I have been getting quite a bit of mail lately asking for me to write down my thoughts on Baal Teshuva girls. These people say that I always write about guys, but never about girls – this should seem obvious, but I know more about BT guys, I can spot them based on their dress, davening mannerisms and how they talk. I am sure girls do the same thing, I will attempt to write something.
I should really title this post, “why I don’t write about BT girls”
Girls becoming frum is an interesting progression, many of the girls I have watched drink the punch and take the plunge did it because they didn’t want to be considered a sex object. This is great, because it means more hot girls are coming into the fold. Other reasons girls become frum, are because they babysat way too often at their local chabad or they found the beauty in lighting candles, girls who become frum based on Friday night candle lighting must feel duped when they realize single guys light candles too (I mean the kiruv folks kind of advertise candle lighting as this beautiful woman’s mitzvah and all)
The first thing that girls do when they start contemplating frumkeit, is go on one of those bribery based trips run by aish or chabad. They show you the beauty of being frum while shuttling you around Israel for 99 bucks. Just 2 weeks of Jewel can change a girls life forever. They suddenly return to their college campus wearing skirts, refraining from hugging their guy friends and deleting all their party pictures from facebook. If this is not backed up by a healthy dose of campus kiruv or local chabad, it usually ends by the time you realize that long sleeves in the summer don’t work too well.
I always marveled at the girls who understood the subtleties of frum society when they were first becoming frum. I love watching girls who hide the fact they are going out after havdalah or they start hiding their arms at chabad, but when they see the Rabbi walking around they duck behind a tree.
This is a very random ideas all over the place post by the way….just warning you.
The worst kind of BT is the shomer negiah intensive BT girl. Girls and guys alike feel that this is the thing to start off with first. I have met girls who don’t keep shabbos, eat meat and milk, but they are strictly shomer negiah. Then you have those girls that will hook up with you and then tell you that they don’t want you watching movies with untznius girls in them.
BT girls shuckel like men when they daven. They usually don’t realize that its frum women don’t shuckel when davening, they sway or do side to side shuckels. BT girls also love to bury their face in their siddur, which is a problem because they usually don’t know the words yet.
What about BT girls and the two facebook profile phenomena? I know quite a few girls who have two Facebook profiles, one for their old days and one for their new Hebrew name and new friends from seminary – usually this profile has only tznius pictures and no guy friends. I do love it however, when you look at their new profile and you can tell they started becoming normal again because they are showing their elbows and friends with guys – albeit nice Jewish guys that they met on shabbos.
I have heard of girls burning their untznius clothing, almost all of them regret it afterward, when they realize that tank tops can be worn over long sleeved shirts and pants can be worn depending on your observance level. Of course for all those ex-sluts those mini skirts and thigh high hooker boots may be a problem.
What is it with BT girls and Blue Fringe?
BT girls who come back from Israel took about how beautiful everything is. If they could I am sure all BT girls would kiss their hands after they shook yours.
I find that the girls that BT programs don’t want are the types that read this blog, questioning cynics are bad for business.
Now do you understand why I don’t write about BT girls…I have nothing to say! But I want to hear your thoughts and if you want to write a guest post about your experiences or thoughts – please send it down.
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{ 33 comments… read them below or add one }
Good post!
1) challah baking is also a big kiruv marketing tactic
2) love to babysit rabbi’s kids on shabbos
3) “air hug” becomes thing to do besides lighting candles 5 hours before shabbos
4) after eating rebetzin’s food for first time on shabbos, suddenly realize they can’t cook close to a tenth as good. they start feeling worthless and get guilted into start wondering “what kind of girl am I?”
5) meets the rabbi’s daughter and suddenly feels…
Washes hands(or any other body part)that comes in contact with the male gender
Chabad single guys do not light shabbos candles. A mother lights keeping her sons in mind whereever they are.
I’m expecting a compliment on how cool of a picture I got to illustrate the post
Cee,
Chabad single guys DO light Shabbos candles, its not a minhag rather a halacha.
Just to clarify, its ONLY when you are alone that you light, if you are a single guy. Most single guys are either in yeshiva or eating with a family, hence your misconfusion, but if you were a single guy eating all alone in your apt (or a bochur or 2 alone on mercas shlichus in the summer), its a halacha that you do have to light.
“Shomer Negiah-Its like Communism (with a capital C), The theory looks really good on paper, but in reality it wouldn’t work ”
-Aaron Meller (Sir Aaron of Merion)
I’ll be the one to say that some BT girls can turn out perfectly normal. When I became frum at 18, I only hung out with frummy girls and pictured myself one day never wearing pants, wearing a sheital (with a husband in a black hat), and never eating in my parent’s house again. But I’ve found myself today 10 yrs later settled comfortably as a Modern Orthodox Liberal Jew. I wear jeans, my husband wears a srugy, and I still find a way to eat at my parents. Orthodoxy for a BT is what they make of it. Theres no absolute right way to do it. You can go all the way to the right, or you can end up where I am. Just keep it real.
They say everything is amazing and exclaim “that’s so good” at the smallest piece of news – good or bad. They constantly ask you to sing because they want to. They call women sluts and shiksas for wearing anything tight or revealing. They go to extremes because someone told them they can only learn practical halacha, so have no clue how it fits together or what the actual sources say.
I have seen the air hug, and it is disgusting.
Now, someone should have a list of things to do in order of level of observance. That is to say, we need a mitzvah manual organized not according to the Tur or the Mishnah or the Mishneh Torah or the Shulchan Aruch…
We need a mitzvah manual organized by how shtark it makes you, from less shtark to more shtark.
He who fights – I’ll start – Doing mayim achronim in the weekdays makes you look like a moron.
Only NCSY people do the shomer negiah hi five.
These girls have to start some where. It doesn’t matter where they start (i.e. shomerette negia) it’s where they end up… Yiddishkeit.
the “air hug” and “air five” are still popular in college kiruv circles
The face-in-siddur/bentcher seudas shlishis shuckle is super crucial.
Why do they think that singing lev tahor really intensely will get them a shidduch?
Let’s face it. Overenthusiastic behavior towards singing is not just a BT phenomenon. In your run of the mill Bais Yaakov when there is a free period because someone could not find a substitute teacher there will always be a few girls who decide they should spend this time by singing. It’s abnormal and creepy but singing seems to be the way to identify yourself as a good maidel who deserves a great shidduch.
Possibly reason for how the singing phenomenon started: The Bais yaakovs like to use a lot of the kiruv tactics on their girls. After all can’t everyone do teshuvah and get loser to hashem no matter how frum they are right now? “If you’re not moving forward you’re moving backward”.
Mohita…
It’s not a Halocho that males have to light if they are alone on the condition that someone from their house (usually their mother) has them in mind while she is lighting hers. Yes, males can light if they live alone, but their are not required to make a brocho.
it looks like you borrowed from larry flint and hooters in creating you BT girls picture, if in fact you are the original creator.
frum satire-====–===—===–===—====messed up bloggitis
Anon – I have no idea how to create pictures. All of the images I use are from Google Images – if you were to google “BT girls” that’s the number 1 picture
For BT Girls on Facebook, the best way you can tell is by looking at photos of her, but instead of looking from the most recent to earliest, go backwards (ex/ 400 of 400 all the way to 1 of 400)
that way you can see the transition to becoming frum
According to the talmud shomer negiah is permitted ( as seen with the Rabbi who would put the Kallah on his shoulders at weddings)
According to the Chumrah Institute of Chumrah Technology YOU WILL ALL GO TO GEHINOM FOR TOUCHING ANY FEMALES!
I was once on a bus in Bnei Barak and I saw that the Chareidi bus driver had gloves on, and he told one of the passengers that the gloves we so he didnt have to hand any change to women.
Personally who ever comes up with all these tzenius/negiah/yichud/nedah chumrahs should get his/her head out of the gutter and try to promote ahavas yisrael instead of stupid new chumras to make people in feel new ways to live in their bubbles (Kiryat Sefer/Bnei Barak/Meah Shearim)
Re: BT girls and Blue Fringe.
Probably “Flippin’ Out”, even if the song does begin with a tongue-in-cheek mockery of sem. girls on Friday morning walking thru Ben Yehuda, oh the gashmius.
If I had a dollar for every BT who considers “Flippin’ Out” a good thing… I’ve discussed it with the band members myself (all of whom are old friends of mine), and we all agree that Flippin’ Out is poking fun of those who go to Israel, “flip out”, and usually “land the plane” (as my rosh yeshiva would have said) within the next year back. There’s actually an old comic: the first strip is “typical Jewish teenager before Israel”, he’s wearing baggy pants, chains, has scruffy hair, headphones, is smoking a cigarette, the works. The second strip is “same guy, right after Israel”. Now he’s got a button down shirt tucked in, tzitzit hanging out, clean haircut, carrying a sefer, et al. The third strip is “same guy one year later”; it’s the same as the first picture.
I’ve heard Dov, the lead singer of Blue Fringe, discussing the real message of the song. As he says, there’s “flippin’ out” and “flippin in”. Flippin’ out is the bad kind, where you walk the walk, talk the talk, but are still the same old asshole underneath it all; having spent 2 years in Gush, Dov saw his share of it. Flippin’ in, though, is the kind where one really internalizes what they got out of Israel. That’s another torah altogether.
anon #17:
BT girls ( I looked it up) is a Native American / First Nations modeling agency. It may not be complying with the rules of tzni’ut, but certainly isn’t Hustler.
Whoa, You’re totally off!
@ShomerTHIS -
If you’d read that piece in Talmud (Kesubos 17) – it immediately explains:
B/c holding the kallah was as a “beam” (i.e., an entirely un-sensual experience) for THIS PARTICULAR Amora, as per his high level of piety and sanctity – and thus did it only for the Mitzvah of “l’sameach chasan v’kallah”.
While I agree with much of this post, I deleted a lot of my untznius photos from facebook simply because they reminded me of my ex.
I surprisingly didn`t have to throw out much clothing beyond pants because I treasured my tops too much.
Also never listened to Blue Fringe, and only heard of them from reading this blog.
And people always tell me the only time I really look relidge is on Shabbos but the rest of the week go for the hippie look, but that also counts for the fact that I do a lot of camping and go to music festivals.
While working at the clothing show I found the most awesome tznius skirts by this local designer who imports organic fair trade cotton from Nepal and creates very earth tone fairy-like designs. And a lot of them are so durable and perfect for a four day adventure in the wilderness.
I came back from Israel pissing and moaning how cold and stinky it is here.
Doesn’t the Talmud say in many places that no one is above a sexual sin – i.e. that there is no one particular person to whom an act that would otherwise be sexual is not? If that is so, then this action must have been permitted to everyone, not just to him.
If not, then I’ll say that I, unlike apparently some people, am capable of shaking hands and being alone without having sex. Therefore, for me in particular, these things shouldn’t be forbidden, right?
As a BT girl myself, I always laugh at the girls who go extreme and think that everything is amazingly beautiful and awesome. But then again, that kind of thinking usually fades after a month or so back home amongst real people.
I think that phase lasted about 1 day for me. But yea not all BT girls go crazy burning all of their old stuff. I’ve kept most of my old clothes, esp the mini skirts – when I’m bored at home I try them on to get a kick out of the fact that I used to think that 3 inches of denim constitutes a “skirt”.
BT girl,
Earlier this year I was still working as a door girl at this club Sunday nights and I relished the ability to wear my inappropriate t-shirts like “NEW YORK FUCKIN CITY” knowing full well nobody from the community would see.
But then G-d forbid anyone ever saw my elbows or knees.
I feel incredibly offended by this article. Being a BT is a constant struggle and I often don’t feel welcome in observant communities. This article is representative of the unnecessary negative treatment towards BT.
I wish people would think twice before making fun and put attention into how they can better welcome a BT into their community.
I am also a BT and I am also really upset about this article. People who judge others unfairly, insult other people, or act badly toward them are religious on the outside but not truly on the inside. You made the choice to become religious and you should be appreciated for that. Anyway, being religious is between you and Hashem an it doesn’t matter what anyone says or thinks. You should try the Chabad communities, they are very welcoming and more accepting. Good luck!
I find BT girls’ prime motivator in becoming frum to be their mothering instinct. They yearn to be part of a close-knit, Beaver Cleaver type family ensconced within a warm communal fabric. This is precisely what they experience on Shabbos, their primary exposure to frumkeit early on.
Blogger, this explains why the undertaking of SN commonly precedes actual halakhic observance. It’s the clearest way to break from a past of ‘dating around’ to ‘developing a family.’
Does this diminish their commitment for the actual Word? The nuts and bolts? Maybe. That’s why platitudes like ‘amazing, beautiful, awesome, and Hasheeeeeemmmmm!’ must be put forward; and also why these notions are often short-lived.
I dig BT girls and their perspectives so I’ve dated quite a few and this is just my read on the ones I’ve known.
Or that they know only that “Girls dont learn” and expect that to be enough to fulfill their knowledge of halachos, because they were told in Israel.
as an FFB i have utmost respect for BTs. everyone makes mistakes, but their hearts are in the right place. we can’t imagine what it would be like to grow up secular. BTs have enough courage, insight and clarity to leave the secular world behind for yiddishkeit. r’ akiba, of course, was a BT. for that matter, you could argue that avraham avinu was a BT. heard a shiur to taht effect.
i would hope this post hasn’t made any BT readers ashamed or discouraged. you guys are amazing (yes, i use that word!)