“I still think that we should look differently than the Goyim. Doesn’t it say somewhere that although the Jews reached the lowest level of impurity in Egypt they did not change their mode of dress and that was one reason they were deserving of redemption?
oomis-I still feel like you did not give a straight answer to my question. What does the Rabbi wear out of shul and teaching?
I don’t get what you mean about how people dressed in Poland. When I asked some family members who lived during that time they told me that the assimilated Jews dressed like the Goyim and the frum ones did not. Did it do any good for the assimilated to look inconspicuous? They did not escape the hatred of the Nazis and their sympathizers.
SJS, your coworkers do not dress so formally out of the workplace, do they? “
Ok point by point: The Jews of Mitzrayim did not dress like EGYPTIANS (who were known as the most untzniusdig immoral people, they and the Canaanim). HOWEVER, they did dress just like any other desert-dwellers. There were no fashion designers making Jewish Clothing, in those days.
Joyous, I did clearly answer you – you just don’t seem to understand what I posted. My rabbi does not come to a barbecue dressed in a suit and hat. Period. He can wear whatever color shirt he wants, and a casual pair of pants. He wears sweaters,and shirts underneath when it is cold, and short or rolled up sleeves when it hot. MY personal interactions with him are on Shabbos or at the shiur he gives during the week, so he is dressed in a dark (not black necessarily)suit and white shirt. He does not philosophically wear “the levush” and neither do his children, though all are tzniusdig and neat and presentable. It is also irrelevant what he or they wear. He is the rabbi of a shul, and while in shul, he dresses like many of his balabatim, so that they will feel comfortable with him. he also will never turn away a young man who comes into the shul dressed in less than an ideal way, because he believes in being mekareiv that person. I respect him very much for that, and he has had great hashpaa on many such kids in the past, who now regularly attend the davening every day, from what my husband tells me. (And now they are dressing a little more respectfully, as well).
Your family apaprently did not know all the Jews of Poland, Lithuania, Germany, Russia, Czhechoslavakia, etc. I have seen family pictures of many families, all frum, and you could not tell which were frum, not frum, or non-Jew merely by looking at the clothing of the men AND women. there were other indicators, of course, but not from the suits or dresses. SOME Jews obviously dressed differently (chassidic garb), but you are talking about the Jews of Nazi times, and I was actually originally talking about centuries BEFORE that. The Chassidim of today still wear the adopted garb of the Goyim of yesterday. it began a long time ago and is still traditional today. The Polish landowners wore that type of clothing. The fact that Jews wore it too, does not make it “Jewish” clothing, anymore than spaghetti is an Italian food (it isn’t, it originated in the Orient)just because Italians are famous for their pasta dishes.
I totally understand where you are coming from – it is a mindset with which you grew up, and I can respect how you feel. But facts are facts. You feel more comfortable with dressing a certain way, and seeing the people around you dressed that way also – that’s fine for you. But you cannot make statements that are factually incorrect, especially when they really make no difference one way or the other. Does it REALLY matter that our ancestors always dressed like the indigenous people around them (within halachic reason)? They DID do so, as paintings of various famous Jews throughout history, and photographs of mainstream religious Jews in the past 100 years have shown. My gradmothers O”H were both Rebbetzins, and they dressed stylishly in keeping with photos that I have seen of non-Jewish women of their time. They were extremely pious, tzniusdig women, but clothing styles were clothing styles,and they wore what everone else wore.