[Avodah] Can a woman wear a wig if her mother did not?

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Jul 07, 2011 at 04:29:54PM +0000, Elazar M. Teitz wrote:
: It would not surprise me if failing to light candles the first Shabbos
: after giving birth was not a rarity, and the din mentions that missing
: a week calls for lighting an extra candle for life. Is it too far a
: stretch to assume that those places which adopted the hanhaga of an
: extra candle per child did so k'de lo l'vayeish those who missed, by
: making it the practice of everyone?

This raises an interesting issue bizman hazeh...

Now, that losing a child is a rarity, for those women who did, the weekly
reminder of a child lost can be painful. Far more so than when the loss
of a child was a sorrow shared among many.

Or, it could be a reassurance that a life was lived and didn't simply
vanish from the world like ch"v the child never was. It depends on the
woman and where her head is that week. But let's just look for a moment
at those for whom this is a source of pain most weeks...

If we did away with this hanhagah and every wife just lit two candles,
we spare those mothers the experience of starting Shabbos with heartbreak.

I heard RARakeffetR suggest this line of reasoning, and seeing my own
wife light that candle (or ask if one needs to when there is a "yahrzeit
candle" for the same child underneath the Shabbos licht), it resonates.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             When one truly looks at everyone's good side,
micha at aishdas.org        others come to love him very naturally, and
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Fax: (270) 514-1507                        - Rabbi AY Kook