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I have always been baffled by this superficial aspect of the yeshiva world.
please comment i am very curious.That’s our religion nowadays. The religion is a lot on the outside.
A talmud chuchum should always dress nicely to represent the the Torah and make a kidush hashem.
Appearances do make a difference, dressing well shows u r doing something important. People around u will take notice and watch, which will give u an opertunity to impress how the Torah makes u a mench.Rav avigdor miller addressed it regarding last week’s parsha
Clothes make the man
For the same reason wearing full length pants is more Yeshivish than wearing shorts.
I dont think that it makes you more frum. I dont really think anyone truly thinkgs that. To the extent this is a real question…i think that the answer is “conformity”. All societies “require” it — and judge a lack of conformity. Anything that veers away from the “standards” is looked upon as a potential sign that will rebell from other standards. By wearing a white shirt — you are accepting the guidelines of the community. (Whether or not those guidelines make sense). This is true everywhere. If a student were to wear a “yeshivshe clothes” to public school every day they would be “suspect” as not part of the regular culture. The fact that he wears suit pants and dress shirt to public school indicates to people that he is not part of the “regular” crowd and perhaps a non conformist.
The classic answer has been provided by “Heargod”, above, but it doesn’t address why frum Jews of many circles avoid contemporary styles for what is considered respectable and nice, and rather stick to a homogeneous and outdated style. Also, there are plenty of ways to dress nicely without looking exactly the same as everyone else. But there are other reasons for this, including refusal to conform/blend with a non-Jewish society, and purposefully avoiding creating an environment where people feel like they need to “keep up with the Shwartzes”.
It makes you are fashionable. One can argue there is a halacha basis to trying to blend it (be fashionable) with the local Bnei Torah, but that is hardly a halacha nor does it make you more frum.
Why is wearing a green uniform required for military personnel?
Why do many students require a uniform?
Why do piolits require a uniform?
Why do doctors require a uniform?
Why do waiters?
The military uniform is intended to dehumanize to a certain extent. The student uniform was invented by Catholic schools to serve that same purpose. A waiter’s uniform is so that everyone knows who the waiter is and can ask the right person to wait on them.
Jews are supposed to dress differently than non-Jews.
Who is being Yeshivish the goal?
Ashkenazic mentality….
If Jews are supposed to dress differently than non- Jews, why do chasidim dress in the same clothes as 19th century Russian nobles, and some charedei women in Israel are now wearing moslim burkas?
Is there a “frum police squad”?
Do you always assume people are more frum than others based on their clothing?
I think white shirts represent wanting to be part of a certain sect of frum society; definitely not telling you how much yiras shamayim or emunah a person has.As coffee addict stated, Rav Avigdor Miller said that it’s a big mitzvah to associate yourself with talmidei chachamim etc. He said that an important way to do that is to dress like them.
amosak: That’s a complete falsehood. Russian nobles never dressed the way they dress now or then.
If Jews are supposed to dress differently than non- Jews, why do chasidim dress in the same clothes as 19th century Russian nobles
How many non Jews do you know who dress as 19th century Russian nobles?
It is because these young men want to emulate their Rabbi’s who guide them with das Torah.
Joseph, in the late 18th century that is how Eastern European nobility dressed (in the winter). But a question for you why do Chachamim from Middle Eastern countries dress like Shia clerics?
This question has bothered me for YEARS, which is why I have scoured Tanach, Shas, Rambam, Tur, Beis Yosef, Rema, G’ra, Chaye Adam, Aruch Hashulchan, Mishna Berurah, and Igros Moshe, and I have come up with NOTHING!
WEARING A WHITE SHIRT DOESNT MAKE YOU ANY MORE JEWISH THAN PEOPLE WHO WEAR ANYTHING ELSE, ITS JUST A BUNCH OF JUDGEMENTAL RETARDEDNESS
Ry23,
Why do pilots? Priests (להבדיל)? You still didn’t answer doctors, lawyers wear suits? Judges wear robes?
“why do chasidim dress in the same clothes as 19th century Russian nobles”
They don’t. Where did you get such an idea? In fact, the “levush” was so distinctly Jewish it was banned in the Russian Empire in an effort to modernize and assimilate Jews. That is why Litvish and Lubavitch where western style clothes because of the gezeiros forbiddin the Jewish levush. Before those gezeiros basically all European Jews more or less wore what you are calling the way “chasidim dress.”
Wearing a white shirt is a statement a person makes about himself. It doesn’t necessarily make you more frum. Any more then wearing pants without a belt makes you more ghetto.
I think the Brisker Rosh Hayeshiva spoke recently about the Bloyeh Bluskeh . Similarly you can find articles in the Us make about Bluria.
Coffee addict, pilots and doctors dress the way they dress for the convenience of others so they can recognize them faster from further away, judges were pranked into wearing ridiculous garb ages ago by someone with too much power, and lawyers wear suits by default because that is what people who don’t work with their hands wear.
Lehavdil bein Kodesh lechol. It’s part of levush Yisroel which differentiates us from the umos haolom. Dressing uniquely sends a message that we are different & are expected to act differently. It’s a hanhaga tovah especially at a time when we are becoming culturally affected by the society around us.
The statement a white shirt (alongside the rest of his ostensibly Jewish dress) makes is: I’m a Torah Jew.
Would Rav Chaim wear a blue shirt?
Coffee addict, pilots and doctors dress the way they dress for the convenience of others so they can recognize them faster from further away
So bnei Torah are that way too
“pilots and doctors dress the way they dress for the convenience of others so they can recognize them faster from further away”
And should a Ben Torah, or for that matter any Jew, be any less?
“1”, do u do everything rav chaim does,
um ok, thanx .It’s always interesting to see yeshivish dressed people wearing white dressed shirts not tocked in out in stores. I think that’s worst than wearing a T-shirt .
Psychologically if a person dresses in a suite one feels more elegant , if one dresses like the rest of the yeshiva world one feels and acts more like them.
There are famous people of R Moishe f wearing stripped shirts.
Kids were white shirts on Rosh Chodesh bcs in yeshivish a white shirt alone is considered more elegant , a tie with any color shirt in my opinion would be more elegant..Coffee addict, white shirts are not modest and do not befit a talmid chochom. Also, it is hard to iron them without turning them a nice toasty golden brown.
justme, a clean white shirt is definitely more elegant
Ry23, what in your opinion is modest?
My favorite part of this whole thread is how people will say the the most ridicoulous things to defend a silly aspect of the yeshivish world such as wearing white shirts just so that they don’t have to face the fact that not everything that yeshivish people do are perfect. By no means am I saying that the yeshivish world doesn’t have some great things to offer. I am simply saying that just like any part of society, there are great things, bad things, and things that are silly. Of course this comment will get bashed by all the self righteous people who don’t want to entertain the fact that not everything in the yeshivish world is perfect. But that’s okay. As a wise man once said “righteous indignation is jealousy with a Halo.”
You sound a bit defensive
Coffee addict, black shirts are fine. White shirts of broadcloth are garbage, but heavy oxford cloth is acceptable if one must wear white.
You sound a bit offended 😂😂
Not at all, it doesn’t really apply to me. Im not the one who needed to write a whole paragraph to put people down for the colir of their shirt.
Proving my point 😂
@amosak- “If Jews are supposed to dress differently than non- Jews, why do chasidim dress in the same clothes as 19th century Russian nobles,”
This is a matter of historical record. A government decree required Yidden all adopt a non-Jewish mode of dress. There was a disagreement between the poskei ha’dor if this was an issue of chukas akum or of gizeiras shmad making the din yeihareig v’al ya’avor or not. By adopting an old style they were not oiver and yet fulfilled the decree.I always considered it male tznius- colored shirts grab attention; when a person is dressed in black and white it seems less noticeable and allows you to focus on things that are more important than fashion. Black and white also looks a little more formal, a reminder to not slouch or appear lazy.
Like others have said, it also allows you to identify as part of the community, separate from the rest of the world.
Mam et al. Chips on the Shoulder always prove the other’s point.
Stop being so defensive and indirectly hateful.
Every group has there style and what they deem appropriate.As mentioned before, elegance and conformity that’s it. Stop adding conspiratorial thoughts and feelings
People with bad kiddos, wherever they are found, will always look down on others. But the reverse is true as well. People with bad kiddos are always attributing to others their own thoughts and feelings especially “they think they’re better!”
This whole thread is silly. It sound like ppl just defending whatever they do Wearing a white shirt doesn’t automatically make u more frum. It just shows who you associate with.
The Brisker Rosh Yeshiva was referring to those who have adopted the mores of bnei Torah and then dropped them.
As for Rav Chaim shlita, a baal habayis renowned for also being a distinguished talmid chochom, when making aliya asked Rav Chaim if he should adopt the custom of always wearing a white shirt and not a blue shirt during the week and a white shirt on Shabbos. Rav Chaim looked at him and and said “it suits you”
@modernmisnaged – “This question has bothered me for YEARS, which is why I have scoured Tanach, Shas, Rambam, Tur, Beis Yosef, Rema, G’ra, Chaye Adam, Aruch Hashulchan, Mishna Berurah, and Igros Moshe, and I have come up with NOTHING!”
Of course not. Did you find “don’t double park,” or “thou shall not cross against the light?” Did you find Hachnosas Orchim or bikur cholim (anywhere but a breisa and in Sefer Ahavas Chesed? Vatranus (except in the mussar seforim)? To be an anav?
1) No mitzvos found explicitly in the Torah or the seforim of the monei ha’mitzvos, count midos as Torah obligations. Rav Chaim Vital explained why.
2) Productivity and profits for IBM plummeted after they dropped their white shirt, dark suit, striped tie dress code.
3) An experiment in NY schools requiring uniforms saw grades and good conduct increase.
4) The uniform of the Jew has always been different than that of the non-Jewish society in which they lived. Sometimes by choice, sometimes by decree (e.g. the yellow star, “crown” of fox tails, etc.). I prefer the former.
5) In this day and age where we have been exposed to and influenced by the be an individual, a non-conformist, anything which smells like forced compliance is avi avos ha’tumah. Unfortunately for those individuals, the fact is the true strength of the individual is directly related to his /her connection to a group.What is bloyeh bluskeh?
The problem with the white shirts is that for most people it might actually be more a chilul hashem as opposed to more “modernish Clothing”
When one is wearing a white shirt with dress pants, the shirt has to be tucked properly into the pants otherwise you look very shlumpy. It doesnt look very refined at all, it makes you look like a slob. Shirts that you wear untucked you dont like a slob.
The other problem with white shirts is if you accidently get a stain on them during the day, the stain tends to be more prominent as opposed to a differnt color shirt where the stain can be obscured or hidden. Going around with soiled clothing does not make a kiddush hashem. even a simple water stain looks alot worse on a white shirt than a blue shirt
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