[Avodah] Ehrlachkeit, not Frumkeit

[T613K at aol.com]

From: Micha Berger _micha at aishdas.org_ (mailto:micha at aishdas.org) 


>>My blog entry was partly about where this shift came from --  how did a
word that in the Lithuanian Yeshiva was considered derogatory come  to mean
something entirely different in today's modern Yiddish and Yinglish?  <<
-- 
Micha  Berger              
micha at aishdas.org         


------------------------------

 
>>>>>>>
 
I unequivocally reject your premise that the word "frum" was  ever used as 
a derogatory term in the Litvishe Yehiva world,  except when used 
sarcastically. It's like saying about someone who did something  stupid, "Oh that was 
really /brilliant/" and then people start thinking that  "brilliant" is a 
general term of opprobrium.  
 
 
It is a perversion of the language and of our culture (i.e., the Torah  
world) to use the word "frum" as an insult, unless you are saying it  
sarcastically, to put down someone who is either ostentatiously, sanctimoniously  
pious or is in some way hypocritical, someone whose piety is not genuine.  
 
Unless there is a specific context to indicate otherwise, the word "frum"  
by itself is /not/ a derogatory word and never was used that way in previous 
 generations.  As you yourself noted, "Fruma" has been and still is used as 
 a girl's name.  Do you know anyone who would name their daughter  
"Hypocrite"?
 
The answer to your question is another question:  When did the word  "frum" 
stop meaning "Torah observant" and start meaning "sanctimonious,  
hypocritical, concerned with externals but not tocho kabaro"?  I would  suggest that 
that change came about when a certain subset of observant Jews  stopped 
being genuinely frum in their kishkas and started being more concerned  with 
externals than internals.  Around 1975.  Could be there was an  advance storm 
front already a little before that.  But even so, the  sarcastic use of the 
term "frum" is its secondary and not its primary  meaning.
 

--Toby Katz
================




_____________________

 



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20110623/20598568/attachment-0002.htm>