Tel-Chai Nation

This may be more of a Haredi custom, but even so there's something to ponder in this whole issue of how it ever became common for married women in the Judaist world to cover their hair, or as per the Haredi custom, to practically cut off all the natural hair and just wear a wig:

One of the most prevalent informal explanations given for the halachic mandate of head covering is that, after the wedding ceremony, a woman’s hair becomes a type of nakedness, ervah, to be seen only by her husband, and associated with their sexual intimacy. In the previous columns, rabbinic texts were cited and analyzed regarding the practice of women’s head covering, yet nowhere in those discussions was hair referenced as ervah. So, how did the concept that a married woman’s hair is ervah become a dominant part of the halachic discourse?

Berachot 24a

“Rav Sheshet said: Hair in a woman is ervah, as it is written (Song of Songs 4:1), ‘Your hair is like a flock of goats.’”

The statement by Rav Sheshet that hair is ervah appears only once in the Babylonian Talmud. It is not repeated or referenced anywhere in Tannaitic sources or in the Jerusalem Talmud, and it does not lead to any further discussion. Although many sources indicate that married women covered their heads and wore hair ornaments and accessories, it is significant that none of those sources references Rav Sheshet’s statement that hair is ervah.

And yet, this led to later Haredi communities imposing the belief, no matter how exaggerated it was. Even as the following makes clear it was considered a ludicrous custom:

Yoma 47a

“It was taught in a Beraita: Kimhit had seven sons and all served as high priests. The sages asked her how she merited this, and she answered: ‘The walls of my house have never seen the hairs of my head.’ They said to her, ‘Many have done so without benefiting.’”

The response of the sages to Kimhit is startling. They are not impressed with her excessive piety, nor do they validate it by suggesting that all women behave in a similar way. Nonetheless, the Zohar is clearly referencing this passage when it requires that a woman must not allow even the walls of her house to see a single hair of her head.

In some hassidic communities, it serves to this day as one of the motives for completely shaving off a woman’s hair after her wedding, to ensure that there is never a possibility of protruding hair outside of her head covering.

Needless to say, it's a hysterical viewpoint that can't be allowed to continue without objections. What's particularly offensive is that shaving off head hair awards the German National Sociaists, in example, after all the humiliations and horrors they caused women and men alike during WW2. It was obscene then, and is the same now. All that aside, the sex-negative viewpoint head-shaving is part of is truly despicable, and must be protested.

Now, here's another article, where it's revealed that there's a growing number of Orthodox Judaist women who've stopped covering their hair, and are less concerned with dressing modestly:

There’s a classic image of an Orthodox Jewish man. Black suit. Black hat. White shirt. Tzitzit hanging low. Perhaps a tallit over his head. It’s so ubiquitous, it’s become a media cliché.

An image of an Orthodox woman can be harder to call up, especially given the current, noxious practice of erasing pictures of women from nearly every Orthodox publication.

Adding to the complexity of fixing an image of an Orthodox woman in one’s mind is a developing trend: Orthodox women who once completely covered their hair and dressed with meticulous attention to the laws of modesty – but no longer do so.

It’s vitally important to affirm that many, perhaps most, Orthodox women find great meaning and spiritual satisfaction in covering their hair and dressing modestly. At the same time, increasing numbers of Orthodox women are pushing back against what they perceive as incessant pressure and unhealthy messaging about their appearance. Much of this pressure is based on Jewish law’s overriding concern with the potential for men to be inappropriately sexually stimulated by a woman’s appearance.

I think the Jewish law customs they allude to here are some that came much later, but one thing's certain: there's modern Judaists who took advantage of what sages of past centuries may have said, all for the sake of imposing a form of discipline that's not helpful in the long run. If today's Judaist women are abandoning these customs, they're doing the right thing, and it's admirable. It doesn't need to continue being a custom.

Labels: haredi corruption, Israel, Judaism, misogyny