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Automatic transcript; may contain mistakes, especially in Hebrew.
This week's question is another very important and very beautiful question. How should a girl with an outgoing personality balance the mida of tzinias without suppressing or neglecting her natural personality? We know our speech is holy. How do we know when we are talking too much or not talking enough, suppressing what we have to say for tzinias? Tzinias is not about suppression. The problem with this question is that it assumes that in order to beat tzaniwa, I have to suppress who I really am. And in truth, it's exactly the opposite. Modesty is not about suppression. It's about protection. It's immodest for a person to show themselves to the world. That's not suppressing who we are. That's protecting who we are. For us living in 2019, this is a very, very difficult thing to understand because we're taught. put ourselves out there, show the world who we are.
But that's not really true. We shouldn't show the world who we are. We should show the right people, the appropriate people, the important people in our life who we are. Not everybody gets to see all of ourselves. There is something beautiful and mysterious about holding onto our inner dignity and only allowing the appropriate people, people who have gained our trust, people who have proven that they will hold our vulnerability in a safe and loving way. Only those people should get to see ourselves. So we're not trying to suppress personality. In fact, it's just the opposite. We're trying to protect our personality. We're trying to be appropriate. Different situations require different modus operandi, requires different ways of being. So a girl who is outgoing is absolutely entitled to be outgoing. And chas v'shalom for anyone to tell her that she shouldn't be outgoing. But the question is, under what circumstances should we be outgoing?
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When it's appropriate, it's an amazing gift. At a wedding, the outgoing girl has the capacity to bring such simcha to the kala. That would be exceptionally beautiful. Thank you very much. I would argue that to go over to the men's side and for a woman to dance in front of the men would be inappropriate. It's no longer outgoing. It's revealing a dimension of herself to others that ought to remain hidden and private for very special people. It's not suppressing her personality, chas v'shalom, it's directing it to appropriate channels. And I think this is important to say, it's for men as well. Sneas is not just for women. The notion of being modest, of being appropriate, of being humble, of being directed, these are not uniquely feminine concepts. The man is also supposed to be modest. We have to know who we are and who gets to see our actual self. When it comes to speech, again, Speech is a beautiful, holy gift that we are given. It gives us the capacity to truly connect.
to others. So what will we say? Will we spend our entire lives talking? Or will we spend our times listening? There's value in being a tzinias person and saying, before I say this, is it appropriate? Is it dignified? Is it too revealing? Or does it reveal who I actually am? Is this a person who should see who I am? And if so, then the gift of speaking is an exceptional one. You have the capacity in an appropriate way to reveal the inner dimensions of your soul. Wow, what an unbelievable gift Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave us. The problem is that in our generation, and it's not our generation as opposed to every other generation, but again, in a generation that has to work through the challenge of social media, where everybody is saying everything to everyone, it's a foreign concept to say, slow down. Not everybody gets to know everything about you. when it comes to dress it's true when it comes to speech it's true when it comes to action it's.
true in all dimensions of our being we should be revealing ourselves to the appropriate people at the appropriate time the way we behave with our husbands is not the same way we behave with our friends and that's true for men as well the way that men behave with their wives should not be the same as the way they behave with their friends it's inappropriate it's not sneas sneas means, the recognition of myself and how i relate to this person place or thing. is it appropriate is it godly if it is then you'll strike the proper balance you'll know my marriage is a godly place to speak in an undignified angry and abusive way it's not sneas, On the other hand, a person who comes along and they say, I'm going to show myself to everyone all the time. This is what I'm feeling. And you need to know that right now. It ends up being abusive. It ends up being dangerous. It creates an avira and a marriage that chas v'shalom can be debilitating.
It's not tznias to show all of our emotions all of the time. Our emotions need to be bridled and intelligent. Otherwise, they're going to spill out all over the place. And they're going to hurt people that we don't intend to hurt. So to sum up, tznias is not about suppression. Tznias is about making sure that the right people get to see us in the most beautiful and dignified way.
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