It's hotter under the Hasidic collar: Religious garb in the summer is a challenge

With temperatures recently hitting the triple digits and sure to climb into the 90s again, most New Yorkers want only to go from one air-conditioned haven to the next, avoiding the outdoors. But it could be worse. We could all be Hasidic Jews. And some of us actually are. Or, in my case, were.

New York's most religious Jews don't give up their wide-brimmed black hats and long black coats even when the thermometer might burst from the heat. One would think that sartorial choices originally intended for Polish winters would've made way for attire more suitable for New York summers. One would be wrong.

On Saturday, the Jewish day of rest, when Hasidim are generally confined to Williamsburg or Borough Park, the two largest Hasidic neighborhoods in Brooklyn, you might see them, even on the most scorching days of summer, wearing 6-inch-tall fur hats, black silk caftans and, as they walk home after morning services, heavy wool prayer shawls.

Because I, too, was once a Hasid, my non-Hasidic friends have been asking with irritating frequency: Dude, what is up with those clothes? It is not an unfair question to ask. And it is a question that could be asked just as easily of devout Muslims and others.

The answer is, most often, the same. As far as my own tribe is concerned, Tevye the milkman from "Fiddler on the Roof" got it exactly right when he declared that there's little reason behind a lot of what religious Jews do. It's simply tradition, as the song goes.

That is, there's no biblical commandment about wearing black garb. There's no record of Moses telling the Israelites to wear a snug, six-button vest over one's four-cornered wool garment. There's not a mention in any of the thousands of volumes of Jewish law of the requirement to wear the fur shtreimel. It's just the way it's been for centuries.

So what is that experience like? My long dark coat, come June and July, would would turn my personality hostile. If you'd tried to take my seat on the Hasidic bus I used to commute to and from my Manhattan job, I'd fix you with a stare so vicious it would chill you.

My beaver fur hat, normally only a mild irritant, would etch deep sweaty rings around my forehead. The wool-fringed garment over my starched polyester shirt would shift around under my dark blue vest as I tried in vain to position it for maximum airflow to my body underneath all those layers.

When the city heats up these days, I no longer steam in my religious garb. Four years ago, I chose to leave the Hasidic lifestyle for a variety of personal and ideological reasons - having to get married at 18 not the least among them. Having fled the belief system into which I'd been indoctrinated, I allowed myself my first pair of shorts and my first T-shirt. For the first time, I felt the whispers of a breeze rustle the hair on my bare head. And these days, as I watch Hasidim on the streets of Williamsburg or on the G train, I take a quick moment to be thankful for the freedom to wear whatever I want.

I suppose that, in the name of tolerance, I should declare grudging respect for the Hasidim tenaciously clinging to their heavy dress during the summer months. But frankly, I don't really care that much. I neither scorn it nor admire it. I'm simply glad that I'm no longer sweating along with them.

But I do still have a measure of compassion. Hasidim are like humans the world over: They conform to the norms and fashions of their society. They aren't always comfortable, practical or sensible. Look at your run-of-the mill Wall Street banker, with his dark suit and necktie. Ties in this weather? Dude, what is up with that?