The Beauty (and the Beast) of Chasidus

Chasidic girls from the video - Photo credit: Forward

I must admit that the video below about Chasidic life is very inspiring. As an article in the Forward notes, this video was not produced by any of the outreach groups like Chabad or Aish HaTorah. It was produced by two women who are not even Orthodox. One of them, Elisa Goodkind, describes herself as “a Reform and rebellious Jew”. I guess it must be rebellious for a Reform Jew to portray Orthodoxy in such sympathetic terms.

Elisa Goodkind writes that the time she and her team spent among Hasidim in the Catskills was “a 12-hour odyssey that would change us forever.”

“[N]ot only did I begin to identify with some of my own life values, but I found a new group of the coolest people I had met in a long time, who were about to become my new great friends...  

Goodkind rightly praises the strong communities built by Hasidim, who are “committed to helping their neighbors and free of a preoccupation with sensational, pop culture.” I fully agree that Hasidic communities – and Orthodox communities more generally – offer American society an important alternative model for how to build community and lead a meaningful life.

 “The big families, the sense of belonging to an extended community, and the reverence for the female body, mind and soul, were among the eye-opening and thought-provoking revelations…”