I was at a show recently and I was just absolutely shocked by seeing a beautiful and exceptionally polite Chabad Rebbetzen walking around in platform skinny heel boots that went to her knees. It look like someone took a very long carpenter's nail and nailed it on the bottom of her boot and called it a heel. Platform skinny heel boots conger's up scenes in a urban movie of a lady of the night with alot of violence drugs and alcohol. I do not watch movies like that, but have seen plenty ads for such movies like that. I shook my head in shock and I was thinking "wow things have changed among our Chabad women's dress code of Tzniut". It was not the first time that I have seen the dress styles among religious frum women that were boardering and almost breaking Tzniut Jewish halacha.http://youtu.be/F_pfFuDkj0Q
Then the Beit Shemesh Chereidim attacks a little girl that is the grand daughter of dear friends in Israel. A Modest religious family is attacked by the Chereidim for what they claim she a 7 year old for being immodest! what? What is going on here? Then a Chereidi little girl gets attacked in Beit Shemesh too? What is this?Many think of Judaism as a single religion, but it has as many denominations and subsets as Christianity does. Orthodox Judaism equally breaks down into countless subsets. Most of the problems in Jerusalem concern 19th century immigrant sects which never reconciled themselves to the creation of the State of Israel, and have in some cases made common cause with Islam. That being said it is a complicated issue. I do not think there needs to be one way of expressing Judaism in observence. The common thread should be that we all are Torah observant to the best of our understandings and family traditions and no I'm not talking about secularism either.
What do I mean by this? Shulchan aruch שׁוּלחָן עָרוּך, literally: "Set Table" which most would immediately think "Code of Jewish Law" right? Yes of course, but let's simplify this a bit to understand where I'm coming from. Every household has a way of abserving Jewish law (Shulchan Aruch) by the way their families for generations have done things and not to mentione in the siddur prayers alone there so many tunes to these prayers which most if not all these tunes are due to weather the family is Sephardic or Ashkenazic or the fact the family has lived in Spain, Turkey, Iran Iraq and even the United States. Not to mention which Posek Rabbi one's family may follow. This is where all the different subsets of Judaism formed. So in essence every Jewish family have traditions that can reflect how they observe and dress Tzniut according to how they "set their Observence of Torah tables". Not literally setting their tables, but setting traditions according to their families generations of traditions. This means that people do set their level of observence to their understandings and is influenced by their family traditions. I have personally have seen differences among Chereidim in traditions from one shabbos table to another or one shul to another and yes even in the dress code of in Tzniut in Chereidt women depending on the neighborhood or block or street they live on. I have seen some frun women pushing of the envelope so close in breaking Tzniut that boarders one to question what is she thinking? I have see this among almost every facet of religious subset groups by simply living in Israel and having family that are of many different subsets of Judaism living there too. Like for example there is difference in the way Jews from the southern part of the United States vs. a Jew from the southwest, mid west or even the north west or the northeast part of the United states do things. Their Traditions of Torah observence are all different from one another.
The fact that everyone of these Jews can pray together is amazing because they may have different tunes for any one prayer from the siddur, but each Jew can adapt and read the prayers together and honor one another with respect to each other's differences. It is amazing when you wittness that in action. I have seen this first hand in Chabad and I have been blessed to wittness this even with Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach zt'l of Blessed Memory. The Renewel movement seems to get the point also of just respecting every Jew and be accepting and loving and kindness to one another. The Lubatcher Rebbe OBM says that "Every Jew is a Diamond". So I ask why are we breaking precious Diamonds into a million pieces by acting like this towards one another? That is just creating more divisions among us. As for the Rebbetzen and her boots well she was dressed modest and no skin was showing, not her knees, not her calfs, not her arms, nor her neck etc. It's her choice to wear boots like that and she was not breaking any modesty code of Tzniut within Chabad simply because she was covered from head to toe and I do know she would not wear them if that were breaking halacha. I cannot be the one to tell her how to set her table of observence either. Even though I want to give those Chereidim the boot out of Beit Shemesh that spit on my friend's grand daughter or give the boot to the modern orthodox that attacked the Chereidi girl. The best we can do is pray for tshuva for those who are unkind and causing harm to other. We cannot radiate light to the nations if we continue to stomp out the lights amongst us. So yall Knock it off . Love and peace to us all!! Kol Hakavod!