THE GANGSTA BOCHUR EXTREME MAKEOVER

Have you ever noticed how many no-brainers need an Einstein to figure them out? Let’s not talk about mega-no-brainers like the debacle in Iraq. Instead, let’s talk about a really dumb no-brainer (you’ll pardon the redundancy) on the near-and-dear Jewish home-front:

People have forgotten how to dress their kids – and themselves – when they come to schule.

My peeve transitions to full-blown rant when I go to schule on Shabbos and hear Shmerel squeaking out Ashrai to rehearse for his Bar Mitzvah. Mom and dad sit in their places as Shmerele reluctantly shuffles up to the bimah in grubby tee-shirt, faded jeans below his pupik, and oversized Nikes.

At first, I thought it was just Shmerel’s slack-jawed “why-are-you-bothering-me-this-is-a-waste-of-time” indifference that galled me. Regarding that, the rabbi and his parents should give him a swift dose of attitude adjustment and tell him to straighten up and fly right.

Then I realized that Shmerel’s his hip-hop uniform was as annoying as his attitude. Each Shabbos, Linda has to restrain me from asking his parents why they let the kid out of the house looking like a rapper. That would be too embarrassing and just not nice.

As a guy who always wears a suit to schule and has seen that his kids do the same, I would say, “If he visited church with a friend, you and I know that you would make sure that he dressed appropriately. And I daresay that his church-going friends would already know what to wear to synagogue.”

What else would I say?

I’d say, “My parents insisted that I wear Shabbosdik clothes to schule as a rite of passage when I started first grade of Sunday school. To this day, my regard for the honor of schule and Shabbos derives in large measure from that guidance. I went on to become a rabbi, and when I left the rabbinate, at least it was not due to my attire.”

Wait a minute. I apologize for boasting about my lifelong commitment to the appropriate rabbinical dress-code. Noop. I did go through a period as most rabbis do, of believing that I would bridge the gap between me and my younger congregants by becoming “Rabbi Skippy,” just one of the boys, jeans and work-shirt, even to the office. Wrong. As much as a rabbi’s credibility rises and falls on his menschlichkeit and scholarship, we also weigh it by the dignity with which he presents himself. Thus the words of one of my mentors: “You need not become like them in order to influence them.” Had I only listened to his sage advice sooner.

I recently attended a meeting at which a friend peevedly told me that his rabbi attended a bris in a work-shirt and khakis. Known for his candor, I asked my friend how he responded. “I told him,” he said, “that a rabbi should dress like a rabbi!”
I know. You will say that this rant is just the crankiness of a crabby man on his way to old age. Possibly. But, think about it this way: We buy our kids the most extravagant tallesim and the most ornate zeckelach. Their yarmulkes are works of art and they will receive sterling Kiddush cups that you will proudly display. And guess what? There’s nothing wrong with any of that.

Perhaps we do it as a sign of our conspicuous consumption. But perhaps we also buy, wear, and display religious finery for our kids because we know deep down that they those objects belong to ages; they endure eternally.

In some mystical way, maybe we should start thinking about ourselves as the tallesim that wrap themselves around eternity. How do we embrace eternity when we dress ourselves down in vintage Pig Pen?

We know what to wear when we embrace a Bloody Mary at a cocktail party. Why should it be any worse when we ready ourselves and Shmerel to embrace the Eternal One?