I grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan until my family moved to Bergenfield, New Jersey, when I was 9. Growing up, I wasn’t familiar with the terms “chareidi,” “yeshivish” or “Modern Orthodox.” During none of that time did I ever hear my parents label themselves as belonging to a specific stream of Jewry. I knew we were religious and even “Orthodox,” but nothing more. I always knew there were different levels of religious observance to be found within the Orthodox community, but it never occured to me that my family belonged to a specific group.
As I got older, I noticed that many people defined themselves by a specific group within Orthodoxy. I compared them with my father, an independent thinker with his own, unique worldview based on his upbringing, his teachers and his own perspective. This is what guides all the decisions he makes, as opposed to adopting a pre-programmed social standard without thinking for himself.
Despite my upbringing, however, as my first year in Israel came to a close, I found myself beginning to align with the chareidi label. This was primarily because the rabbis and fellow students I looked up to in my yeshiva were self-proclaimed chareidim. They were smart, truthful, and genuine Jews. They were devoted to serving God. They had beautiful families. And they were chareidi. So I, too, donned the velvet kippah.
But one Shabbos, all that changed.
I spent a Shabbos at the house of somebody I work for in the summer. But he’s more than just my boss. He’s a mentor, a role model, and someone I have a lot of respect for. He lives in a small yishuv in Israel with his wife and six children. He is serious about learning Torah, observing Halacha and taking responsibility for the Jewish people.
He is also not chareidi.
Just by spending a Shabbos at his house, I began to reassess: Do I need to be chareidi in order to be authentic? The only reason I began to lean in that direction in the first place was because of my limited exposure in Israel to non-chareidi Jews, which prevented me from seeing passionate Jews anywhere else on the spectrum. Yet now I was confronted with a passionate Jew who doesn’t identify as chareidi or, for that matter, with any “group” within Orthodox Judaism at all. This got me thinking.
From that Shabbos on, I gave up on trying to label myself. I exchanged my velvet kippah for a more neutral terylene one, the kind my Zaidy—who belonged to a time when these distinctions barely existed in the struggle to maintain American Orthodoxy—wears. In fact, I was embarrassed that I had ever considered labeling myself to begin with.
I’m not suggesting to do away with labels altogether. For some people, labeling forces them to maintain a certain standard of behavior and keep certain rules. The implied structure that comes with a label will prevent them from getting into trouble. Additionally, labels provide people with a social circle and culture that is to their liking. However, there are many disadvantages of labeling.
First, when people label themselves, they often automatically embrace the opinions of their group without thinking about each issue independently. In fact, labels generally assume a package deal of certain social and political beliefs. A person who labels himself without contemplating every issue first is forfeiting his ability to think.
Label-free Jewry, on the other hand, means you’re free to think, and that no stance—beyond what is expected by Halacha—is assumed. It means undergoing the often painful task of searching for the truth, using your brain and the advice of expert rabbis to find truthful solutions to complex problems, and doing what is right even if it is outside of your comfort zone.
Second, labels lead people to put too much emphasis on certain aspects of religious observance while overlooking others. Many people feel that moving to a certain community or wearing a certain uniform will define their level of religious observance. This leads to a false sense of security in one’s religious behavior even when obvious improvements are called for. For example, many Jews will spend a lot of time checking their etrog for any slight imperfection, but don’t make the effort to greet people with a smile and a “good Shabbos.” This is not because arbah minim perfectionists don’t value the equally operative command to greet people courteously, but because they are often content with their religious observance to the point where they don’t notice simple mistakes.
A label-free Jew, on the other hand, is always on guard. Without the safety net of a label, he knows to pay careful attention to all of his actions and make sure they are in line with the demands of the Torah, even if some of those demands are neglected by others.
Third, labels, by definition, attach importance to external features of observance. Jews are set apart from each other in the eyes of God based on their behavior and choices given their life circumstances, not based on the material of their kippah. Labels are of no significance in terms of what makes one Jew different from another. Nobody would say of his shul, “Our shul is so diverse. We have left-handed Jews, right-handed Jews, even ambidextrous Jews.” This is because those differences are trivial. Why are other external features more important?
Finally, the biggest problem of labeling oneself is parents’ expectations that their child will gladly bear the same label as they. People who label themselves do so for a certain degree of security for themselves and for their children. When children disagree with their parents about the best way to live as Torah Jews, many parents, fearful that this security has now been breached, push back. The resulting tension sometimes causes the child to further abandon any semblance of his parents’ version of Judaism in favor of a spitefully different one, or worse, leave observance altogether.
Labels don’t determine the course of your life; decisions do. You can wisely choose where to live, where to daven, and where to send your kids to school—and you still don’t have to label yourself. You can even surround yourself with people who do label themselves. The key difference between labeling and non-labeling is how you approach social and halachic issues, what you attach importance to, and what message you convey to your children.
That’s why I won’t label myself. Because I know that to be a genuine Jew, you have to find the truth, no matter what it is, and live by it. Because a person’s actions are more important to God than his clothing. Because I want my children to be independent thinkers. And a label will get in the way of that.
By Ezra Epstein
Ezra Epstein is a yeshiva student and a madrich at Aish Gesher. He can be reached by email at [email protected]. For more of his articles, visit his blog “Brick Wall” at ezraepsteinbrickwall.blogspot.com.
