(Reb Mendel Futerfas, o"h.)
Schneur Zalman commenting on Circus Tent: Kutshma Vs Kasket
Yedidi HaYakar ,
I wear the same cap you do on weekdays for the last 40 years. (Of course, once in a while I change the cap, my last one was stolen by areylim.) But this (what you wear) is not a kasket, check out the caps the Chofetz Chaim , Reb Simcha Zelig Riger, Reb Mendel Futterfass, or the son of the Bobroisker wore and you will see the difference, but I agree that in unzer zayt it's close enough. Next, I too layder do not have the self confidence to wear it on Shabbes. After all in Russia this too was the Shabbes dress. The Rayyatz wore this on Shabbes before becoming rebbe and all Chassidim did. Did Reb Mendel or Reb (Ber'ke) Chein put on a Hungarian Rabbonishce hut on Shabbes !!! By not wearing it on Shabbes you and I are modeh b'miktzas, we are really undermining our case for the kasket as the authentic hat of Lubavitch and Russian Jews. Let's wear it on Shabbes and be machzir atore liyoshna. Did you see in the sefer of Reb Yisroel Jacobson what he quotes Reb Nissan as saying when they switched hats in Poking in 1946 ? Next, one can purchase a much more "legitimate" kasket i.e. a cap that looks more like a kasket than what we wear. I have at least 4-5 of them. Firstly the store URBAN OUTFITTERS usually carries caps that look like kaskets with the brim vechuli. They are not always in stock. I have several of them in black. There is also a Kangol cap that is mamash like a kasket years ago I bought it in Tel Aviv and my late father a'h seized it and told me he ws unhappy that I wear it (later I found out that it reminded him of his father who was murdered by bandits in Kurenitz prior to the Holocaust) and my father wore it himself ! He even wore it on Shabbes, having gone through 5 years of Concentration camps my father cared little about public approval) I just bought one a few years ago in the West Village in black. I do not wear it because of the hakpodah from my late father . The Mao cap sold very cheaply in several stores in China town is also very much like a kasket, it comes in various colors including green. Reb (Zalmen) Duchman in Leshame Ozen describes the Rayyatz as wearing a green hat in a visit in Warsaw !) You can get one for under $5- Also I see online that Berkeley Hat Company, a wonderful store in Berkeley CA, sells "fiddler caps" i.e. "Greek caps" without the designs etc., that again are close to kasketen. So, lomir nit bleiben baim reiden, und machzir zayn die emesdike Yiddeshe levush.
Yasher Koach and keep warm (As Jews in Europe were not makpid over
levush.) I talked to many old time Galitzianer, Litvishe and
Peylishe Yidden, un gutte yidden, and when levush came up they
laughed at me. "We wore what we had," they said. The pictures prove their point.
Nothing like a bit of White Russian culture to bring Shneur Zalman out of the woodwork! Lets here more from you.
ReplyDeletedoes that make him a White Russophile?
ReplyDeleteIs there such a thing at all?
Reb Zalman
ReplyDeleteLo Motzosi on the webzeitel
And Lubavitchers are not into חיצוניות, Ha!
ReplyDeleteBesides the kasket is a לבוש that was decreed by the Tzar, to replace the tradional Jewish hatware (which was a spudik in the weekdays and a shtreimel on shabbos - correct me if I'm wrong). As chasidim once said, the visor on the cap was to prevent Jews from looking above to heaven.
Why bring back a לבוש של הגזירה?
And the Shteimal was a Poilisher Gezeirah for Yidden to walk around with the shvantz of an animal on their head so as to shame them . . . Feh!
ReplyDeleteEvery Pawel Slowik and Renik in Poland wears the kasket today, though I've seen it in far less use in Lithuania and Ukraine (though it is by all means still used) -in other words it's the standard hat in those parts, and for a good reason: It's cheap, it's durable, and it's practical.
I once hear in the name of a certain Lubavitcher Rav that people should go back to using it -it 20 dollars for a kasket would save families from spending 200 a pop on ever bar mitzvah bochur etc.
But let's face it, though I also go with a kasket m'zman l'zman (unter vegens, in the wild east (of Europe)etc.) Chabad is not about sticking out, and even more so, most people who go around CH with out a good old fedorah, if under 60, do so to make a non conformist point (at the least) . . . something none of us wish to make.
Heh, good to know I've been right all along the past 20 years or so. When I first started wearing a hat during davening I bought a Greek fisherman's hat at a corner hat store in Yehupitz-ville. Still have it today 3 fedoras later (how's THAT for durability). Someone showed me the picutre of R' Mendel F. in his and congratulated me for being authentic, at least in this regard. Not bad for a total stab in the dark, levush-wise. :-P
ReplyDeleteThe problem here IMO isn't the Kasket or Kutchma or Fedora. It's that so much thought is going into this. You're supposed to wear a hat, right? Well grab something and wear it! Maybe because I don't live in one of these judgemental places I don't get the whole big deal. In Pittsburgh you can wear a fedora, kasket, baseball cap, kangol cap or whatever and no one bats an eye. It's just a hat - why the aveidas habaal here? Do you think reb mendel posted a blog on the shul bulletin board to figure out if he should wear a kasket? That's what people wore so he wore it. Where I live it's accepted that you wear a fedora on Shabbes and some hat on the weekdays, so that's what I do. I'll leave it to you Rabbonishe types to return life to the way it was and exactly how far back we need go (maybe we should go back to robes and no unterheisen if we REALLY want to do things right?)
ReplyDeleteR. Mendel wore the kasket vail azoi hot em der Rebbe Gehaisen! Otherwise he would have switched to a hat. Three chassidim who left Russia in those years had that hora'ah. R. Mendel, R. Berkeh Chein and IIRC R. Moshe Vishedskey.
ReplyDeleteSo you're that sweaty unwashed creature in a filthy rekl and a kashketl on the Monsey Bus that goes out of it' skin to show that he ain't from around here ? No way ...
ReplyDeleteno way
ReplyDeleteI thought that was YOU!!
You must introduce yourself next time you see me.
ReplyDeleteHow will you know who I am? I need to think of something, but I'm not that guy, he's very Russian, and as you know, I'm not.
ReplyDeletetzig, I'll know who you are, by the horns and the cross and the works (split tail+sulphur ?).
ReplyDeleteactually, I didn't mean _that_ guy - I know very well you're not him - but there is another guy who tries to look a whole lot like _that_ guy, and that's whom I was choished you to be.
I live in Ukraine, and I wear an authentic local kasket during the week and a very shabbosdig Borsalino on Shabbos/YT only because I did not bring a weekday Borsalino with me when I moved back here. Given who was told to wear the kasket and where I stand next to them, I feel like a total fake in the kasket and will ditch it as soon as I go to EY or NY and pick up a second weekday Borsalino.
ReplyDeleteAnd pray tell em WHY did the REbbe tell Reb Mendel to retian the kasket, Have you thought about that ?
ReplyDeleteProbably because he would look ridiculous in a Borsalino, because he looks awe inspiring in the casket, and he wore the thing his entire life, and his entire life means so much more then my entire life ...
ReplyDeleteYS I do not know your background, But until 1918 all Jews in Czarist Russia wore kasketen that includes gedolim like the Brisker Dayan and the zaddik Reb Nochumke Horodner, Rav Kuk when he lived in Lita, Lubavitcher chassidim , Skverer Chassidm , baal habatim , am haratzim , abaal agalos, it was the hat every jew wore.It was no specail badge of honor. Believe me if it was Reb Mendel would not have worn it... as "onstell" was not his game at all.
ReplyDeleteI have the exact opposite feelings the fedora is a hat worn among Orthodox Jews originally by Bnai yeshiva by people of Slobodka and Mir. Where do I stand next to these people ? Am I not a "real" fake as you say ? On the other hand the kasket is the cap of the proletariat of all Jews.
By the way before the 7th Lubavitcher rebbe wore the fedora , few Lubavitchers if any wore this hat (with the brim up yes) so do we or you stand next to the rebbe ?
I would venture a guess, that the Rebbe chose the Fedora for the same reason he wore short suits and gloved etc -they were the slandered levush of the modern world at the time . . .
ReplyDeleteThe Rebbe wanted R. Mendel to wear the hat so that we should remember russian Jewry.
ReplyDeletemendel - gut gezogt By the way I am sure that the rebbe never told anyone to take off his kasket and swith hats.
ReplyDeleteI heard a quote in the name of Tzemach Tzedek :
ReplyDeleteThe source of levushim are "oros de'atzilus" and if I'd have known about this earlier I'd have more mesirus nefesh about it." (not exact quote but something like that)
Typically the Rebbe would not tell anybody what clothing to wear (Although in the winter he would tell bochurim to put on a coat). The above mentioned chassidim were an exception. The other exception was about wearing kapotes - sirtuk. If the Rebbe was asked whether to change the levush, AFAIK the answer was no. I have Yerushalmer chavairim that did not ask before removing the long coat b/c they knew what the answer would be.
ReplyDeleteI heard that Wechter's gang was told specifically not to change the shells, because of "peshitas tlofayim".
ReplyDelete"I heard that Wechter's gang was told specifically not to change the shells, because of "peshitas tlofayim".
ReplyDeleteWell I heard it was so people shouldn't say 'ba Mkedusha Chmura Lkedusah kala'. In other words, it would look like chabad was makeing them less frum.
I knew that he was ganged up on, I never knew he had a "gang."
ReplyDeleteFor kasket with both hands!
ReplyDelete