Change of a fashion

Is it normal that I feel embarrassed sometimes when I am seen with my friends? Not because of who they are, its rather because of the way that they dress. And I don’t mean the hats and the penguin suits. What embarrasses me is that they’re, how shall I say…? Scruffy! That’s a nice word for slightly dirty and grubby.

You see, the ‘goyim’ - they wear sweaters and jeans. You wash them in the machine and you have a cupboard full of them. We wear suits and white shirts. Suits that have to be dry-cleaned and cost a couple of hundred dollars, so some of us wait a little too long before cleaning them and replacing them. White shirts that have to be laundered well to look good, so many do not.

Some people out there, in their infinite wisdom, decided to trap us in some fashion time warp, and chose of all period, the least practical one they possibly could. So I do understand why it happens that some of us go scruffy, but I still am embarrassed and slightly revolted. I don’t know if there is anyone out there reading this, who knows how to influence a fashion change for the Chassidim. Something that will involve getting us coloured shirts and a grungier long reckel. So we could just drop our suits into the machine at night and put them back on in the morning. It’s a lovely thought but I won’t hold my breath.

So until then I am begging, you mothers and fathers, spare a thought to the fact that were actually living in the twenty-first century, and let’s at least teach our kids to be civilized and clean. And you melamdim out there please can you teach the children the importance of good manners and hygiene. Maybe then we would together be able to hold our heads high.