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I can't wait until I'm able to move my family somewhere with a large, vibrant Jewish community where being Jewish isn't so hard on a day-today basis.
I have a good friend who is going through an Orthodox conversion process in my town. He had made it roughly 1.5 years into his conversion process when he decided to change his sponsorship/beis din from a Sephardi/Young Israel one to a more tradtional Ashkenazi/Litvish one. This meant starting over. He's now roughly 2 years into his conversion process. He's been living a fully shomer Shabbos life (except for the required transgressing of Shabbos at least once every Shabbos - goy's are forbidden from keeping Shabbos) for the last year. He just moved into the eruv last week - which is an absolute requirement before his conversion will be approved. Pretty wild stuff. But bottom line, I think there are precious few if any beis dinim who will approve am Orthodox conversion unless the potential ger moves into an Orthodox community.
I understand that, but I don't see how it relates to me wanting to move to a city with a Jewish population of more than 200 adults (who identify as any type of Jew).
I didn't mean anthing under-handed by that post. Just that all Jews are better off when living among a greater population of Jews. For you, you just want to be near other Jews. For my friend, he needs to be near other Torah Observant Jews.
We're not really a people who thrives by secluding ourselves, either in rural or less traveled locations. And especially among communities with little to no Jewish presence. Jews need to be around other Jews, if we are to remain Jews. If for no other reason, simply to get a minyan for daily tefillah. Get what I mean?
I often get asked: "Why do Jews dress so funny, with those black hats, and heavy coats in the summer time?".
that question makes as much sense as "why are all Jews doctors" or "why do all Jews speak Ladino" or
or "why do all Jews prefer the Soncino edition to the Steinsaltz edition of the Talmud"
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The Midrash says that when the Jewish people were enslaved in Egypt, the only thing that kept them from completely assimilating into Egyptian society was that they maintained distinctive cultural items like mode of dress..
In which case its makes one wonder how fur hats (the fashion in 17th century europe) or fedoras, suits and ties, didnt cause us to assimilate.
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More observant Jews typically are known by their Hebrew names (my kids don't even have secular names), and less observant Jews tend to have them, but they also take on secular names which they are more likely to be known by.
In europe it was not uncommon for haredi jews to have secular names - I dont know, it may have been the law, but all my hassidic inlaws have secular (originally Hungarian) names (though they never use them except on legal documents).
OTOH many not particularly observant jews give their kids only a Hebrew name - in particular the stong Zionists who give "Israeli" names. At least in the USA overtly antireligious names like "Amnon" are uncommon or unknown.
That wasn't what I was getting at - whether you eat kosher or non-kosher. I was more concerned about "maris ayin," which is a Torah concept that a Jew must not lead another Jew astray with regards to the mitzvas.
So the concern, is that if a Jew walks into a treif restaurant wearing a yarmulke, and another Jew is walking down the street and sees that, the second Jew may mistakenly believe that the restaurant must be kosher, and they will come to trangress halacha by eating there as well. It's between you and Hashem whether you're at a level where you can stay away from treif food. But to cause another Jew to err in the mitzvahs through maris ayin is a much much bigger concern. You say you wear a baseball cap on top of your yarmulke. Perhaps that helps a bit. But at the end of the day, if another Jew who knows that you normally wear your yarmulke sees you going in the restaurant, the ball cap will not deflect the maris ayin, and you're in the same predicament.
I was not born religious. My reform shul as a kid forbade us from ever wearing yarmulkes, even in shul. So at some point in my life as I became more religious, when I started thinking about wearing my yarmulke full time, my Rav told me is was entirely forbidden until I was completely shommer Shabbos and kosher (as well as following the laws of tahara hamishpaka).
So when you say you have an obligation to cover your head, you are partly right. You will, eventually (G-d willing). But your obligation to guard the Sabbath and to eat kosher food must come first, and you actually have an obligation to NOT wear your kippah until you lock those mitzvahs down first. I'm not your Rav, obviously, so please just take my words for any thought provoking they may offer. But I would suggest you run these ideas past your rabbi. I'd be curious to hear the response. Again, I'm not telling you what to do, but rather, just trying to get you to think about this and ask more questions.
actually I agree on this - I will not wear a kippah in public, unless at the time at least, I am being completely observant (al pi Masorti, and machmir on the driving leniency) I will not wear a kippah in a car on shabbos or yomtov, or into a treif restaurant. I know some young people who wear one as an expression of "jewish pride" but I am uncomfortable with that.
In which case its makes one wonder how fur hats (the fashion in 17th century europe) or fedoras, suits and ties, didnt cause us to assimilate.
That's a very good point, since my entire community's mode of dress (men in black suits with white shirts and black hats, for instance) is literally "stolen" directly from the page of late 19th century Polish aristocracy.
Funny how those Polish aristocrats are now like the dust of the earth, but if you walk around in my neighborhood on an given Saturday afternoon, you'll see hundreds of frum Jewish kids and men all about in such clothing.
OTOH many not particularly observant jews give their kids only a Hebrew name - in particular the stong Zionists who give "Israeli" names. At least in the USA overtly antireligious names like "Amnon" are uncommon or unknown.
Funny story, BBD. Right before the birth of my second child, my wife and I asked our Rav to come over to the house to review some of the names we had picked out. We wanted to be sure we had "appropriate" Jewish names picked out. We handed him our list of potential names. He looked it over, and in about 5 seconds tore the paper in half, and said "let's start over."
We were shocked! We had worked on those names for months (well, at least my wife had). We were still "early" in our journey towards yiddishkite, and we had picked out names that were all popular Zionist names, but not particularly yeshivish. The names were beautiful. They referred to beautiful rivers and mountains in the land Israel and things like that.
My Rav asked us: "do you want your boys to go to Yeshiva one day?" We said yes. He responded, you have to give your kids proper Jewish names if you don't want them to stick out like sore thumbs, as the kids of Ba'ale T'shuva. Give your kids a chance to fit in. We ended up re-picking the names.
With the birth of subequent kids, we involved our Rav much earlier in the discussion. And while I'm not prepared to share my kids' names in this forum, I am proud that that names very very specifically demonstrate exactly where their parents are holding in their yiddishkite. Names mean everything. Who they are named after, why, what kind of names, etc...
The long running joke in my family is that we want to give our kids names with as many "ches's" as possible in the name, so that my mother won't be able to pronounce them. If only my wife had let me name our last son Yecheskiel Yerachmiel Elchonon ben... like I wanted to.
. He responded, you have to give your kids proper Jewish names if you don't want them to stick out like sore thumbs, as the kids of Ba'ale T'shuva. Give your kids a chance to fit in.
I mean we wouldn't want the haredim in yeshiva to have to accept the diversity of the Jewish people right - even the diversity of ORTHODOX Jewish people.
I mean we wouldn't want the haredim in yeshiva to have to accept the diversity of the Jewish people right - even the diversity of ORTHODOX Jewish people.
I thought about my post further last night and was 100% certain this very line would get a response. What can I say, it is what it is. Many yeshiva's are not looking for diversity within their halls. The yeshiva system as a whole is quite diverse, but within the walls of one yeshiva, it appears they run more efficiently if people are relatively coming from the same place hashkoficly.
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