I cleaned out my closet this afternoon.
It’s usually an activity that I restrict only for the spring. But I had a lot of build-up to dig through. It couldn’t wait around until another winter had passed.
I began practicing orthodoxy a few years ago, but was not a “really, truly frum” – which for me, was most pointedly marked by the big leap of committing to a new dress code - until I graduated high school. But since starting college, things have been different. Not only was I a different person on the inside, but I was ready and unafraid to let the person I had become reflect in how I presented myself on the outside.
Despite all this, anyone who opened my closet at home would have raised their eyebrows at hearing that at college I’ve been dubbed with the nickname “Skirty.” The clothes I emptied off of their hangers into garbage bags this afternoon – which, years later, I was still hesistant to let go of – consisted of none other than 10 pairs of jeans, several miniskirts, tank tops, and short-sleeved shirts of every color and cut.
I never thought about the fact that I had held on to this stuff for this long. It just – hadn’t been something I was ready to give up yet. It wasn’t that I planned to wear them, but do I really need to throw them away just now? Maybe I’ll need them for some reason sooner or later. You never know. Besides, I really was an excellent (if not tznius) dresser. What a shame to get rid of everything!
Today, however, the silliness of my packratting indulgence slapped me in the face. Was I going to go to Eretz Yisrael within the year (with God’s help) knowing that in my closet at home sat the jeans I just couldn’t bear to throw away? Was I going to get married someday still in possession of the miniskirt I had worn to every dance in grade school?
It was when I explored this reasoning that I realized: as long as I held on to my old clothes, I was holding on to the notion that at some point in the future, I might not be tznius anymore. I had never actually verbalized this idea to myself; it had just been there, in the back of my brain, the part that stubbornly refused to let me part with my T-shirts a year and a half after I’ve stopped wearing them. Maybe I wasn’t ready until now to confront that part of myself. Who knows? But right now, I am positive that nothing other than a frum lifestyle will satisfy me; my Jewish faith and connection to Hashem are as crucial to me as food and water. And for goodness’ sake, if I can’t get rid of these clothes for myself, I can at least do it for my parents! They’re having a hard enough time believing that their daughter is going to live as an orthodox woman, the least I can do is believe it myself!



(Written about 2 weeks ago, I just dug it up)

I don't know where this came from...

Isn’t it interesting that books allow us to become people we admire, people who almost always turn out heroic, while television allows us to gape freely at those whom we would look at with disdain if we walked by them on the streets? That we would consider “trash,” were it not for the magical box that granted them an elite status for a fleeting moment?
I believe that television today is somewhat of a circus performance, a freak show. I don’t mean to sound like an outdated, stodgy person; that’s the opposite of who I am. It’s just that today’s “stars,” the individuals who we choose to represent outselves, epitomize humanity only at its basest level. The reality portrayed onscreen is shocking and fantastical, but nothing like our own (I hope).
The literary arts delight our intellect, the author’s oratory cunning spinning a web which leaves us spellbound and reeling, hardly able to believe that the experience we’ve just had stemmed from nothing more but letters printed on a page. I will unapologetically declare that I am the biggest fan there is of book full of good ideas. Articulation is beautiful. Television, on the other hand, is a dancing visual spectacle, suspending the mind rather than engaging it.
I once read that television is practice for sleeping. How horrible is it that the Yetzer Horah makes us want to indulge with guiltless pleasure in something so useless! How many families have rotted together, glued to the tube, under the misconception that they are engaging in quality family time? Do they know that their physiognomy – brain waves, metabolism, etc – are slower when watching TV then when they are laying alone in the dark?
If you’re wondering to yourself: Jessica, why the sudden surge of hatred for television? The answer is that I don’t really know why its occurring now. I’ve never aspired to model myself after a character on television, or thought I was being productive while watching it. Perhaps, however, I perceive more clearly now that recognizing the negative qualities of watching TV did not immunize me to its effects, and I now understand why orthodox Jews don’t have TVs in their homes. Not only do I want my children to spend their spare time learning and bonding with family rather than sitting in parallel with their mouths wide open, my spiritually aware self is furious at the injustice that years of passive TV-watching has caused real damage to my perceptions of things and my spiritual level. Materialism is a huge battle with me, and I know that years of self-induced media exposure is at the root of it. More obviously, the values of celeb-reality are not the values of Torah. And since that’s what I want to surround myself with, why even bother with the confusion?