Women Without Hats: A Response

In "Women Without Hats", Miriam Mandel Levi shares her head-covering journey, which takes her from feminist opposition to head-covering to troubled acceptance to decision not to think too hard to rejection- albeit, rejection that maintains a consistent covering practice...

The piece read as a story of one person's struggle with Torah and with observance, using the question of head and/or hair covering as a lens into the struggle.  The controversial kuntz was that, after 25 years of head-covering (with hats), she changed her practice to a much more liberal version- small scarves, rather than hats that covered most of her hair.  But really, it's the story of a life of religious faith in the modern world- the struggle to combine and coordinate between faith, feminism, family, friends...

To be frank, I think that the author could probably re-view her practice in different lights, and find more peace with either her old practice or her new one, and in the end find more comfort in her practice, and in its feminist acceptability, than she currently seems to.  But I'm not actually sure that that's what she wants.  She writes that she encountered a text that talks about devotional head-covering: "I had a short reprieve when I came across a quotation in the Talmud by Rabbi Huna Ben Joshua, a third-century sage, who said that he never walked four cubits with his head uncovered, “because the Presence is always over my head.” His proclamation is one of the sources for the custom of men wearing kippot. Rabbi Huna’s words resonated with me. Perhaps if I thought of my hats as a reminder of this divine presence, I would better tolerate, even appreciate them. Hair covering would have a meaning and purpose I could embrace wholeheartedly.  Unfortunately, Rabbi Huna’s inspiration was short-lived. Within a matter of weeks, my hats did not remind me of the Presence any more than my socks did."

Somehow, the fact that this inspiration didn't last, as most inspirations of this sort don't, was enough to put her off...  But I doub that anyone who wears kippah regularly is thinking about it inspirationally on a regular basis either, after a while.  It certainly wore off, except for random moments, for me.  But when you're struggling, a normal state of affairs isn't always enough.

Nevertheless, there's something that feels a little bit "white" about the feminism that the author is influenced by, although I don't seem to be able to flesh out why, yet.  Something about the long Jewish history of head-covering, and that simplifying it into a modesty thing feels reductionist to me.  But maybe that's just because I like the practice, and it feels no less feminist than a wedding ring, to me.

It sounds rather more controversial than it probably is, given the wide variety of ways that this mitzvah is practiced, to be honest.  A practice that she describes as "I know the scarves don’t adhere to even the most minimal legal standard of hair covering. They aren’t particularly modest and don’t necessarily identify me as married or religious. "  is in fact the marital head-covering practice of several women I know- although it is also the devotional head-covering practice of some women I know also...  

Yes, it doesn't mark the community that she spends her life in, quite- but it's still likely that an informed viewer will see it and know that that scarf, small as it is in relation to the hats she's used to, is still likely sending signals of "observant" and "married", if in a somewhat different mode of "observant" than she's used to.  I offer, in support, the fact that when I was single and covered in that style, I definitely got some comments of "how is anyone going to know that you're single if you wear that".

Pain From Head-Covering: Halakha and Reaction

The OU recently published this piece on halakhic considerations when one has significant pain as a result of head-covering.  I haven't had the time to look at every one of the sources used and how the author, Rabbi Alex Ozar, uses them- but I'm also a parent with limited time, and don't want to wait until I can do so.  So here's my reactions as a person educated on the issue, but not currently responding to the halakhic process of the piece.  (I'd be open to guest authors who are interested in doing so- either to support, critique, or add, if anyone has the time and interest...)

The opening of this piece is thoughtful, spiritually aware, and reflective.

"Though spoken of rarely in public forums and still less in the beis medrash, the amount of physical distress sustained in devotion to the head-covering obligation by a substantial number of people is empirically, emphatically non-negligible."

"That the practice is identity-defining and spiritually foundational for so many – that the stakes are so high – only deepens the need for thoughtful attunement and response."

This strikes me as a serious manner of approaching the topic, respectful of the issue as one that does speak to people's use of it as an identity marker, rather than diminishing the topic because it is 'just clothing' or even 'just a women's issue'.  I have to say, I was charmed by the opening.

The research into realia was done via internet fora, but well, this is 2015.  And it is effective in gathering information.  I wonder which fora he looked at, especially since many of the spaces where I've seen such things mentioned are explicitly women's spaces.  Or maybe he asked a woman to find such comments and ask if they could copy them and share those comments with him...

A general outline of the halakhic argument is as follows:
1. Any situation that causes pain preventing normal functioning can qualify one as a choleh she'ein bo sakanah (one ill with a non-life-threatening illness).
2. Halakha does/can think preventatively, as is done in allowing leniencies to prevent one from becoming ill due to extreme cold (i.e. Ashkenazi poskim allow asking a non-Jew to build up/start a fire for you, even Before you become ill from the cold.)
3.  Sufficiently bad headaches can be bad enough to bring you to this point of difficulty functioning.
4. Once we are handing the category of  choleh she'ein bo sakanah, there are leniencies we can invoke.  There are different leniencies depending on what category of prohibition or obligation that we're talking about.
        4a. We allow leniency in different ways for biblical prohibitions, rabbinic prohibitions, and                 obligations- more leniency as this list goes on.
5. Establish how head-covering stands in terms of categories of halakhic prohibitions and requirements.
        5a.  Halakha around head-covering for married women has to do with location/publicity- the               more public, the stricter the prohibition on showing hair/going bareheaded.
6. There is likely room for leniency in some situations, starting with the least public areas paired with partial covering, and moving "outward" from there, depending on the situation- but exact details aren't discussed, nor is and actual psak given.

The conclusion is, well, inconclusive-

"Those for whom head-covering entails substantial physical distress should, in conversation with their families, communities, and rabbis, think through the degree of pain they sustain and whether it impedes their capacity to live their daily lives. If it does, they may consider whether certain of their regular, regularly problem-causing environments – their home, backyard, car, low-traffic office – qualify as places in which the head-covering obligation may be d-rabanan; the factors involved may include the number of people present, the number of people liable to become present, whether or not it is indoors, and whether it is controlled and familiar. Given that determination, it may then be considered whether the head-covering obligation ought to be relaxed – employing a less constricting method, covering less – or suspended long enough to alleviate or prevent undue pain."

 I wish that this conclusion had come down a little closer to "although I believe that each situation should be discussed with one's own rabbi, in certain situations, x, y, and z can be halakhically valid decisions"- this ending feels a little insipid or perhaps even lacking in courage, to me.  It is closer to that than it sounded upon first reading, but I would still like this conclusion to read like the conclusion of a teshuva (which the body of the piece does read like), rather than shifting gears.

Something feels missing to me, at the end of the day, but I'm not sure what.  It is a reasonable halakhic approach to the problem, but somehow- maybe there's something conceptual missing?  Another halakhic concept?  Some focus on realities?  The sociological realities that people might deal with, when making the decision?  I wish I knew.

Reaction to a Reflection on Head Covering

A charming and thoughtful personal account of one woman's journey with head covering of various sorts.

A couple of highlights, for me:

I was the little girl in the large, floppy hat.

It was called my “davening hat,” and I wore it dutifully every morning during prayer services as a child. Even though I was raised in an Orthodox home, my parents sent me to a Conservative day school starting in kindergarten, and I did quite a few things differently at school than I did at home.

All students, girls included, were required to wear kippotduring our school prayer services. This upset me on several levels. First, I did not want to wear what I recognized so distinctively to be boys’ clothing; gender difference was a particularly sensitive issue when I was at an age when cooties were still relevant. But more than that, I did not like the idea of some obscure (and apparently fickle) religious authority instructing me what I should or should not wear on my head. A healthy spirit of defiance beginning to stir, I went to see the principal, my 5-year-old self sitting across from him at his handsome oak desk, my feet not nearly touching the floor.

Together we came up with an ingenious solution: I could wear a hat instead. But even though we had shaken hands on the idea, my small palm getting lost somewhere in the conciliatory gesture, my flower-emblazoned pink sun hat made me feel silly in the reverent pews of the school sanctuary. The deceptively cheery flower perched front and center did not match the gloomy pout persevering underneath. I felt uncomfortable. The hat made me look different and strange—a blaring sign that a disgruntled kindergartener was flouting communal norms.

This is both a familiar experience for me (without it even involving a separate piece of clothing) and something I both fear and expect for my daughter.  How do I bridge the gap between our family's practice and a world that has smaller and more separate "boxes"?  I grew up often feeling different, and it was hard- but it also made me who I am, in ways that I now think were worth it.  It's an on-going question.  But I appreciated this story.

Ans skipping to the author's adulthood, newly married:

But when I one day chose to wrap a colorful Israeli scarf around my head, similar to the ones my mother always wore, my head covering signaled to the world that I was different. While my teenage-self had blanched at the idea, my adult self wore the look proudly. My scarf was an external sign of oneness with my community.

No head covering is arbitrary—every detail, to the carefully trained eye, is significant.

For me, however, covering my head has evolved from an attempt to appease my community into an effort to belong to my community.

 In other words, a head covering is a symbol of identity- and only feels right if it aligns you, in your own vision, with your perceptions of yourself and who you see as your community.

 

 

My Reaction to "My Wig Was Beautiful and Expensive, and Everybody Loved It—Except Me"

This woman writes about her journey and struggle with hair covering.  She begins with the sheitel that she didn't really want to wear in the first place, and presents it as The Symbol of Orthodox commitment.  It was something she didn't want, but came to love- then came to hate.  It was difficult, and she presents it as tremendously important to other people- her mother and her husband, not to her.

She ties covering almost exclusively to tzniut, modesty.   Then she objects on the logical reaction that there are women all around who have hair showing- so how sexually attractive can it possibly be?  After all, people are used to seeing women's hair in our society.  It's a familiar issue, and one taken up by several teshuvot, especially that of R. Mesas (which is not yet on this site, as it is long- someday).  She translates ervah as "Sexually erotic", which seems to be a bit of an oversell to me, although plausibly accurate- lots of things are ervah that are not so very erotic in our society- for example, thighs.   Yet no one presumes that it should be okay to show one's thighs, because other women in our society do so quite often  (albeit less than hair).  A nuanced reading of what ervah means might have changed her experience.

Although she does acknowledge that covering is also a visibly sign that she's married, she insists that her wedding ring does that just as well.  My sense is that a covered head (although less so with a wig, I admit) is more visible than a ring, to those who know.  To those who don't know, it doesn't communicate at all (otherwise, we might dispense with the wearing of wedding rings).   I must admit, my scarf was not enough to prevent a gentleman I met at work a couple of years ago from asking me out (a staff member from a different department)- I had to point out my rings in order to communicate that his offer was flattering but mistaken.

As her story progresses, she switches from the uncomfortable-although-sexy wig to "bandanas", but feels frumpy, and misses her own hair, which had been a source of pleasure in her own appearance, before she married.  And yet, once she starts to later show some of her own hair, that doesn't feel like enough- she ends up going bare-headed- yet she pays only glancing attention to this part of the story, giving me the impression that once the "hair barrier" has been breached, that's the end of the story.  (I still have something of a hard time adjusting to that notion, since I spent years with a small head covering before I got married, as longer term readers here know.  My ideal still involves the chumra of some sort of covering/kippah for Jews old enough to understand or begin to.)  She pairs the move from wig to scarf to headbands to nothing with a move from skirts to "leggings and jeans".  I'm not so sure that one has much to do with the other, outside of cultural commonalities.  But okay.

I'm rather amazed at the way that one mitzvah comes to represent one's entire stand on Judaism, to both the self and the outside world.  For me, covering entirely is most likely a chumra, at least given some of the teshuvot that I've seen.  At the very least, it is perhaps the best way of fulfilling a mitzvah, with other ways also acceptable.  And yet it communicates so much- often more than we might want it to.  Visual cues are so powerful, especially when we have little else to go on.  It's both a useful short cut and sometimes a blinder, preventing us from seeing the inner complexity, unless we consciously look for it.  I wonder if a little more nuance would have given this author her chance to experiment without throwing the whole practice overboard- or at least feeling less pressure to do so or not do so for the sake of what it communicated to other people.

Reaction: What It Costs To Cover Your Noggin In Jerusalem

A couple of friends have been lovely to me and sent me links to interesting articles and blogs pertinent to our topic of choice.  Here's my thoughts about one of them, with grateful appreciation.

Apparently, NPR has been looking into the price of things around the world- and has come to the price of various headcoverings in Jerusalem.  It's a short read, with lots of pictures, many of them well-done.  The result: with the exception of items that are both very expensive and implied to be religiously extreme (wigs, black hats, and shtraimels/the equivalent, which get called a "crown" at one point in the piece)(not that I quite disagree on some of those items, but still- I can think something, and still feel odd when someone outside says the same thing), you can buy a cheap version of anything mentioned for $5-10.

Interestingly, wigs are mentioned in a more significant manner than tichels/mitpachot/scarves ("For religious and Orthodox Jewish women, dictates of modesty can mean a wig after marriage. The more natural-looking, the more expensive. Otherwise, all kinds of hats, caps and scarves are available, at all kinds of prices.") but there's a picture of the latter, not the former.  In fact, the objects that get the wordage- said wigs and shtraimels, don't get the pictures.  It sends a funny mixed message.

Also interesting is that Jewish and Muslim headcoverings are mentioned together- but Jewish ones are called Jewish, and Muslim ones are referred to as Palestinian.  In fact, neither the word Islam nor Muslim are mentioned in the article.  I'm not sure what to make of the mismatch, but it does seem interesting.  Do any of you have thoughts that might illuminate this oddity?