The Ba'kh, Part 2

This is a reflection on this text.

The Ba"kh (ב"ח), standing for the Bayit Hadash (בית חדש), was written by Rabbi Joel Sirkes, who lived in Poland, from 1561-1640.  This work is a commentary on the Arba'ah Turim.  His other work includes commentary on the Talmud, two works of responsa, and a commentary on the book of Ruth.

One of the things that I noticed playing a very strong role in his comments, as well as in the comments of the Mordechai, whom he quotes, is the force of communal practice.  The thing that establishes what is permissible to wear is what is the norm.  The norm in his community, like that of the Mordechai, is that "בתולה הרגילה בגילוי שער ", a "virgin... is accustomed to revealing her hair", and therefore "לא חיישינן, דליכא הרהור", "we are not concerned, because there is no [concern over] improper fantasy".  


When taken in a modern light, I'd end up taking this approach to mean that since women don't generally cover their heads in our (American) society, they don't need to- even married women.  I've seen modern writers and rabbis take this approach.  It has a certain loyalty to one meaning of modesty, from the perspective of not standing out, not drawing attention. At the same time, I don't know which communal norms I should be judging by, in the modern world.  The local general community?  The local Jewish community?  The Jewish community/movement with which I prefer to affiliate?  Depending on the answer, I'd come out with very different practices.  That sort of difference didn't exist in Rabbi Sirkes' time.

On the other hand, he also handles a variety of texts from the Talmud that deal with issues of women's modesty, and hair-covering in particular.  These establish a textual requirement, beyond the impact of social norms.  


One thing that I like about this text is that it explains a clear tension on the issue of unmarried women's headcovering, and addresses it from both textual and social angles.  It shows how complicated the issue can be.  

The Bakh, Part 1: His Text

לא ילכו בנות ישראל פרועות ראש בשוק אחת פנויה ואחת אשת איש: נראה דנפקא לן מדאיתא פרק המדיר (כתובות עב.) ואיזהו דת יהודית?  יוצאה וראשה פרוע.  דאורייתא  היא דכתיב (במדבר ה יח) "ופרע [את] ראש האשה"!  ותנא דבי רבי ישמעאל אזהרה לבנות ישראל שלא יצאו בפרוע ראש.

 דמדלא קאמר אזהרה לאשת איש אלא סתמא אזהרה לבנות ישראל אלמא דאחת פנויה ואחת אשת איש באזהרה.  מיהו במרדכי כתב ס"פ [סוף פרק] מי שמתו (ברכות סי' פ) ע"ש  "[וכתב] ראבי"ה (סימן עו) וז"ל [וזה לשונו]: "כל הדברים שהאזהרה למעלה לערוה דוקא בדבר שאין רגילות להיגלות אבל בתולה הרגילה בגילוי שער לא חיישינן, דליכא הרהור" עכ"ל [עד כאן לשונו].

ואין לפרש דדוקא בבית ובחצר אבל בשוק אסורה לצאת  דהא ברפ"ב [ראש פרק 2] דכתובות (טו: ) שנינו אם יש עדים שיצאת בהינומא וראשה פרוע כתובתה מאתים ויצאת פירש"י [פירש רש"י] (ד"ה [דיבור המתחיל] אם יש עדים) מבית אביה לבית בעלה ואפי' [ואפילו] דרך השוק 

משמע, וכן נהגו וצריך לומר דבפנויה בעולה קאמר, אבל הבתולות אינן באזהרה. 

The daughters of Israel do not go with an uncovered head in the marketplace,  both an unmarried and a married woman: It seems to originate in what it says in Ketubot chapter “” (daf 72a): “What is Dat Yehudit?  She goes out with an uncovered head.  But that is from the Torah, as it says (Numbers 5:18) ‘And he uncovers the head of the woman’ [context is the Sotah ritual, as explored in these posts].  The house of Rabbi Ishmael says, a warning to the daughters of Israel that they should not go out with an uncovered head.”

Since it does not say “a warning to a married woman”, but rather simply “a warning to the daughters of Israel”, both unmarried and married women are included in the warning.  However, in the Mordechai, at the end of Brachot, chapter “One Whose Dead”, section 80, it says “the Ra’avya writes: ‘All the matters in the warning about is specifically about erva [nakedness], in a matter that they do not usually reveal, but we are not concerned about a virgin, who is accustomed to revealing her hair, because there is no [concern over] improper fantasy.”

And one should not explain that this [that a virgin goes with an uncovered head] is specifically in the house or courtyard, but [her going with an uncovered head] is still forbidden in the marketplace, because at the beginning of the second chapter of Ketubot (15b) it says that if there are witnesses that a woman went out in a hinuma, and her head is uncovered, her ketubah is 200.  [Going out in only a hinuma is sufficient legal evidence that she was a virgin when she married, and therefore gets the higher ketubah value.  This implies that unmarried virgins do not cover their hair, even in public.  For some more about the ambiguous meaning of the term hinuma, see this post]  Also, Rashi explains (in his comment beginning: If there are witnesses) that this means when she goes from her father’s house to her husband’s house, even by way of the marketplace.  This is our custom, and therefore it is necessary to say that the Tur meant a non-virgin unmarried woman [when he said that unmarried women also cover their heads], but virgins are not included in the warning [from the house of Rabbi Ishmael, in Ketubot 72a.]  

This seems pretty lengthy already- so some thoughts about the Ba"kh's position (and the usual information about who he was) will come in a following post.  I will add here that the quotation from the Mordechai comes from his comments on the recitation of the bedtime Shema.  This is a digression based on the principle that he is establishing for what a man may see of his wife while reciting Shema.  In my mind, that almost makes it more reliable, because it isn't on the topic where he might have something to prove, at that point, it's just a good sociological proof, from his perspective.