The suicide terrorist who blew himself up on Rechov Haneviim
made the mistake of his life... A mistake that cost him many
lives, in fact, that is, the lives of the people he intended
to kill who to his dismay, remained alive.
For this error alone he deserved to die.
You can't disguise yourself as a chareidi. Period. Security
agents who have tried in the past to infiltrate yeshivos and
pass themselves off as yeshiva bochurim or
avreichim have already learned this fact of life.
The show ends even before it's begun. Suffice it for their
hat to be perched at an unnatural angle. Suffice it for the
gaffe of asking "Could you please take me to your
instructor/professor here in yeshiva." The `please' may yet
be excused and glanced over, but as for `instructor',
`teacher' or `professor' -- in a yeshiva, well, now...
And so on for the hundreds, even thousands, of phrases,
words, nuances that if you're not familiar with, will give
you away in seconds. You're just not with it. The final blow,
the last turn of the screw will come when the infiltrator
asks for a translation of "Ich mein...", or if he
attempts to use this phrase, with an authentic twang, but
without having rehearsed the proper head tilt and hand
movements that accompany it.
Disguised income tax agents who have swooped down on chareidi
enclaves and discovered that before they know it, everyone is
off to mincha -- have already learned this lesson. In
chareidi strongholds, no uninitiated person can pass himself
off as a chareidi because he cannot possibly absorb and
imitate the delicate nuances, the subtle body language that
these people acquire from the cradle onward. Especially when
the 613 commandments and their safeguards, strictures and
practices encompass them all around, and ignorance thereof
expose the non-initiated at every false move.
There are numerous stories and jokes about would-be
infiltrators, like the one about the stranger who was called
up to the Torah and asked, "Yitzchok ben [son of]..."
And he hastened to reply, "ben [aged] sixty-five."
Attire is a dead-ringer to expose an imposter. Any six- year-
old can see through the disguise of a Gerrer hat, a
Ponevizher suit and stuck-on Vizhnitzer payos. And
even a bearded man -- wearing a shtreimel on a weekday
-- is certain to catch everyone's attention!
*
Our terrorist's error was not so grave. He walked along the
line dividing the chareidi neighborhoods and the secular
Jaffa St. and those who spotted him happened to be secular
people. A woman who summoned the police from her cell phone
later told the press what had tipped her off:
"He looked just like a chareidi," she said, "except that he
was lacking payot."
*
It works the other way as well.
Some time ago, the security authorities issued orders for MKs
traveling abroad to remove their kipos. One religious
MK quickly declared that he refused to submit to this rule.
But in any case, would it have made a difference? Would
anyone have mistaken him for a non-Jew even with a different
headgear?
And all this has led me to coin a new definition of "Who is a
Chareidi?" A chareidi Jew is one who even if he tries to act
like a chiloni will not be able to get away with it.
In other words, our identity works both ways. No one can
impersonate us, and we cannot escape our own identity of what
we are.
They tell the true story of a yeshiva student who toyed with
the idea of going secular while leaving himself an opening to
return without burning any bridges behind him. He left home
and decided to remove his kipa, while keeping his
beard and payos -- just in case. But he sat like a
fool all day, ashamed to show his head in public. He was even
embarrassed to go down and check the mailbox! After a few
days of this foolishness, he decided to seek his identity
again in a yeshiva.
So much credit goes for the Jews in Egypt who preserved their
Jewishness by not changing their names and their attire.
[Ed. At this point I cannot help interjecting a very
disconcerting phenomenon I have noticed, which could probably
be nipped in the bud. We all too often see cheder boys
at play, running like the wind, bareheaded, their
kipot clutched in hand.
Once the kipa is off, it will come off far easier in
the future. I think that if mothers, and rebbeim, are
sensitive to kipa-removal at a very young age, and
insist on head covering at all times, even when running, even
when sleeping, it will become a definite ingrained no-no at a
later age of six, eight, ten, teens, when the boys are doing
much more running around...]
