S/o what should we be striving for?

amother

Amethyst

Sun, Apr 11 2021, 2:51 am

amother [ Slateblue ] wrote:

Asking with complete respect:

How does the MO hashkafa define/quantify spiritual growth if they don't believe in/value/stress hiddur mitzvah? Can anyone answer that for me, because I am genuinely curious.

(FTR, the UO don't necessarily think that "more is always better," as some on this thread seem to believe. It's not like yeshivish people think chassidish people are better because the women wear double coverings and seams in their stockings. But we do STRONGLY believe in improving our shmiras hamitzvos however possible, and yes, sometimes that means being stricter in a certain area or setting up gedarim, like not bringing phones into a beis medrash, or not having unfiltered internet on our phones or in our homes--or not having internet at all.)

I'm not sure where you got the idea that there's no notion of hiddur mitzvah among the Modern Orthodox. A Jew should always be trying to improve. It's just that improvement doesn't have to be visible to others, and has to take into account the bigger picture.

But to use your example - there are MO batei medrash with internet access so students can use their phones or computers to access sources online. Talmidim waste much less time than they used to because they have sources right at their fingertips.

The difference between Modern Orthodoxy and the charedi worldview is whether you choose to live in a fortress or a lighthouse.

shabbatiscoming

Sun, Apr 11 2021, 3:27 am

amother [ Peach ] wrote:

We are always supposed to be striving as jews to better ourselves and the key is to try to do things that will bring us closer to Hashem and make Him happy. Everyone at their own level should be trying to perform the mitzvahs in the best way possible, with joy and with enthusiasm.
As women, MO or charedi or any background, its important to know that tznius is the primary mitzvah to keep and to constantly try to grow in. When Hashem created Chava he said over every limb "she should be a modest woman", He didnt mention anything else. Obviously every mitzvah is important but we are judged in the next world mostly on our modesty.
There is no extreme in tznius. Because of the yeridas hadoros we have lost so much sensitivity to real tznius. The more modest a woman is the better, and the more beloved she is to Hashem. Hashem wants us to self sacrifice, there is no other area today to self sacrifice in besides for modesty. All other mitzvos are so easy today - kosher, shabbos etc... the one area which everyone just hates to hear about and it always causes an uproar is tznius. (Which just shows how important it is)
And the only mitzvah where a woman will feel embarrassment doing the will of Hashen is tznius. When a woman works on her modesty and takes on higher levels, most of the time instead of getting respect, she will be viewed as not "with it", not socially accepted, extreme etc...
Really she should be admired and looked up to, but that's not what happens with true modesty.
It's really easy to do chesed and make challah etc... but it is NOT easy to be truly modest - that is where the major schar is. As Dovid Hamelech said- he was jealous of a modest womans schar
So if someone wants to try to strive the area that is the most important to strive in is modesty

Im sorry but that might be what you learned but not what I learned. Tzniut is not the primary mitzvah, never learned this and dont agree at all.
And who in the heck are YOU to know that if a woman is dressed more modestly she is more beloved to hashm? Thats complete cool aid talking, not real frumkeit.
And of course there is extreme in modesty.

Chickensoupprof

Sun, Apr 11 2021, 3:27 am

I was in Tzfas in Ascent (because no sem wanted to take a girl with a mental health diagnosis) a fresh BT.
I wore modern skirts, modern dresses, my dark blond hair got red tones because of the sun, pretty make-up looked pretty modernish. Oh and I smoked back then. But only secretly...
So while walking down the streets of the new city of tzfat I saw those chassidishe ladies, with their turbans and seamed stockings I didn't wear stockings. Yet I felt guilty. I saw girls who wore a jumper over a shirt in the boiling heat, bocherim in the whole levush and I felt: Is this the higher level they talk about?
Because there was this guy who was my age who was also in ascent who was totally getting high on the eiberste, freshly religious who kept saying to me at group learning things ''You are so spiritual and amazing but you are not there yet. I feel you are not on your level'' and it made me feel really uncomfortable back then. He kept saying that to me and it was frustrating to me. I think he was in love with me because there was a woman who did kabbalistic astrology with the sefirot and also did couples and this guy wanted to match our names and this woman said no, she said the first step in shidduchim should be how you feel about someone. Anyhoo he kept saying I was not on my level yet and he felt something about me and I should become better... till an old South African lady scolded him: ''Shut up, Chickensoupprof is good as she is, she is amazing and perfectly good as she is. You should stop telling her this **** since you are not a great rav or gadol but just a bocher in a yeshivah. So please stop this and leave this girl alone'' Bh she was defending me.

But it was interesting to me, there is a level? So after my guardian Malach her intervention I still felt insecure. And walked around the town and still felt ''this is not me'' so there was a farbrengen and I asked to this rabbi:
''Will Hashem love me more if I wear those seamed stockings and everything. Will I then get more?'' He asked me: ''Do you believe that now, Hashem is showering you CPS, with infinite love?'' ''What?''
Basically, he told as first that we don't do things for Hashem, Hashem loves us any way he loves the chassidisim who wear levush, the non-religious jews and everything in between because we have a neshoma and that is holy. When I would be secure that my derech is for now as good as it is, I would be happy. And if we do acts of chesed and mitzvos we are able to see how Hashem loves us and how he is loving us. There was a bocher who was totally not satisfied and found it chutzpadik that he said that they had a whole discussion about this and that he should have told me the halacha and not some spiritual garbage.. I didn't care about the discussion, he gave what I needed, a feeling an experience that Hashem love is beyond everything and when I heard that someone a chabadnik, who was from South Africa, Tzfat and had a Dutch background and was a friend or the shlicah here passed away I walked from Ascent to Kiryas Chabad for the shivah. He often went to the Netherlands for business and he stayed with the shliach for shabbos because he loved this city. Anyhoo I went to the shivah, and his sisters were so touched that I walked over there didn't know them, did it because I knew their brother... I forgot to say yenachem or I forgot the text and while I said ''I'm sorry I forgot to say yenach'' his sister gave me a hug and said ''u have no idea how touched I am that I met you you did such an mitzvah my brother is so happy in shmayim that you went to us''.

Ah I thought this is what the rabbi meant. This is love, and peace, and nice and everything. And he was right because still from those things I get my religious vibe. And I was extra hurt when once a black hat said that all these love things are nonsense that halacha is halacha and everything and that hurt me so much and that this was a Chabad rabbi and that I shouldn't take it seriously. And that I don't know halacha and that he knows because he is in yeshivah and I should go to a good sem and that will change me and become better... That experience at the farbrengen and the shivah was for me something so spiritual and holy. That is how I grow, I grow from emotional experiences and feelings and when someone tells me off and saying ''yiddishkeit is not about feelings is about rules'' you are taking my Yiddishkeit away. This experience gave me: I'm good as I am if I'm being myself and not act like someone else. Hashem loved me when I was not yet BT, he loved me during the process of BT and he loves me now. And I should not feel guilty or punsih my self of the things I did back then or do now ( Twerski zt'l wrote about those things in angles don't leave footsteps).

I think it is hurtful and not good to say that someone is not on their level it was for me not helpful made me insecure and everything, because what is next? Is there a final goal where everyone from hilltop youth to satmar from religious zionists to yeshivish and everything should fit in? There are so many differences. Am I less worthy in the eyes of Hashem when I don't wear 40 denier stockings in summer? Am I less worthy in the eyes of Hashem if I'm not saying Hallel on yom hatsmaot and don't like when a shul does the prayer of the state of Israel and the IDF?

Most of these things are cultural anyway if you lived always a really chareidi life you never can understand my life. Ever. Because 'you took it for granted that you do hair covering or wear this or that... for me, it was a hard thing to do because I was looked down on that. People saw Yiddishkeit as a symptom of ASD, my college wanted to keep me to get an internship at a Jewish school'. My mom was not happy at all when I met my husband, she was way happier when I dated a non-Jewish boy, every step I took in Antwerp or Amsterdam was scaring the hell out of her. She was not happy when I wore skirts, sheitel and tichels, when I got engaged she was under huge stress. My mom doesn't speak English she didn't at first didn't want to go to the chuppah because of that she got angry at my BIL and shouted at him for not giving him a hand and that he first wanted to something else instead of helping out and collecting the gifts. She hated every fact that men don't shake her hand. Now I see it is my mom grief of not feeling seen, she wanted to take out my jacket on my chuppah and when I said later that her behaviour was chutzpadik (paraphrased I didn't said it literally). She was like ''maybe I should not have come at all, maybe you have better relationship now with your MIL then me''. She still finds it chutzhpadik that men don't shake her hand and find it rude even in corona times she can't shut up about it.

You know you ''perfect'' chareidi women? I cry... I cry and I envy you because you didn't have to go to all that trouble, not need to jungle between not religious family members, sensitivities and halacha. I saw the wedding pictures of my friend on Pesach and I cried. Because I didn't have a nice chuppah, not a nice time when I got engaged and my Shana Rishona was also not nice. Yeah at my inlaws I was the new couple and then corona came. But at my own family, I got to hear that I abandoned them, that I was ultra-orthodox that I should better go to Manchester and that my mom literally said that she lost me and that she had another daughter, that it felt like I died... I DID A LOT OF SACRIFICES to becoming frum, to remain religious. If you say that I'm not frum because I eat fish from my mother's plate, or to drink of her cups and not holding kashrus strictly.... Sorry girl... but the alternative is way worse. And I know Hashem will feel for me, or I believe he does ... Nay I need to believe he will not give me more tzar because otherwise, I will lose my religion right away. And still there are people who said ''well better you should buy dishes and toivel them and put them in a box at your parents. ''. Iyh I can get that far in the future but not now. But if I don't go visit her I will have to hear it for months. And that is hurtful... That breaks me, that makes me cry for a few days when that happened and that happened last year all the time. So be glad you are in the perfect frum family, you didn't had to change your whole But you can't judge me because I had to come from eating gasser treif, snogging with guys as a teen to a frum aidel maidel and you not.
For me a skirt was a sacrifice, sheitel was a sacrifice, kashrus, Shabbos, yontif and everything was a sacrifice.

TL;dr So saying to me that I will get better and earn more credits to walk like a born and bred Kiryas Joel lady... I'm not going to put a levush which is not mine. Things like levush is not a purim shpiel. Not every shtriemel or shpitzel wearer is a tzadik or tzadeikes. And you can't judge, some people had to come from nothing to Yiddishkeit and had to sacrifice a lot. Saying to them they are not doing the best is just oonas devarim and mean.

shabbatiscoming

Sun, Apr 11 2021, 3:28 am

amother [ Peach ] wrote:

Modesty is the foundation of the Jewish religion and every jewish home. It is a mitzvah that affects a woman and every person around her. All men that see her are greatly affected. A woman wearing a burka might not be socially acceptable today but she is definitely dressing in the most modest fashion (I'm not saying one has to wear burkas to be modest but it's wrong to say that burkas are not very modest). Rav Shach ztl said decades ago in a fiery public speech that unfortunately muslims are winning over Jews in davening and tznius.
I was saying how in general the biggest yetzer hora for most women today is in the area of modesty. It is very very hard to downplay ones beauty outside, modesty today is not respected. The more modest a woman is the more she is usually disrespected and looked down on. The more levels she takes on, the more she is labeled "extreme".

Hashems shechina leaves us if we are not modest- as it says in Devarim, when there us immorality and immodesty in our midst Hashem exits. That is why a lack of tznius is always blamed for tragedies. We lose all our protection from Hashem when women are immodest.

If you think the burka is the best thing for modesty, you are in the wrong place honey. Not imamother, thats for sure.

shabbatiscoming

Sun, Apr 11 2021, 3:31 am

amother [ Amethyst ] wrote:

Ooohh, I like this very much Smile

ally

Sun, Apr 11 2021, 7:35 am

amother [ Peach ] wrote:

You should understand that many streams of Judaism do not see tznius as a primary mitzvah at all. And do not interpret tznius to be all about a woman's clothing (and actually see this as a distortion of Judaism) but rather about being modest in action which applies to both men and women.

Last edited by ally on Sun, Apr 11 2021, 7:38 am; edited 1 time in total

Ema of 5

Sun, Apr 11 2021, 7:36 am

amother [ Lawngreen ] wrote:

Just heard a shiur about it.
We should be striving to be like Sara Imeinu, Rivkah, Leah and Rochel.

Do you know what they were like? I don’t.....
I always learned the opposite- we shouldn’t strive to be like others, we should strive to do the best WE can.

PinkFridge

Sun, Apr 11 2021, 9:18 am

amother [ Saddlebrown ] wrote:

My MO neighbor on the other hand, believes that living in EY is one of the most imoortant mitzvos a jew should strive for. I dont know why she doesn't make aliya (im sure she has her reasons) but she feels this striving on a daily basis, like she is not living the life of a fully committed Jew because she does not live there.

Different streams emphasize different things.

She may have compelling reasons to be here now. Or maybe they're carefully planning their move and one day will just do it.

PinkFridge

Sun, Apr 11 2021, 9:20 am

amother [ White ] wrote:

It's not the outcome, it's the mindset. Our mindset is how can I do this in the best way possible. So if my Rav says that it's better to wear skirts to the floor I will try to, not that if he says skirts covering the knees I will wear longer. However we interpret Torah to uphold that to the utmost. It's ok if our Rabbonim interpret Torah differently. However, having an attitude of Hidur Mitzvah, Diyuk Mitzvos, Chumros (as defined by Halacha), Simcha Bimitzvos are all the philosophy of ultra orthodox as opposed to Modern Orthodox. We don't need to agree with each other and there are plusses and minuses to both. But let's understand each other and ask to understand each other instead of putting each other down.

Which makes all MO sound terribly sterile and clinical. And compartmentalized in their Yiddishkeit. When MO will say, hey, we're the ones who introduced synthesizing, how can we be compartmentalized?

PinkFridge

Sun, Apr 11 2021, 9:21 am

zaq wrote:

There is nothing WRONG with doing just enough to be yotze yedei chovah. If you do everything at that level, you are not an evil person and the prophets are not railing against you. You're doing what you're supposed to do, and if you're satisfied with that, or if you're not satisfied but that's all you can manage, nobody can say a word against you. OTOH, nobody is nominating you for Person of the Year, either. If you don't want to be Person of the Year, that's ok, but if you do, you know what you need to do.

Actually, if we all observed all the mitzvot just enough to be yotze, mashiach would have arrived long since.

And the haftara of Yom Kippur? Hashem doesn't want us just dialing it in.

PinkFridge

Sun, Apr 11 2021, 9:25 am

amother [ Saddlebrown ] wrote:

For examples: You can strive to have more kavana in your davening. If you don't daven, you can strive to find time to daven one tefila a day. You can strive to be more careful with shmiras halashon.
You can strive to be a bit more patient with your kids, be a little more respectful to your mother, or make a phone call to a lonely person.
You can strive to keep your eyes from seeing unclean things, you can strive to light candles a few minutes earlier on Friday (tosfos Shabbos), you can strive to be more careful in tznius. You can strive to be more honest, and stay away from any half-truths, you can strive to use clean language. You can strive to learn 2 halachos a day.

Is it the Rambam who says that we're always moving, one way or another?
I just heard over Shabbos of a gadol (maybe from gemara times? don't remember) who would do teshuva every day for the day before. Because every day he grew in his appreciation of Hashem and His world and His Torah, and felt that his avodah the day before was incomplete.
Obviously, this isn't our avodah, but how sad if we haven't grown. If there aren't more dimensions to who we are and how we live our lives. If we can't say this day to day, we should definitely contemplate this in Elul. It might just be one tefilla that we say with more kavana because of something we learned or realized that year.

PinkFridge

Sun, Apr 11 2021, 9:29 am

amother [ Amber ] wrote:

We can all strive in all areas of life. You can resume your abandoned studies of foreign languages, keep up with current events, wash your floors more often than once a week, and use fewer disposables. You can brush and floss more often, eat more vegetables, waste less money, smile more, call your Tante Rochel more often,nosh less ...what's your point?

And so often, there's a ripple effect. Resuming the study of foreign languages may make you more organized to be able to do other things. Or maybe you do a chessed with this new knowledge. Washing the floor makes a more pleasant home environment and a happier you and maybe everyone will be more upbeat and make better decisions that day. (In a way, you can give others a bechira boost, if you will, by being positive. Something I've heard from Tammy Karmel.) Definitely smiling at someone, calling your aunt can do the same re bechira boost besides just being a chessed.
Etc.

PinkFridge

Sun, Apr 11 2021, 9:31 am

amother [ Slateblue ] wrote:
Asking with complete respect:

How does the MO hashkafa define/quantify spiritual growth if they don't believe in/value/stress hiddur mitzvah? Can anyone answer that for me, because I am genuinely curious.

And then amother slateblue followed up
Can anyone answer this? Still wondering.

PF here:
Check out YUTorah. There's a lot of good stuff there.

PinkFridge

Sun, Apr 11 2021, 9:32 am

amother [ Peach ] wrote:

We are always supposed t

Really she should be admired and looked up to, but that's not what happens with true modesty.
It's really easy to do chesed and make challah etc... but it is NOT easy to be truly modest - that is where the major schar is. As Dovid Hamelech said- he was jealous of a modest womans schar
So if someone wants to try to strive the area that is the most important to strive in is modesty

Women clearly do have some extra measure of tznius. But let's not forget that hatzneia leches is an overarching priority for everyone.

PinkFridge

Sun, Apr 11 2021, 9:35 am

amother [ Lawngreen ] wrote:

Just heard a shiur about it.
We should be striving to be like Sara Imeinu, Rivkah, Leah and Rochel.

In which ways? We know the major middos the avos excelled in, what about the imahos?

PinkFridge

Sun, Apr 11 2021, 9:42 am

amother [ Amethyst ] wrote:

And I think there's some overlap. MO people create boundaries. (I'm sure MO people don't let their 6 year olds watch R movies, right?) And chareidim also saw that Ohr Lagoyim reference in Tanach.

amother

Sun, Apr 11 2021, 10:08 am

A few people mentioned “this is what I learned” what do you mean by that? Learned where? In school?

amother

Sun, Apr 11 2021, 10:13 am

PinkFridge wrote:

In which ways? We know the major middos the avos excelled in, what about the imahos?

We learn the mitzvos of challah, niddah and hadlakas neiros from them. Also modesty from being in the tents and Tefilla

shabbatiscoming

Sun, Apr 11 2021, 10:31 am

amother [ OP ] wrote:

A few people mentioned “this is what I learned” what do you mean by that? Learned where? In school?

Why is it important where someone learned something?
And im sure there are so many answers:
School
Shiur
Sfarim
Google search

amother

Slateblue

Sun, Apr 11 2021, 10:37 am

amother [ Amethyst ] wrote:

I got the idea from this thread! Where several MO posters claimed that the MO hashkafa believes it is perfectly fine to follow the letter of the law exactly and no more. I have never heard an UO rav, or anyone who follows that hashkafa say anything remotely to that effect.

Thank you for taking the time to answer my question, but I do have to take issue with your fortress/lighthouse. Are you telling me that behind the torah umada philosophy is the intention to go out into the world and be a light onto the nations? Never heard an MO person express it that way before...it's always more like the knowledge and wisdom is out there so let's learn it all within a torah framework. What you're describing sounds more like Chabad. And just for the record, the UO strongly value kiruv as well, but it's more work on your character until you are a sterling example of what a Torah Jew should be like and you have a positive effect on your surroundings just by your behavior. (Of course there is kiruv on an active level too within our hashkafa, but this is in everyday life and for everyday people.)

Also, not to nitpick your answer but just to explain, the yeshiva world believes heavily in yegiah b'Torah. Even though there are dozens of apps and online shiurim and sources etc, I can't imagine that a BM with internet access (even heavily filtered) would ever fly in our world because it goes against that philosophy.

Last edited by amother on Sun, Apr 11 2021, 10:39 am; edited 1 time in total