Beginning with the Basics

[gnomi]

This is the first in what I'm planning to be a series of posts about my religious beliefs and practices. I'm calling the series "Flying my Frumkeit." So, I'll start with some basics.

Things that are true about me:

-- I have always kept both kosher and Shabbat to some degree.

-- I've covered my hair since 1996 and haven't worn pants (in other words, worn only skirts) since 1995 or so, but I wear short sleeves (well, to my elbow) and sandals in the appropriate season (short as that season may be in the Boston area).

-- I prefer to daven where there's a mechitzah (a physical separation between men and women), and have since I was a teenager, but I can lein (recite with cantillation in front of the congregation) Torah and Haftarah, and I've taught others how to lein Haftarah.

-- I went to Orthodox day schools from Kindergarten through 12th grade, but I made a conscious decision to go to Israel with an unaffiliated Zionist organization instead of going to one of the girls' yeshivot that many of my classmates attended.

-- I often feel like I fall in between categories. I'm not really "frum from birth" ("FFB"), but neither am I a ba'alat teshuvah. I've been observant to some level my whole life; it's the exact level that's changed over time.

-- People frequently make mistaken assumptions about me/my life based on how I dress; sometimes I shock them by proving them wrong.

Comments

[dpolicar]

Amusingly, "cantillation" is the word I had to derive from context here.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

MS Word doesn't recognize it as a word; I had to double-check spelling with m-w.

[liminalia.livejournal.com]

Sandals are not modest enough? Sandals are mentioned in the Bible multiple times. I find this odd.

(Hi, directed here from cbpotts, but we've seen each other around. :) )

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Welcome! Make yourself at home and have a snack! ::points to the table of refreshments::

There's a viewpoint (which I don't hold) that showing one's toes if one is a woman is immodest/doesn't fit with the laws of modesty.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

You could always wear socks with them...

(Have you heard of the mishegos allegedly going on in Bnei Brak right now?)

[eireangus.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing those interesting facts about yourself, and I am definitely looking forward to reading more! Your last point also happens to me a lot.

Oh, by the way, the overdue e-mail is being sent this morning. I have some time here at work this morning.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Hee. No rush on the e-mail; I completely understand work-work getting in the way of fun-work (after all, I'm a freelance editor (fun-work) on top of my full-time tech writing job (work-work)).

Be sure not to fly that frumkeit in a storm.

[half-double.livejournal.com]

...and haven't worn pants (in other words, worn only skirts) since 1995 or so...

Freedom wears no pants!

Re: Be sure not to fly that frumkeit in a storm.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Hooray pantsless freedom!!

And congrats on 24HPP going so well!

Re: Be sure not to fly that frumkeit in a storm.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

And I'm glad you picked up on the pun (though I should've expected you would).

[jenwrites.livejournal.com]

All interesting stuff. I'll definitely be following this series.

On a semi-related tangent, did you see this Tuesday's episode of House with the Orthodox couple? The husband looked to be FFB and the wife was ba'alat teshuvah (six months earlier, she'd been a rock producer on heroin).

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

We don't watch House; I may track down the ep, though... it sounds interesting. Thanks for the heads-up!

[eireangus.livejournal.com]

I saw it!

Is it me or did EVERY man look like he was wearing a fake beard? You will think with such a big budget they would at least get the beard right! :)

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

L&O: SVU did an ep recently-ish (so, within the past couple of weeks?) in which they were in a Kiryas Joel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiryas_Joel,_New_York)-esque community. The accents were *horrible* and the Yiddish was *abysmal*. I have to wonder how/why Orthodox Jews became so popular recently in pop culture.

[ghilledhu.livejournal.com]

haven't worn pants (in other words, worn only skirts)

Well, thank goodness you specified that!

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

mabfan felt I needed to be more specific than just "haven't worn pants."

[elul-3.livejournal.com]

sometimes I shock them by proving them wrong.

Well, it would be silly to shock them by proving them right!

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

True, though that does happen on occasion, as well.

[mbarr.livejournal.com]

Yep, i've fallen into that non FFB, but not BT crowd. Kosher since I was 10 or so means that I grew up w/ some of the FFB experiences, and didn't go to stuff on friday night, or sat day a lot of times.. but wasn't the full shabbos experience either.


There just isn't a good name for it- that middle ground. We generally tend to think of BT's as recent things, or at least a thing that you decide for yourself, vs what your parents did when you were a kid... and it tends to be much quicker :-)

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly. For instance, there has never been a time that I couldn't eat in my parents' kitchen (which is not true for many of my BT friends) (well, my BT friends can eat in my parents' kitchen; they just can't eat in their parents' kitchens).

[chaos-wrangler.livejournal.com]

-- I often feel like I fall in between categories. I'm not really "frum from birth" ("FFB"), but neither am I a ba'alat teshuvah. I've been observant to some level my whole life; it's the exact level that's changed over time.

-- People frequently make mistaken assumptions about me/my life based on how I dress; sometimes I shock them by proving them wrong.

The first is somewhat true of me (I was raised observant Orthodox but neither of my parents were, and I raised around lots of non-frum/non-Jewish people, so I don't have the standard FFB reactions to some things), and the second is definitely true (in both directions: people often think I'm either FFB or not observant).

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I think I have more friends who fall into the lack-of-category than I originally thought I did. :-)

[lisafeld.livejournal.com]

Wow, this is all really interesting to know!

May I ask why you prefer a mehitza? I've never really talked about it with a woman who did prefer it.

Also, I'm a little confused. Is there some modesty issue with sandals?

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I find that a mechitza really does help my kavannah. I can't totally explain it, but that's the way it is. :-)

As for sandals, there are those who believe that women's toes shouldn't be exposed and, thus, consider sandals not-tzniusdik for women.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

There is a lot of vagueness in the categories. I, for instance, am FFB but do wear pants and don't cover my hair. We used to be right-wing, but now we've become left-wing without moving... the terrain seems to have shifted around us.