Q&A: Praying in Flip-Flops
Praying in Flip-Flops
Question
Is it permitted to pray in flip-flops (without socks, of course)?
What about things like these https://www.birkenstock.com/fr/boston-oiled-leather/boston-core-oiledleather-0-eva-u_5326.html
?
Answer
If it’s reasonable and socially acceptable, then yes. There are no hard-and-fast rules here. The rule is that one should stand to pray in respectable clothing, as is customary in respectable places (even on the street, not at the beach).
Discussion on Answer
https://ph.yhb.org.il/02-05-04/
An incident happened a few years ago: a group of boys came to the Yad HaRav Nissim synagogue for prayer after having been at the President’s Residence, where they had taken part in a ceremony honoring them for excellence in volunteering, and the boys were dressed in ripped jeans. So I understood that even before the President of the State people dress in torn clothing nowadays, and that there is no problem with this today.
What perhaps should be asked is: do people also dress like that for a job interview for a position with a very high salary? And perhaps that is today’s definition of an “important person”?
Best regards, Levi Strauss
The fact that they did that—certainly boys—doesn’t prove that this is the accepted norm. On the other hand, a job interview also isn’t relevant, because a person goes there to make a first impression and wouldn’t dress that way once accepted to the job (even if his boss would be that same interviewer). So seemingly it should be clothes in which it is customary to go when working daily in front of a senior manager, a minister, and so on.
In practice, I’ve never come across anyone who dresses specially for prayer.
Don’t you need to pray in clothes you would wear when standing before an important person?