In recent weeks I have been noticing a running theme. It seems that many of us in the orthodox community have two faces. One is the face we show to our community. The other is the face we show to the rest of the world.
It’s not uncommon to have two faces. Jews and non Jews alike have many masks that we switch into depending upon the occasion. For example, the face we display at a job interview is not the same face we show our friends at a Purim seuda. The face we show our teachers is not the same face we show our parents. The face we show on a first date is not the same face we show to a spouse of twenty years.
If by “wearing faces” we mean adapting our behavior appropriately depending on the setting, that seems healthy. However, if we only behave and act civilly when we are on display, it’s inevitable that the false face will slip. There is only so long a person can put on a show before their true nature reveals itself.
To a large extent, social media has stripped of us of our ability to mask our true identities. No one knows this better than politicians who are, quite literally, caught with their pants down. During elections, promises are made and forgotten. However, in the age of the 21st century sound bite, nothing is forgotten. A politician’s every move, good or bad, is recorded for posterity and spread like a virus in the media.
As with most secular social trends, public mask slippage is only just starting to hit the orthodox community. Before now, yidden didn’t need to monitor the way they spoke about non Jews or non frum Jews in front of their pals, students, or community. They could rant and rave until the cows came home about goyim, shiksas, or shkotzim when they were speaking to members of their own club. In the outer world, they wore the respectful mask of appreciation for diversity. It was all good.
Likewise, a person could be an upstanding frum community member, but a ruthless jerk in their secular place of business. No one in their circle of friends or family would be any the wiser that they were considered pond scum by colleagues and clients. It was a fairly easy performance to pull off, back in pre social media days. However, the dance has gotten much more sophisticated and we in the frum world have yet to learn the steps.
I remember back in the day, when I was becoming frum, I would attend shiurim where I was told – do and the belief will follow. Keep shabbos and you will be shomer shabbos. Eat kosher and you will be shomer kashrut. Dress like a frum Jew, people will treat you as a frum Jew, and pretty soon you will be a frum Jew.
The problem with that theory is that it only works if you commit 100%. If I kept shabbos only when I was staying by frum Jews, but at my own home I didn’t, keeping shabbos wouldn’t stick. If I ate kosher with my kosher friends and treif with my non Jewish friends, again, the commitment to keep kosher all the time wouldn’t be there. If I only dressed tznius at shul or around frum folks, but not around secular people, it would be hard to make that complete commitment too.
As frum Jews, when we talk and behave one way in an orthodox setting and a different way in a secular setting, we do a disservice to ourselves and our own personal growth. We need to merge our two worlds into one and be consistent in how we present ourselves. Heck, I have more respect for someone who is a jerk in both the frum and secular communities, than for someone who plays a tzadik in one and a devil in the other. Even if we don’t want to remove our masks, social media is doing it for us. It’s time to get real and own who we really are and how we really feel. If that thought brings apprehension, then maybe it’s a message that we each need to reevaluate our own behavior.
