Good Taste

We all recognize bad taste when we see it. To wear an orange sports jacket and yellow sneakers for an audience with the Queen of England is in bad taste, as is, say, the wearing of shorts to shul on Yom Kippur day. There is nothing inherently evil or criminal in such instances, no laws that prohibit them, or statutes that are violated. But sensible people do not behave in that way. It is simply a matter of good judgment, of appropriateness, of good taste.

We find similar scenarios in the field of Torah life. Anything that cheapens or vulgarizes our connection with the Almighty is in religious bad taste. Wearing a large woolen tallis with flaming red stripes technically fulfills the mitzvah of arba kanfos: tzitzis have been placed on the four corners of the garment. The wearer is certainly not in violation of anything. But he is in bad taste. He has shown poor judgment at best, at worst, he has demeaned a holy act.

Or take tefillin: tefillin are all the same: black, square, each containing the same Torah sections written on the same kind of parchment. But there are differences in the kind of outer protective boxes one chooses for them. Most boxes are plain black, others of fine silver. But if my boxes were to be bright red or decorated with peppermint stripes, I am still technically fulfilling the mitzvah of “a sign on your hand and frontlets between thine eyes,” and have violated nothing. But this would be in very bad taste.

A recent Internet notice requested prayers for a certain sick man. At the end of the notice was the following: “All those who pray for him will be entered into a raffle for $200.00.” Surely the ad writer did not mean to suggest that unless we are promised a possible reward, we will refuse to pray for the poor fellow. Of course not. He was simply reflecting the “what’s-in-it-for-me” culture of commercialization that has engulfed our lives. The offer displays gross insensitivity, and is certainly not in the best of taste.