Lakewood Voice-no internet, yes $800 coat

Amarante

Fri, Apr 01 2022, 11:29 am

amother [ Snowdrop ] wrote:

And Calvin Klein isn't even considered high end ...

Actually Calvin Klein makes expensive high end clothing but the CK line is just licensed relatively inexpensive stuff.

Same as Ralph Lauren nee Lipschitz LOL

He still produces a very high end line but has cheap stuff that is licensed and is only desirable because of the initials. His high end stuff is nice quality.

On the subject of Lipschitz - Scaasi is an older very high end couture designer who was born Arnold Isaacs but changed his name to Scaasi by reversing his surname.

Isaac Mizrahi had no name change and wrote a memoir which dealt in part about his fish out of water childhood growing up in the Brooklyn Sephardic community.

lfab

Fri, Apr 01 2022, 11:34 am

amother [ Tuberose ] wrote:

Then it wouldn’t be a story.
Most of real life isn’t a story for a magazine.

Exactly! That was the thing that annoyed me the most. It was so unrealistic. That's just not how life works. If you want to write a story about some value that you're trying to laude you need to make it more realistic. If the only way that you can prove that this is a good value to have is by writing an unrealistic story with a situation that would never actually happen in real life then it's unlikely your going to make anyone think that they should follow this path too.

amother

Bone

Fri, Apr 01 2022, 11:42 am

Chayalle wrote:

It reminded me of the letter someone recently wrote into Mishpacha, saying that she has to get current season clothes for her 15 year old even though she officially lives a Kollel lifestyle. Because her 15 year old didn't make that choice and shouldn't be "deprived".

Um, there are lots of non-Kollel families who don't afford all of this season's styles, and shop sales. And there are some who even have a value of teaching kids to live within what they can afford, that has nothing to do with Kollel. I'm not sure why every young teen has to be entitled to the most expensive designer coats, watches, briefcases, etc....regardless of her parent's income bracket.

B"H I have well-adjusted, put-together daughters and none of them own coats in that price range (and they still look nice). What kind of values are we raising our daughters with if we give in to that? Is no-internet the be-all and end-all, or is there anything else we want to teach them?

That letter was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever read! Can’t that letters writer principal of ‘why should my kid be sacrificed for my choices’ apply to everything? What bothers me most tho is that living a low key lifestyle if in Kollel isn’t a punishment, it’s a consequences. Choices have consequences. And they’re not necessarily negative. Real life isn’t having it all, not at the same time at least.

amother

Lilac

Fri, Apr 01 2022, 11:56 am

amother [ Zinnia ] wrote:

I find the simplicity of the message to be offensive - only children believe in such one to one occurrences - do this and this will happen.

Aside from that I find the whole value system to be strange. Having internet is neutral and can be used in many positive ways just as any form of technology can be useful or not. Telephones and cars and computers as well as many other modern devices are wonderful or awful depending on how used.

I find it very strange that an expensive coat is viewed as something that is a positive goal and will be achieved.

I am not even getting into the red herring discussion of whether an $800 coat is *expensive" since the point of this "fable" was that someone who is truly *righteous* will be rewarded and that not having the internet somehow makes a person more righteous than someone who has the internet and does not use it to search for p*orn or other stuff.

Also how does information on what is a coveted coat spread through a community anyway. If you are protecting your children (theoretically) from evil influences how did this kind of lusting after expensive stuff become possible - magazines? I am being facetious here - just pointing out how ridiculous it is to block one form of communication arbitrarily

It does make you wonder why the powers that be are pushing this absolutely no internet stance.

amother

Coral

Fri, Apr 01 2022, 12:19 pm

amother [ Zinnia ] wrote:

Exactly this. This applies to all inventions as they enter society. When the printing press was invented, was it a value to have no books? Or rather wasn't it a better value to use printed material for the good, and avoid the bad. Look at all the seforim and yiddishe stuff we have today just because of the printing press invention. And look at how beautiful the generations managed to filter out the bad stuff, each in our way.

That's the challenge of tech and new invention. It's to figure out how to integrate it in our lifestyle to do good and serve Hashem with it, while at the same time setting safeguards to avoid the pitfalls. If we would have operated in a way similar to the no internet value, where would we be today - like the Amish, or even more held back?

amother

Blonde

Fri, Apr 01 2022, 12:29 pm

amother [ Zinnia ] wrote:

Also how does information on what is a coveted coat spread through a community anyway. If you are protecting your children (theoretically) from evil influences how did this kind of lusting after expensive stuff become possible - magazines? I am being facetious here - just pointing out how ridiculous it is to block one form of communication arbitrarily

Because other kids in the class have internet and are buying a replica of the coat off aliexpress. That was actually what the story was about, the kid wanted the Ali coat, not the original which cost $800 but the parents couldn’t buy it because then they’d need to use the internet

amother

Zinnia

Fri, Apr 01 2022, 12:36 pm

amother [ Blonde ] wrote:

So is the message really that buying counterfeit stuff is bad or that internet is bad. 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

So a whole community covets counterfeit items knowing they are counterfeit because the authentic ones cost a lot of money. LOL

The more you analyze the moral the more idiotic it becomes. 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

amother

Blonde

Fri, Apr 01 2022, 12:44 pm

amother [ Zinnia ] wrote:

The more you analyze the moral the more idiotic it becomes. 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

And in the end, because the mother didn’t go online, the girl got a used coat that was the authentic brand and not the replica. So if you don’t use internet you end up with real designer and not counterfeit?

I don’t get it either.

GLUE

Fri, Apr 01 2022, 2:38 pm

amother [ Bisque ] wrote:

Everybody let out all your anti-Lakewood opinions! Cmon all you Lakewood yeshivish system haters, now’s your chance!!

Don't worry if this was in the Kansas City Jewish Voice we would still make fun of it.

Though I don't think Kansas City would print such a story-could be I am wrong.

amother

Zinnia

Fri, Apr 01 2022, 2:49 pm

amother [ Coral ] wrote:

Actually the printing press was demonized by the Church because it theoretically hastened the demise of the monopoly of priests as a conduit because one wasn’t supposed to read the Bible. An educated population is a threat to any ruling class which is why advances in the technology of communication have always been viewed as existential threats to some.

This is a brief history of few of various technology. I didn’t know that Socrates actually was against written language as somehow being damaging to the brain’s ability to reason logically. 🤷‍♀️ It is very sad when people attempt to limit people ‘s knowledge rather than feeling confident that knowledge enables people to exercise free will in the best way. Not to mention that who would actually want to live in a world where there was no reliable electricity or medical advances and all of that is only possible through educated people.

https://slate.com/technology/2......html

Notsobusy

Fri, Apr 01 2022, 3:05 pm

amother [ Bisque ] wrote:

Everybody let out all your anti-Lakewood opinions! Cmon all you Lakewood yeshivish system haters, now’s your chance!!

You know what's funny? There are very few people in this town who will never use the internet but will spend many hundreds of dollars on kids cloths. That's not even the same crowd. The whole article is one ridiculousness after another.

mommish613

Fri, Apr 01 2022, 3:29 pm

amother [ Bone ] wrote:

Can you share it here please?

It was basically a letter from a different mother (whose husband works) and her daughter comes home from school asking if she could get this $800 coat, that a lot of people have, and you can get it online or used for like $200.

The mother politely tells her that they really don’t have that kind of money and that they spend carefully and she can buy her a beautiful coat in a different price range.

The daughter says that “Tzippy Klein” just got one (referring to the protagonist in the story). The mother says Klein’s from Eastgate??? She knows the father is a Rebbi and wonders how on earth they can afford it….

I could me mixing up some of the details but the gist of the idea was that mothers should be strong and stand up to their values because the Schwartz’s that everyone trying to keep up with are really following the Klein’s who are following the Weiss’s who really can’t keep up to begin with…

amother

Tuberose

Fri, Apr 01 2022, 3:34 pm

amother [ Zinnia ] wrote:

So is the message really that buying counterfeit stuff is bad or that internet is bad. 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

Buying counterfeit or inspired is a huge issue ppl don’t realize.
My rav says it’s not outright stealing bec the seller is stealing. But buying from him is not ethical or honest. So my rav said we should not.

Wonder which is worse. using internet. Or buying inspired or counterfeit items online.

Notsobusy

Fri, Apr 01 2022, 3:42 pm

naturalmom5 wrote:

You are all missing the point of the story
Basic human nature

You cant forbid everything..
If you are so vehemently against internet, then darn tootin there better be compensation
If I was a hs girl now, I would want internet or a whole closet of Montcler coats

There's banning things and then there's living within your means. Two totally unrelated things.