One Long Week

This has been a very busy week here, chez howtocover.  We came back from that wedding on Sunday by bus, which got us home around 3:30am.  While we went back to sleep after, it made for a tired sort of beginning of the week.  It was followed by: 2 nights this week that included night seder at the yeshiva until 9pm, cleaning out our last things (and some dirt/mess) from our old apartment so that we're finally done moving, and hosting a sheva brachot meal last night for our friends who got married at that wedding that started the week off.  It also involved 2 sets of pre-employment errands: a drug screen and a pre-employment physical.

This means that a. my blog posts have been a little scanty, and that b. today, my head covering is about as simple as it gets.  Here's proof that I don't always do something creative on my head.

There are times where I like the idea that a head covering can be a crown (as proven by how I do my head up for weddings and such events), and then there are times when what I want is "just a covering".  Today, which involved a physical, including a blood draw to check my immunizations (this usually makes me pretty anxious- but the NP who did my physical was amazing, and I even went into it maintaining my calm much better than I have in the past- maybe I'm growing up), was a "just a covering" day- just something easy that made me feel comfortable and like myself.

Wedding Wear

Finally, what I wore for the wedding we went to on Sunday.  The "pin a necklace on your head" trick for dressing things up worked beautifully.  (The necklace was a gift from my mother- possibly a tag sale find.)  This time, I bobby-pinned it both behind the ears (at the ends of the necklace) and in front of the ears, which provided really solid security.  The "crown" part of my scarf came off a few times during the dancing- but the necklace stayed in place.  (At the previous wedding this summer, I didn't put in the extra pins, partially because that necklace wasn't ammenable to such pinning, and it came off a few times.)

We're going to another wedding next Thursday night- we'll see what I can come up with for that one.

A Good Read

A friend shared this blog post with me, and I think it's too good not to share with you, right now.  Read it- it's interesting and an easy read.
http://www.native-born.com/weblog/2012/8/14/covered-heads.html

In Lieu of Wedding Photos

I haven't uploaded the photos of my head covering from yesterday's wedding yet (much less tried to find photos and get permission to show you some of the other exciting head coverings from that wedding), so here's today's tichel, and a promise that this one was praised in person, and, I think, worth a short wait.

I find it interesting to interact with other people around my head coverings.  Is a "thank you" all I should say in response to praise, or is it worth mentioning this blog, or adding a comment about how much fun I find it, or something about its significance?  I tend to gush, then to feel awkward about it after the encounter.  As usual, no one answer is the "right" answer- but I look forward to developing a better sense for feeling out good ways of responding in each new situation.

What is a Shterntikhl? Historical Head Coverings, Part 1

We're off to a wedding this afternoon.  In honor of it, I thought I'd share this piece about fancy head coverings from the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe.

The fanciest headdress of Polish Jewish women was the shterntikhl and its variation inLithuania known as the binda. Worn only on special occasions, this was an expensive article, decorated with precious stones that emphasized the owner’s status. It was first used during the late eighteenth century and became popular in the nineteenth; some families possessed one (though it was no longer worn) until the interwar period. Yisroel Aksenfeld’s short novel Dos shterntikhl (1862) notes that “on Simḥat Torah, when wealthy women go to kiss the Torah, they wear shterntikhlekh.” The shterntikhl was composed of two bands with precious stones and pearls sewn onto them, encircling the head. Both bands were stiff and sewn above the forehead. The upper part was usually simple and formed a diadem, while the lower part, with a zigzag edge, encircled the face closely and reached beyond the ears. Long earrings accompanied this type of headdress. A more modest version was worn as late as the early twentieth century—a stiff diadem placed over the forehead. This was a band of material lavishly decorated with embroidery and pearls, which used ribbons to tie it in the back. 

From http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Dress (If you check out the link, there's a great picture of a shterntikhl- it's the first picture in the entry.)

The  article describes a variety of different sorts of head coverings from different eras, and for different occasions.  I look forward to sharing some more snippets from this article, as well as finding some more information to share about the way that some of our ancestors dressed.  This one certainly seems festive, and involves less fuss (but also less creativity) than what I will put together for a head covering, when going to a wedding...

Ornamentation or Overkill?

What do you think of the flower?  A nice ornament, or overkill/too busy?  I wasn't feeling very decisive.  The skirt I'm wearing is dark red with orange designs.

Hot and Cold

Here's a quick pic (taken at my husband's school, where we're doing a summer program- I'm starting this post before the day starts), of what I did for a hot day that I'm going to be spending in a highly air conditioned yeshiva.  The idea is that the base is a very light-weight (Israeli in origin) tichel, with another one around it as a decoration that can be either removed (as I had to to daven this morning- it and my tfillin clashed pretty impressively), or pulled over my ears, when/if I get cold.  

 Not the most amazing photos, but they work, right?  I had to slouch down to avoid having the photo dominated by the ceiling lights.  On the other hand, you can see a little more of the outfit I'm matching to.

Sowing Seeds

One of the women in the summer learning program I'm doing right now was in another such program (at a different institution) with me a number of years ago- the summer after year 1 of rabbinical school.  We hadn't been chevrusas normally, but learned together for a few days, when each of our usual chevrutas had been away.

At the time, I'd been wearing a lot of folded scarves as headbands, as my covering of choice.  I remember (now that she reminded me) talking about it together.

It turns out that she found the idea inspiring, and gave it a try- and has now been wearing a headband most of the time for some significant length of time.

I find the notion pretty exciting and inspiring myself- I love this practice, but never thought that simply talking about and explaining it might actually inspire anyone else to give it a try, much less for it to "stick" for them.

Surprise Mishnah

Unexpectedly, I came across a Mishnah with some relevance to our topic at hand yesterday.  Here it is (Baba Kama, chapter 8, mishnah 6):

התוקע לחברו, נותן לו סלע; רבי יהודה אומר משום רבי יוסי הגלילי, מנה.  סטרו, נותן לו מאתיים זוז.  לאחר ידו, נותן לו ארבע מאות זוז.  צרם באוזנו, תלש בשערו, רקק והגיע בו הרוק, העביר טליתו ממנו, ופרע ראשה של אישה--נותן ארבע מאות זוז.  הכול לפי כבודו.  אמר רבי עקיבה, אפילו עניים שבישראל--רואין אותן כאילו הן בני חורין שירדו מנכסיהן, שהן בני אברהם יצחק ויעקוב.  מעשה באחד שפרע ראשה של אישה, ובאת לפני רבי עקיבה, וחייבו ליתן לה ארבע מאות זוז.  אמר לו, רבי, תן לי זמן, ונתן לו.  שימרה עומדת על פתח חצרה, ושיבר את הפך לפניה, ובו איסר שמן; וגלתה את ראשה, והייתה מטפחת ומנחת על ראשה.  והעמיד לה עדים, ובא לפני רבי עקיבה; אמר לו, רבי, לזו אני נותן ארבע מאות זוז.  אמר לו, לא אמרת כלום:  שהחובל בעצמו--אף על פי שאינו רשאי, פטור; ואחרים שחבלו בו, חייבין.  הקוצץ את נטיעותיו--אף על פי שאינו רשאי, פטור; ואחרים שקצצו את נטיעותיו, חייבין.

It's not the most clear of mishnayot, and it's late at night, so for now, I'll stick to translating the relevant pieces...  The context is laws pertaining to personal injury.  Until this point, we have considered payments/fines for hitting another person in various ways, and considered ways in which aspects of a person's status may or may not affect those payments.  

"If he punched his nose, pulled his hair, spit and the spit hit him, pulled his garment off of him, or bared a woman's head in the marketplace- he must give 400 zuz.  Everything is according to a person's honor.  Rabbi Akiva said: even the poorest person in Israel, we should see him as if he were a free person who had lost his possessions.  A story about someone who bared a woman's head in the marketplace, and came before Rabbi Akiva, and he [Rabbi Akiva] obligated him to give her the 400 zuz.  He said to him, "Rabbi, give me time", and he agreed.  He found her standing at the entry to her courtyard, and broke a container before her, and there was an isar [a small amount] of oil in it.  She revealed her head, and soaked up the oil, and put it on her head.  He establishes witnesses, and came before Rabbi Akiva, and said to him, "Rabbi- for this one should I give 400 zuz?"  He said, "You haven't said anything, because one who injures themself, even though it is not permitted, it is not punished, but others who injure them, are liable."  

This mishnah gives us a good sociological picture of how head-covering was viewed in mishnaic era society.  Removing a head covering is like removing a piece of clothing- offensive if someone else does it, and for yourself- prohibited but still sometimes done.  It presents the practice as completely normative, and even as something legally protected.  It does not, on the other hand, have any input on who this woman is or her status, the degree of covering we're talking about, or any of our other on-going questions.  

It also presents head-covering in a different halakhic framework (nezikin- damages/civil law) from what we have seen so far.  

Busy Day "Do"

Here are some quick shots of today's head covering.  Besides being a quick and easy option, with a little bit of excitement, it was also what I wore as a Conservative rabbi at the "Modern Orthodox Siyum HaShas" (not that I've done daf yomi).  

 I was thinking, this morning- maybe we should do a photo series, of women with various head coverings with tallit/tfillin?  I know this blog isn't only supposed to be about that, but since I've written about it once, it seems like a valuable thing to show the world.  Any opinions?  Volunteers?

Also, I wonder- I also intended to use this blog to show kippot that I've made, and the like, and yet I don't seem to do so.  Perhaps I should start putting them here as well as on ravelry.  I don't know.  It might be a nice change from just pictures of me in scarves all the time.