[Avodah] The Basics

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

In the thread "Ehrlachkeit, not Frumkeit", R"n Toby Katz wrote:

> EVERYONE sins, but if he keeps the basics he is frum.  
>
> Frum just means observant, Orthodox.  It is not a synonym for
> righteous and perfect in all taryag mitzvos, though it would be
> a wonderful world if it were. I am just defining the word in
> its common, long-time usage.

I have often mentioned that I dislike labels because of the wide variations in how people use them. While this is true of "Modern Orthodox" and "Charedi", I firmly agree with RTK that this is not the case with "frum". Given that none of us is perfect, I agree with her observation that *almost* everyone uses the word "frum" when referring to someone who observes "the basics".

Furthermore, for several decades now, whenever anyone is asked to specify what they mean by "the basics", I see the exact same three listed: Shabbos, Kashrus, and Niddah. Was there ever a time when "the basics" was defined differently?

For example, it is commonly accepted that 50 years ago, a married woman was considered a fine upstanding religious Orthodox Jew even if she did not cover her hair. Many genuinely Orthodox people simply did not consider it to be a real prohibition, if they even knew of it at all.

I've wondered whether there was ever a time when Nidah or Kashrus was held in that sort of ignorance. And conversely, was there ever a time when a mitzvah was considered "the basics", even though it is one which we're not so careful about today? For example, it has often been said that people were much more careful about Erev Shabbos in the past, but even so, I don't think it was among "the basics".

Perhaps shul attendance and membership would count? There seem to be many people today who are careful about attending minyan, but they make no attempt to be at one particular minyan consistently, and they make even less of an attempt to be an official member of a shul. This was clearly not the case when being put in cherem meant something.

What other mitzvos counted as "the basics" in prior generations? Anyone want to comment?

Akiva Miller

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