[Avodah] Glasses look to keep women out of sight

[Chana Luntz]

[Quotes were taken from an Areivim conversation. -micha]

RDB commenting on:
>> I dont understand your statement "the hetter to walk in the street".
>> Since when do we have or 
>> need a hetter to walk in the street. Is there some mitzva to stay
>> locked up at home that requires us to obtain a hetter to walk in the street

Answers:
> I mean when there is peritzus in the street, which I assume the glasses 
> are a reaction to. Otherwise, of course there is no issue.

I confess I agree with RDB here.  

In terms of the heter to walk the streets, this is all based on a gemora
in Baba Basra 57b:

Yeshayahu 33:15 "and he turns his eyes from seeing evil" Rav Chiya bar
Abba said: This is one who does not stare at the women at the time
that they stand at the wash. What is the case? If there is another
way, he is an evil doer. If there is not another way, he is coerced.
Actually this is a case where there is not another way, and even so he
should force himself. And the Rashbam comments there:

That he does not stare: - when he goes along the edge of the river; What
is the case: - that he is praised if he averts his eyes which implies
that if he does not avert his eyes he is not a tzadik and not a rasha.
If there is another way: - and he can go that way; He is an evil doer: -
even though he averts his eyes since he should not draw close but rather
distance himself from an averah as is established in Chullin 44b distance
from unseemliness; He is coerced:- if he stares by way of his going since
Hashem exempts those who are coerced, and why does the Torah require him
to avert his eyes that the Torah praises him in gazing that he needs to
avert his eyes To force himself: - to turn aside his eyes to the other
side and this is what the Torah is praising that if he forces himself
he is a chassid.

Ie, if a man needs, in his going, to go past sights that are inherently
problematic for him then indeed he needs to have the defence of
necessity in his going (ie a heter), and not go that way if there are
other realistic alternatives (which would include staying locked up at
home).- the Rashbam makes clear earlier that the problem with going past
women doing the washing in the river is that they need to reveal "shok"
- which of course gets us into the discussion about what the shok is,
but the shok is clearly on the list of those parts of a woman's body
that defined in Brochos as ervah.

Thus indeed I think that blurry glasses are a *much* better solution than
burkas (if one wants to be extreme) or the meah shearim requirements
for what they consider tznius dress (especially where it differs from
others, who hold by different standards). What using the glasses does
is firmly put the responsibility back on the person whose fundamental
responsibility it is, namely the man. So that, if the man holds that he
cannot look at woman who is wearing less than so and so denier tights
(or whatever else is his standard), instead of requiring her to wear
those (which is the current solution heavily promulgated), this way he
restricts his own vision, leaving her free to follow her own halachic
(or non halachic) position, which becomes her responsibility, not his.

As I have also pointed out before, although the gemora and the halacha
does *allow* a Jewish woman to demand the right to do her washing in
a joint courtyard, so she does not have to expose herself in public
by revealing her shok if she does not want to, it does not *require*
a Jewish woman not to do the washing by the river, and indeed all the
commentators note that the minhag of bnos Yisroel is to do the wash by
the river, despite it necessitating the revealing of the shok in full
public view. Rather the gemora quoted above and the halacha make it
clear that it is for the man to make appropriate arrangements to avoid
the situation to the extent possible.

If anything therefore, I think they should take down the signs in meah
shearim demanding women dress to their standards, and use these glasses
instead as a solution much more consonant with the gemora and the halacha.

Regards

Chana