Tzniut Meme from Abacaxi Mamao

Abacaxi Mamao tagged me with a meme. Here goes nothing.

1. Regarding sleeves, collars, and skirt-length/shorts/pants, do you dress the same way you did when you were five? Fifteen?

No. I don't seem to recall making so many decisions about clothes when I was 5. When I was 15, I either looked like I didn't care about my attire (mostly accurate) or I was knockout. Really. :)


2. If you dress differently now, why?

Stylistically, I want to look sophisticated and polished. That's a function of being no longer 15. What I cover is a due to a sense of halakhic obligation.


3. As a child, how, if at all, were you taught about tsniut in the home and/or school? What were the rules? How were they presented?

I wasn't taught about tzniut in any halakhic or social sense. It is not relevant in any way to my family. There was the idea that I shouldn't look like prostitute, but what exactly that meant was not explicitly stated. I pretty much wore what I wanted. I still have some great dresses, but they are too short and sleeveless to wear. They were cute, not improper.


4. How does your dress differ from your mother's in terms of tsniut (not, say, fashion sensibility)? From your grandmothers'? From your sister's or sisters'?

I am easily the most conservatively attired woman in my family. Halakha doesn't have any claim on my relatives. "Conservative" is situationally dependent; see the subsequent questions for elaboration.


5. Do you dress differently inside your home and outside your home, regardless of who is present?

Yes, but "who is present" is the key, not inside or outside my home. See the question after next.


6. Do you dress differently depending on where you are or what you're doing? Is this for halachic or social reasons?

Yes, for a mix of halakhic and social reasons. Here are a few examples that spring to mind:



• If I am attending an event with a known social/halakhic norm for women's attire, I will stick to that norm for the sake of social conformity (and not traumatizing anyone) even if I believe it is not halakhically required. (social)
  
• I don't wear pants to shul at all, or if I do they are under a skirt that comes to my knees or further. (halakhic)
  
• For shabbat and yom tov, I cover my elbows in shul, but wear short sleeves anywhere else. (social)
  
• I wear a skirt on a first (and usually on a second) date. (social)
  
• I cover my knees in front of men (halakhic)
  
• I cover my arms to halfway between my shoulder and elbow in front of men. (halakhic)
  



7. Do you dress differently if you are in a mixed (men and women) setting versus a women-only setting?

Yes. I cover my legs to my knees and arms to halfway between shoulder and elbow. In shul for shabbos or yom tov, I cover my elbows. If I wear pants, they should not be too tight. Neckline should be conservative. What "too tight" and "conservative" mean I have yet to understand explicitly, but it's in the category of "I know it when I see it".


8. How do you define tsniut as a halachic concept, either as it currently stands socially or in some halachic vacuum?

I believe that I am halakhically bound to cover my knees, arms to halfway between the shoulder and elbow. Conservative necklines, no tight pants. I also think the answer is murky enough that communities should chill out a bit on the whole tsniut thing.

(Guys, you also should be modest.)


9. If you had full freedom to rewrite halacha, what would you do with tsniut?

I would lay out all the laws explicitly, for men and women. I think the primary reason that halakhic tsniut is so often blurred with social norms is a lack of explicit discussion of what it is. I am not sure what those laws would say. I would definitely matir showing elbows for both sexes. Walking about in long sleeves in the summer strikes me as overkill. Note that I believe short sleeves are fine as it stands. The problem is the lack of universally agreed statement to that effect.


10. To what extent do your decisions about dress and/or head covering reflect:
    
    • social reality of your Jewish community? (i.e., wanting to fit in, or, alternatively, not wanting to fit in)
    
    
    • an immutable halachic code?
    
    
    • personal physical comfort?
    
    
    • feelings that people should focus more on your mind/actions than your body?
    
    

I try very hard to avoid doing stuff just to fit in. It erodes my sense of self. That said, the community influences my personal desires.

I do believe that I am halakhically required to cover my legs to the knees (if I am standing up a skirt should cover my knees) and arms to halfway between the shoulder and elbow. Necklines should be conservative and pants should be not tight. Within these requirements, I gravitate to comfortable clothing, but confess a weakness for high heels.

I think the argument that I should cover more rather than less of my body in order to reduce the tendency of men to objectify is a load of garbage. It just means I will be objectified for different things. If I wore skirts only I think that people would tend to classify me as "Orthodox" instead of "Modern Orthodox" or whatever bucket they toss me into now.


11. How would you rank the importance of following communal and/or halachic standards with regard to Shabbat, kashrut, and tsniut? (I'm not discussing nidah/negiah now, which is usually the third after Shabbat and kashrut.) Do they hold equal weight in your mind?


Let me generalize a bit about what makes halakha communally vs. individually important.

Mitzvot are of three types:

(1) Bein adam lemaqom (Between man and God) (Davening)
(2) Bein adam lechaveiro (Between man and his friend) (Honest weights, honoring parents)
(3) (1) and (2) combined (Kashrut, making a minyan)

For any mitzvah, or category of mitzvot, that falls in (2) or (3), it is extremely important for the individual to keep the more machmir (strict) of the absolute halakhic stance, or the communal stance. If A's mitzvah observance impacts B's mitzvah observance, it is absolutely incumbent on A to come up to B's standard. (Conversely, it is incumbent on B to try to be meiqel (lenient) where possible so as not to be overly demanding of A.)

For any mitzvah solidly in (1), I really don't care much for communal norms. After all, the mitzvah by definition doesn't involve anyone else! As such, I see that the following entities are qualified to comment on the execution of such a mitzvah: God, me, and anyone with valid semikhah whom I consult. Davening is a key example. When I daven, how often I daven, and what exactly I say or don't say is really between me and God. For a person to comment on or criticize a private moment between Hashem and me is the height of presumption, self-importance, and arrogance.

As such, communal standards are deeply important to me for kashrut. Keeping a kosher home means keeping a place that other people are comfortable eating, not keeping a home that relies on every technicality in the book. If I lived in a community in which the norm was to filter tap water, I would. If I lived in a community in which the norm was to be maqpid (concerned) on chalav yisrael (milk that has been monitored by a Jew from the moment it emerged from the cow) I would be maqpid on it even if I only ever served meat to any guests. It would simply not be fair to give people any reason to feel uncomfortable. My understanding is that halakhically cheese (in this country, with no added herbs or wine or anything) does not need a heksher. That said, I don't use or eat non-hekshered cheese because there is a communal norm not to do so, and that communal norm has basically acquired halakhic stature.

Some aspects of shabbat are communal, and for those, I try to be very very strict so I don't put anyone else in an awkward position. There are still a lot of things I don't know and every so often I am gently corrected. On the flip side, how I manage toilet paper on shabbat is really none of anyone else's business.

Due to the murky nature of halakha concerning tsniut, a lot of it is communal and very little is halakhic. Creating communal norms and using them in lieu of halakha (as opposed to a communal but machmir approach where there is halakha in place) creates nebulous expectations and opportunity for unfair judgment of an individual. I have had a person be skeptical of eating in my kitchen because I did not "look Orthodox".

I have yet to find or have someone point me to a source that explicitly says it's forbidden for women to wear pants. Gentlemen may wish to take note that אמר רב פפא שמע מינה מכנסים אסורים though I believe the Gemara finally concludes that men may wear loose pants. Given that tsniut seems like a mitzvah between me and God, not between me and some guy who is so turned on by my elbows that he is ogling me instead of looking at a daf or two, I consciously try to avoid a communal standard except to avoid causing someone real shock. As such, I wear pants/short sleeves specifically to avoid the communal norm, which I perceive as extra-halakhic.


12. How important is the idea of "בגד איש" to you in determining your dress?

Very very important. This is the only d'oraita source we have for tsniut. I don't buy men's clothing. As far as pants go, women's pants are cut very differently from men's pants. Men's pants look bad on me. Women's pants look fine.


13. How important are the ideas of "שוק באשה ערוה" and "טפח באשה ערוה" (see Brachot 24a) to you in determining your dress?

The former is the reason that cover my legs to the knees or further, and the reason I don't wear pants to shul. The latter is the reason I cover my arms to halfway between the shoulder and elbow. This reasoning is a little shaky. The gemara is talking about these things in the context of a man saying shema. On the public streets, it could be that anything goes!

[Okay, to my delight there is an Artscroll copy of Berakhot in my apartment. This Gemara is much more specific to the situation in which a man is reciting shema than I remembered it, and potentially much less restrictive.]


א"ר יצחק טפח באשה ערוה למאי אילימא לאסתכולי בה והא א"ר ששת למה מנה הכתוב תכשיטין שבחוץ עם תכשיטין שבפנים לומר לך כל המסתכל באצבע קטנה של אשה כאילו מסתכל במקום התורף אלא באשתו ולק"ש


(With thanks to Artscroll)

R. Yitzchak said "A tefach of a woman is nakedness". With regards to [what does a tefach constitute nakedness]? If you say it is in regards to [the prohibition] of staring at her, this cannot be, since Rav Sheishet said: "Why did Scripture list the outer jewelry together with the inner jewelry? To teach you that even one who stares at a woman's little finger is like one who stares at the place of her nakedness." Rather, R. Yitzchak's statement is in reference to one's wife and the recital of shema."

The Gemara goes on to say that the thigh, voice, and hair of a woman are all nakedness. However, it does so after it explicitly states that it's discussion pertains specifically to the case of a man reciting shema in front of his wife.

Orach Chaim 75:1 requires that a man not recite shema in front of any woman ,even his wife, who has even a tefach of something that would normally covered is visible. (The Rama says specifically his wife). The Mishnah Berurah weighs in on what is "normally" covered. I don't have time to translate it all now, but the upshot appears to be that (1) he is machmir (2) it is dependent on minhag hamakom (3) Knees should be covered. (I'd like to get to a full translation, but it's unlikely I'll do so soon.)

Last but not least, in all of these sources tsniut is couched as issur on the man, not on the woman. To be sure, women are obligated in וְלִפְנֵי עִוֵּר, לֹא תִתֵּן מִכְשֹׁל (don't put a stumbling block before the blind) but that doesn't mitigate individual responsibility for halakhic compliance.


14. If you are married or otherwise in an exclusive relationship, to what extent does your partner influence your dress decisions, tsniut-related or otherwise?

I would want to look nice for the other person.


15. If you are dating, to what extent does your date influence your dress decisions, tsniut-related or otherwise?

I like to look nice for the person I date. On early dates, I typically wear a skirt and not pants. Other than that, I am pretty ambivalent on the day-to-day choice of skirt vs. pants, so I try to take the other person's aesthetic preferences into account.


16. How, if at all, do your feelings about your body influence the way you dress?

Not much, if at all. I don't think I look like anything special, or all that bad either.


17. Do you enjoy buying clothing for yourself?

I hate shopping. A lot. I like having nice and flattering clothes, so I go through the ordeal of shopping sometimes.


18. Do you think that looking attractive and being tsniusdic (either halachically or socially defined) are mutually exclusive or mutually inclusive? Do you think that looking sexy and being tsniusdic (either halachically or socially defined) are mutually inclusive or mutually exclusive?

There is a definite intersection. This is why I will modify my attire given a significant other's aesthetic preference. And let's face it, the vast majority of people who might interest me have been socially conditioned to like tsniusdic attire. There's a part of me that feels devastatingly attractive dressed "secular", i.e. in fitted (not tight) pants and an attractive top, or a short, sleeveless dress. Every so often, when I am alone, I put on such a dress and feel devastatingly attractive in it.


19. What, if any, do you feel are positive results of tsniut? What, if any, do you feel are negative results?

I don't know that I would state any positive or negative effects. I try to keep the impact very much halakhic, and as such a little void of emotion.

Math Problem

From a blog whose name I have now forgotten, a math problem from a shabbos table:

Show that if p is a prime greater than or equal to 7 then p^4 - 1 is divisible by 240.

If p is a prime >= 7, then p is odd, therefore p = 2k+ 1 for some integer k >= 3. Thus,

p^4 - 1 = (p + 1)(p - 1)(p^2 + 1)
= (2k + 2)(2k)(4k^2 + 4k + 2)
= 8(k + 1)(k)(2k^2 + 2k + 1)

Since 240 = 8 * 2 * 3 * 5, it is now (necessary and) sufficient to show that (k + 1)(k)(2k^2 + 2k + 1) is divisible by 2 * 3 * 5.

(1) (k + 1)(k)(2k^2 + 2k + 1) is divisible by 2 since either k is even or k + 1 is even.

(2) (k + 1)(k)(2k^2 + 2k + 1) is divisible by 3 since one of

(a) k mod 3 = 0
(b) k mod 3 = 2 so that k + 1 mod 3 = 0

k mod 3 = 1 is impossible since if so then p = 2*(3m + 1) + 1 = 6m + 3 for some positive integer m and then p is not prime, contradicting our assumption.

(3) (k + 1)(k)(2k^2 + 2k + 1) is divisible by 5 since one of

(a) k mod 5 = 0
(b) k mod 5 = 4 so that k + 1 mod 5 = 0
(c) k mod 5 = 1, 2 or 3, so that 2k^2 + 2k + 1 mod 5 = 0.

Ta da! I'm sure there are more elegant solutions out there; feel free to offer one.