You can tell alot about a man by his shoes (WARNING - attack on Lubavitch follows!)

L-R: The choson and the Dinover Rebbe

So I'm cruising Col Live and I come across this story about a wedding in Crown Heights last night. Nothing very out of the ordinary there, except that the Dinover Rebbe, the younger brother of the Munkatcher Rebbe - was the mesader kiddushin, which sort of weird when the two - or either side - are not what you'd call Gezhe or Boro Park/Williamsburg families. [It turns out that the DR is related to the kallah.] I guess that's what caught my attention. So I scroll down and look at the pictures, and epes shmekt mir nisht. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing Halachically wrong here, it's just that the choson looks unkempt and not like a choson should. Then I saw the shoes, un s'iz mir nisht gut gevorren. I can understand a kallah wearing sensible or comfortable shoes, but a choson? and noch vos far a surt shoes! The only thing that bothers me maybe more is that cutesy comments on COL, where people find this cute and adorable. More reason to shake your head and wring your hands, if you ask me. This may not seem like much to many of you, but it shows how a general problem has gotten out of hand and needs to be corrected, and it won't take much work, just a little bit of paying attention.


Oy Gevald, the shoes!

I ask that you see these words of mine for what they are, meaning don't think that I'm talking down or trying to distance myself from the newly observant. What happens in Lubavitch is since there are so many Baalei Tshuveh that many of those who join don't feel like they need to conform. He can join one of the subcultures and not feel left out. Once you have that situation on your hands, where a BT does NOT want to go mainstream yoyu really have no choice but to let him be. A Skverrer or Bobover BT knows that he needs to do everything just right and not G-d forbid "beep when he needs to bop." So he makes da-n sure to do everything just so, so as not to stick out from the crowd, unless, of course, he opens his mouth which would give it all away. But if he follows the rules and customs he'll be OK, relatively speaking. I also believe that in those groups that don't have a large BT contingent that they make sure that the BTs that they have fall in line, so as not to make the rest of them look bad. If you're gonna tell people you're a Bobover make sure to look the part or they'll disown you. I'm not saying that all it is is just protecting their self image, but image is important there and it extends to all aspects of life - with geborener and gevorener. Or maybe they just care more about looks, I don't know, but the fact is that I doubt they'd find a choson with checkered sneakers cute. You may wanna disregard what I said as far as other groups, but I stand by what I said as far as Lubavitch is concerned.


In Lubavitch this is exponentially more difficult than anywhere else. In Lubavitch love's the word. You need to love everybody, so many people misconstrue that message of love and take it to mean let me do what I want and don't ever tell what to do. If I wanna put white sneakers on my kid with his Shabbos suit that's none of your business. If my husband wears blue jeans with his kapote stay out of it. Not that it's always deliberate, sometimes it's simple lack of knowledge, but it often is deliberate, and after a while you're afraid to open your mouth for fear of insulting or angering a person you don't want to hurt. Again, this isn't limited to the BT; the sneakers and the jeans are just examples. The same goes for other breaches of Charedi etiquette, and the same goes for the Gezha and other FFB. Having made all the excuses for Lubavitch there still is no excuse for what happened with Chasan Dinan. To their credit somebody did arrange the wedding and did manage to get him and her the necessary attire. He has a new hat and kapote and she has a dress, but what about the rest of him? Couldn't he be told to at least get a haircut on this auspicious day? Is that too much to ask for?! Hello????

I'll bet that never happened to the Dinover before...

This isn't meant as an attack on the choson himself. I realize he probably worked very hard to prepare himself, especially as far as the spiritual is concerned. I know that lots of hard work probably went into arranging his wedding on behalf of many people who gave of their time and money to get this very sweet couple on the road of life. Which is why you scratch your head and wonder why they missed this little point. I understand people are very lofty these days and are not into gashmiyus.... but that's as far as your gashmius is concerned. For yenem's gashmius you need to have mesirus nefesh, no less than for his ruchnius, especially when it comes to hachnosas kallah. A concerned friend is all it took here, the choson would thank him later. And I hope that concerned friend nudges them along later in life as well, with lots of understanding and love. I just hope that he doesn't decide to wear these shoes every Shabbos, that would just be too much to handle. In any case, we wish the yunge porfolk a life full of mazel and brochoh and nachas and glick and lots of money and lots of chassidishe kinder talmidei chachomim and noshim k'sheyrim ad bias goel tzedekl bb"a.