Reply To: Sign Of The Times?(!)

A600kilobear, I do not seek validation for anything from anyone here. As I said, I’m well beyond caring all that much about how others percieve my religiosity/iconoclasm. It’s interesting though, this interplay between rainment and orthopraxy. Indeed I buck the trend and wear what has been described here as “golf wear.” But there are many things I will not allow my children to do on Shabbat which others, who wear the “team uniform,” do allow; things like swimming, running through the sprinkler, riding on scooters(there is a universally accepted eruv in the area). I don’t allow those activities for myriad reasons. Some, like swimming, I think come dangerously close to d’Oraita issurim, possibly even actual transgressions, others violate the “uvda d’chol” principle. But it’s humorous to see these boys in their dark pants and (rapidly staining) white shirts playing ball for the whole afternoon and then running to mincha all sweaty. (While I do allow my older son, who is nine years old, to play ball on Shabbat, I hope that when he reaches bar Mitavah he’ll refrain on his own. Should he not, I’ll have to put a stop to it.) Forgive me for being slightly sardonic then, when people chastise me for my beige pants, all the while allowing their kids to engage in questionable conduct in their black pants. What we now have e then is the ludicrous circumstance in which teaching Torah in khakis and a blazer is deemed inappropriate, but possible chilul Shabbat, done in black suits is part of the mainstrem frum community. I think the lunatics have taken over the assylum.