By Michael Salzbank

There is an evolutionary process to the BT. As we learn more we become more aware of what is appropriate in different situations. This is true for everyone in society (you don’t wear jeans to a black tie affair). Frum women will dress even more modestly when going to the Kotel or when going for a bracha from a Rebbe.

So in part, it is not an issue of conforming but becoming more sensitive to the standards and norms of the situation, the community.

I am intrigued by the global aspects to the BT. Read more The Insights Born Out of a BT’s Past ›

I would like to comment on the intellectual and spiritual dimensions of conformity and non-conformity.

I have always thought that Avraham Avinu was one of the greatest non-conformists. Avraham not only walked out on his parents way of life, he destroyed and renounced idol worship. There are numerous approaches in the Talmud and Midrash as to when he changed his life. I think that there are two major approaches which posit his age at either age 3 or in his 30s or 40s. I once heard R’ Aharon Lichtenstein summarize these differences as reflecting either an emotional or intellectual change, depending on the age. (The Ritva in his comments on the Haggadah discusses these views in detail). Other Midrashim and Rishonim ( possiby Rambam in Hilcos Yesodei HaTorah) indicate that Avraham Avinu basically tested and rejected all of the prevalent Avodah Zarah (AZ) and culture of his times. It may be fair to say that whatever impetus was that caused a BT to become frum, non-conformity was one of the greater causes. All of the Avos seemed to follow in this path in their own way. Read more Intellectual and Spiritual Dimensions of Non-Conformity ›

There is a certain freedom in conforming. Non-conformity takes a lot of effort, creativity, and energy. To go the way everyone else is going is easy, to think for yourself sometimes you must fight the tide. Conforming relieves you of that pressure to stand out.

I grew up believing that I would become an actor. I studied acting seriously in college and in NYC after graduation. While all of my friends were becoming boring investment bankers (oh, how I wish now that I had become an investment banker then) and accountants, doctors and lawyers, I was busy with art and performance. I was not going to just become another “nobody,” another working stiff like everyone else. Nobody else I knew was going to become an actor and I felt a sense of elitism and pride at my courageous and dubious choice of profession. When I became friends with a certain famous actor and started working in the industry my sense of self-importance grew even greater. While my friends from high school were busy getting their graduate degrees and starting their (boring) families, I was hobnobbing with Hollywood and partying with the power players.
Read more You’re a Conformist! ›

You grew up in Philadelphia and you are a passionate Eagles (the local football team) fan. Somehow, you were able to land two tickets to the New Jersey Meadowlands Arena to watch the NY Giants play your beloved Eagles in a crucial playoff game in January (Sorry, Eagles fans, not this year).Here’s the question: What color jersey do you wear to the game? Do you proudly wear Philadelphia green, do you ‘wimp out’ and wear the despised New York blue, or do you ‘punt’ and wear some nondescript color?

Well; are you a conformist or not? Do you go with the flow, are you indifferent, or does part of you enjoy walking against traffic? The question is not about if you could wear Eagles’ green (you certainly could, if you look like a linebacker and if you don’t particularly mind getting a beer bath from the upper deck), but also if you should – or if it is prudent to do so.
Read more Of Eagles and Turkey ›

The issue of non-conformity was a rather big one in my high school days, and it was largely seen as a virtue. The teachers valued it, or so it seemed in English classes when we learned about Thoreau, the idealized American hero of non-conformity. Plenty of students, often the smarter ones, wanted to resist conformity, too, but the daily life of a high school student wasn’t quite as dramatic as Thoreau’s life, so non-conformity became more about making fashion statements. The punk rocker types with their spikey hair, black clothes, and combat boots were Non-Conformists Supreme. The worst put-down from one of them was, “You’re such a conformist.”

Amidst all this discussion in and out of class came one that had a particularly strong impact on me. My eleventh grade English teacher said that to be a non-conformist, you don’t have make a big deal of your non-conformity. Read more Non Conformity ›

From Chava in the comments to Shayna’s post:

I think becoming a Baal Teshuva calls on us to balance ourselves in this area – yes, we need to be non-conformists with tremendous inner strength in order to move from our secular upbringing and towards a life of mitzvos – and we also need to balance it with a sensitivity to conforming to the Torah true parts of frum society. Being part of the klal, and the sense of achdus that engenders, is fundamental to Torah.

As a Sephardi baal teshuva I am continually faced with this question. When I began my path of teshuva I couldn’t even find a Sephardi siddur or a book about Sephardi halacha. There was nothing to guide me on my quest. I approached the rabbis I knew, who of course were all Ashkenazi, and they suggested I daven Ashkenazi and adopt Ashkenazi minhagim since that would make things easier and simpler and since the majority of Jews in North America are Ashkenazi the likelihood is I’ll end up marrying an Ashkenazi boy. I took their advice and bought my first siddur, an artscroll. I davened from it for years.
Read more To Conform or Not to Conform that is the Question ›

It always struck me as interesting that BTs struggle with the issue of conformity. After all, the fact that we have become BTs means that we are non-conformists to start with. We have bucked the philosophies, mores, trends and fads that we were brought up with in a manner that is often jolting if not shocking to our parents and friends. Rabbi Tatz in addressing teens thinking about rebelling says that Avraham Avinu was the biggest rebel, it was him against the world. Yet, in order to assimilate into the frum society that we, on the whole, have much in common with we feel the need to conform.
Read more Conformity ›

Several years after taking the plunge into the observant lifestyle, including years of full-time study, I had an experience that capsulated for me this week’s issue: the conformity/non-conformity paradox.

I was interviewing for a job in a “modern orthodox yeshiva” teaching fifth graders.

“Well,” the elderly Rabbi interviewing me asked, “I think we have enough information to make a final decision. Do you have anything else you want to add about yourself?”
Read more Who I Am ›