Sunday, December 13, 2009

Judaism and the value of privacy....

Man, I am SOOOOOOO Freaking sick and tired of the community sticking their noses into my business. They are going to push a lot of people off the derech with that and I don't think Hashem will judge the OTDs like he'll judge those who pushed them there. This is the whole reason why we have a shidduch crisis. People are afraid to find someone that will make them happy if it's not a spouse who people will find acceptable.

I stopped going to people for Shabbos because of this. Now, I could never dream of breaking Shabbos but, there's a lot of people out there who will feel entitled to watch TV and use the computer on Shabbos because they are single and they won't go to families because the women are mean and make snotty comments which reveal their truly crappy middos.

When I went to the beis din for my conversion, one of the rabbis asked me to recite the paragraph starting with, "ma tovo elehayah..." It's funny the men start their davening with this paragraph. Does anyone know what the commentary in the Artscroll talks about? "How goodly are your tents!" The tents were goodly because none of the openings faced into each other. Privacy was prioritized. Veterans converts in my Yahoo group tell me and others in the group that we should just get over these intrusions people feel they can make into our lives. After all, no one had privacy in the shetl and so we must tell our business so others feel safe around us.

Tznius is about keeping that which needs to be private, private. Therefore, it is about not just keeping our skirts down and our elbows covered but it's about not sharing everything with others. When others fire nosy and personal question after nosy and personal question at us, it's no different from if they were to pull up a girl's skirt. It disgusts me when they do this. They feel that when you are single they have the right to ask whatever they want. Why should they feel as such? They shouldn't. It's time we speak up for ourselves.

1 comment:

  1. What about statements such as "Kol Yisroel areivim ze l'ze", which sort show that we should be concerned and feel responsible about the actions and current state of others? I really don't think that people are coming from a place other than a place of genuine concern and a desire to help when they make comments and ask questions. As Jews, what we do impacts the whole of Yiddishkeit, and the whole of the world, so our lives and what's going on in them do matter to other people, and causes things that might be personal issues to others to not be personal issues any longer. If these people do indeed have malicious intentions, it is quite a shock to me, and I can't understand what would be wrong with your community, as I have not seen such things happen to people where I live.

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