oral, which is about as non-stuff-oriented as you can get. It is we ourselves who have loaded ourselves down with material goods and continue to crave more and more, claiming to be doing it all leshem hiddur mitzvah.

Here I’ll give you a forinstance. My parents had ONE challah cover for maybe fifty years. When it started wearing out I made them another to replace it. My kids, even the newlyweds, all have several. There’s no reason to own six challah covers. Hiddur mitzvah is satisfied by having a NICE challah Deckel, not six challah Deckels. My dad had ONE becher that he got as a wedding gift. Hiddur mitzvah is satisfied. My son got three for his bar mitzvah, one as an engagement gift from his kallah and one as a wedding gift. Nobody needs five bechers, and the mitzvah is not more mehudar because there are four more bechers sitting in the curio cabinet. But it’s accepted if not outright expected that a balebos will have a collection. That’s not hiddur mitzvah, that’s human acquisitiveness and love of luxury and excess.

The proliferation of Judaica, genuine and fake, is all about marketing and making money. By Genuine Judaica I mean items you actually need for completing a mitzvah: Shabbos Liechter, Chanukiyah, mezuzah case. Fake Judaica is the unnecessary frivolous stuff that people invent like special boxes to hold the shards of your tenaim plate and acrylic plaques or leather folders with random brachos on them. If you have a siddur, you don’t need a leather folder with kiddush, another with havdalah, a third with the brachos for Chanuka Licht, and a phony mahogany and silver plaque with the bracha for Shabbos licht. I call this “religious clutter”, a category Marie Kondo knows nothing about.


I agree in part. My grandmother had one set of brass candlesticks for Shabbos. My mom had one stainless steel leicht. We had silver plate candlesticks when we got married then was gifted a gorgeous silver candelabra. We also have two pairs of inherited silver candlesticks from DH's side. I can't give up any of them because they are all precious.

We have the same problem with dishes and silverware.

I am by nature a minimalist. I don't like clutter, so getting rid of junk is easy. But getting rid of family heirlooms isn't. My brass candlesticks may be junk but they spark joy.
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abaker




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Feb 05 2019, 10:06 pm
OP I love your username!!!!

I have watched snippets of the show. Have gotten rid of some stuff that very obviously didnt spark joy, like clothes I never wear and never will wear. It's like I was hanging onto them because getting rid of them would leave me with "nothing to wear" but in reality I wasn't wearing them anyway. I also got rid of excess kitchen items. I am not doing it all in one purge as she suggests but little by little I want to get rid of what I don't need and only keep/purchase what I need with quality over quantity in mind.
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PinkFridge




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Feb 05 2019, 10:21 pm
Pachim ketanim. We should try to be thoughtful about our possessions and their acquisition.

You can get some great ideas from her but if something doesn't work for you, you don't have to do it. She has some interesting hashkafos, like her reasons for not balling or knotting socks that don't mesh with our hashkafa. So do what works for you.
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dankbar




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Feb 05 2019, 10:49 pm
Actually if you want to have a reason as to buy new clothes, you can never do that with a stuffed closet, even in reality each has a diff story why it not wearable. With an empty closet....you have an excuse to go shopping!
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amother
Sienna


 

Post Tue, Feb 05 2019, 10:56 pm
PinkFridge wrote:
Pachim ketanim. We should try to be thoughtful about our possessions and their acquisition.

You can get some great ideas from her but if something doesn't work for you, you don't have to do it. She has some interesting hashkafos, like her reasons for not balling or knotting socks that don't mesh with our hashkafa. So do what works for you.


What’s wrong with balling or not balling socks?
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amother
Forestgreen


 

Post Tue, Feb 05 2019, 11:13 pm
amother wrote:
What’s wrong with balling or not balling socks?


Socks and Stockings
Gather not only socks and stockings that are currently in use, but also any extras that are still in their packages. If you have a lot, sort them by category: socks, stockings, tights, and leggings. Some people think it doesn’t really matter if they wear socks with holes in them or tights that are pilled, but this is like declaring ‘today doesn’t really matter’. Your feet bear your weight and help you live your life, and it is your socks that cradle those feet. The socks you wear at home are particularly important because they are the contact point between you and your house, so choose ones that will make the time you spend there even more enjoyable.

Balling your socks and stockings, or tying them into knots, is cruel. Please put an end to this practice today.
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amother
Green


 

Post Tue, Feb 05 2019, 11:55 pm
amother wrote:
Socks and Stockings
Gather not only socks and stockings that are currently in use, but also any extras that are still in their packages. If you have a lot, sort them by category: socks, stockings, tights, and leggings. Some people think it doesn’t really matter if they wear socks with holes in them or tights that are pilled, but this is like declaring ‘today doesn’t really matter’. Your feet bear your weight and help you live your life, and it is your socks that cradle those feet. The socks you wear at home are particularly important because they are the contact point between you and your house, so choose ones that will make the time you spend there even more enjoyable.

Balling your socks and stockings, or tying them into knots, is cruel. Please put an end to this practice today.


Is the bolded a quote?
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amother
Forestgreen


 

Post Tue, Feb 05 2019, 11:59 pm
amother wrote:
Is the bolded a quote?


The entire post is a quote from Marie Kondo's book "Spark Joy"
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amother
Green


 

Post Wed, Feb 06 2019, 12:01 am
amother wrote:
The entire post is a quote from Marie Kondo's book "Spark Joy"


That's out there.
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etky




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Feb 06 2019, 12:38 am
amother wrote:
Socks and Stockings
Gather not only socks and stockings that are currently in use, but also any extras that are still in their packages. If you have a lot, sort them by category: socks, stockings, tights, and leggings. Some people think it doesn’t really matter if they wear socks with holes in them or tights that are pilled, but this is like declaring ‘today doesn’t really matter’. Your feet bear your weight and help you live your life, and it is your socks that cradle those feet. The socks you wear at home are particularly important because they are the contact point between you and your house, so choose ones that will make the time you spend there even more enjoyable.

Balling your socks and stockings, or tying them into knots, is cruel. Please put an end to this practice today.


So I can live with the first paragraph but this is just pure animism Rolling Eyes . But, as others said, you don't have to buy into her system wholesale and baliing does actually does wear out socks so maybe we should just take it as a metaphor....
I've read lots and lots about her and her system and saw a snippet of her show at my father's home (he has Netflix..) I haven't come across any of her books here in Israel - yet - but then again I haven't really been looking.
I thought the show was inane and could not sit through more than a few minutes but that doesn't mean that I don't appreciate her system or her goals. By nature I am a thrower-outer and have been paring down my posessions for decades so I don't have much clutter. My greatest 'sin' is sentimental stuff which I keep in a closet and in a shed on our porch. Maybe, if I ever do read her book, it will inspire me to go through that too. I wonder though if I will even have the emotional energy to actually do it.
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amother
Burlywood


 

Post Wed, Feb 06 2019, 2:45 am
amother wrote:
That's out there.


It is totally out there. However, it does make sense to prolong the life of your elastic and also folding vs balling (which I have done my whole life) is definitely worth changing to for space saving/ease of access. The whole “Sparks Joy” concept makes me snicker (sorry I am not a very meditative or spiritual person), but her method does work.
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amother
Burlywood


 

Post Wed, Feb 06 2019, 2:49 am
etky wrote:
So I can live with the first paragraph but this is just pure animism Rolling Eyes . But, as others said, you don't have to buy into her system wholesale and baliing does actually does wear out socks so maybe we should just take it as a metaphor....
I've read lots and lots about her and her system and saw a snippet of her show at my father's home (he has Netflix..) I haven't come across any of her books here in Israel - yet - but then again I haven't really been looking.
I thought the show was inane and could not sit through more than a few minutes but that doesn't mean that I don't appreciate her system or her goals. By nature I am a thrower-outer and have been paring down my posessions for decades so I don't have much clutter. My greatest 'sin' is sentimental stuff which I keep in a closet and in a shed on our porch. Maybe, if I ever do read her book, it will inspire me to go through that too. I wonder though if I will even have the emotional energy to actually do it.


I think her method is perfect for these items. However, definitely don’t launch straight into these. She leaves these to the end so that by the time you are on sentimental stuff you much more easily can part with it. This is because you have learned what you really love in your home through the process of getting rid of the stuff you don’t like and keeping the stuff you do. If you start sentimental stuff too early, the process definitely stalls.
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levlongnprosper




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Feb 06 2019, 6:11 am
zaq wrote:
I don’t believe that Yiddishkeit is inherently stuff oriented. Just the opposite, really. It’s inherently a very portable religion, which means having less stuff to tie you down. Our very Mesorah was once mostly oral, which is about as non-stuff-oriented as you can get. It is we ourselves who have loaded ourselves down with material goods and continue to crave more and more, claiming to be doing it all leshem hiddur mitzvah.

Here I’ll give you a forinstance. My parents had ONE challah cover for maybe fifty years. When it started wearing out I made them another to replace it. My kids, even the newlyweds, all have several. There’s no reason to own six challah covers. Hiddur mitzvah is satisfied by having a NICE challah Deckel, not six challah Deckels. My dad had ONE becher that he got as a wedding gift. Hiddur mitzvah is satisfied. My son got three for his bar mitzvah, one as an engagement gift from his kallah and one as a wedding gift. Nobody needs five bechers, and the mitzvah is not more mehudar because there are four more bechers sitting in the curio cabinet. But it’s accepted if not outright expected that a balebos will have a collection. That’s not hiddur mitzvah, that’s human acquisitiveness and love of luxury and excess.

The proliferation of Judaica, genuine and fake, is all about marketing and making money. By Genuine Judaica I mean items you actually need for completing a mitzvah: Shabbos Liechter, Chanukiyah, mezuzah case. Fake Judaica is the unnecessary frivolous stuff that people invent like special boxes to hold the shards of your tenaim plate and acrylic plaques or leather folders with random brachos on them. If you have a siddur, you don’t need a leather folder with kiddush, another with havdalah, a third with the brachos for Chanuka Licht, and a phony mahogany and silver plaque with the bracha for Shabbos licht. I call this “religious clutter”, a category Marie Kondo knows nothing about.


I'm having a hard time with this because of all the "you's". We barely have one of the basics and it feels like a lot of stuff when taken all together. Our mezuzah a are all in their original plain cases and the only plaque in our home is from an award I received in grad school that I'm not ready to part with yet. On top of that is (at least in my community) pressure around having stuff to keep up "standards"-- dh and I want to move oot to get more distance from this.

When I say yiddishkeit is stuff oriented, I'm referring to the former and how there are so many tools of the trade so to speak, even if you have just one of each basic.
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zaq




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Feb 06 2019, 6:46 am
Fact: there is no obligation to have most of what is usually considered the basics. If minimalism is a priority, a regular dinner plate or meat platter can serve as a Seder plate. My granma’s Seder plate was a flat dish, no little wells for the contents. One can be Yorker making kiddush on wine in a nice drinking glass. A dinner plate or cutting board can double as a challah board. One can light ordinary tea lights without leichter. One can cover challah with a handkerchief or napkin of cloth or paper or even a nice freshly laundered fashion scarf. One can slice challah with a regular bread knife, no ornate silver-handled (and usually inferior from a functional standpoint) “challah” knife. Is it more mehudar to have dedicated objets d’art for these purposes? Sure, but they are not obligations.

They’re not even really tools of the trade. Tefillin are. Tzitzit are. A siddur is. To an extent washing cups are, but even these are really a convenience. A small one-handled pitcher could serve nearly as well, you’d just have to be more careful how you hold it.

Fact: we like having stuff, much of which we do not actually need, and we allow ourselves to feel inferior or deprived if we don’t have what “everyone else” has. Marketers are all about creating a perception of need in the mind of the consumer, and consumers allow themselves to be persuaded that they need it. In the Western world, you are what you have, which is a philosophy completely antithetical to Torah values.
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amother
Green


 

Post Wed, Feb 06 2019, 8:28 am
zaq wrote:
Fact: there is no obligation to have most of what is usually considered the basics. If minimalism is a priority, a regular dinner plate or meat platter can serve as a Seder plate. My granma’s Seder plate was a flat dish, no little wells for the contents. One can be Yorker making kiddush on wine in a nice drinking glass. A dinner plate or cutting board can double as a challah board. One can light ordinary tea lights without leichter. One can cover challah with a handkerchief or napkin of cloth or paper or even a nice freshly laundered fashion scarf. One can slice challah with a regular bread knife, no ornate silver-handled (and usually inferior from a functional standpoint) “challah” knife. Is it more mehudar to have dedicated objets d’art for these purposes? Sure, but they are not obligations.

They’re not even really tools of the trade. Tefillin are. Tzitzit are. A siddur is. To an extent washing cups are, but even these are really a convenience. A small one-handled pitcher could serve nearly as well, you’d just have to be more careful how you hold it.

Fact: we like having stuff, much of which we do not actually need, and we allow ourselves to feel inferior or deprived if we don’t have what “everyone else” has. Marketers are all about creating a perception of need in the mind of the consumer, and consumers allow themselves to be persuaded that they need it. In the Western world, you are what you have, which is a philosophy completely antithetical to Torah values.


Some believe it is Halacha to do the mitzvah in the most beautiful way possible; hence, the $800 esrogim. You will never change anyone's belief if the belief is that it is pleasing Hashem and isn't keeping up with the Goldbergs.
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PinkFridge




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Feb 06 2019, 8:32 am
amother wrote:
Some believe it is Halacha to do the mitzvah in the most beautiful way possible; hence, the $800 esrogim. You will never change anyone's belief if the belief is that it is pleasing Hashem and isn't keeping up with the Goldbergs.


There is a middle ground.
We may have larger families.
We may well have milchig and fleishig keilim and pareve stuff too. Not to mention Pesach.
So we may not buy an $800 esrog but we buy an esrog. Even the cardboard box takes space. Some people will have a dedicated box. (We inherited one.) Challah knives, candlesticks, menorah...even without going overboard we may well have stuff that yes, does spark joy and enhance our lives/makes it easier.

But many of us have excess somewhere and streamlining/decluttering brings its own joy.
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