"They honor the ban on showing their hair by wearing wigs? Is that like modestly concealing your breasts by covering them with fake breasts?"
In twenty five years in New York, passing Orthodox women on the street nearly every day, I had the same thought (well, not the part about it being like covering breasts with fake breasts, exactly -- that excellent analogy never occurred to me). True, there were a considerable number of AWFUL wigs being worn. More off-putting than a bad hat, I think; possibly the desired effect. But there were some wigs that, though I knew they were fake, were actually quite charming. Like a GOOD hat, or scarf.
I never could figure it out.
p.s.: Nice little envelope icons next to "About Ogged" (or "Unf" or "Bob") don't seem to reveal any e-mail addresses nor open any e-mail program, or this would have been a private note.
p.p.s.: There seems to be no address to which to send the cashier's checks, either.
[found you via balkanization]
Thanks for the message. I'm especially flattered about the envelopes, because they took me an hour to get just right--the idea was that hovering one's mouse over them would show the message "mail to name at domain dot com" but, apparently, it doesn't work for everyone.
I tried to call a religious friend after I posted to see if she could shed some light on the thinking behind demanding modesty, but allowing flattering wigs. I imagine that modesty, so understood, has to do with showing the self, rather than how that self looks, but I didn't get a hold of her, and it's much more fun to snark.
Makes me think of way back when, when I was a student at CCNY. I had an orthodox friend who was a bit of a rebel - she eloped (with an orthodox man). In my opinion, a mild form of rebellion, but I think her parents were less than pleased. (Then again, she was also outgoing enough to have lunch with single goyim, like me.)
One day, she was dressed too nicely for class, so I asked her what was up. She said that she had an interview with Bell Labs. Her outfit was fine, but the wig she was wearing was straight out of an "I Love Lucy" escapade. So took a risk and told her that she'd be better off covering her hair, like she usually did, rather than wear the fright wig. I don't remember if she got the job, but I'm pretty sure she got a second interview.
I also think that most of the women in Brooklyn's Orthodox community will do as they please anyway. I also suspect that the author of the piece is really talking about either Hasidim or really fringey-types. (Like my friend at CCNY.)
I don't see how wearing ugly wigs is anything but modest. Seems like they're following the spirit of the law to me. I though the point of such things was to appear less licentious and more modest so as not to aggravate the men folk. If that's the case they seem to be doing a good job.
bah, that last comment was by me.
It's always interesting to have an outside view. Despite having been raised Reform/nothing, and having always been, essentially, an atheist, I grew up in Brooklyn surrounded by Orthodox neighbors, and with a wig shop up around 13th on Avenue J. It never occurred to me to wonder about the modesty of wigs. (I sturdily avoid observations about what wigged me out; yes, indeed.)
I mean, frankly, admidst the whole picture, it's rather a tiny item. We could pick on what's wrong with shellfish, or mixing cotton and wool, if we're going all Leviticus.
This type of letter over spirit stuff is common. Some examples:
My fiance is Greek and during Lent (Nystia in Greek) everyone is supposed to refrain from eating meat, eggs, milk products, and oil. The spirit of it is to deny yourself earthly pleasures and eat simply, but some of the best Greek dishes, many of them far from simple fare, are prepared during Nystia, and I've met quite a few Greeks who consider it their favorite time of year, foodwise. (Plus for some reason it's okay to still eat octopus.)
On a similar note, in Chinese Buddhist monasteries often the monks' food is rich and elabeorate and designed to mimic various meat dishes, thereby adhering to the letter of not eating meat but not the spirit of living simply.
I'm told that Thai Buddhists consider killing animals wrong but have no problem eating meat. Apparently all the butchers are ethnic Chinese. Once the Chinese butchers kill an animal, why, it'd be a shame to waste it! There's something akin to this in parts of India, where butchers are among the lowest of castes but that doesn't stop many people from eating their wares.
It was fairly common for Muslim students at my university to observe Ramadan by sleeping all day so they wouldn't notice that they couldn't eat from sunup to sundown.
And I remember reading an article or debate once discussing whether a pig genetically engineered to not have cloven hooves could be considered kosher or halal.
When it comes to religious strictures, it seems that everyone's a lawyer . . .
Mitch - you should hear some of the debates I've heard over whether or not a microwave or a dishwasher can be rendered kosher for Passover. Or if it's OK to wash meat and dairy china in the same dishwasher, even if they're not washed at the same time.
When my best friends converted their adopted daughter to Judaism, it took the official witnessing of three Orthodox rabbis to do the deed. At the end of the ceremony, the held forth on how the conversion papers were more important than her adoption papers or her passport.
And watch our for the shabbat elevators! In hospitals with substantial Orthodox Jewish clientele (not necessarily religiously affiliated), such as in Brooklyn. Some of the Orthodox will not press an elevator button on the sabbath, since that's considered work. Ironically, walking up ten flights of stairs is not considered work. Of course, people visit loved ones in hospitals on sabbath, and the hospitals want to avoid heart attacks from too many flights of stairs. So they program one elevator to stop at every floor automatically, going up and down all day, so anyone can get where they want to go without pressing a button. Damn annoying if you don't know the custom and get in that one by accident.
Yup. Brookdale Hospital, where my mother was an all to frequent patient, had such an elevator. What a nuisance. (Amusingly, Brookdale was at one time called Beth-El Hospital. I'm not sure when the name changed.)
On the upside, because our Irish family name is similar to a fairly common Jewish surname, my secular mom benifited from regular visits from Hadassah volunteers and struck up a good relationship with the hospital's Rabbi. Given that it was hard for anyone to visit her during the day, this was a real godsend.
From "The Joys of Yiddish" by Leo Rosten:
"A photograph of each of my grandmothers shows them in shaytlin ["wigs" in Yiddish]; and if there was any doubt in my mind about how unbecoming a wig can be on a lady, that doubt was dispelled by the pictures."
You honor the ban on showing hair by showing something just ugly enough that no one will want to look at you (hence the quote in the story about "blending in."