[Avodah] Why Jewish Women should NOT wear a Burka (or equivalent)

[Michael Makovi]

> why wearing a Burka (or equivalent) is NOT appropriate for a Jewish woman.
>
>Chukot HaGoyim

We shouldn't be looking to Muslims for how to follow mitzvot. Of
course, they can have a novel insight into something (there is a blog
on Rabbi Student that no Torah amongst the gentiles means only that
they don't have a complete Torah lifestyle and weltanschauung, not
that they can't have an occasional chiddush on Tanach), and they might
keep a certain mitzvah better than we do (Damah the gentile honoring
his father in an exemplary manner); if so, we should listen to the
gentiles in this.

But we shouldn't be copying them just to be "holier than thou" and
show that Jews are better at practicing pseudo-holy shtiut garbage
than the Muslims. This burka practice is against Torah tzniut, and so
there's no merit in showing the Muslims that we are as good as them at
shtiut. It only shows that we are as good as them in misplaced
religious fundamentalism and sexual discrimination.

I'm not quite sure this is chukat goyim, because that refers (as far
as I know) to our imitating an irrational practice of theirs for the
purpose of being like them or going with the flow or being "modern"
and "up-to-date", or the like. Here, the burka is quite rational: viz.
tzniut. Rather than being irrational, the practice is misplaced and
ill-conceived. It's certainly not an idolatrous or pagan practice.
It's simply stupid, that's all. Not to mention anti-Torah.

Mikha'el Makovi