Forgive me, but I have completely forgotten who sent me this wonderful older advertisement to entice folks into wearing hats, they should totally make a frum one of these. They can show a bunch of Lakewood guys hanging out in one of the four coffee rooms enjoying a cup of Joe while their wives slave away trying to take care of the children, the home, put food on the table and still look fine with a snood and a shabbos robe on just time for you to get home and regale her with adventures from the Talmud about oxen goring each other to prove to her that it’s worth all the pain (but wait if women aren’t allowed to learn gemara, can yeshiva guys talk about their days with their wives?).
It just so happens to be that hats make sense for the average frum man. They add heights and hair, many frum men are lacking in both departments. However one should factor in the wind resistance that comes from wearing a hat to calculate their bittul torah and bitul z’man (both literally mean to waste time instead of learning Torah) times, because when it comes down to it, it may actually be assur to wear a hat.
Imagine if wearing a hat makes you slower in running to do a mitzvah, or makes you late to yeshiva or davening, you got shaved of many milliseconds by not wearing that hat, yet purely for vanity reasons – to cover up bald spots, make yourself appear taller (all products of secular society trying to convince us that baldness and shortness is bad which lead us to do gayvadicke things like wear hats) not to mention the fact that most people wear hats because of peer pressure.
Contrary to what many people think, it’s not more respectful to wear a hat to shul, whoever created that sack of lies really caused a lot of people to be killed (public embarrassment of those non-hat wearers means it was like killing them) I remember the first time someone told me that you have to have a double head covering and wearing a hat is kavod-dicke, honorable my ass – when people wanted to show respect for something they used to take off their hat. Heck, when I went to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, those dudes went ape that I had left my hat on – I wonder if it were a black hat if they may have said – oh Jesus would have wanted you to wear a black hat like the rest of Sanhedrin did in those days.
So you may do better in a hat, you surely will if you’re a member of the frum community – we give so much respect to thsoe who wear black hats that when trying to prover something was kosher or frum enough we say things like “I know this black hat guy who eats there” or “I saw this black hat guy watching that movie so it must be kosher” or “He’s a black hat kinda guy.”
I should mention that my yeshiva forced us to wear hats and jackets for all prayers, when my old man and I went hat shopping we went to his friends shop (kova hats) and we walked right out after seeing the prices and went to Sears in Brooklyn (if you want to see some amazing Art Deco original Sears Roebuck Co architecture you need to see that building) and bought my davening hat for $28, it even had a little feather – so you see, like the folks who tell racist jokes but say they have black friends, I can make fun of hat wearers because I wore a hat for 5 years.
First comment! And guaranteed someone will make a comment about you going to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher even though it has nothing to do with your point!
exactly my point, but it;s a damned cool church, I made sure not to touch any non-mevushal wine upon exiting because I went there to worship idols.
WWJD
“If Jesus came back and saw what’s going on in his name, he’d never stop throwing up.”
character in Hannah and her Sisters
Hey, don’t the women in the ad already have their heads covered? Not up to current standards, though. Maybe you could photoshop in some snoods or something
I once dated a girl from Boro Park who was a bit of a black sheep. She worked, watched TV and was very “with it”. Her father really wanted me to wear a hat on our dates but always asked me in a kind fashion, like “isn’t it cold out? Wouldn’t a hat keep your head warm?” and that kind of thing, because he didn’t want to alienate me. We dated for three months and then broke up. That was 16 years ago. I hope she got married eventually.
Shulchan aruch was the one that came up with wearing a hat and jacket to daven, I guess it was considered respectful in those days.
The general idea is to be dressed as would would be meeting a king, so in the modern era, a tie is probably more appropriate than a hat, tell that to Lubavitchers and other Chassidim that don’t wear them.
I’m must admit, I usually wear jeans and not hat unless it’s Shabbos, as wrong as it may be.
Interesting! Wonder what R. Yosef Karo understood by “hat” and “jacket”. I guess, look for Philip II on google images – guy in black with a tall brimless hat. Maybe the point of “jacket” was “not in your shirtsleeves”, which would have been slacky by their standards.
It wasn’t R. Yosef Karo, it was kitzur shulchan aruch… I doubt they wore Borsalinos.
The younger dati leumi crowd in Eretz Yisroel don’t bother with jackets and brimmed hats for davening, if I recall. Are they not frum enough? Wouldn’t it be better to daven in Israel while dressed causally than to rock the penguin in Galut?
That advertisement doesn’t seem to hold true today. For my first two years of university I wore a hat all the time and I was still single.
i hate wearing a hat, and i haven’t for a while. and i’m not lacking in the hair or height department, so…anyways there’s a nice layer of dust on it, maybe i’ll go to shul tomorrow night wearing it.
The best reason that i have heard so far for wearing a hat is for the same reason that every profession wears their type of clothing Doctors Gown, Lawyers suit, construction jeans, bikers helmets, and so when a yid walks in the street with a suit and hat he is walking in his uniform making a statement that he is a Proud Jew and not embarrassed of it and if and hopefully will act in an appropriate manner that he will have an effect on the people around him there is this story that happed a while back that there were these two bochurim that went for 2 weeks in the summer to this city in the middest to spread yiddishkeit and they didn’t even meet one jew and they came back all dejected until they got a letter in the mail from a women who was a holocaust survivor and she being the only jew in the city didnt really do any mitzvos and when she saw the bochurim with their hat and tztitzis swaying in the street she decided to start lighting shabbos candles and keep shabbos
Anon,
Those bochurim might have very well had the same effect if they were wearing a kippah and tzitzit. Since when has a black hat become the symbol/uniform? 1950?
Look at the pictures of the Jews that came out of the old world. Some wore turban and hoods, others wore fur hats or casquettes.
None wore Borsalino.
The jews in the shtetl wore hats and long black jackets so although today it is not the same exact style as it was then it still similar also even if it is something that only began 60 years ago since then it has become the universal jewish uniform today if anyone wants to show a picture of a religious jew it will be someone with a hat and jacket I know of Chabad Rabbis that say that their best advertising comes from when they walk in the street with their hats and jackets.
but anon, thats the issue. I think a Jewish kid in a kippah stugah would be much better advertising.
The first time I went to an Orthodox shul and saw the sea of fedoras (aka Borsalinos) from my side of the mechitza, I honestly thought it looked like a Mafia don’s convention. So that would make the black hat both “chukas l’goyim” as well as “beged isha” (fedoras were originially designed as ladies’ hats!)
If you Google “gayvadicke” you will get only one result, this blog post. That is amazing!