Black Hattiness

[I had been forced to remove this post from my blog, but now that it’s summer I am republishing it, with slight additions and revisions.]

Is wearing a hat a halacha?

If you ask most black-hat wearing kids, they'll insist it is, but most rebbeim in yeshivas admit it's not. (i) They still insist on it being worn, I guess for political reasons. [This paragraph about being forced to get a hat on shabbos and miss krias haTorah has been removed]

Tefilin are also less important than wearing a hat. If a kid forgets his hat, he’ll be reprimanded and told to bring it the next day. If he forgets it many for many consecutive days, then he’ll get in trouble. On the other hand, when someone forgets his tefilin, even if for many days, nothing happens.

I was once at a house where people are required to take off their shoes when they enter. We made a mincha minyan there, and I was the only person who put on my shoes. There were even two people there who came in a hat, but took off their shoes. They wore a hat, but not shoes which there is an actual halacha to wear by davening! It's all black-hattiness, (ii) not halacha.

The mishna berurah states:

And in our times one has to wear a hat on his head by davening like he goes in the street and not just a yarmulke because [currently] that's not the way to stand in front of important people.... And it all depends on the minhag of the places.

Nowadays, when one wouldn't wear a hat when walking in the street or in front of important people, he obviously shouldn't need to wear a hat when davening. The Mishnah Berurah emphasized the fact that there’s no inherent chiyuv to wear a hat, it’s just like a turban or gartel. (iii)

Some people say you're supposed to wear a double-covering when davening, but this is definitely not a halacha; I think it might be some kabbalistic thing, if anything.

Another reason given is wearing a hat is a minhag, and minhagim are important. But wait one second. Why's it a minhag? Because it used to be what people wore, some Jews just didn't stop. The minhag (or halacha) isn't to wear a hat, it's to wear what one would wear in front of a king. It used to be a robe and turban, now it's a suit and tie. To claim there's a special black-hat minhag isn't accurate, it's just some people didn't stop wearing what they had.

The only real claim that can be made is that a hat is a uniform to show that the wearer is different then the surrounding gentile society. This can only be claimed by those who go everywhere in a black hat, and don't just wear it for davening. Also I wonder if they're trying to separate themselves from gentiles or maybe just from other Jews? Once, a kid didn't want to wear a hat and his mother said "You have to, our type wears a hat." Clearly, she wanted him to show he belonged to the black-hat Jews, and not the modern ones. That is not a good thing.

i. Most, but not all. Once, in Adar, everyone in my former mesivta brought in cowboy and clown hats for davening. The menahel told anyone who had taken off their hat to put it back on. So there are some who feel one must wear a hat by davening, even a ridiculous one.

ii. I’m not sure why they make everyone wear black hats, there’s definetly no basis for that. People are allowed to wear grey or dark blue jackets, but for some reason hats have to be black. I guess it’s part of conforming to Black-Hattiness Judaism.

iii. The reason some people wear a gartel can't be to provide a separation, since they're already wearing many separations. I heard the reason is because a gartel used to be what one would wear in front of a king.