[Avodah] Is Body Paint Halakhically Clothing?

[Micha Berger]

I fail to see the question.

The only reason why the video is of interest is that it taps into
prurient thoughts. Intentionally causing these kinds of hirhurim is
assur, regardless of whether deft camera placement avoids actually
showing ervah. The camera trick is kind of like "I'll bet you $5 you
can't avoid thinking about pink elephants for the next 10 seconds." The
topic is raised, and therefore the thoughts are generated.

BTW, without it being a flat picture, stereo vision means that paint will
OBVIOUSLY not be clothes. (For those of you with decent stereo vision.)

I was toying with the idea of piquach nefesh -- people do tend to
otherwise ignore the flight video, and one might argue that this is
an attempt that could well save lives. However, if the trick is a
distraction, how much is added beyond what people remember from any
previous flights? I would say that lemaaseh, the hatzalos nefashos effect
is negligable, and could be better obtained in mutar ways.


On a different note WRT "the topic is raised"... I think that a
Hirschian explanation of tum'ah would naturally explain why parah adumah
is metamei es hatehorim.

Leshitaso, tum'ah is defined by:

    A dead human body tends to bring home to one's mind a fact which
    is able to give support to that pernicious misconception which is
    called tum'ah. For, in fact, there lies before us actual evidence
    that Man must -- willy-nilly -- submit to the power of physical
    forces. That in this corpse that lies before us, it is not the
    real human being, that the real human being, the actual Man, which
    the powers of physical force can not touch, had departed from here
    before the body -- merely its earthly envelope -- could fall under
    the withering law of earthly Nature; more, that as long as the real
    Man, with his free-willed self-determining G-dly nature was present
    in the body, the body itself was freed from forced obedience to the
    purely physical demands, and was elevated into the sphere of moral
    freedom in all its powers of action and also of enjoyment, when the
    free-willed ruling of the higher part of Man decided to achieve the
    moral mission of his life;
				- Commentary on Lev. 11:47

R. SR Hirsch portrays the tamei object as one that causes the illusion
that man is nothing more than a physical object, an animal, a helpless
subject to physical forces and physical desires. In reality,
    death only begins with death, but that in life, thinking striving and
    accomplishing Man can master, rule, and use even his own sensuous body
    with all its all its innate forces, urges, and powers, with G-d-like
    free self-decision, within the limits of, and for accomplishment of,
    the duties set by the laws of morality; ...

I would therefore suggest that for someone already dwelling on his
physical nature and being a victim of his hormones, his mortality,
and everything else living in a body causes, the parah adumah helps him
resolve the topic. (See RSRH at the beginning of Chuqas for how he
believes that works. My previously mentioned discomfort with finding
meaning through symbols applies.
<http://nishmablog.blogspot.com/2009/06/reflections-upon-nishma-intellectual.html>
a/k/a <http://tinyurl.com/kpo4lx>, already discussed here.)

However, for someone not currently dwelling on the problem, it needlessly
raises it. Thus, metamei es hatehorim.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Like a bird, man can reach undreamed-of
micha at aishdas.org        heights as long as he works his wings.
http://www.aishdas.org   But if he relaxes them for but one minute,
Fax: (270) 514-1507      he plummets downward.   - Rav Yisrael Salanter