Thank you for keeping me up in this thread and your understanding.
Questions::
1) If Chareidi Jews are characterized as being anti-Zionist, then wouldn’t that be a movement
Being against the legal and secular State of Israel is holding a political, social, and economic affiliation.
If anything it is at least a social movement.
2) If every generation has its tests, then why not give a name to the differences in this generation?
Is it so wrong to label the contemporary frum Jew who may be living in Israel and an anti-Zionist as a Chareidi?
I think that the desire to say that Chareidim are the same as the Jews on Sinai and only are labeled such because their environment gave them such a title is also avoiding to recognize the special mission and challenges that Chareidim have today.
Okay that was a long awkward sentence.
I was just reading an empowering book on being an even Hashem. It mentioned how we each have our own missions. So many of these stories of the Gedolim and Jews of generations ago cannot be a model for us to live by today.
Hashem expects us to take on the challenges before us and see the value in our nissayonos.
So I was thinking… what if saying that Chareidim are just like Jews of the past; they just have a different social environment, is like omitting the very reason and uniqueness that Hashem wanted this group of Jews to recognize and value.
Maybe the Chareidi mindset is focused on conforming our identity with our Torah-observant ancestors, so that may be the reason why someone who identifies as Chareidi may defend against the notion that Chareidi is a movement.
Point is… Maybe there is bias here against the word “Movement.” As if it delegitimizes frum Jewry from being just plain frum.
It is a strong word.
If we look more objectively at the selected definition of Movement and our collective definition of Chareidi/Haredi, would associating Chareidim/Haredim as part of a movement reduce the group’s value?
Hopefully not.
If we recognize the differences between Chareidim/Haredim and religious Jews of the past, maybe that can highlight the great and special details that it takes to be a Chareidi/Haredi Jew today.