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(L-R) Reb Chaim Shlomo Leibovitz and Reb Shmaryahu Yosef Chaim Kanievski

You might say I'm still reeling from all the flak I got over the O Deutsch piece. I too like it when at least some of you agree with the point that I'm making, and I'm usually pretty sure of myself by the time I put in writing. For some reason you people - at least those of you who don't know me personally - think that it was an attack on Peyos in general. Nothing could be further from the truth. Anybody that knows me would attest to the fact that I'm a very proud proponent of peyos, I wear them myself, as do my boys, but altz mit a shiur. Even in Bene Beraq of today, where anything goes, I'll bet you guys a slice of pizza that ROD sticks out like a brown thumb. Oh wait, he has brown thumbs too, I meant a green thumb. Not R AJ Soloveyczyk, not R Dovid or R Meir or R Yitzchok S for that matter, not R Chaim Kanievski, not R Shmuel Greineman, not R AL Steinman, nobody looks like that. The only ones that resemble him somewhat are those who shaved their side locks for many years and then grew them in their later years. Then, naturally, the hair gets very bushy and wild, almost uncontrollable. Ironically, it's Reb Chaim Sholom Leibovitch, whose appointment as R"M in Ponovezh caused the Markovits clan to raise such a ruckus and go as far as threatening his life, he's the one with the frizzy peyos, but with him it's obvious that it's just the way it grows now. (It seems like in the above picture he made an extra effort to tame them, lekoved the chasuneh...)

All this is an outgrowth of the Hungarian/Galicianer/CI/Brisk Litvak movement, where people with no mesorah began to rethink everything they ever saw in their parents' home and reinvented yiddishkeit. Deutsch is an Hungarian, maybe even from a non-Chasidic home, and he probably had no peyos growing up, I would assume his father didn't either. Or, maybe he did have peyos and was surprised by the fact that growing up many of his Bnei Brak friends didn't, so he took it to the extreme. Bringing rayos from the Beis HaLevi, which is a painting, or the Rogatchover, who's hair and moustache grew long as well, is beyond ludicrous. I'm surprised at some of you, trying to pull the wool over our eyes with comparisons that just don't jive. Do you really think we're that naive? This man (R' Osher Deutsch) combs his peyos every morning. Guaranteed. Not only does he comb them but I would bet five forint (that's Hungarian money, for those of you in Lakewood and Crown Heights) that he combs them that they look as wide and unkempt as possible... There's no other explanation, at least not in my dark and unenlightened world, a world devoid of Torah according to some of you here... Why I'm bothering with this issue in the first place is beyond me. The more I like at this thread the more foolish it looks.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but this was not the way in di Litteh. They may have wanted blittes on their esrogim, but they never walked around with blittes. Those that did were oysgetohn fun der velt. Anybody over the age of 30 knows the very simple looking Litvishe Yidden, the ones who never chas vesholem wore double breasted suits because they were too stylish, and the ones who drove the oldest and most banged-up cars. They wore bent-down hats with no pinches, and had a shtikkel beard with bushy sideburns. Any emphasis on trappings like a long coat or this type of hat or that size peyos were considered silly and left to the clueless chassidim. Nowadays it seems like everything's changed. Every second Litvak now ears a kapote. They all have Brisker peyos and Borsalinos. You'd be hard pressed to find a wife without a custom sheitel. What has happened with the pure world that the Olam HaYeshivos once was? The way I see it the outgrowth of peyos went together with the fancy suits and hats and sheitels, it's not an increase in hiddur bemitzvos at all. Chassidim are becoming more misngadish and the misnagdim are becoming more chassidish. With Rebbes, kvittlach and peyos.

It's a funny world.