The Matzav Shmoooze: What Kind of Yiddishkeit Does This Ad Express?

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Dear [email protected],

It seems we have lost all sense of sensitivity and gedarim.

Someone recently showed me as ad for children’s clothing featuring the picture you see above. I am just wondering: What is Jewish about this picture? I am not talking about whether the boy is Jewish. I am talking about what message such a picture sends. To me, it says, “I am cool, I am hip, I don’t give a flip about anything, look at me, etc.” There’s no aidelkeit, there’s no Yiddishkeit, there’s nothing of Yiddishe substance in this photo.

I’m no old-timer, by the way. I’m relatively young. So don’t think that I’m some old fuddy duddy complaining. And I’m not a complainer. I can tolerate a lot. But this ad goes against everything we believe. The gaavah is oozing off the page. The looseness and prikas ohl is inherent in the whole pose and look.

Can we have some sense of kedusha in our machaneh?

Sincerely,

D. G.

{Matzav.com}


51 COMMENTS

  1. I agree %100 with the writer. We have been rapidly going down the toilet for a number of years now. This comes as no surprise though. With 30,000+ yidden being yored regel to Orlando, almost all yiras shomayim has been wiped out r”l. Keep chewing bubble gum in public. Keep fressing sushi. Keep talking on the Bluetooth of your Lexus SUV at the highest volume so the whole world has to hear your riveting conversations. We won’t even get into the tight fitting, form fitting short skirts, or the long curly shaitels that fo down to the floor.

  2. That horse has long ago left the barn. It’s called golus, my friend. Hester panim. My guess is that most people won’t know what you’re talking about. This is part of a larger ecosystem. Jewish “music”, womens’ performances available online and in stores for all who want ( for the record, I am a woman, ergo not a misogynist killjoy), Purim in Davos with open bar ( (even with the plethora of Pesach, Shavuos, Yamim Noraim, shabbos Hagadol, Shabbos Nachamu etc programs available at hotels all over the world, I must say that this one shocked me) …. readers can fill in their own examples. If the arc of human history can be compared to a human body, we have arrived at the heel of history, the calloused heel which is desensitized to pain. Mashiach will bring the shock and joy of resensitization.נזכה נחיה ונראה.

    • Depends-you can be dressing “with it”- obviously not over the top or obsessively into the gashmisus and the looks- and still have your eye on the ball as well, keeping focus on whats real. following whats in style is normal human nature and can be ok-to a degree. this picture is over the top and shows exactly what the writer has depicted! well said!

    • Yes, actually. While clothes, and chitzoniyus in general, have a great effect on our penimiyus as is stated clearly in Rashi, the Mesilas Yisharim, and countless Ba’alei Mussar, the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch likewise states clearly that one should dress in a way that does not present a terribly poor or extremely rich look. Average. Not a yotzei dofen of sorts. In your face, the world owes me, and I have no responsibility towards it is a far cry from Brooks Brothers, Lord and Taylor, or Armani.
      Some styles help one look put together, business like, responsible, classic, and even royal and majestic. Other styles make one look, well make everyone else look, and to have emotions ranging from isn’t he/she odd, to nebach, to let me get out of here as fast as possible and to check for my wallet.

  3. You are busy with advertisements ? Bochurim that are sitting and learning and get kicked out of yeshivah for going to a levayah of the tzadik hador who was fighting the technology epidemic of today that doesn’t bother you ?

    • I am not here to discuss whether what the Yeshiva did or nor is right or wrong cause I don’t know enough but just because this may be an issue does not at all mitigate the issue that this writer brought up which I personally agree with this writer 100%.

    • oy but both issues are important, one doesnt take away from the other. i agree that throwing out 50 boys is ridiculous! sad sad sad, but that picture that i saw this morning is also sad.

  4. True. But it’s probably just out of convenience. The Jewish retailor doesn’t want to retake high quality photographs with eidele Jewish children, so the just take the photo right out of the brand’s website. JUSTIFICATION? – NO, but a modification of guilt level – yes.

  5. I couldn’t agree with you more.
    The advertisers as well as the publications should be taken to task for this. It’s bad enough when you see unbridled gashmiyis all over their pages and websites.
    People wonder why kids go off the derech, when this is the focus.

  6. if you’re looking at MATZAV for more than one minute you should very well know the answer to that is NO, anything that will make a dollar we will post even if it has גילוי עריות , שפיכת דמים ולשון הרע besides for עבדוה זרה you can have any of the ג’ חמורות so the answer is definitely not. If you are looking for sensitivity to MONEY you can come here. For any Yiddishe values stay far away from here.

  7. You are (of course) one million percent right. I personally feel that this ad and others like it which fill the pages of our mainstream publications are an extension of the utter lack of p’nimiyus in our communal mindset. What begins with an exclusive stress on intellectualism (in the form of Gemara study to the exclusion of all else, for men, and the idea that a woman’s entire job in the world is to support her “ben Torah” husband), suffocating the spirituality of our religion as manifest in Aggadah, Shabbos Kodesh, Tzaddikim, Tefillah, Emunah, Eretz Yisrael etc. etc., ends with arrogance, rote, and a cultural relationship with Yiddishkeit in which ads like these, which do not overtly cross any boundaries in halacha, can become the norm. On the bright side, there is a silent revolution occurring across the entire spectrum of Orthodoxy in which the spiritual elements of our tradition are being discovered and engeged with by way of the seforim of Chassidus and Mussar, bringing Hashem back into Judaism. Hopefully, as this trend continues to develop and spread, we will succeed in transforming the current standard and “making Yiddishkeit great again”.

  8. You are confused.
    you ask “What Kind of Yiddishkeit Does This Ad Express?”

    The ad isnt an ad for yiddishkeit
    it is an ad for clothing

    • It has much to do with Yiddishkeit. Let me try to explain.

      Avodas HaShem reaches far beyond the 613 mitzvos. It includes all our actions, thoughts and words. Indeed the Torah requires that we infuse all our ways with the knowledge – awareness and appreciation – of HaShem.

      One of the last Rashis in last week’s sedra points out from CHaZa”L that the entire yetzias Mitzrayim would have been worth it just to give Yidden the prohibition of eating sheratzim, contra-distinctive to the nations of the world who do eat them. Notbour Shabbos. Not our Yomim Tovim. Notbour tzitzis and tefillin. But rather our not eating bugs. All the makos. Kri’as Yam Suf. Thr kolos u’vrakim of Matan Torah. The Mon. All for the prohibition of eating bugs.

      Clearly the way we eat, and the way we dress, speak, and think, has much to do with Yiddishkeit.

      There is nothing removed from, nothing outside the realm of avodas HaShem.

  9. This look you see above in the Ad, is the same look you see when the kids come to shul shabbos morning in Lakewood, Monsey and Flatbush.

    • You must be going to a “Young Israel” or some type of modern shul. In my shul even the kids dress and are dressed with derech eretz.

  10. I have been wanting to comment on these ads for a long time. No pictures of women, even old ones, allowed in magazines, but the very young girls are clearly wearing make up and being “all that” for the camera. The boys look the same as the girls. All part of the acceptance of all “lifestyle choices”. it is disgusting and disturbing to say the least.

  11. I happen to have seen this ad just this morning and was thinking the exact same thing. Quite sad.

  12. you are 100% correct and im just a regular baal bos
    re: what one of the commentators here wrote about 30,000 people going to orlando
    i have no problem with anybody going where they please for pesach
    however when i hear a person say that there is nothing like sitting in the pool half an hour before the zman
    thats really crazy if you think about it
    thats a hachana for the seder???????

    • Good point. A lot of these Pesach “vacation” destinations advertise that they have an erev Pesach poolside barbeque. (Eating after Chatzos?) Not sure what that means but it certainly doesn’t sound Toradik.

  13. You are only busy with womens tight skirts? I dont wear them BH but please mind mens tight pants that ya’ll all afraid to fight

  14. All of you decrying this ad have fallen into the yetzer hora trap.
    How many of you shocked commenters have called your sons rabbeim and said you are on the way over with an 1800 dollar hakaras have check for pesach?
    How many of you approached your rav and said you want to sponsor a pesach fpr a struggling neighbor?
    How many of you called a family member who you know is struggling and told them here is my cc number. Use it till after yt.
    When you give hard money and time and are focused on ahavas yisroel, I might take your shocking comments half seriously.

  15. i think we forget that there is more to tznius than the length of a skirt and the photo of a woman (horrors!) modesty includes behavior, speech, being considerate demeanor, etc. the way many of us are living today, the displays we make of our behavior, our homes, our clothing, etc. is a major breach of tznius and some of our ads, magazines, newspapers cater to this

  16. Cuz most today are wimps
    anyone complains And whine for anything for example pictures of women in publication
    Soon enough everyone just caves in

  17. You see this lack of “aidelkeit”, lack of z’nius every Shabbos/Yom Tov afternoon as the hip chasidish couples walk down the street. They seem to have a competition on the length of their “hairdo”, he with the long peyos, and she with her lo-o-ong sheitel. …VD”L!

  18. Agree 100%. This is only one picture among many others. Have been muttering about it for a while. Thank you for having the guts to actually write it in public

  19. Anav mekal adam, what does one have to do with the other? If you see someone talking loshon hora or speaking during chazoras hashatz, one cannot reprimand him unless he has given his cc to his neighbor for yom tov? What kind of idiocy are you spewing?

  20. We have to remember this is Golus!!!!! We don’t live in a perfect world after all !!! When Moshiach comes we’ll all realize the truth and everything will be perfect ! May it come בקרוב ממש !

  21. To me the most ironic thing about these ads is that the mags that publish them wouldn’t dare print a pic of Reb. Kanievsky when she was niftar, but somehow, to their warped sense of tznius, this is perfectly fine.

    Classic example of today’s krumkeit epidemic.

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