Friday, June 27, 2008

Waterlogged Judaism?

Please don't question the authenticity of these pictures, they're as real as they come.



My question is: If it's so terrible to remove your chalat, not your shirt, c"v, but a thin robe, then why make fun of yourselves and go into the water like that? just stay out! I'm sorry if I sound all "enlightened" to you, but this looks like the Iranian Women's Soccer Team, nothing less. I'm sure to 98% of frum Jews it does too. The boys look happy. I guess.



Where does this extreme behavior come from? When I was a young bachur in camp, Chassidishe camp, there was maybe one bachur who never removed his hat and chalatel. And gartel for that matter. This one was a Belzer chossid, and Belzers are known to always wear hats and gartlech, and I give them all the credit in the world for having the intestinal fortitude to do that, especially in the blazing heat in Eretz Yisroel. Needless to say a bachur like that wouldn't go swimming, that would involve taking his gartel off. Although now that I see that there's the above option I wonder why HE didn't go swimming like that... Back then I never dreamed that it was widespread like this, but you live and learn. I just wonder why groups like that don't give their adherents the benefit of the doubt when it comes to what the rest of the world considers NORMAL behavior; why they think a bachur can't go swimming without crazy thoughts going through his mind????

והמב"י, וד"ל

From Here

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

They also exercise in the frum gyms with a hat and gartel: I even saw one yungerman with a shtrimel on Motzei Shabbas. So.

Anonymous said...

השם ירחם,
למה ללכלך את המים

What he said.

Anonymous said...

How can they wear the baseball hats? Are they Chassidishe levush ??

What about Chazal in Kiddushim re teaching your son to swim ? Does it say there in such a costime?

Perhaps in the past (and now in some places) there was too little tznius in the water, but is there not a middle ground ?

חמירא סכּנתא

Anonymous said...

chukos hagoy. Now we're imitating the Islamofascists.

Anonymous said...

The guy in the orange cap is an obvious nonconformist and shaigetz.

Anonymous said...

These look like satmare kids. Only in satmar where one faction is always trying to out-holy the other, can such absurd stupidity occur. In the days of the holy Rebbe z"l, there was no problem for boys or bochrim to go swimming like normal people.

Anonymous said...

To be dan lechaf zechus, this might have been at a camp with the teacher from that school on Ocean Parkway.

Anonymous said...

What do they do when they come out of the water? Walk around the whole day drenched, growing fungus?
This is not an indoor pool or mikva with lockers.

Mottel said...

Maybe they did it for fun? I've known people to jump into the Venetian canals closes and all (I'm trying here . . . )

Anonymous said...

Look well and you will notice they have no pants (trousers) which they removed before going into the water. They would not want to be seen in their Rabeinu Taams underwear.

Anonymous said...

The didn't go swimming. They thought that they could walk on water. ni... iz nisht gelingen.

Anonymous said...

Quit the Hasidim bashing.

Anonymous said...

if you would only know how much fun that is........

you would try it too!

Anonymous said...

It's so ridiculous it could make the biggest tzaddik a cynic!

Anonymous said...

for dan lekav zechu s kids go on outing and are afraid of sun burn

Anonymous said...

You're way off - It's the Iranian water polo team.

Tzemach Atlas said...

the best post ever.

Anonymous said...

I think you're overdoing it. This seems to be a trip to some river or waterfall and the kids decided to have some fun by jumping into the water. In camp they go swimming in their "lange gatges" without shirts.

Anonymous said...

There used to be a brochure from a non-Jewish canoeing company on the Delaware River geared toward Jewish camps with pictures of Heimishe Yidden canoeing in Chalatels. Not to worry though, they wore life-jackets on top.

In Lubavitch camps we have our own fanaticism that we think we have to wear Tzitzis and undershirts for every water activity (besides swimming), especially at waterparks with other frummies around.

Hirshel Tzig - הירשל ציג said...

we think we have to wear Tzitzis and undershirts for every water activity (besides swimming), especially at waterparks with other frummies around.

with all the walking and sitting around going on why is that fanaticism?

Anonymous said...

Oh please, lubis afre so glued to their hats you'd think they're all bald.

Anonymous said...

Because you're getting soaked, staying soaked, and by the time you start dying off you're back in the water again. We're not talking about sunbathing here.

(Do you think the kids in the pictures are wearing Tzitzis under there?}

Anonymous said...

u have the see the mesirut nefesh of theese bochrim!

i believe that is a picture right after a hurrican and a flood. these children are on their way to the cheder.

Anonymous said...

While this picture is funny and "radical" , how much different is it walking around in 95 degree temp in Bnai Brak with a bekishe, tilip, shtreimel, stretch white hose and lange underveshm etc.
This is probably what they meant when they said minhog is notrikin gehnom.
I have written this before , Jewish Action magazine quoted the late rabbi Nachman Bulman as saying upon seeing bachurim from a Bnai Akiba yeshiva at the Keysel with sandals and white shirts no jackets and ties, that were we zoche , we too would dress this way.
There is a darche Noam principle in the Tore and the Tore does not mandate things that are ridiculous like wearing a fur hat in 95 degrees or wearing 2-3 coats in the same weather.
I guess if Chassidic levush were shorts they would walk about in shorts in the Winter too...

Tzemach Atlas said...

Schneur, the last line is pretty funny.

I was walking around a lake last week. It is hot here as you know. On the opposite side of the lake I noticed a frum man I know. He was trying exercise and he was wearing shorts but then he saw me and turned around right away. I am certain of that. He was embarrassed, even though I couldn't care less.

Anonymous said...

BS"D

A few weeks ago, as per my minhag, I wore a jacket, white shirt with tzitzis out, and hat to the local (Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine) lumber and home center, not a place to dress up because of the wood, paint, plaster and general atmosphere.

As I stopped in front of a display for a moment to check the metzias, a boy and his mother passed me by. The boy asked his mother, politely and without a hint of disrespect: "That is a Jew, right". And the mother smiled and said - yes!

Maybe that is not my tradition, but those kids are making a statement - even when we swim, we are who we are.

Hitztainu sham...es levusham....