[Avodah] Kol kevudah: a woman's place is in the home

[rabbirichwolpoe at gmail.com]

Rn Chana:
> It seems to me that a similar thing is going on here. The issue for the
> Rambam was that modest women of his time and place (amongst the Muslim
> in Spain and Egypt) did not go out (in fact one of the striking things
> we saw when we visited Malta last year was the enclosed balconies, which
> were built under Muslim influence so that their women could sit outside
> and see but not be seen). But it would not have been appropriate to ban
> something just because the Muslim women did it, if there was no asmachta
> to rely on from our sources, but if it could be considered something
> with some roots in our sources, then it is acceptable to expect Jewish
> women to act similarly and not breach the boundries.

Begs the question from whom did the Moslems learn Tzniut?

If one presupposes that:
Given Moslems learned rules of tzniut in Mosques from Jewish Practice
within shuls
Therefore the prevailing minhag was already established amongst Jews to
have these standards of tzniut!

Of course, one canargue that:
without a firm Halachic Foundation, such a minhag could evolve w/o
breaching normative Halachah.

One also might argue that such standards of tzniut of Pre-Moslem Jewry
was merely cultural and NOT halachic! Personally, I would find that a
big dochaq to say that.

KT
RRW
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