Religion

No Crocs on YK?

crocsYnet reports,

Rabbi Elyashiv of the Lithuanian stream of ultra-Orthodoxy has ruled that it is best not to wear Crocs shoes on Yom Kippur even though they are not made out of leather and, therefore, would seemingly be permissible for the holiday. His reasoning behind the ruling is that they are too comfortable, and thus don’t provide the level of suffering one should feel on the holiday.

Do with this what you will. (Haven’t Crocs’ 15 minutes expired, even in Israel?)
G’mar tov, everyone!

9 thoughts on “No Crocs on YK?

  1. If you really want to mortify your flesh, there may be better religious options. This seems like a strange detour from the original purpose of humility and reminding us of our mortality, but I’ve never fully understood religious orthodoxy.

  2. Sorry, I don’t understand how it’s ok to wear sneakers and not crocs. This just goes to show you, don’t ask in the first place. ?? ??? ????? ? ????, ?’??? ????

  3. Personally, I find Crocs both ugly and extremely uncomfortable. So by Rabbi Elyashiv’s logic, I suppose I should make a point of wearing them for the next 26 hours.
    Except that, oh, wait, my understanding of Judaism doesn’t include hair shirts or self-flagellation, either.

  4. Crocs were ubiquitous at the (modern orthodox Ashkenazi) shul I davened at for YK in Jerusalem yesterday. I’d guess that between 25-50% of men were wearing them. I don’t think there was any fashion statement involved; this was a very unpretentious shul.
    I can’t comment on the general popularity of Crocs in Israel, since I’m just visiting.
    Maybe R. Elyashiv is an advocate of Steve Martin’s “Cruel Shoes” for YK. http://www.stevemartin.com/world_of_steve/audio/cruel_shoes.php

  5. I actually see eye-to-eye with R. Elyashiv on this one. This ruling considers the spirit of the law and not just the letter. The original prohibition is “ne’ilat sandal”: wearing shoes. It doesn’t say anything about leather; in those days, real shoes *were* leather, and anything else was an inferior substitute. Now that many non-leather options exist, it would stand to reason that the way to observe the spirit of this prohibition on Yom Kippur is to wear something (or nothing) other than the shoes one normally wears, which for some people might be Crocs (not me…).

  6. 75% of men, women and children at the lubavitch shul i davened at were wearing them, including the most chasidic of the bunch.

  7. At my shul, Converse All-Stars and Vans still ruled the day. They are surely not comfortable, but I do take some pleasure davening while wearing shoes that say “Rad” all around the soles.

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