[Avodah] Tznius (for Men)

[Marty Bluke]

R' Yitzchak Levine asked:
<...What about for davening? What is the "proper" dress for a man when he
davens or says a brocha. IIRC the MB says something about wearing a hat for
davening, but I may be mistaken.

The Gemara in Shabbas (10) has the din that a person needs to be dressed
properly for davening. The gemara states that a person cannot daven without
a gartel (belt) based on the pasuk of "hachon likras elokecha". The poskim
explain that this means that a person needs to be fully dressed and ready to
speak to the king.

RHS told over an interesting story from R' Schwab. He was going to daven
mincha in midtown Manhattan and there was a businessman wearing a suit. The
man had forgotten his gartel, so he took his tie off and used it as a
gartel. R' Schwab commented that what the man did was incorrect. Nowadays, a
gartel is a minhag, it is not part of a person's dress. However, a tie is an
integral part of a person's dress (for businessman) and for many people if
they are not wearing a tie they are not fully dressed. Therefore, the man
would have been better off leaving the tie on and not davening with a gartel
as the gartel is stam a minhag while the tie could be min hadin.

RHS mentioned a story about RYBS (in Nefesh Harav) that at some point the
Rav stopped wearing a jacket for shacharis during the week. One of the
talmidim asked him why? He explained that he started wearing R' Chaim's old
tefillin, and the batim were very large so he couldn't put his arm with the
tefillin on them into the sleeve. So what? He said that no one would walk
around in the street or to meet an important person with their jacket on
like that (one arm not in) and therefore he thought that it was more kavod
not to wear the jacket at all.

The bottom line is that what you need to wear for davening is much dependent
on the place where you live and what people wear.
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