In Manhattan on the Lower East Side someone has written on a brick building “rumspringa.” As I understand it, that’s the phrase for the period a young adult member of the Amish community goes through “running around” the world before coming back to the church. Yesterday, I heard a new phrase: “frumspringa.”
Frum is a Yiddish word meaning traditionally observant. Like many Yiddish words, we need and don’t have an English equivalent. You could see an ultra-orthodox Jew in Williamsburg in New York wearing a black coat and black hat in the Eastern European style on a summer day and say, “Wow, he’s pretty frum” just as you could find a devoted Democrat voting Republican in a local primary explaining, “I’m not such a frum democrat.” Will I refuse to eat in a non-kosher kitchen? “I’m not that frum.” Did she go to college and start reading the Bible everyday? In an American-izing of the phrase, she is “frumming out.”
So a frumspringa is exactly what we need, those of us who are in college, who are looking to be serious in our Judaism, who are approaching the Day of Judgment in a tradition without clear divine retribution for sin, who want to lead normal, adult, productive lives, who want meaning, who don’t know where we are going.
Around this time of year the Jewish liturgy is full of this line from Lamentations (5:21): “Take us back, O Lord, to Yourself/ And let us come back;/ Renew our days as of old!” Or maybe this isn’t just a Jewish impulse. As Augustine says in his Confessions, “Lord, make me chaste – but not yet.”
Comments (5)
Michael,
I love this idea. I assume frumspringa is not "doing the town" but, rather, looking at the whole picture and how being holy will fit in. How long can frumspringa last before your sincerity about return may be questioned? BTW, where did you hear the phrase? You know that Ethics of our Fathers says that if we give credit to the source, it will help bring the meschiach.
Posted September 23, 2007 8:17 PM
Posted on September 23, 2007 20:17
Victoria, if it doesn't interest you to read what college kids are thinking, why o why are you reading these boards? It is call Faith Book - COLLEGE STUDENTS talk about religion.
Posted September 23, 2007 7:56 PM
Posted on September 23, 2007 19:56
This is a wonderful notion, and I'm a result of it myself. In my college years, over 40 years ago, I rebelled agaist my parents' agnosticism into frum-heit, making visits to 770 Eastern Parkway (headquarters of the Lubavitcher Chasidim) and getting to meet Menachem Mendel Schneerson in the days before he was a candidate Messiah. See my essay on part of this at
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0423/p22s02-hfes.html
A big part of my reason at the time was this: it was pretty obvious to me at the time that many of the values of those around me - even of the society around me - were wrong. (This is no less true today.) But I realized that I didn't have the time, or knowledge, to question "everything", or even to realize what parts of what is now called a "lifestyle" needed questioning. Adopting a dramatically different manner of life, especially such a well-documented one as Orthodox Judaism (one could look up how to act in most situations, and sometimes even find reasons given) was a good way to learn the alternatives, to learn some of the things that could and perhaps should be questioned.
I haven't remained "frum" all my life. But the knowledge gained and the awareness of other outlooks - and the need to remain aware of other outlooks - have remained an essential part of my world view.
Thanks for presenting this important idea so very well.
Posted September 22, 2007 11:57 AM
Posted on September 22, 2007 11:57
why o why are these kids writing on these boards?
Posted September 21, 2007 2:01 AM
Posted on September 21, 2007 02:01
Love the phrase, thanks for sharing.
Posted September 20, 2007 12:28 PM
Posted on September 20, 2007 12:28