[Avodah] More on Married Women Should Not Wear Wigs (Micha Berger)

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 09:16:31PM -0400, David Riceman wrote:
> (i) A man may not gaze at a woman he may not marry.
>
> (ii) A man may not gaze at someone or something which may later induce a  
> shichvas zera l'vattalah.
>
> (iii) A person may not look at something distracting while reciting  
> krias shma.
>
> (iv) A married woman may not go out "v'roshah parua".

Kol ishah also needs a place on your list. I also don't think it's clear
where you would put shoq be'ishah. Judging from context (Berakhos 24a)
it would appear that they are derivatives of (i), as the sugya begins
with "kol hamistaqeil be'etzba qetana". My argument requires assuming
that sei'ar, shoq and qol are dinim derabannan motivated by (i),
not instances. Otherwise, as soon as we got to the point that sei'ar
wasn't included in (iii) we would also have to exclude it from (i) --
its presence isn't likely to someone to histaqeil.

...
> The sugya in Berachos, as construed by the poskim, is confusing because  
> it talks about issurim (i) and (iii) without making the transition clear.

BH we have the AhS to point to, who clearly spells out this distinction.

> I think your problem is that you fail to distinguish between (i) and  
> (ii) (they are different simanim in EH).

I'm not sure how you get that, as I haven't mentioned (ii) at all. I
also think that you overstate it by linking (ii) to SZL rather than
also trying to prevent hirhurim that don't get that far.

I would have instead characterized the idea as saying that (iv) is based
on Sotah. The existence of this issur, and thus the norm that married
women's hair is covered, is what motivated a derabbanan linking sei'ar to
(i).

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of
micha at aishdas.org        greater vanity in others; it makes us vain,
http://www.aishdas.org   in fact, of our modesty.
Fax: (270) 514-1507              -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980)