To whom this may concern,

This is a fundamentally important question, and you should be commended for asking it honestly. Questions about identity, values, and one’s place within the community are not small questions. The fact that you are looking for clarity shows seriousness, not weakness.

To approach the issue properly, it may help to begin by asking: what does “Chareidi identity” actually mean? More generally, how is any society defined, and what are its principles based on?

A society is usually built around shared values, goals, or interests that unite its members. Those central values form the heart of the society. At the same time, every society develops secondary structures and guidelines whose purpose is to protect and preserve those primary goals.

Take a city, for example. The people of a city are united by a shared interest in living peaceful, stable, and productive lives. But for that to happen, the city needs police, fire departments, hospitals, and other services. These services are not the reason people live in the city, but without them, the city’s basic purpose would eventually be undermined. Ideally, an ordinary person may never need to interact with some of these services, but their existence creates the security that allows life in the city to flourish.

The same idea can help us understand Chareidi society. The shared value that unites us is that Yiddishkeit is meant to be the primary focus of life. Of course, this is expressed differently in different parts of the Chareidi world — Chassidish, Litvish, Sephardic, and so on. But the common foundation is the desire to build a life in which Torah, mitzvos, avodas Hashem, kedushah, and family are at the center.

Because this goal is so central, Chareidi society has also developed protective measures around it. These measures vary from community to community, because they are not the ultimate goal itself. They are tools meant to help preserve the goal. But that does not make them unimportant. On the contrary, when something precious is being protected, the safeguards around it can become very important as well.

One example is the general Chareidi caution toward outside culture, trends, and technology. This should not be understood as if Chareidi life is defined by rejecting technology, enjoyment, wisdom, beauty, or useful advancements. Many things from the outside world can theoretically be used constructively. The concern is that the surrounding culture is often built around a hierarchy of values directly contrary to ours: material success, pleasure, self-expression, status, and entertainment are often treated as ultimate goals, without being clearly subordinated to spiritual reality and obligation to Hashem.

When a person constantly follows the language, entertainment, ambitions, and trends of that culture, he naturally begins to absorb not only the specific thing he is using or enjoying, but also the broader assumptions and priorities that come with it. In that sense, the issue is often less about the item itself and more about its association. Something may be technically neutral, or even useful, while still drawing a person into identification with a culture whose deepest aspirations are not ours.

This brings us to the core of the matter. The question is not simply, “Is there anything good in the outside world?” Of course there is. The real question is: if the goal of Chareidi life is to keep Torah and Yiddishkeit at the center, then what kinds of exposure will strengthen that goal, and what kinds of exposure will slowly move a person’s heart and mind elsewhere?

From that perspective, a certain degree of closedness is not the essence of Chareidi life. It is a safeguard for the value-system that Chareidi life is trying to place at the center. Chareidi identity is therefore not a merely negative identity, defined by what one avoids. It is a positive identity, built around the pride and responsibility of being a Torah Jew.

The Torah in Parshas Yisro describes the Jewish people as Hashem’s treasured nation. If being Jewish carries such dignity and purpose, then a way of life devoted to placing that identity at the center is certainly one we should be able to carry with confidence and pride.

Mazal tov on your engagement. May you be zocheh to build a home full of Torah, clarity, purpose, and simchah.

Eliezer Schreiber