Why Josh Can't Be Left Alone

One of my pet peeves is "cool Jews." These come in every religious level, and every age. They are the guys who wear their Yarmulke or hats a certain way. For girls, they are wearing the latest frummie fashion or have their hair with the latest frummie style. Or anybody who uses certain Jewish words in a regular sentence.

What I don't understand is what makes them cool? Certainly these "trendy" items can't be from non-Jewish sources. Non-Jews would laugh at all of them - no matter how they wear their space beanies. And certainly there is no basis for these trends within our own tradition.

So how have we adopted any items that endow a certain level of popularity status within the frum community? It seems that all we've done is take on the non-Jewish idea of superficial bookmarks of social status, and then create our own. I would argue that even though the measures we have are uniquely Jewish, it is specifically the secular approach of making these distinctions that endangers our spiritual communities. I think that is one good Nine Days lesson. Correcting a certain source of religious hypocrisy would restore a lot more people's faith in our ideal.