Imagine that you MUST choose between living the rest of your life as either a Hasidic Jew or an Amish person. And you truly have to be fully into the religion, following it to the strictest commonly-accepted terms as exists within those respective communities.
Which do you choose?
Amish, you get to live among the beauty of nature, without the distractions of modern technology. You get peace and quiet. No iPhones, no Twitter, no computer. But - technology can also be very useful and convenient, and you don’t get to use it anymore. You can leave your Amish village and visit the city, but you may not use motorized transportation of any kind, and you can’t go to movies or use public computers. You have to learn how to speak the German dialect of the Amish, and immerse yourself in their religious rituals and prayers.
Hasidic, you can still live in an urban setting, have access to all of the benefits of a major city (let’s say you have to live in a Hasidic neighborhood like Boro Park, but can travel freely.) However, you must wear the black coat and beard, or wig if you are female; you must strictly follow the Kosher dietary rules; you must observe the Sabbath on Friday night and Saturday; and you better love studying the Torah - and learning Hebrew - because you are going to be doing a lot of it.
WRT Amish…while there’s probably enough bishops that forbid movies and computer use, I don’t believe that it’s more common than not to eschew the riding in motorized vehicles. I think that’s pretty common even amongst the most strict.
Hasidic, easily. The electricity thing is the dealbreaker. As an Amish person, you can’t use it at all. As a Hasidic Jew, you can’t really use it on Shabbos or Yom Tov but you can still set the lights on timers, leave the A/C running, etc. And you can use whatever you want the rest of the time. And as a woman, nobody would expect me to sit and learn Gemara all day and I could get an actual high school diploma, which Amish kids do not have.
Just as an FYI, though, you can’t really lump all these groups into “Hasidic” or “Amish.” The Beachy Amish allow car ownership, and most other Amish groups, even the Old Order, are perfectly fine with riding in cars or other motorized vehicles as long as they’re not operating it. The Swartzentruber Amish are much more strict and only give dispensations for emergencies. They also don’t allow upholstery or indoor plumbing, which all other Amish groups do. And I would find it a lot more onerous to be a Skver Hasid than a Lubavitcher.
A faithless Hasid, I guess. I can’t live without modern technology, and the food would still be pretty good even without pig. I can’t fathom how this would ever be a choice that anyone had to make, though.
Hasid. I’m fine with hanging out with the Torah, but as a female, I’d still have to bear just as many kids as the Amish expect me to, so no getting out of that one. I could still go to high school and enjoy a/c. I know a lot of former New York Yids that now live in Colorado. They have that telltale accent, beard, etc., but they’re in the Orthodox communities now and interact with the rest of us folk. And you can’t separate any Jewish group from philosophical study/education, even if they don’t seek out liberal ones.
If I were going to pick a life for myself from birth, I may say Amish. They seem a bit more…loving. But I don’t know anything about Amish besides what I see on TV. Then again, being separated from the rest of the world may not be so bad.
I agree that not all of these communities are the same. I’d rather be in a 18th C shetl than a modern Brooklyn enclave.
I’ll go with the Hasids. I already go without hair or legs showing, so the only big dress code change would be covering up the upper body. With air conditioning, I could stand it. But there’s no way I could dress plain or go without jewelry.
Amish. Living close to nature and working with my hands - whether it be making pie or canning jam, milking a cow, tending a garden, helping a neighbor build a barn - sounds pretty idyllic at this stage of my life.
Hasidic, although personally I’d rather be Sephardic…
I’m a chemical engineer and currently work in not-quite-IT (IT guys don’t consider me IT, other people do). Methinks that wouldn’t work well with being Amish, plus there’s my well-known allergy to large groups of children (caused by overexposure, as a child I used to be the eldest of any group of kids I belonged to outside of school, so I was automatically put “in charge” of making sure that nobody killed anybody else or drowned).
As a woman who’s pretty much past childbearing, I’d get some of the benefits of study without having to have umpteen kids. Modern technology wouldn’t be forbidden, so I would likely to continue my current career path. This is with the full understanding of the differences in various Amish groups (grew up in Amish / Mennonite country).
Amish. My mom rumspringa’d into an aircraft factory during WW2 and then off to college where she met my Dad and got married. I have amish relatives … and I love shellfish and bacon too much to go Jewish. mmmmm bacon
If Celtling is with me, then Hasidic. If it’s just me then Amish. I’ve always been drawn to the Amish lifestyle, but Celtling needs an education, so that would be my priority.
