NEAT!

R' Chaim Gutnick, of Melbourne, asked (begged) the Rebbe to be mesader kidushin at his daughter's chuppah, (Mrs. Penina Feldman, in 5727) which took place after the Rebbe officially stopped (5723). When he kept on "insisting", the Rebbe in reply told him: "Et tu, Brute?!"

(The Rebbe ended up sending R' Eliyahu Simpson to attend the wedding (in Australia)).

See? Neat!

You Are What Your Parents Dress You In

Negativity Ahead: Parents tell their kids "learn from my mistake," and it actually bugs them as they watch their children ignoring their precious lessons, and making the same mistakes they made. But, at the same time, parents are making new mistakes, and learning the hard lessons from them. These mistakes are the ones that the older generation of parents is begging the younger parents to "learn from our mistakes," but the parents ignore these please and learn the hard way.

Case in point: Parents want to dress their kids in cute clothes, and then in cool clothes, and then when their son or daughter reach yeshiva age they expect the child to change their clothing style from what it was for 12 years and only wear proper, chassidish, frum garb. It won't happen.

Parents! You buy the clothes your children wear. Buy them decent, Yiddishe clothing from day one. Teach them that there is nothing else. When I see bochurim during their break wearing all kinds of trucker clothes, it pains my heart. The kid is 14 years old, wearing what his folks bought for him, and he's dressed like any shaigetz on the street.

The child hears from his teachers that he needs to dress one way, and from his parents he hears that it's only a school rule, but as soon as he leaves the four walls of the yeshiva, he can wear dungarees.

Parents, don't ruin your children because you want them to dress cute, or b/c you want them to feel freedom. Tell them what to wear. They'll listen. They want to listen. Unless you're telling them today for the first time and they're fifteen years old.

And yes, I find it cute that I write as though parents (or anyone for that matter) are lining up to read my bloggings.

You Are What You Wear

In yeshiva we have a policy that bochurim must have their shirts tucked into their pants. The reason, we said, is that when your shirt is tucked in it says "I'm ready to work." And when it's untucked it says "I'm bored, relaxed, and not ready for anything serious."

What you wear and how you wear it determines not only the way people perceive you but also the way you think about yourself. Some people will be working hard all day long, until they take off their shoes. Then they're done. Don't even bother asking. Others can't get work done with their shoes on, and keep them off, under their desks at work, while working.

Some bochurim today, in another attack by the powers of assimilation, are attracted to wearing the grungy, sloppy, ragged - no, not rugged - style of clothing. They leave a few buttons open at the top of their shirts, wear their pants low enough to step on the bottoms, et al.

The fact that some shgotzim decided that the style of clothing should be such, and that frum boys (and girls) are clicking their heels and saying 'yes sir! - we will do and we will hear without asking why' - is a tragedy that has long reaching effects. Would you be surprised anymore to hear that next summer official style from Hollywood is no pants! That's right! Designer boxers. No, it wouldn't shock us anymore. Can you just see us begging our teenage kids to put on a pair of pants before they go out?

Far-fetched? Yes, but not very far.

The desire to dress down is overwhelming. Some of the boys that dress properly during yeshiva rush to change into their shreds the moment they leave the yeshiva building. G-d forbid, they feel, to be seen in the airport wearing presentable clothes. They think: If I wear normal clothes people will think I'm not normal. Seriously.

The Yidden in Mitzrayim had several saving qualities. One of these is that they did not stop dressing like Yidden all the long while they were in Mitzrayim. Even when the Egyptians began dressing with their robes worn low, the Yidden remained Yidden. And when the Egyptians started dressing with less dress, the Yidden remained clothed.

Back then the assault was by slavery and brutality. Later the assault was by Inquisitions, pogroms and Nazis. Today the assault is by assimilation.

We need to teach our children when they are very, very young that we don't mess with the way we look. We look like Jews, we look like Chassidim, and fads and styles are for people whose lives are maked or breaked by what they wear or don't wear.

Something I wrote for Nshei Chabad Newsletter last year

American culture, by definition, is one of the biggest challenges to a bochur's goal of "doing the right thing." Advertisements, radio and television shows, and movies are geared towards a teenager's weak spots. Clothing ads certainly are nothing more than a message to teens, that what's important today is to be a physical attraction. (If it was really an ad for clothing, there would be more clothes in the ad!). No, the message is get noticed. It's not who you are, it's what you wear. The opposite extreme of what Torah teaches. Practically every show has the same theme: boy runs after girl, girl runs after boy, car explodes.

It's not by mistake either. Hollywood and the advertising industries prey on the vulnerable teenagers. They spend millions of dollars perverting and twisting the minds of our youth. And it's everywhere. Today there is an ad that thirty years ago would have been banned as pornographic - and it's an ad for toothpaste!

But I'm not writing now about the destruction that is caused by bringing movies or television into your home. Today you can greatly damage your bochur's innocence with the daily mail.

There is almost no secular publication available today that is kosher enough to be brought into your home. Period. The world's standards have eroded to the point that practically no newspaper, magazine or novel is OK. It is appalling. And if you, a mother of young boys, have an absolute need for these magazines, et al - which are devastating to a bochur's growth - they must be kept locked up in the master bedroom, or in a safe. They certainly cannot be left in a family-room magazine stand, or even a bathroom drawer, or any other place accessible to him.

You want your son to be chassidish, and he wants to be chassidish. But you cannot put the yetzer horah in front of his nose, or worse, in his hand, and expect him to withstand the temptation.

For those that have no kids at home at any given time, you are responsible for the yiras shomayim of any bochur that passes through your home, be it a relative or a guest. If a kid in your house uses your bathroom and sees a provocative advertisement on the back of a magazine that was left sitting out, it is your fault, and you have damaged him tremendously.

Here are the options: Your boy can remain innocent a little longer, or you can have your reading pleasure. Is it worth it? No way! Live without it, and have a healthy, frum boy. Please! Do it for his sake, if not for yours.

Is it really your responsibility? If you come in contact with someone who is still in the learning process, you are a mechanech! You are an educator, and his or her chinuch is in your hands at that time.

Today in our big, bad world there is no more good and bad, or right and wrong. What kid's are basing their morals on today is "is it done or not." Of course they don't base it on what they see on the street. We've taught them that what's there on the outside is not us, it's not for our lives. But we do teach them that what they see and have at home is theirs, and is by definition good and acceptable. And they need to be able to know, unquestionably, that what they have at home, in school and in shul, is kosher.

A good bochur works constantly and continually on controlling his desires, the natural, inborn taavos that he has. And B"H he is successful. For you to put a challenge, a stumbling block, in front of him - in addition to being an aveira, it's abuse!

For a bochur to be exposed to his sister or sisters that do not dress modestly is also abuse. In addition to having to see that which he is taught and trained not to see, exposure to it desensitizes him, and his yetzer horah becomes greater. To see what he constantly sees at home is no longer a big deal, and he wants more.

We're not talking about teaching the above, culled from sichos and shulchan aruch, to your baalei battim's families, or your irreligious relatives and friends. Today this needs to be told to every single frum family. Especially bearing in mind what the Rebbe says about "poseyach al shtei hasi'ifim," namely, that it is in some ways worse than outright avodah zorah! People are looking at you as an example of a frum family and will undoubtedly imitate you. Your sons are looking at you as an acceptable role model and will do as you do. Your nephews trust you to be a chassidishe yard-stick and will emulate your actions.

If your son does have certain places or circumstances that are unavoidable, and he will be exposed to these or other unacceptable items, make sure to explain to him that "in our family, as chassidim, that stuff is wrong."

Our bochurim are trying so hard. They really are. They aren't just the pleasure seeking, attention starved teenagers the world wants them to be. They want to be the best that they can be. But they need our help. They need our help in staying away from bad, and they need our help with a good replacement for it. And with a little bit of help, a little bit of encouragement, a little bit of self-esteem boosting, they'll get caught in that beautiful cycle: they're better and so they're happier, and they're happier so they're better. Which is exactly what they want.