Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Kippot and Clothing.
I want to formally thank Heshy. This may surprise both him and a lot of other people, but Heshy's rather extreme posts really get me thinking about an issue that I hadn't thought through before. Now I know this is going to sound a little on the odd side, but while I don't agree with Heshy, it has helped me think 'out of the box' about some of the issues as I try to determine both what he is thinking and how I can clarify my own thinking.
As a statement of my way of thinking. I will try to determine both sides of an issue and then try to formulate my own opinion. Because of this in future posts you may find that I 'change' positions as my thoughts on an issue evolves, or as I learn something about the issue that I didn't know before.
Now, having completely wonder around on this post, it is time to get to the point. While carrying on the ongoing debate with Anonymous in the Great Kippah Debate we have discussed what he and Heshy have referred to as the 'Uniform of the Army of HeShem.' (As an aside here, for some reason this gives me the impression of some kind Judea-Christilogical Military Cult.) In the discussion I have been trying to determine the basis of the position postulated by both Heshy and Anon. While driving home from work this evening, and thinking about nothing but getting home and seeing my cats (mostly because my wife is visiting relatives this week) a thought had occurred to me. I realized that I had a partial answer to one of my questions to Heshy and Anon and that was is there a source from Torah or Halakhah that stipulates what we are supposed to wear. (Meaning, in their postulation black pants, white shirt, black velvet kippah) So any way I was thinking and the Story of Yosef and his multi-colored coat came into my head.
My initial reaction was, this is so obvious, then I thought some more. Obviously if you are espousing Heshy's 'Uniform of the Army of Heshem' you would definitely need to ignore the fact that colors are okay to wear, after all to say that they are not is sort of saying that Yaacov didn't know that colors were bad to wear, and this seems to be at least marginally sacrilegious to me.
Now the flip side of that last comment is that Yosef's coat caused his brothers to be envious of him and his coat and lead to the nastiness of his sale to his cousins/cousins men. (The Yismaelim) So could colorful clothing be a bad thing?
I suppose so, but then I had another thought. If colors were a bad thing, and HaShem wanted us to only dress in dark pants and white shirts, why give the ability to see the beautiful colors, or even create beautiful colors?
Okay so let me see.
Yosef's coat colors' good
Reaction to the coat colors bad
Colors existing/being seen colors must be good.
Still doesn't solve my problem, but it does start me on a road to figuring out a reason for my position.
As an unrelated aside: While spell checking this post, the blogger spell check suggested at every occurance of Heshy's that the word I might have been looking for was hashish. Is it me or does it seem to anyone else that blogger's spell checker might have an inadvertent, ironic sense of humor. (and as they say on Fox News, We report/You decide.)
As a statement of my way of thinking. I will try to determine both sides of an issue and then try to formulate my own opinion. Because of this in future posts you may find that I 'change' positions as my thoughts on an issue evolves, or as I learn something about the issue that I didn't know before.
Now, having completely wonder around on this post, it is time to get to the point. While carrying on the ongoing debate with Anonymous in the Great Kippah Debate we have discussed what he and Heshy have referred to as the 'Uniform of the Army of HeShem.' (As an aside here, for some reason this gives me the impression of some kind Judea-Christilogical Military Cult.) In the discussion I have been trying to determine the basis of the position postulated by both Heshy and Anon. While driving home from work this evening, and thinking about nothing but getting home and seeing my cats (mostly because my wife is visiting relatives this week) a thought had occurred to me. I realized that I had a partial answer to one of my questions to Heshy and Anon and that was is there a source from Torah or Halakhah that stipulates what we are supposed to wear. (Meaning, in their postulation black pants, white shirt, black velvet kippah) So any way I was thinking and the Story of Yosef and his multi-colored coat came into my head.
My initial reaction was, this is so obvious, then I thought some more. Obviously if you are espousing Heshy's 'Uniform of the Army of Heshem' you would definitely need to ignore the fact that colors are okay to wear, after all to say that they are not is sort of saying that Yaacov didn't know that colors were bad to wear, and this seems to be at least marginally sacrilegious to me.
Now the flip side of that last comment is that Yosef's coat caused his brothers to be envious of him and his coat and lead to the nastiness of his sale to his cousins/cousins men. (The Yismaelim) So could colorful clothing be a bad thing?
I suppose so, but then I had another thought. If colors were a bad thing, and HaShem wanted us to only dress in dark pants and white shirts, why give the ability to see the beautiful colors, or even create beautiful colors?
Okay so let me see.
Yosef's coat colors' good
Reaction to the coat colors bad
Colors existing/being seen colors must be good.
Still doesn't solve my problem, but it does start me on a road to figuring out a reason for my position.
As an unrelated aside: While spell checking this post, the blogger spell check suggested at every occurance of Heshy's that the word I might have been looking for was hashish. Is it me or does it seem to anyone else that blogger's spell checker might have an inadvertent, ironic sense of humor. (and as they say on Fox News, We report/You decide.)
// posted by Little Wolf @ Tuesday, August 16, 2005 
