UJM: I said no hat is necessary, but pointed out that one amora took off his jacket in eis tzara. I feel that probably a jacket would be necessary, if you use the geder of omed lifnei hamelech, although some seem to be meikil here, as well.
Now you are happy: Please learn a zman at the Yeshiva of Sederot whose Rosh Yeshiva is a huge talmid chochom, and a huge mensch. Watch how the bnai yeshiva try to be mechazek a downtrodden, frightened and depressed town. I doubt they wear hats and jackets there, but if that is not a makom torah, then we must be members of a different religion. I believe Reb Zalman Nechemiah and other gedolim periodically say shiurim there. Obviously, the heter to daven in hot places in shorts and the like was used by the people of EY for many years, since it is hot, and A/C wasn’t available in many places.
Think Big, I am not a Talmid Chochom, just a poshuteh yid with a lot of ahavas yisroel. I don’t know anymore who I identify with. I think the modern focus too highly on entertainment, while the chareidim do not focus enough on ahavas yisroel (outside their own group), and put down secular knowledge.
I have said here many times that we have a break in the nation. If a chareidi tells a modern person to give up movies, he will tell the chareidi, you are from a different world, since you also want me to give up college, as well, and to hate the state of Israel, (which to a modern person is the most ridiculous thing he ever heard to hate his own Jewish state) therefore I am not bound by your views on movies, either.
The chareidim have much mesirus nefesh for learning and shmiras hamitzvos, but have not been able to adapt it to a modern society. They either deny the existence of things they don’t want to hear, or else ban them. They are afraid of secular knowledge, when in fact it can be used to raise one’s level of avodas hashem by seeing the gadlus of the RBSH in the way he runs the entire world. (Do you have any clue of the complexity of even a single nerve cell. Did you know that in the brain a single cell can receive inputs from over 150,000 other nerve cells? Scientists are working as hard as they can to understand this complexity.) It can also be used to make a parnasa and to create a sense of ahavas hashem for giving me the ability to make a parnasa through the gifts that the RBSH gave me. It can also be used to heal those who are sick and handicapped and paralyzed. (There is nothing a sick person wants more than refuah. It is the biggest chesed there is to cure him.) So when I hear a chareidi knocking science, which is quite common, I think he must be from another planet.
(BTW check the Rambam in Hilchos Kiddush Hachodesh (CH 17, 24) who says that anything proven scientifically even by goyim has as much validity in halacha as something told to us by the neviim. They are both emes.) (I used Bar-Ilan CD.)
So I feel that the modern need to improve in many areas, but they will not, because of the negative attitudes of the chareidim. The modern need to work more on their midos, they don’t talk as refined as the chareidim who are often more eidel, and sometimes the modern get a bit too over-confident with themselves, and don’t have the same softness of heart needed to do chesed and the same dikduk in mitzvos. However, the chareidim have the training necessary for hasmadah, amkus in learning, chesed and gentle speech and anivus, but when it comes to the modern or the tzionim, suddenly all the chareidi’s good midos are thrown out the window, and he talks the most vile and hateful way against the tzioni and the state and secular knowledge. I went to try to visit a certain chareidi godol in EY a few years ago in the afternoon, and was told he was resting, but will be at mincha at 3. So I thought, good, that is only in 20 minutes, before I have to leave. But his grandson explained, but that is not daylight time, since he doesn’t hold of the medina (or something of that nature) who enacted daylight savings time, and keeps his watch set to regular time. I personally can’t make heads or tails out of that attitude. Where is it getting us?
I have said before that the only way to bridge this gap and reach shleimus in our nation and bring the geula is to make a giant asifa where the chareidi and the IDF come together, and the chareidim show true overflowing ahavah and thanks towards the soldiers, with gedolei yisroel making speeches of thanks (and possibly apologizing as well for the historic negative attitude towards the state). And then they dance with the yeshiva bochurim and the soldiers (Lshem ahavas yisroel, not lshem kiruv). I am sure that many soldiers will be overcome with ahavah as well, and will start on their way to becoming frum. The media will come and report on this wonderful unity, and it will be a kiddush hashem ayom vnora, and moshiach will show up, as well.