Sewing Your Own Scarves/Tichels: A Basic Introduction

Here's our first DIY: Sewing your own scarf from a suitably-sized piece of fabric.

1.  Get your piece of fabric.  Cut it into either a square, a rectangle, or a triangle, of suitable size.

2. Hem.  I did my first few with a regular hem.

Then, I tried the last seam on my latest scarf with a rolled hem, using this tutorial: sewing a rolled hem by hand, (or use something else, if you're a machine sewer, as I hope to one-day be.  In the meantime, I'm not going to wait until I learn and  get a machine.)  It's pretty easy, nearly as quick, and a nicer edging, especially for thin/delicate fabric.

2b. Add any decorations you'd like.  These could be ribbons (like in this post) in any number of directions, or cloth flowers or other embellishments.
For example:

Such additions dress up a scarf, but make it less versatile- it stands out more, and is harder to combine with other scarves.

3.  You're ready to use it.  Here's my latest, tied on my head.  (I'm bad at part 1, it isn't quite square enough to fold to a really good triangle, nor rectangular enough to be a "real" rectangle, but so far, it works well enough as a triangle anyways- there's a lot of forgiveness in this.)

And I'm Back- Or About To Be

Sorry for my absence: I was at a family vacation, celebrating my grandparents' 60th anniversary.  Good times were had by all, I think, and regular content should resume tomorrow...

NOW, 1968

I came across this quote while browsing at this Christian headcovering blog (I venture into interfaith head-covering land, on occasion, to explore styles, comparitive approaches, and the like.  More on that some other time.)

"Because the wearing of a head covering by women at religious services is a symbol of subjection with many churches, NOW recommends that all chapters undertake an effort to have all women participate in a "national unveiling" by sending their head coverings to the task force chairman.  At the Spring meeting of the task force of women and religion, these veils will be publicly burned to protest the second class status of women in all churches.  (National Organization for Women, Dec., 1968.)

I suppose it was the mood of the times, but the thought of having to burn my tichels as a demonstration that I am not repressed really bothers me.  Of course, noticing that it only refers to churches, ignoring all of us non-Christians bothers me too, but that's not the point in this blog.  The point, for me, is that my head-covering is Mine, not anyone else's.  I follow halakha- my husband didn't make, or even ask, me to do this (in fact, he tends to be just a little surprised at how attached to it I feel, and how thoroughly I take it), nor does it feel like subjection in the least, from any source.

Maybe (probably, even), if I lived in 1968, I'd feel differently.  It's amazing how fast cultural attitudes change- and this was over 40 years ago.  In a world where cultural distinctiveness was just becoming acceptable, not a lot of women covered their hair outside of shul, anyway...  I have been to a lot of Orthodox synagogues where you can see the generational divide: older grandmothers come bare-headed, women my mother's age come with hats, and women of my age come with either hat or tichel.  At my own shul, older women come either bare-headed or with those doilies designed for the head, with a little bow in the middle- what must have been the fashion for women to wear to shul probably around this time, if not a little earlier, even.

Looking Jewish wasn't what you did, then.  I get that.  I'm not trying to be totally anachronistic.  But just reading that quote irks me.  I'm a feminist, and being told by a feminist organization that my choice of religious practice is a form of subjection of women really bothers me.   For all that I'm aware that feminism of then is not the feminism of now (sorry for the pun- it wasn't intentional, I promise), it still riles me up.

How do you feel about it?  (If pertinent)- did you feel differently about the topic in 1968 than you do now?

What I Wore: Shabbat Again, Part 1

Friday night:
We were on our own for shabbos dinner, and sometimes it's nice to go easy.  This isn't a style for anyone who covers all their hair, or for anyone with short hair.  But it's a nice, easy variant that covers the head well, and still restrains the hair, without covering it entirely.  While we didn't actually go out this Friday night, I do wear this out, on occasion.

It can also be worn with only one scarf, either using each tail of the scarf as one strand of the braid, or by splitting the hair into two sections, and using the scarf tails as one strand of the braid.  The effects are a little bit more obvious with more differentiated colors of scarves.  Since this week, I went with dark colors, here's a close-up:

And a profile, to show the little headband I added, for a brighter color:

Someday, I should learn some more complex, multi-stranded braids, and try out some of those: it seems like it could be quite pretty.

Stay tuned for Shabbat, part 2: Maya and a hat!

Experimenting With a Cap and a Scarf

 I had some fun experimenting, and here's the results.  I was combining a large crocheted cap/kippah that I made (covering much but not all of my head) and a scarf that's just a little thinner than the width I need to cover my whole head.  Tell me which you think are worthwhile wearing in the real world.  

1. This is the kippah worn the way I usually do, with the scarf wrapped around sort of 1930s turban style.

2. Here I put the scarf on first, then the kippah, then wrapped the scarf over it twice- once, flat, for coverage, and as second time, gathered up, for height.

 3. This looks ok from this and the next angle, but I'm not so sure about the way it cuts across my forehead...

 4. This is maybe the best of the bunch, making use of the fringes on the end of the scarf, and adding a pin to keep the scarf-ends going in the right direction, and making it into a style-feature, rather than a random tie.

 Here's the back of #4.  Maybe braiding my hair and putting the braid in, rather than the bun, would be more successful.

 5. Not so successful- a turban style with twisted scarf-ends.  It would have been more successful if I'd pushed the front of the scarf back just a little, maybe.

6. Similar to 5, but with the twisted ends crossed instead of twisted around each other.

Beit Shmuel on Shulhan Arukh E"H 21:2

The Beit Shmuel was written by Rabbi Shmuel ben Uri Shraga Phoebus, a Polish rabbi, and was first published in 1689, with a much edited second edition in 1694.  The work comments on Shulhan Arukh Even Ha'Ezer, and 

  אחת פנויה: היינו אלמנה או גרושה אבל בתולה מותר ופריעת הראש בחצר ליכא אסור אלא 

משום צניעות ועיין ב"י וד"מ בסי' קט"ו ושם כתבתי בשם הסמ"ג והש"ג דאסור אפילו בחצר 

   "And also unmarried: This is a widow or a divorcee, but a virgin is permitted, and to go with an uncovered head in a courtyard is not forbidden except because of modesty... [ending with some citations, and a note that elsewhere, the author wrote that it was forbidden.  I need to look into this part more.]

In the shiur I went to on college on the topic of women's head-covering, they brought this source- but only the first phrase.  That makes the interpretation seem much simpler than the full length of the comment does, however short that may still be.  Never-married women may go with an uncovered head, the end.  But then the comment goes on, without actually designating another subject.  

However, it then talks about courtyards (space that is not quite public, but also not quite private)- a subject that makes sense only for married women, if going about truly in public (the context stated in the Shulhan Arukh) is permitted for unmarried women.  It makes no sense to require more covering in a less public place than in a more public one.  So this must have to do with married women.  

The question of modesty versus a marriage-related prohibition, which seems to be implied here, is rather confusing for me.  If it is immodest for women to go with uncovered heads, then why do you need to require it separately for married women?  I suppose this is an indication that mitzvot are one thing, and modesty, while also required, is so culturally influenced that you can't rely on it to stay steady.  So perhaps head-covering is more than a modesty-requirement that gets waived for the unmarried.  Or maybe not...  

In summary- this comment raises more questions for me than it provides answers.  

One Year Later: An Anniversary Post

It seems funny to be writing an anniversary post on a blog that's only been in existence for a few weeks, but today is my husband and my first anniversary, on the Hebrew calendar, and so I thought that I would reflect back on some snippets from the first journal entry I made about head covering after my marriage.

Having generally pushed over real decision-making about what I was doing with my head after the wedding, I'm now in experimentation land. There's a significant amount of fun involved, since I really enjoy creative things to do with a length of cloth. In many ways, I'm actually quite excited to experiment, and to play. It's one of those fasion-related things that actually interests me. (There have been some moments of effectively playing dress-up, in the last few months, if that says anything.) 

But dress-up is pretty different from "wear it out on the street, and have other people notice". I'm feeling quite tentative about that, especially since I'm still figuring out to what degree I'm covering out of principle, versus to what degree I'm covering because I like it, and of course, the flip side of "what I think is fine to show when I want to". So when people ask "so, is this what it'll be, now?", combined with gestures to my head- I don't really have an answer yet. 

 Oddly enough, a year later, I still haven't figured out how much of my covering is principle and how much because I like it.  That's some of the reason that I'm writing this blog.  In fact, I feel like I'm in very much the same place: I'm having a lot of fun with this, much more fun than I ever had doing my hair.  I love the incorporation of color and texture that working with fabric instead of hair brings, and also the ability to change the perception of the bulk and height of hair and head shape so easily.

There's all this complicated stuff going on, emotionally, about not wanting to seem too frum, or too whatever-the-social-opposite-is...

Emotionally, I feel a lot more settled, a year later.  I'm still occasionally uncomfortable with sending inaccurate signals, but it feels so right that I've adjusted to that.  I still think about that balance, especially for job interviews and when meeting people for the first time, but it isn't emotionally tricky, most of the time.

This gets more complicated considering my line of work, and H's impending matriculation at an Orthodox institution.

 The complications with my line of work have actually appeared, on occasion.  My husband's institution turns out to be more open to a wider variety of head covering practices than I expected.  When I go to programs for spouses, I often cover my head in a more thorough manner than most of the other women there.  (Some don't cover their head at all.  On the other hand, one wears a wig.)  It's almost funny.

Then there's the issue of what things I think look nice. And of course, what I can do and still get my tefillin on appropriately. 

I've found that tefillin go on over many more varieties of covering than I expected, with a little shimmying and adjustment.  As for what looks good- well, you're seeing my taste develop as we go.

It all leads to doing a lot of looking in the mirror and being a little confused. It's a real change in self-presentation, which I hadn't quite expected, after all the people who've seen me and presumed that I was married, for the last 6ish years. 

 I feel less confused at my own image: it has become quite a comfortable view, in the mirror.  While I see a very different face before and after I finish getting dressed and putting my hair up, I'm still very attached to covering, and also to keeping my hair rather unfashionably long, underneath it all.  I really enjoy the way I look, both ways.

In retrospect, it has been a year of significant exploration when it comes to my appearance and self-presentation.  Being able to show that I'm married in a really visible way has somehow come to mean quite a lot to me, I think without detracting from the value that head-covering has had for me in the past.  It has also become routine- a pleasant one, but also just a regular part of getting dressed in the morning.  There's only so much attention one can give to it on a constant basis.  The issue crops up, here and there, but it isn't always on my mind- even if it is on my mind more than it might be for some other folks.  We'll see what another year brings.

A Missed "Coming Out" Moment?

A friend once heard me describe the experience of acknowledging to my mikveh lady that I was a rabbi (and my relief when she was not disapproving), and called it coming out.   I'd never heard the term applied to anything other than telling someone about your sexual preferences before, but I'll take the broadening of the term.

The week before my wedding, I had a similar sort of experience with a mikveh lady- except that I botched it.  The particular mikveh lady who "did kallahs" (and was really very lovely, helpful, and everything you want a mikvah lady to be) in my hometown offered an hour-long shmooze sometime before the actual immersion.  During that time, while she was trying to inspire me about mikveh and offered me a chance to talk about last-minute questions and worries, I brought up that I would like to have a shmatta for my bracha- although I knew that customarily, brides didn't use one (contradicting my sense that such a covering is more kippah-like than marriage-linked, as I suggested in this previous post.)

I explained that I had grown up in a non-Orthodox community, and that women frequently covered their heads for prayer, and that, because of that, I didn't feel comfortable without covering my head when making blessings.  I didn't say that I was still "not Orthodox".  She saw that I came there with a small kerchief on my head, but I don't know what assumptions she made.  Something about it left me feeling a little bit dishonest, for all that I never quite lied- I just didn't tell all the truth.

It was a sort of obscuring of my identity that I could rarely do- and never when I wore an actual kippah.  Sometimes I longed for such a way to hide, when I didn't feel like explaining myself.  Now, I blend in as Orthodox all too easily.  Maybe that's why I now feel as if I oughtn't do so.  And yet, there's such a desire to hide...

What I Wore: Shabbat With Mom

My mother spent the weekend with us, so this Shabbat's pictures are courtesy of her photography.  So they'll be more artistic than I manage on my own, or even my husband's helpful photography- especially since she just gave me a beautiful hand mirror, and we decided to incorporate it into our little just-before-shabbat photo shoot.
First off, what is fast becoming my classic angle:

 And seen through a mirror (hopefully, not darkly):

 Here's the back view.  This is one rectangular scarf, tied first, containing my bun, with a decorated (by hand) triangular scarf on top.  Then I twisted the ends of the two scarves together, and criss-crossed them over my bun, to create a loose ponytail effect, showing off the extent of the rays of turquoise ribbon I'd sewn onto the scarf.

 Here's a (slightly fuzzy) view of some of what I was wearing with it, and the general gestalt.

And finally, a quick view, through the looking glass, of my photographer.

חלקת מחוקק: This is one source I can't transliterate

The Helkat Mehokek, R. Moshe Lima, (the link is to a Hebrew Wikipedia article, since there doesn't seem to be one in English yet), was born in 1604 in Poland, and died in 1658.  He served as a rabbi in Slonim, Vilna and Brisk.  Here's what he has to say about our favorite piece of Shulhan Arukh (i.e. Even HaEzer 21:2)

אחת פנויה ואחת אשת איש: פנויה בעולה קאמר, אבל בתולה אמרינן דיוצאה בהינומא וראשה פרועה, וכן הוא בב"ח ועיין במרדכי

Both an unmarried and a married woman (the citation from Shulhan Arukh): this means an unmarried woman who has had sex, but we say that a virgin may go out with only a hinuma and an uncovered head, and thus in the Bach, and see the Mordecai.  

What a hinuma is, I'm still working on.  According to Jastrow (p. 348, right column), it is either a curtained litter on which a virgin bride is carried or a slumbering couch.  This seems unlikely to be any sort of reality in 17th century Poland, so he must mean something else.  According to my pocket dictionary, it's a bridal veil.  Neither seem like regular clothing for anyone...  Even-Shoshan has the same two definitions, although expands the latter to any sort of face veil, as well.  Still, that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense with what I think I know of 1600s Poland- I don't think face-veiling was normative there.  I'm wondering if it isn't some sort of babushka for the outdoors, worn over loose hair.

Checking in the Arukh HaShalem sent me to the place where the Talmud discusses exactly this question (I seem to be in extremely good company): Ketubot 17b.  The two options given are, 1. a dome of myrtle branches, and 2. a veil she can doze in.  Rashi suggests that this second interpretation involves a scarf over her head that can hang down and cover her eyes, and says about it "as they do in our place".  I don't know if that's talking about young women in general, or about brides... (Also, Rashi lived several centuries before R. Lima, and in a different country.)

What I can tell is that head-covering for unmarried women is at the least less stringent than for married women, but there is some item that seems to be required for public places.  Any further insight into the identity of the hinuma in the view of Ashkenazi Acharonim (or anyone else, for that matter) would be welcomed...