I've gotten a little lazy updating this blog already. Not a good sign for a burgeoning blogger but it fits my personality quite well. Recently, I attended what I'd describe as a progressive text study with a rabbinical student and socially minded Jews. Everything went well and no one mentioned my tzitzit until afterward. The exchange between myself and the soon-to-be-Rabbi went something like this:

"Well, I can see by your tzitzit that I can assume certain things about you."

"Oh, really? I wouldn't be so sure."

"Well, maybe I'm wrong but..."

"I guess that depends on what you're assuming, but if it's anything more than that I wear tzitzit, and that possibly this makes me religious, whatever that might mean, well, I wouldn't assume too much."

I guess what really struck me was that here was a progressive Jew, soon to be a Rabbi, that assumed by the tzitzit a whole host of ideas about me as a person.

We didn't have time to go into further discussion, but what I was left wondering is what these assumptions were/are. What do Jews assume about Jews who wear tzitzit, and otherwise do not dress in a remotely Orthodox manner?