אבי נישט ווי די חסידים

The Rav, Reb Aron Soloveitchik and others at the Streits's bakery. RAS was the Rav HaMachshir there for many years, a position I believe his son inherited from him. Reb Aron's the one with the white coat and big smile, sans beard and peyos of later years. I wonder why he chose the peyos look and his older brother didn't...


The ad you see here was published in last week's 5Towns Jewish Times which I picked up for free at a box in Boro Park on Monday after taking the train to the DMV in Brighton Beach because of a suspended driver's license I got for not paying a naarishe ticket for "Improper Cellphone Use." I wasted half a day there because I didn't know I could just walk up to the Traffic Violations Bureau instead of waiting on that long line for a ticket, waiting for your number to be called, and then be told to go to the TVB line at the back of the building... But wait, there's more! The woman told me to go to the line and just pay it, but you can't JUST pay a ticket either. You need to plead guilty on the ticket and then go to the judge in one of the rooms. You can still pay the suspension fine, post a 40 dollar cash bond, plead not guilty, have a hearing and come back another time, but who wants to do that? Especially if you wasted half a day already! You hand the clerk the ticket, she enters it in the system, the judge calls you and asks you how you plead, you tell him guilty, he tells you how much and you need to go back to line 2, which is the "after-hearing line," where you pay the ticket. I almost had a heart attack when they told me that they could not read my credit card, but I found another one with some cash left on it...

In any case - now that you know that we can get to the issue at hand. In a way this one's for Not Brisk... I know this isn't the point of the picture, but rather the Streit's company and some advertising firm was behind this, but still, the idea behind it stands. The idea of chas vesholom not doing anything extra, even at a time like the Pesach sedorim, ticks off even understanding people like myself, even if the ones that don't do it are great scholars. You'll excuse me if I go out on a limb here, but this seems like the classic Litvishe derech of knowing exactly what to do and never needing to go the extra mile for Torah. They always know what G-d wants by just sticking to the book. Cold. I know what you're saying, how Shulchan Aruch is all that's needed and how kol hamosif gorea, yet we pick and choose when and how to do it. But there always the idea when it came to pesach that we do more than is expected - it's tradition, as Tevye would say. Streit's is mighty fine matzoh, I'm sure, but it seems to me to be a b'dieved, not something that a manhig of a large tzibbur of yidden who look up to him should be using for the sedorim, if that was the case.

Which is why the title of this thread is what it is. It seems to me that there are multitudes of Jews that make sure never to G-d forbid do anything like the chassidim, the frummies, do. Never drink or eat cholov yisroel, never wear a sheitel, wear a colorful tallis and make sure never to cover your head with it, wear a ring and no yarmulke at work, and never, never, never eat hand matzoh, even if it kills you not to. Oh, and make sure not to pay more than 40 bucks for a set of daled minim. They have good excuses, never mind. The sheitel looks much better than your own hair, so they're actually more tzanuah than you with her uncovered head. In Germany they didn't wear yarmulkes to work etc., In the 30s through the 60s all frum Jews went mixed swimming, there was no cholov yisroel when he was growing up, so why should he be a hypocrite or better than his father, and the list goes on. The same with the matzoh; machines do a much better job they say, and despite the 25,000 Pesach vacations they have no money to pay 20+ dollars a pound for matzoh to those darned frummies anyway... It would be OK if the masses did it, but to see a man of that stature do it irks me, I'm sorry to say.