simchat_torah said:
I've actually been to several mj congregations where they have work days or 'clean up day' on Shabbat! But then again, in college I went to a reform synagouge for awhile (only thing within a reasonable driving distance) and they had clean up days on shabbat too.
My wife and I aren't that stringent on Shabbat laws. Granted, in our home we incorporate many other shabbat observances, but we aren't that strict about it either. However, there are some very basic principles that seem to be ignored widely by MJ'ism... not working, not spending money, etc... Nothing strenuous, just very elemental shabbat observances.
Why would one go to a resturant (spending money) yet wear their kippah and Tallit? Maybe it's just me?
oy.
Here was the issue: Set aside for the time being that G-d has mandated rest/no labor/not changing things for Shabbat, even though that is THE main issue, nevertheless most of MJ'ism does not feel "bound" to obey that.
Talking in language they DO understand, coming as most do from evangelical backgrounds, what about the witness????? As Jews drive by the shul on Shabbat and see scantly clad people with kippot going in and out the shul, mowing the lawn, trimming the hedges and painting - where is the witness in that?? Even though THEY aren't keeping the Shabbat they instinctively KNOW that kippah wearing people are supposed to keep it!! It is no different than wearing a kippah and then going to a treif restaurant.
And no, s_t, it is not just you - it is abomination and a millstone!
I know many who claim orthodox lifestyle, and who wear kippot and tallit katan, who take the kippah off and tuck the tzitzit to go eat treif. Like they think that if no one (but G-d, and He'll grace me!) sees the sancta they are ok. Many others don't even bother tucking! They are "free from the Law" and all the sancta means to them is talisman/amulet that makes them "feel" holier.
My mother-in-law (a good and wonderful mum-in-law, non-observant Jewish lady from a long line of rabbis) recently saw a MJ rabbi from our local community who used to be our rabbi, so she knows him. She saw him sitting in a McDonald's eating a burger. She had been going in to get something to eat, but when she saw him she felt so much embarrassment FOR him that she just drove by.
He was wearing his kippah and tallit katan. You see he keeps biblically kosher and so to eat a cheeseburger at McDonalds is nothing to him. He, like SO MANY MJs, follows the Torah and traditions where it suits them and flaunts the traditions where he excuses them by being freed.
The kippah, the tallit katan, the ark, the synagogue and so much more are ALL Talmudic. But much of MJ'ism has taken only the things of the honored Fathers that makes them "feel" Jewish, but none of the things that might discommode their lives or make them a target. I wonder how many of these kippah wearing "gracers" would still wear a kippah in some country that was less "tolerant" than the US of A? Like Saudi Arabia or Russia or England - places where those who wear kippot are often targets and are killed?
These are the ranks from which our most vociferous enemies will come and the reason tradition mandates that rabbis sternly turn away seekers of conversion at least three times. Those who for whatever reason want the "specialness" without the personal sacrifice.
Sorry - once again I have gotten up on my soapbox......