Devotional Head Covering Source, Shulhan Arukh, Orekh Chayim 2:6

Text:

שולחן ערוך אורח חיים הלכות הנהגת אדם בבקר סימן ב סעיף ו 

אסור לילך  בקומה זקופה,  ולא ילך  ד' אמות בגילוי הראש (מפני כבוד השכינה),  ויבדוק נקביו. הגה: ויכסה כל גופו, ולא ילך יחף . וירגיל עצמו לפנות בוקר וערב, שהוא זריזות  ונקיות (הגהות מיימוני פרק ה' מהלכות דעות. 

Translation:

Shulhan Arukh, Orech Hayim, Laws About a Person in the Morning

2:6 It is forbidden to walk with an upright posture (haughtily) and one should not walk four amot [cubits] with an uncovered head (because of respect for the Shechinah) and one should examine one's orifices [to make sure they are clean].  Gloss: One should cover one's whole body, and not go barefoot.  And one should accustom oneself to turn aside [to use the bathroom] morning and evening, for this is scrupulous and clean.

Commentary:

This halakha comes in the context of rules about a person getting dressed in the morning.  In this context, covering one's head right away, before walking any significant distance (4 amot, about a man's height) is both part of getting dressed and is described explicitly as done to give respect to the Shechinah- G-d's presence.  Thus, it is a devotional practice, related to our awareness of G-d's presence in the world. However, it is outward, designed to give respect in itself, rather than as a reminder for the person.

It is interesting that head covering is described as religious or devotional in meaning, yet it is set in the context of both modesty and politeness to other people: covering the whole body with clothing, wearing shoes, and keeping one's orifices clean.  It suggests to me that the attempt that I, and others, are always making to distinguish between modesty and respect for G-d and polite self-presentation may be not entirely possible.  They seem to be quite wrapped up in each other.  It's something I'm going to want to think more about.

It is surprising that this is given as straight halakha, while the popular conception of things is that head covering is custom, rather than law.  Here, however, it is treated as law, at least in some sense.  Oddly, encouraging regular toileting habits is treated in the same area, which is an odd addition- except that the following section of Shulhan Arukh is laws pertaining to using the bathroom, which makes this comment rather a nice literary transition.

Also interesting is the lack of gendering here.  My presumption is that this is talking to men, but it never says it explicitly here.  I'll have to talk a look at the earlier part of the section to see if there is any clarification, or if it operates on presumption.

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.

 

 

Reaction: "My Kippah, Myself"

This article resonates with my own experiences.  It is one woman's description of her experiences wearing a kippah for the last 20 years, starting at age 9.  She shares some of the challenges she has experienced- and the theology and identity that lead her to make, and to continue to make, that decision.  It's worth the read.

I didn't start wearing a kippah as early as Gila Drazen did, nor as consistently- I often swapped over to a folded scarf or a headband.  But when I wore a kippah on the street (or at the grocery store, department store, post office...) I got the same reactions that Drazen did.  They were glorious and they were miserable.  They were, most of all, inescapable.  By the time I went to Israel, it's no wonder that I didn't have the energy for the infamous "Ben O Bat"?" (Are you a boy or a girl?) conversations that many of my friends have had.

Drazen's story reminds me of my own in so many ways.  There is no moment of definition- there's only her moment of recognition that she's known all along- the kippah her parents give her is sparkly, purple and Jewish, of course she was going to wear it all the time.  For me, it was an even earlier moment of "I'm Jewish", therefore- for me, I was 5, and I insisted that my parents send me to Hebrew School.  Her story resonates in its very lack of revolutionary energy.  There is nothing at odds with the Jewish life she already was living in this decision- it barely Was a decision.  It's only later, interfacing with the external world of the broader Jewish community and the non-Jewish world that it becomes a challenge.

I too had a conversation with a man in a black hat about my kippah- except I didn't get to have the conversation.  I was walking with two Jewish men (with kippot and tzitzit) and a non-Jewish woman, a Protestant seminarian, after an interfaith conference.  A man drove by, pulled over, and asked my male colleagues- "why is she wearing that?" I tried to answer- he didn't look at me, or listen to my answer.  "Who said she could wear that?" "Why can't she just bake challah and light candles?" My colleagues tried to answer him- they said what I might have said, only more politely.  Our Protestant company was passed by without comment, although she was wearing jeans, and a low-cut shirt.  But my kippah (over a dress and long-sleeve, high-necked shirt)- now That was confusing, and a threat.

It's a reminder that clothing can be about us as much as it is about our way of shaping how other people see us.  There is a connection between identity and identification, obviously- but the way that the kippah gets grabbed as a signboard can be very trying when one wants to send no message more controversial than Ï am a Jew who is in relationship with God".

In the end, Drazen's message is one I heartily approve of, even as someone who no longer wears a kippah herself- at least when you can see me:

My kippah is not about you any more than the rest of the way I present myself is about you. My kippah is about me, it’s about God. It’s about Judaism and family and tradition. You are not the official arbiter of what Judaism is or is not. I do not require your understanding or your approval; however, respect is appreciated. 

Have you had one of these experiences?   Are you curious about why women wear a kippah, or how they made that choice?  This is an open space for respectful communication about the topic.  Please share stories, questions, and answers.  Anything disrespectful will be removed as soon as I can.

Are You A Rabbi?

“Are you going to be a rabbi?”  For several years after I started wearing a kippah, I got asked this question in all sorts of places.  At the grocery store, on an airplane…  It was my second most common question, directly after “Is that a yarmulke?  I didn’t know that women wore them”.   Anyone who already knew that some women wore kippot seemed to also presume that any woman who actually did so, outside the synagogue, must either be a rabbi or was going to end up being one.  And indeed, while I was quite set against the idea at the time, I seem to have ended up a rabbi anyway. 

While I stopped getting the question, oddly enough, around when I started rabbinical school (perhaps people in New York are more used to women in kippot than folks in Waltham, Mass), it does open a certain, rather depressing, line of thought. 

Maybe the only women who care enough about the particular practice to take it on are the ones who are so invested in religion that they, for the most part, end up as rabbis.  There isn’t much of a place carved out for really invested, educated laity in the liberal Jewish world.  It isn’t something that I like to look at, but it is, right now, something of a fact on the ground.  If you know something about Judaism, and have invested sufficient personal energy in a practice that people tend to associate with men to wear it in the streets- you’re probably going to end up in the rabbinate, because where else do you fit?  

The problem for me is that I don't want the only women who take this seriously to be women who go into the rabbinate.  I hate the notion that the only women who are willing to go out of their way for the sort of Judaism I believe in are those who want to make it their career.  But how do I persuade anyone to do this, when I know what they're going to be asked are "are you a rabbi?"...  

More Thoughts On Egalitarianism

After yesterday's post, I think I need to explore and map out some more about how I think about egalitarianism, and the relationship between head-covering, tallit and tefillin, and communal aspects of egalitarian practice.  

I don't have a perfect legal relationship built up.  

Combining everything into one package is where I started- both because of my Reform background that presumed equality and sameness between men and women and because that was my feminist framework at the time.  I presumed that any adult Jew ought to do the same things- wear all the same ritual garments, etc.  I saw no reason not to.

Over time (mostly college), I saw that there were different sorts of considerations- concerns over beged ish (men's clothing- the prohibition against cross-dressing, very basically), and a general feeling that wearing a kippah was too masculine.  For some of my peers, the solution was to find a feminine adaptation- for kippot- anything from a lacy kippah to a scarf or hat.  For others, it was to just decide not to take on the practice.  It rankled me.  

Still, it eventually sunk in.  

Maybe it helped that I realized that the equality I was looking at and dreaming about wasn't complete- I wasn't even aware, then, about inequalities in Torah study, or the way that even I, the great egalitarian dreamer, wasn't so egalitarian about home ritual...  (I light shabbos candles in our home, my husband usually makes kiddush.  He doesn't want to light candles, when I offer- even though for me, it's one of the most potent religious experiences of my week.)  

Either I accepted that we can't make such changes for everyone over night, or I realized that one can want to take on some mitzvot without taking on others- I still don't know what I really think.  It seems to depend on what I'm thinking about.  

When I write without thinking, when I write with my emotions, I still go back to that notion that women ought to take on everything- because equality is the dream.  I realize now that we're not there- change doesn't happen overnight.  I don't wear a tallit katan, because it feels too masculine.  I keep meaning to try again (I did, for a few months, and felt uncomfortable with that), but so far, I haven't done it.  Still, I want to move in that direction- serious observance, egalitarian.  The question is- how patient do I need to be?  

When My Movement Doesn't Match My Values

I just came across an article which argues that Ramah camps (the Conservative Movement's summer camps) are not modeling egalitarian ritual behavior (meaning they require boys to wear kippah, and tallit and tefillin at the appropriate age- but don't even suggest it for girls, much less require it, even though egalitarianism is at least a stated ideal in most Conservative communities), and that this is contributing to a failure in the movement's move toward women's participation and leadership.

These are the sorts of things that get my blood boiling.  In pluralistic settings, I get that one can't require women to do these things (although I was a pretty big advocate for "if you want to daven from the amud/read Torah, you need to wear a tallit/kippah" in college, before giving it up as exclusionary).  I understand that plenty of people hold positions that say that one is ok or even desirable, but the other- usually the ritual gear, is beged ish (men's clothing), or something of the like.

But in a Conservative movement camp?  In a community where we want to accept non-egalitarianism, but where the majority is egalitarian?  Fine- don't make it required.  But make it highly suggested.  Maybe even make it the standard- for which one can get an exception.  (Either way, some children will be taunted and made to be unusual.  How ethical is it for me to change which ones it will be?)

These things are significant Jewish ritual items, and for me at least, once they became a regular part of my life, they help.  It isn't some mystical thing- but when I'm struggling to pray, if I can just get my tallit and tefillin on, the rest starts to flow better.  And, if you think doing more mitzvot is better (a generally positive position)- then why not encourage girls to at least try these mitzvot out while at summer camp?  Why not ask our counselors to be role models?

If my daughters (hypothetical, at least for now) aren't going to get egalitarian role modeling at a Conservative camp, why should I send them there, instead of to an Orthodox camp where they'll at least get role modeling of frumkeit and, quite possibly, more time learning?  (Of course, this is utterly un-researched.)  Seriously- the thing that ties me to the Conservative Movement most strongly is egalitarianism.  If that isn't presented as positive to our youth...

Girls and Kippot In The News

I know, I'm interupting my flow of Ba'kh, but I promise we'll get back to him.  In the meantime, I want to share these things.

I just came across this op-ed piece, from e-jewish philanthrophy, by Rabbi Elyssa Joy Auster, criticizing the Conservative Movement for not engaging with girls and young women at summer camp about wearing kippot.  The girls, when asked why they don't wear kippot, said "“It’s a boy thing,” or “The tradition is for boys to wear them,”".  

I also came across this response, from a young woman whom I met at one of those summer camps, Eliana Light, who has managed to integrate her egalitarianism into her practice in a thoughtful and committed way.  She writes that "a woman comes to more [traditionally male-dominated] ritual in one of two ways; she either gradually becomes more learned and aware and, either because of politics or person feelings or both, wants to take them on, or she’s just done them forever and never thought about it."  She also points out the importance of having role models.  


My own experience highlights the importance of all these factors- I grew up in a community where more women than men wore tallitot, and while more men than women wore kippot, women often did wear kippot.  Then I became more observant, and began an in depth exploration of the issues, I discovered much of what I am gradually sharing with you on this blog- that head covering in some fashion has long been part of Jewish women's observance, and that there is a pretty good set of textual reasons for doing so even before I married.  My role models included several women a few years older than me at my college minyan, as well as a rabbi or two.  (Also, a woman who turned out to be a friend's mother, later on, who I saw across a room with a tichel and a tallis, one shabbat.)  


But what really drew me in about Eliana's blog post was her attitude- that her egalitarian practice was both ideological and matter-of-fact.  She had done appropriate learning about her ritual choices, even to the point of choosing against wearing tallit katan because she had been doing it "for the wrong reasons" (a decision I feel quite ambivalent about, but that's off the topic- my interest in it here just shows that she has put significant consideration into her actions).  At the same time, they are also "just what one does" as an adult Jew- not something that has to be constantly justified or worked-over again and again.  It is a balance that I think is the real goal- to approach each mitzvah with serious consideration, but not to be trapped in that contemplation all the time, to the detriment of actual practice.  I seriously recommend her piece for that reason, if for no other.