To complement RCL's tale about refusing food as being a model for the shliach tzibbur - which does not reflect a midda of tzniut, but of manners - this is not just a Sefardi Ashkenaz split, but an intraashkenaz split as well. my father has a similar story. When he was a (literally) starving student at the Technion, his one real meal during the week was if he was invited to a meal for shabbat. When the hostess offered seconds, there were, depending on where in Europe (in Haifa his hosts were all Ashkenazim) came from, two possible appropriate responses.<div>
1) Accept immediately. For one half this was right, for the other half it showed poor breeding/manners and compromised chances of being reinvited - any one well brought up knew you had to wait for the third offer.</div>
<div>2) Refuse and wait for the third offer - for one half of the cases, the offer of seconds was not repeated (important for a starving student), and also was a partial insult to the hostess....</div><div>There was little time to make a decision, which had major consequences...</div>
<div><br></div><div>This also suggests that the waiting for the third time for being a shliach tzibbur does not necessarily reflect the model of tzniut that RMB (n the name of RHS) suggests - and the language used is more in agreement with the manners/breeding issue than with tzeniut</div>
<div><br></div><div>RMB</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; ">>Again, I ask you as well to propose your definition of tzeni'us as "the<br>>other shitah", the one we do follow, in contrast to RHS simply running<br>
>with the literal translation of the word and buttressed by other<br>>sources.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><br></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;">Tzeniut has not classically been understood to saying that one should not fulfill communal roles. It is not that the need to fulfill them means that tzeniut is pushed aside - it means that the category is inapplicable - we don't have the vision of someone who disappears and is invisible as the model - because a community can not function that way. The edict of sna et harabbanut in pirke avot is not usually understood to be an issue of tzeniut. Indeed, once one gets into communal roles, one has the opposite - the positive value of the honor associated with being the leader (eg, the issues of the kavod hamelech and (related) kavod harav and kavod of a talmid chacham..) . there may be illegitimate reasons that motivate people - and those are decried - and there is the issue of middot that people have to be sure that they are doing it for appropriate reasons for their own self - but it is a tremendous hiddush (or I would argue distortion) to argue that all public roles are only permitted as a dchuya - and the only real application of this has been to women's roles.</span></div>
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><br></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;">Does it mean that some people lack tzniut in their fulfillment of public roles? No question (my favorite example was from a chazzan in my youth, who, for Hineni he'ani mimaas, would stride down in his hazzan's hat, saying loudly three times HINENI HINENI HINENI then softly he'ani mi'ma'as ..), and, as matters of hinuch, yes, we should be educating that the primary role of being a shliach tzibbur is being the shliach of the tzibbur. Does that mean that a public role is inherently a violatioh of tzeniut which is only dchuya? chas veshalom. lo haya velo nivra</span></div>
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><br></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;">It is one thing to oppose innovation - it is another to propose radical innovations in the name of opposing innovations.....</span></div>
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><br></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;">Meir Shinnar</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><br>
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