Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Is Z'niyus an example of Chukkat HaGoyim


Dear Mr. Bear:

Although I am an am-haaretz (or maybe a tinok shenishba, or whatever), and didn't have the privilege of a yeshiva education, I have learned that according to frum Judaism it is apparently forbidden to copy the customs of the Gentiles. Given all of the attention you pay in your blog to the zealous application of the principles of z'niyus in the frum Jewish world, I was shocked when I encountered thus during my visit to the website of the Great Orange Satan:

For those of you who looked at the Colorado wildfires and said, "I am fairly certain the godbotherers will declare that this is happening because we allow women to wear pants nowadays," congratulations. You win the pool. Personally, I had "judgmental space lobsters" written down as my guess, but this works too.

More specifically, Generations Radio has decided that the fires are
because of (1) Abortion, (2) The Gays, and (3) womenfolk and how they
dress themselves nowadays.


The article then goes on to quote some non-Jewish religious clergy who discuss issues of z'niyus almost exactly as if they were frum Jewish gedolim (or at least askanim):

Coming back from Australia, I’m stuck in fourteen hours of these
visual presentations, sitcoms and stuff, on seventeen screens in front
of me and I’ve never seen so many breasts in all of my life. The
immodesty going on in our society is far worse than it was back when
Cheers, Family Ties and The Cosby Show was playing. I mean every form
of aberrant sexuality and women’s breasts are shown in front of me
almost nonstop for fourteen hours. It’s just such an oppressive,
horrible, horrible world and so many of our young girls in our
Christian churches are running down to Wal-Mart and buying the same
clothes. These are the sorts of things that I’m bringing out in front
of God’s people, I’m saying: how are we going to repent of the sexual
sin that is paraded in front of us in the wider culture? Why do we
have to submit to theses sexual sins again and again?

I brought up androgyny and how many young boys are running out and doing the metrosexual thing with the skinny pants and the little fairy shoes. They’re working on the gender blender for themselves and they don’t want to look like a man and God is just so upset, He hates it when man are not manly in their approach. 1 Corinthians 6 speaks about homosexuality and feminine behavior and feminine dress for men. God does not want men to be androgynous and feminine like in their approach; He gave them facial hair for a reason.


This is a shocking revelation. If being machmir on tz'niyus is a Christian religious imperative, how can frum Jews observe this without violating the principle of not following the customs of the Gentiles? (And that prohibition on chukat hagoyim is in the actual written Torah text!) Is it possible that this obsession with z'niyus is something that we Jews have borrowed from another culture? I will point out
that at least the Christian bible-thumper also harasses men as well as women on this issue, and it is interesting to note the remark at theend about facial hair.It would be interesting to see how many of these preachers grow their beards. And nothing is mentioned about hats, ether, black or otherwise.

I also find it interesting that the preacher doesn't say that Colorado got hammered because they voted to legalize pot.

I thought your readers would be interested in this item. Please feel free to post it, no further permission is needed on my end.

Yours,
CONSERVATIVE APIKORERS

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