[Avodah] Why Jewish Women should NOT wear a Burka

[chana at kolsassoon.org.uk]

RKM Wrote

>: I doubt that the word tzeni'ut has two meanings...

And RMB then wrote:

>However, the word tzeni'us WRT covering ervah is used in teshuvos. 
Even
>when speaking of how one comports oneself as alone. One isn't drawing
>the attention of the beams of one's home. So, while this is a derived
>rather than the original and mishnaic usage of the term, I didn't 
simply
>dismiss it.

Well I am not sure of the Mishnaic use of the term, but certainly by 
the time of Rava, we seem to have an alternative usage.  Think of 
Rava's usage of the term the tzni'os, in contrast to the pritzos, in 
Kesubos 2b-3a.  In that context we are discussing a situation where a 
husband is prevented by ones (or not) from coming back and fulfilling 
his tnai in the get.  And the worry is that the tznios will be 
concerned that in fact there is no get when in fact there is, and will 
therefore not remarry (while in contrast the worry is that pritzos will 
decide there is a get when in fact there is not, and will remarry).  In 
this context it has nothing to do with clothing and covering up, or 
attention getting, but it does have to do with being (overly) choshesh 
for a dvar erva.

In fact, are you sure that you have matters the right way around?  Can 
you give me an example where tznius is used vis a vis women in Mishnaic 
Hebrew to mean not attention seeking as distinct from about covering or 
being concerned with a dvar erva?  Of course there is tzanua l'leches 
in the Tanach - but where is that carried through into Mishnaic Hebrew 
vis a vis women?  Is it possible that you are imposing RHS's (and other 
modern) understandings of women's roles via the concept of tzanua 
laleches back onto Chazal, rather than the other way around?  it 
reminds me of this whole debate regarding perfumes and cosmetics and 
jewelry and the like, where there appears to be a modern attempt to 
suggest that such things are not tzniusdik - despite the importance 
that Chazal clearly gave to such matters (I had - well half a letter 
published in the Jewish Tribune the other day on this - they chopped 
out my final paragraph that brought the sources on eye makeup 
specifically, but they did publish enough of my sources to get the 
message across - although to my amusement and my husband's outrage they 
decided to publish it as "name and address supplied" - I don't know if 
that is because they didn't believe it was written by (Mrs) C Sassoon 
or they didn't want to admit that it was)

>-Micha

Regards

Chana



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