I am Jewish AMA

[Bells3032]

Following answering some Q&As on a thread about the programme Unorthodox thought i'd do an AMA here. I have looked and don't think there's been one since like 2018.

I am a traditional/modern orthodox Jew so not Hasidic like the show but I actually do talks on Judaism as part of my job and I so my knowledge is fairly good and I am rarely embarrassed or offended by questions.

So go ahead AMA

I've been following this post with interest so throwing in my two cents worth!
I would myself a "traditional" Jew. I grew up and now live in NW London, I belong to a United (and therefore orthodox) synagogue and my children go to mainstream, state Jewish schools. However, I am not orthodox as I don't keep shabbat. I go to shul regularly - maybe a couple of times every month - but then will go shopping in the afternoon.

@desiringonlychild, orthodox to me isn't the synagogue you belong to, as the majority of Jewish people who belong to a synagogue belong to an orthodox synagogue, and it's where I feel we belong. There is an unspoken acceptance within the community (including the rabbi who grew up in NW london and understands his community) that there are various levels of religiousness within the United synagogue. I believe we fall in the middle. We keep a kosher home, including separate crockery cutlery and pans, but I would go to a non kosher restaurant and eat veggie. Within the shul community, I have friends who are frum, which my interpretation is that they are shomer shabbat and wouldn't eat in a non kosher restaurant, although most of the women will wear trousers/jeans. I would call them modern orthodox. I have other friends within our orthodox synagogue who I wouldn't consider orthodox at any level. They will eat non kosher meat, go to shul twice a year, and make more of a fuss over christmas than they do chanukah. (However, even the least orthodox will fast for yom Kippur and celebrate rosh hashana, and have a passover seder). This wide spectrum to me is typical of orthodox united synagogue communities.

Yes they had been using that accommodation for years and suddenly the university stopped it by digging up some rule about the lighting of candles. ...like students don't do that...
It was really strange.
Some families still come but very few.

Hey @Elladisenchanted

Did you have a good Shabbat? Any excitement by news? Any new jokes? Everyone all ok?

Regarding rules on Shabbat - if you broke one, what would be the consequence? Would it be ‘light’ and just a case of saying a prayer in repentance or would it be more serious.

Any exciting news that should say

I think the community who used to holiday in Aberystwyth were from London

"Yes they had been using that accommodation for years and suddenly the university stopped it by digging up some rule about the lighting of candles. ...like students don't do that..."

I was a student there at the time and I don't remember having candles - we weren't that domesticated. The uni was quite into fire safety, which was a complete pain because it meant that when I moved into the student village we couldn't have a second hand armchair or sofa.

Just to add, my interpretation of ultra orthodox would be men wearing black hats and having payot (the ringlets of hair) and women wearing wigs and extremes in modest dressing. Rather than just saying no trousers, their skirts will be long, their tops will not be tight fitting, they will also cover their arms down to their wrists, never have bare legs, generally have very large families

@boglins the men coming in would have been chasidim. The side locks are called peyos. Men leave their side locks long following a Torah commandment. They are permitted to trim them but not past a certain point. Chasidim have a minhag (tradition) to be more stringent with the law and don't every cut them at all. They style in ringlets - that I'm not sure of where the tradition came from (it could actually orinigally have been practicality, I don't know) Other ultra orthodox men wear them long tucked behind their ears, uncurled, or trim to different points in front of the ears. The chassidish men wear their peyos like that all the time. Some men with alopecia have been known to wear a wig version of peyos although they don't have to. It's not an area that generally balds.

In the shop if you were seeing chassidish women, again they have taken on the custom to be more stringent with the laws on headcovering. For example, they traditionally do something called double covering so they usually have a little hat or wide hairband on their wig. Also for tznius reasons (um modesty) they customarily keep their wigs short and unnatural looking or just have a spitz under a hat. Besides the chasidim women cover their hair in a variety of ways, long wigs, short wigs, hats, scarves, tichels and snoods. Lots of variety. I personally vary depending on the day. If I'm in a rush for the school run I'll sometimes just toss on a hat and tuck all of my hair into it. In lockdown I'm wearing a snood a lot in the house or simply tied scarves to go out because I can't be bothered with anything more elaborate. When I work anywhere non Jewish I usually wear a bandfall(a 3/4wig with the front covered by a hairband) because it's the most comfortable for me and more natural.

Frum as a term includes chassidish, litvish, yeshivish, ashkenazi, sephardi... It's a descriptor of observance level, rather than sect. So the people you are seeing would be frum chassidish men and women.

@boglins there are 2 main eruvs in Manchester, one large one in North Manchester and one in Whitefield.

Could I ask..I mean I am from North London originally...so the Jewish community is relatively familiar to me.. but does hat size in men have some extra meaning? Recently I was at Stamford Hill and there was this man whose hat was massive.. I mean so big I am not sure he could have squeezed it through a doorway?

Does this have some extra meaning?

@freezeebird i guess it's kinda communal holidaying! They call it holiday camps and people still do make them. A lot of Jews want to holiday with other Jews so they can have a minyan to daven with (quorum for praying) and other facilities so some people get together and hire out premises like the university so they can make a kosher shop and temporary shul and loads of families can then go on hokiday together (paying obviously). Lots of big families so the kids can play together too. It still happens. It's not something I would do - I like to be just with my little family on holiday but I totally get why they do it. Wales is popular because of proximity to Manchester. Londoners like Bournemouth I think. There used to be two kosher hotels there
.

@freezerbird the communal holiday thing is a massive thing with new York Jews. Here some people do it but it's not a norm it's just an option that some people like. I guess like some people like a guided tour style holiday with everything done for you, someone else would rather butlins, or self catering, or a hotel...

I'm jumping in again, but happy to be corrected. My understanding of the hats is that they are not a law but a tradition. Chasidim choose not to integrate as they believe assimilation leads to marrying out and the religion will die out. They therefore have retained their style of dress from eastern Europe in the 1800s to separate themselves from secular society. A larger hat on shabbat is their way of beautifying themselves for shabbat.

@pikespeaked I think my interpretation of orthodox is the same as yours and orthodox would be shomer shabbos according to tradition and I would fit under your definition it orthodox

@Desiringonlychild to me using any kind of transport to get to shul would be breaking shabbos so would not be included under orthodox but I think we define it quite differently. Hence I just used ultra orthodox in the end for clarity! The people driving to an orthodox shul on shabbos would be people I'd see as traditional Jews.

If you were to ask me what I am outside of this thread I'd just say I'm a frum shomer shabbos jew.

@Destroyedpeople the brim size will be fashion!

@Thisismynewname123 yes! This is what I mean. I also have friends and family who attend an orthodox shul but again range in levels of practice like you said and I'd see them as traditional rather than orthodox even though they go to an orthodox shul.

Hi @serenada thanks for asking! nope was a quiet one here with lockdown! The only excitement was baby decided she didn't want to sleep and I was up all night with her and then her older brother joined in the fun . So there was a lot of sleeping on the couch in the afternoon

If you were to break shabbos there isn't something specifically you'd do to atone apart from being regretful and taking steps to try to stop it happening again.
On yom kippur you'd pray for forgiveness. Keeping shabbos has a huge number of rules so you're supposed to be always studying and keeping on trying. There's a saying (maybe it's a proverb) a tzadik (holy person) falls down 7 times but gets up. The implication is that you will fall and fall again but to grow and become a better person you'll pick yourself up and try again. Like a toddler learns to walk and falls often in the process, to grow in Judaism you will fall repeatedly and make mistakes but you have to try and try again.

I think @pikespeaked mentioned another famous story earlier which is that when you die you will not be asked why were you not as great as moses, but rather why weren't you the greatest version of yourself. (I think it was r'zusha of anipoli). So growing and working on yourself is important.

@Thisismynewname123 yeah this is what I have heard too but the brim size is definitely fashion if you ask me

@serenada, answering your question about breaking shabbat. Again, a more religious person can correct me if I'm wrong. There are no repercussions and we are responsible for our own behaviour. We have our own relationship with Gd, rather christianity, where your priest speaks to gd and you'd ask him for forgiveness. The rabbi of our community, in fact, has given sermons in the past where they have discussed how it's a greater mitzvah (good deed) for a non religious person to, eg, keep shabbat because it's a greater struggle for someone to do it who didnt grow up with that lifestyle. So every small step we take towards keeping extra laws is praised, and we can only aim to better ourselves. With 613 laws, it is impossible to keep them all so only aim to keep doing better next time.
Happy to be corrected though!

but the brim size is definitely fashion if you ask me disclaimer I'm basing this off my teenage brothers who are black hat wearers

@Thisismynewname123 totally agreed!

We have our own relationship with Gd, rather christianity, where your priest speaks to gd and you'd ask him for forgiveness.

This is only true for Roman Catholics. The sacrament of reconciliation (confession) was one of the many things that was dropped by the Protestant denominations. As an Episcopalian/Anglican I have my own direct relationship with Gd.

We don't sell indulgences either.

@missconductus I was pretty sure I probably got that wrong as I was typing it. Apologies

This hat was so big it didn't even have a brim. Kind of huge and furry like the Queens guard wears but wider..

@destroyedpeople it's called a shtreimel. There's an explanation here:
www.learnreligions.com/what-is-a-shtreimel-2076533