An internal haredi battle is taking place these days against "Taliban women", a radical sect of women wearing cloaks and observing strict modesty rules.
Ads posted in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods in Jerusalem and Beit Shemesh are announcing the establishment of a special committee against the sect's members. [...]
These anonymous so-called "special committees" are a spineless joke. If they had any backbone or truth, they would not be doing this junk anonymously.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I've often wondered about this: It's easy to define the left side of Orthodoxy and where people fall off into Reformativism. The right side is not so easy to define. When does a person pass the line from "very frum" to "non-Orthodox frum"?
ReplyDeleteAnd I think I have it.
See, the further right one goes in the frum community, the greater the role of rabbinical authority. Within the Chareidi community there is tremendous deference to the "Gedolim" or the Rebbe of one's sect? His word is law - call it Ruach HaKodesh, call it Daas Torah or whatever.
But then you have some uber-frummies who don't listen to their Gedolim.
When the Mea Shearim crowd was rioting over that abused child being taken by social services and Rav Sternbuch told them to stop and they didn't.
Or the crowd protesting the Orot school who have been told to stop.
Or these Burka Babes who have been told to stop.
And yet they continue doing it. I think that's the line to cross. It's one thing to ask a shailoh, be told what to do and obey it citing Daas Torah or whatever. It's another to defy the psak because one has already decided what one wants to do regardless of what Daas Torah or whatever says. These people are no longer Orthodox but fanatics pretending to be Jewish.
The problem is that any one the folk you refer to would be counted for a minyan in parts of Meah Shearim. But G-d help you if you have kipah srugah or don't have a hat (no, baseball caps don't count!).
ReplyDeleteWhen modesty laws become absurd within communities, there are always the women who will become 'machmir' individually assuming they doing a more spiritual act.
ReplyDeleteStart by teaching the accurate/honest/straightforward halacha of Modesty..