[Avodah] Tnu `Eyneykhem Liyofi

[Jay F Shachter]

Our sister mailing list, Areivim, recently hosted an extensive
discussion about "Fashion-Conscious Orthodox Women Push[ing The]
Limits of Modest Dress".  The discussion began when someone cited a
newspaper article about a store in Crown Heights that claims to sell
women's clothing that is "sexy but still permitted by the laws of
modesty", or words to that effect.  The discussion lasted a long time,
but has subsided in the past seven days, which is good, because it may
allow me to have the last word.  The consensus on Areivim was that
Jewish women who wear skintight skin-colored pants are acting
improperly and the discussion was mostly about how strongly they
should be condemned (there was also some discussion about whether they
are aberrant outliers, or potentially dangerous trendsetters).  The
consensus is wrong.

A day or two days before my wedding, I met briefly with Rabbi _____
(you will know why I conceal his name, if you read my other writings)
when I returned to him a book on the laws of nidda that he had lent me
to read.  He told me a few things that he wanted to be sure I knew.
One of the things he said was "your wife will have to cover her hair
with a tikhl or a shaitl".  I challenged him on this halakha.  I did
not challenge him on the grounds that the law technically requires
this of a married woman only in the shuq (the marketplace, the public
square) and that it is permissible under the law, even for the mother
of a High Priest, for the four walls of her house to see her uncovered
hair, and that this is technically true even if she has guests in her
house.  That would have been a pedantic correction, since I had no
intention of violating the custom in this regard.  I challenged him on
other grounds.  "Rabbi _____", I said, "how can you find it acceptable
for a married woman to wear a wig in public?  She's covering her hair
with something that looks like hair."

Rabbi ______ did not attempt to give me an erudite reply (and it is
possible that he could not, because he is not an intellectual, even
though he is a prominent and influential poseq in Chicago).  He merely
said, "are you going to fault a woman for doing something permitted by
halakha?".

These wisely-spoken words made an impression on me.  I did not want to
be a condemnatory Jew, a Jew who finds fault with his fellow Jew as an
act of choice, a Jew who inculpates when he could as easily, or nearly
as easily, exculpate.  Our poor beleaguered nation is divided enough,
we do not need to fragment it any more, and if we do we are violating
Deuteronomy 14:1, we are cutting into our own flesh, v'eyn miqra yotse
miydey pshuto.  I discovered, that when I set out to find a limmud
zkhuth (justification, defense, apologia) for the women who cover
their hair with hair, I was able to fashion one, it was simply a
matter of making the effort, if someone tells you that he has labored
and has not found it, do not believe him.

The English poet D. H. Lawrence, in "New Heaven and Earth", wrote:

       It was the flank of my wife
       I touched with my hand, I clutched with my hand

These are powerful, stark, words, evocative of powerful feelings.  But
does a woman's leg feel all that different from a man's?  It does not.
Can you really tell the difference between a woman's leg and a man's?
You really cannot.  I am not talking about a woman who shaves her
legs, and I am not talking about a woman who sits on her tukhis all
day, so that her legs are flabby; I am talking about a woman who is
strong, healthy, and vigorous, a woman who spends her day running
after children, or carrying water from the well, or rambling over the
fields and gathering shells, and flowers, and medicinal weeds.

Let us perform a Gedankenexperiment, a thought-experiment.  First of
all, if you are a woman, imagine that you are a man.  Now imagine that
you are lying at night next to your beloved, the wife of your youth.
Imagine also that you are wearing noseplugs, or that garlic bread is
baking in your kitchen, or that for some other reason you lack the
olfactory information you would normally have in such a situation,
since a naked woman does smell different from a naked man.  You reach
out in the darkness and touch your wife's leg.  It is tremendously
erotic, and in an instant you are sexually aroused.  Then you find out
that the person next to you, the person whose leg you are caressing,
is not your wife, is, in fact, a man.  You are struck by a wave of
revulsion.  You immediately lose your erection -- you have never
before lost an erection so quickly, and you are surprised to discover
that it is physically possible -- and you may even be literally
nauseous, to the point of retching.  There is not a single reader on
this mailing list who doubts that that is exactly what would happen.
The erotic nature of our experience is not determined by our sense
impressions.  It is determined by the meaning we give to them.

Re-read those lines by D. H. Lawrence.  The point is not that it was a
flank; the point is that it was the flank of his wife, his beloved,
the woman for whom he left his father and his mother, to become one
flesh.  A few lines later, the poet writes:

    It was the flank of my wife
    whom I married years ago
    at whose side I have lain for over a thousand nights
    and all that previous while, she was I, she was I;
    I touched her, it was I who touched and I who was touched.

Their shared history, their shared life, is the context that gives
meaning to the sense impression.  In different contexts, the same
sense impression can be equally thrilling, or revolting.

At the end of the day, when your wife closes the door on the outside
world, lowers the windowshades, pulls shut the drapes, removes her
headscarf and undoes her long flowing hair, you are overwhelmed with
love for her.  Why?  It's only hair.  It doesn't look any different
from a man's hair.  Moreover, it is odd that hair should make you feel
loving toward her, because hair does not facilitate lovemaking.  Quite
the contrary, it impedes it.  The tickling and messy sensation of her
hair sticking to your lips and getting in your eyes will often cause
your concentration to be utterly broken, and your healthy lust turned
to towering rage.  If strands of her locks get into your nostrils, no
amount of willpower can prevent you from a fierce urge to grab her
head and rip the hair clean out of her skull.  Nevertheless, our Sages
have told us that a woman's hair is erotic, and they are right,
because when, at the end of the day, your wife lets down her hair, she
is making you special, she is showing you something that you know she
shows to no other man, and you love her for that.

Now we can find our limmud zkhuth for the married women who wear wigs
in public.  Yes, it's a wig, it looks like hair.  But that's
irrelevant.  The point is that you know that it is not her hair, you
know that it is a covering, that there is something underneath it that
you cannot see, because she is your neighbor's wife.  The sensory
impression means nothing in itself until it is given meaning by your
brain, and the meaning your brain gives to the married woman's wig is
entirely tsanua`.

It is the same with the woman who wears skintight skin-colored pants.
When a non-Jewish woman wears skintight skin-colored pants she is
signaling not only that she is sexually desirable, but also that she
is sexually available.  Not to everyone -- she is no harlot -- but to
Mr Right, who proves that he is Mr Right, she is sexually available,
and it is that signal that gives her clothing its erotic character.
When a daughter of Israel wears skintight skin-colored pants, the
message is different.  You know that she is not sexually available,
unless you marry her.  It is still erotic, but it is erotic in an
entirely different way, the message is one that a daughter of Israel
is permitted to give, she is saying "tnu `eyneykhem liyofi", and it is
completely proper for a daughter of Israel to say that.

If you are going to make a xilluq, a distinction, between the woman
who covers her hair with something that looks like hair, and the woman
who covers her skin with something that looks like skin, then you are
not thinking.  Instead of thinking, you are using your powers of
language to restate your prejudices -- literally prejudices,
conclusions that you have pre-judged, because you are accustomed to
them, or because they otherwise make you feel comfortable, instead of
subjecting them to the unbiased operation of your reason and your
intellect.

When women say "tnu `eyneykhem liyofi" they are reminding men of
something they need to be reminded about.  It is not just some wild
thing that our grandmothers used to do, it is a practice cited with
approval by the president of the Sanhedrin.  Jewish women have no
religious obligation to mate.  Jewish men have.  But there are many
Jewish men -- too many -- who are failing to fulfill their religious
obligation, who are discouraged, who are tired, who are not rousing
themselves to make the hundredth effort, and the hundred-and-first
effort, to get up and find the rib that they have lost.  Jewish women,
using articles every bit as holy as the brass basin in the Sanctuary,
are reminding those Jewish men what they are missing.

The unmarried men reading this may want to reply, "I don't need any
more reminders of what I am missing, my body gives me enough reminders
as it is, in fact, I would prefer to have the reminders be less
frequent, and less powerful".  But that is, empirically, untrue.  If
it were true, you would be married -- you would have paid the
opportunity costs, however high, of marrying now rather than later --
and you are not.  And that is why your future bride, together with the
other pure and holy daughters of Israel, goes to the vineyards, and
dances.  Her clothes are borrowed, but her person is her own, and can
be yours, if you want it enough.


                Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter
                6424 N Whipple St
                Chicago IL  60645-4111
                        (1-773)7613784
                        jay at m5.chicago.il.us
                        http://m5.chicago.il.us

		"The umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house"