So some chassidim want to emulate Wahabist Saudi Arabian Islam

I knew they had to wear little hats on their Sheitels, were forced to wear boiling stockings with closed shoes despite long skirts or dresses but this new  decree from the Belzer Chassidim in London is something that I cannot comprehend. A Belzer woman is no longer permitted to drive a car! Is it a local decree or one that will need to be adhered to the world over. Clearly there is no concept in this sect of a decree that most can’t adhere to, because most is limited to themselves and perhaps Saudi’s. While my understanding of Judaism seeks to enfranchise women, bound by true halachic principles I cannot fathom this new stricture. Has there been fraternisation between women dropping their kids off at school and other men? Has someone committed the ‘sin’ of saying Good Morning? Sorry, Git Morgen. What is going on? Do they have a higher percentage of perverts? Do they have some problem with their men and women or are they reading psukim absolutely literally and ignoring established Halacha?

Author: pitputim

I've enjoyed being a computer science professor in Melbourne, Australia, as well as band leader/singer for the Schnapps Band over many years. My high schooling was in Chabad and I continued at Yeshivat Kerem B'Yavneh in Israel and later in life at Machon L'Hora'ah, Yeshivas Halichos Olam.

10 thoughts on “So some chassidim want to emulate Wahabist Saudi Arabian Islam”

  1. Why does this bother you? I don’t understand it either, but it’s their community, and they can make whatever takonos they think are appropriate. They have many other takonos that I don’t understand, and wouldn’t like to live under, but you and I are not Belze chassidim, so this doesn’t affect us. They don’t have to explain themselves to us, and their Torah knowledge is far greater than either of ours, so why can’t you respect their decision even if you don’t understand it?

    Your suggestion that it’s a decree that most of the community can’t keep is disingenuous. They are a geographically compact community, and most of their members can do this; those who genuinely can’t manage without driving can apply for an exemption. So what’s the problem? (I don’t know whether it applies to Belze women in smaller communities such as Melbourne; I suppose they will ask and find out. But in Melb too, it shouldn’t be a problem for most.)

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  2. different people either embrace modernity while adhering to our Mesorah others believe it is necessary to distance themselves from contemporary society in order to adhere to their Mesorah.
    This divergence will continue until Moshiach arrives and unites us all under his direction.

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  3. I am amazed at your stance – “if it doesn’t affect me let them do whatever they like”. What our grandkids will see in a generation will hare more to do with Chumras than Yiddishkeit, very good for the one million Hareidim but will totally alienate the other 40 million, who will laugh at the cult-like behaviour of the frum. Look around at the growing number of Chabad-lite kids in Melbourne and overseas, who have beards and yarmulkas and eat at McDonlads and go to the movies on Shabbos. At the same time they see more and more “Rabbis” stealing, lying, frauding, backstabbing, supporting the rapists and not the victims etc. Have a great Shabbos.

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  5. Millhouse is dead wrong as usual but entertaining nevertheless.
    To the point at at hand:Not only are they fanatical regarding women driving they are also very foolish by publicizing such a letter for all to see including some of the officials of Her Majesty, who now want to cause them all kinds of tzoros including defunding.I don’t know if you know Belz well, but its a very “chnoyokishe” chasides, very frim in it’s dress code, the peyos twirled around the ears, almost all the boys in yeshiva in eretz yisroel wearing the knee long trousers aka “shvartzeh zoken”, the ladies with a “koopkeh” on the shaitel etc.So the chances that more than a handful of ladies in Stamford Hill, a mini Me’ah Sheorim, or actually not so mini, quite large actually, who send their kids to Belz actually drive, a very big aveiroh in their world is a stretch.
    Btw, Millhouse, you as a Lubavitcher, sound strange claiming it “does not effect us”, whyare you guys chasing everyone to put on teffilin?
    Stupidity DOES effect us

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    1. I fear that those who put such strictures on TODAY Davka transgress Baal Teshaktzu as well as the concomitant attention which is all over the non Jewish press. They couldn’t have chosen a worse time. It’s almost as bad as the Eyrev Rav that kiss those who don’t recognise our right to our state. These groups better realise that there is NO shtetl anymore. The Internet has well and truly killed that. The only thing they have left is peer pressure. A community doesn’t survive intact in the longer term from peer pressure. Look at the disgrace in Skver when that good person dared to daven in an old age home and was nearly burned alive with his family. Thank goodness there is a system of justice that put the perpetrator in Skver into jail. As to Belz, if the English law comes down hard on them I will not shed a tear. Centrist Orthodoxy, of which I am an adherent confronts the world and finds God wherever he may be hidden. We do not lock ourselves into cloistered prisons

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  6. Isaac
    That is my point, not only is this ban on driving fanatical, but the thought that sending out a letter with the ban will somehow pass as nothing out of the ordinary,in a Western country, shows what a cloistered la la land they inhabit.

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    1. By the way, I used to feel uncomfortable about Lubavitchers being in the street with Tefillin, but I’m not anymore. In the words of the Rav, Chabad taught the world how to take Judaism into the Reshus HoRabim

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  7. Pingback: Belzer chassidim cave in to secular pressure | pitputim

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