By Shaina Shaoolian, Staff Writer
“You go to Yeshiva and you dress like that?”
This is what a woman said to me at the beach this summer. I haven’t been able to get that sentence out of my head.
It was a nice summer afternoon by the water. The sun was out, the beach was busy and I was there with a friend to have a relaxing day. At some point, I started speaking with a woman and her two friends nearby. We had been engaging in small talk for just a few minutes. At first, they asked where we were from and how our summer had been. She then asked me where I go to school, and so I said, “Yeshiva University.” She looked at me with a serious, almost confused expression and looked me up and down for a moment to take in what I was wearing. “You can’t dress that way and go to Yeshiva,” she said.
At that moment, I laughed and brushed her comment off and explained to her that there are people on many different religious levels at YU. But deep down, I was surprised and hurt. I couldn’t believe someone could say that to me. Her comment stayed with me long after that beach day.
Throughout the rest of the day, my mind was churning with questions: Did she know that I started keeping Shabbat in high school, even though that wasn’t how I grew up? Did she know that I’m one of the few of my friends from high school who fully keeps kosher, and that I’ve sat quietly at countless birthday dinners where I couldn’t eat anything because of my dedication to keeping kashrut? Did she know that I chose to go to Stern College, even when very few of my friends were coming with me? And finally, did she know that I was president of the Mechina program, helping girls from public schools begin their own journeys at YU?
She did not know who I truly am, and judged me based on what I was wearing at the beach.
Maybe that’s what stayed with me. My religious journey isn’t something that can be seen just by looking at me. It isn’t defined by the clothes I wear on a hot summer day, or by whether I fit someone else’s idea of what a Yeshiva student is supposed to look like.
When people hear “Yeshiva University,” they sometimes picture girls in skirts and long sleeves, assuming that everyone here is of a particular level of religion. However, the reality is so much more complicated. Countless students at YU are still figuring out what their relationship with Judaism looks like; students who didn’t grow up with the same opportunities to learn, practice or connect to Judaism as other students may have had should still be given the same space to now search for that connection for themselves.
That same woman who saw my clothes assumed she knew my story; she had no idea how much my story means to me.
A few months later, another individual saw the way I was dressed and saw something completely different.
I was wearing jeans while giving a tour to a prospective YU student from out of town. One of the parents on the tour told me she was nervous to send her daughter to YU because she didn’t want her to feel out of place if she wasn’t on the same religious level as everyone else. She then looked at me and said, “When I saw you wearing jeans, I wasn’t nervous anymore.” Her daughter is starting Yeshiva University this Fall.
That conversation is part of why Mechina matters so much to me. The Mechina program is for students coming from public schools who are beginning their religious journeys. I believe it is one of the most important programs at YU.
I’m not saying that how we dress doesn’t matter. It certainly does. There is real value in dressing respectfully, especially in a place like Yeshiva. But I wanted those girls to see something else too: that how I dress on a random day is not a measurement of my continued faith, my commitment or how far I’ve come.
That’s what I wish more people understood about YU. We are not all supposed to look the same, have the same beliefs or be at the same place in our religious journeys. Some people who come to YU grew up one way and never thought twice about it. Others are just beginning to explore their connection to Judaism. The rest are somewhere in between. And many of us are still figuring it out.
Students from all over the world come to YU not because they have already figured out exactly who they are, but because they want the space, the education, the community, and the freedom to figure it out for themselves. Everyone works toward becoming the best versions of themselves, but each person has a different starting point and grows at different speeds.
So if you’re a student who looks at YU and thinks, “I’m not religious enough,” I hope you know that there are people here who have felt exactly the same way. And if you’re a parent who worries that your child won’t fit in because they don’t look like the stereotypical YU student, I hope you know there is so much more to this place than what someone is wearing.
YU shouldn’t be a bubble that tells you who you’re supposed to be; rather, it should be a place that gives you the tools to discover who you want to become.
Photo Credit: Shaina Shaoolian