Frumkeit

Nowadays, there are many frum people. In fact, it is quite fashionable to be frum. Being frum often means wearing certain clothes: kippot, black hats, pe’ot, white shirts, black suits. There are frum places, frum phrases and frum pronounciation of Hebrew.

But what does frum mean? In Yiddish, it means ‘pious’ or someone who keeps Mitzvot. However in modern terminology it is a word often used to describe someone who is outwardly observant, or at least more observant than the observer. There has developed a frum culture, which naturally results in the labelling of other things as ‘not frum’.

Another aspect of ‘frumkeit’ is the performing of ‘chumrot’, translated as stringencies, in Jewish law. As opposed to just doing a mitzva (commandment) or keeping a halacha (Jewish law), a chumra can show that a person wants to go beyond the letter of the law and beautify G-d. One notable example in which practically the whole Jewish world does this is at Chanuka, when all one technically needs to do is light one candle each night – yet everyone does more.

However there are times when the chumra can sometimes be taken out of context so much so that the point of why the mitzvah or halacha is done in the first place is forgotten. For instance, a person could refuse to bentsch in front of a woman without her hair covered. In this situation, the person is being very strict on the bentsching side (he could easily just avert his eyes rather than make a big deal out of it) but is at the same time potentially causing embarrassment to the woman in question, something which is a serious sin in Judaism.

The major factor that has been ignored in the mad rush to take on chumrot is that sometimes, by being ‘machmir’ (stringent) in one area, one becomes automatically ‘mekel’ (lenient) in another area. In the above example, the person was machmir on ensuring that he doesn’t even come close to bentsching whilst seeing a woman’s hair (which is forbidden). However he was being mekel on the mitzvah of loving one’s neighbour as oneself. This means that the person has effectively weighed up the situation and decided: I am more concerned to ensure my bentsching is hazard-free than the mitzva of loving my fellow and it makes sense to be lenient on that.

The tragedy in the religious world today is that this analysis is often not carried out and many situations result in a ‘Chilul Hashem’ (desecration of Hashem’s name), which is one of the most serious sins a Jew can do. This can have knock-on effects with secular people viewing the actions of religious Jew as warped and hypocritical.

Another instance of this problem occurring is in the ‘Ba’alei Teshuva’ world. Ba’alei Teshuva is the name for people who have returned to their Jewish roots and have become observant. Whilst this is a beautiful movement consisting of many genuine people’s decisions to lead a Jewish life, it should not be ignored that there are some whose religious growth is predominantly external as opposed to internal. It is all very well changing one’s clothes, name, speech and commitment to mitzvot such as Shabbat and Kashrut – but if the person acts in a ‘holier than thou’ manner, thus deterring others from following his path, it is a travesty for the Jewish people and in particular, the Ba’al Teshuva himself, for he is missing the point of the religion he professes.

Our mission is to ensure that we don’t look to ‘be frum’. Rather we must always be searching for the truth and what G-d really wants us to do. For some, this means taking on mitzvot and becoming a ‘Ba’al Teshuva’ and for others it means evaluating one’s current religious actions and working out whether they are motivated for the right reasons or just to look frum, or frummer than others. For most people, the mission requires both paths; a commitment to grow religiously without leaving others behind; a commitment to be as machmir on the laws of Shabbat as on Ahavat Yisrael, loving fellow Jews; and finally, a commitment to look at life as much as possible with perspective, rather than the narrow perceptions of our desires.