One of the people I met over the last days of yuntiff tried to stereotype me and failed miserably, he exclaimed shock when I told him that I hadn’t grown up yeshivish or let alone any variety of mainstream Judaism that would explain my headgear of the day. He had thought, based on my choice of headgear, a medium sized black velvet yarmulke placed toward the middle of my head, that I was some sort of rebel who wished to remain somewhat attached to my former community by wearing their headgear of choice.
Like many folks, including myself, who use stupid stereotypes to judge people, he failed at his judgments. Of course he primed me for a rant about the stupidity of stereotyping within the orthodox community. I know, I know – I am possibly the most guilty of stereotyping folks within the frum community, heck this entire blog is about lumping everyone in certain communities together, generalizations and stereotyping – so how on earth could I, the extreme perpetrator of said crimes rant about their stupidity?
It happens to be that I hate serious stereotyping, I originally started this blog as a way to combat the insane judging and stereotyping within the frum community because I saw within my own eyes how damaging this could be, so naturally I rant about the stupidity of judging quite a bit, while taking all of these stereotypes, writing about them and throwing them back in the faces of mainstream orthodoxy – because let’s face it – we are all guilty of judging people and not giving folks the benefit of the doubt.
So this dude labeled me an ex-yeshivish community member that wanted to maintain a balance between my former life and my current life as a rebel. Of course I’m a rebel, it runs in my families blood, but people should judge me only after talking to me – any true yeshiva guy would realize the faker I am, I don’t speak yeshivish – except to spread letzonos and I look like a pure bread baal teshuva in black velvet.
Close examination of my current yarmulke will reveal two startling discoveries. First, my yarmulke has a button on top of it which mean’s it’s not classic yeshivish/heimishe black velvet and my yarmulke is made of shiny velvet that has little patterns. Turn my yarmulke inside out and you will see that it’s from a random bar mitzvah. Your assertions are proven wrong, because everyone knows that free black velvet yarmulkes given out at bar mitzvahs are for people who never wear yarmulkes.
Of course, I tried explaining that my choice of yarmulke was directly affected by the length of my hair, “you mean you just switch yarmulke styles like that?” this guy exclaimed like he had just seen something miraculous he had to let the whole world know. He couldn’t understand how someone could move so easily between suede, knit and black velvet, not to mention my big carelbachian beanies that get thrown on when my hair is too long for ordinary yarmulkes. He actually thought I was insane and he made it like I was going too far, like yarmulkes were actually invented to keep certain communities together and keep them from cohabitating with each other – it actually works pretty well.
People have gotten so caught up in the yarmulke thing that girls are likely to say that they want a black velvet hashkafa, even though many guys who wear black velvet aren’t even religious, I guess their hashkafa is more to do with which community they grew up with – regardless of whether or not they maintain close ties to their communities way or practicing Judaism. I wonder if other communities have such small little non-circumstantial things that can set people apart, just as long as we don’t start killing each other and having a yarmulke war it’s not that bad, insane in my opinion, but not killing anyone – unless you count the broken shidduch effect which leads to older singles and more older singles leads to more pre-marital seed wasting and this could be a ripple effect that causes so many wasted lives – but I guess yarmulke type is that important.
First frikin comment haha
you say “I wonder if other communities have such small little non-circumstantial things that can set people apart” Of course they do, we always look at what people wear and judge accordingly. Thus when we encounter two people one in a tie, lab coat etc and another in overalls and carrying a mop, we naturaly make a lot of assumptions based on there outfits. Should we be willing to accept that our first impressions are flawed, of course, but that doesnt mean we are wrong for generalizing. It is impossible to have long conversations with every single perosn we meet in order to formulate opinions.
Yarmulkas dont come pre glued to our heads. we make a conscious decision as to which to put on, knowing full well that whether we like it or not, we are identifying with a certain group/ideology etc. Does that mean the person we encounter might make a mistake in their first impression, of course but that doesnt make stereotyping wrong.
It is an easy and necessary way to typeset people of infinite backgrounds/ideologies into managebale chunks
These trivial, external divisions that yarmulkas describe are not only unimportant but destructive to promoting Ahavas Yisroel, which, in my opinion (yes, you can call me messianic), trumps everything.
these trivial external divisions are symbolic of less trivial internal divisions. There is no denying that on a community level (not individual level) there are deep internal ie hashkafic differences between velvet yarmulka wearers (think lakewood) and suede/ kipa sruga (think YU).
I wouldnt call you messianic for thinking ahavas yisroel trumps everything, merely naive. Perhaps it should trump everything, but at the end of the day there are big differences between the two camps that prove too formidable a gap to bridge, at least in some situations like shiduchim (again on a community level, of course individualy there are exceptions)
Wear a traditional embroidered Bokhari one. Tick off everyone 🙂
I love those, think they’re gorgeous, but I can’t get my husband to give up his kipot sruga. Just who he is, I guess. We had tie-dyed kippot for our wedding! Seriously! People still talk about it.
You know, I used to laugh at people who wore those half and half velvet/other yarmulkes that say “ani ohev kol yehudi”, because they are just pushing a third ideology and showing how superior theirs is.
But if a person actually means it internally, ie that these differences are petty and trivial, and he has an overarching love for all Jews that he focuses on instead(as in ‘ahava techaseh es hakol’) , that isn’t naive at all. That’s life as it’s meant to be lived according to the Torah, and one that we should all strive for, and focus the bulk of our energies towards achieving. Focusing on our common source and intrinsic bond will promote Ahavas Yisroel and make Mashiach a reality. At least if you trust the chachamim (but who cares about them anyway? They couldn’t possibly understand the threat of assimilation we’re under today. MO people have TV’s and internet. And Chareidim are too rigid and old-fashioned to last in today’s times).
Of course we should have ahavas yisroel thats not what this is about. This is about labeling people based on trivial external things.
Incidenty in your comment you too stereotyped, you wrote “MO people have TV’s and internet. And Chareidim are too rigid and old-fashioned” Obviously there are charedim with TV’s and MO people who many would consider too rigid and old fashioned, but dont feel bad, as ive explained earlier stereotyping is neccesary, just be carefull not to get blinded by it.
Apparently my sarcasm was a bit too subtle. I thought it was obvious that I was presenting both sides stereotypes of the other in order to mock them.
And I do think my point addresses the topic precisely as I explained above. You can choose to focus on what separates us, or what unites us. To be precise, we are all human, parts of the same ‘soul’, with a common father in heaven. Whatever we differ in opinion over should have no bearing on our achdus and love of one another.
But instead, we’ve divided and subdivided ourselves into small, segregated groups based on distinctions that pale into total insignificance in comparison with our commonalities. And we make those differences define us.
Im not sure what youre point is you say: “Whatever we differ in opinion over should have no bearing on our achdus and love of one another.
But instead, we?ve divided and subdivided ourselves into small, segregated groups based on distinctions that pale into total insignificance in comparison with our commonalities. And we make those differences define us.” I couldnt agree more, yet at the end of the day good or bad, we have (as you said) let those differences define us.Those differences, as minor in the scheme of things as they may be, are there and very real. That is not what Heshy’s post was about. Heshy’s post was about judging people’s views on those differences (eg college vs. no college among others) based on even more minor differences like type of yarmulka (velvet vs. suede).
Im not sure what youre point is you say: “Whatever we differ in opinion over should have no bearing on our achdus and love of one another.
But instead, we’ve divided and subdivided ourselves into small, segregated groups based on distinctions that pale into total insignificance in comparison with our commonalities. And we make those differences define us.” I couldnt agree more, yet at the end of the day good or bad, we have (as you said) let those differences define us.Those differences, as minor in the scheme of things as they may be, are there and very real. That is not what Heshy’s post was about. Heshy’s post was about judging people’s views on those differences (eg college vs. no college among others) based on even more minor differences like type of yarmulka (velvet vs. suede).
John, i wholeheartedly agree with you. Thanks for taking the time to so eloquently explain what and how you feel about the topic and for being respectful to others that might not agree.
ahavas yisrael is what *is* what its about. The point of a kippa is to have a head covering that reminds that there is always something (god) higher and greater than you. It doesn’t matter what that covering is, as long as it fulfills its purpose. If during the course of a day, you feel the yetzer harah telling you to do something bad and you remember that your wearing a kippah, then the kippa has fullfilled its purpose
its not what its about reread the post. this post is about judging people based on head coverings, as john pointed out.
yeah your right
former actor john sinclair turned asher says in his speech on his journey about how he saw all types of yarmulkas, though the nitted ones were “a bit tacky” , so picked a black velvet one and “had no idea that he had just stepped into “an ideological minefield”.
It’s not just velvet/suede/srugi you know, if you have velvet there’s still rimmed vs rimless and 4-part vs 6-part. I was learning in the largest yeshiva in Europe when the whole rimmed vs rimless thing started and two of the Ramim there switched from rimmed to rimless davka to show that there was no difference and could everyone please stop being stupid.
you learned in gateshead?