How should an Orthodox married woman cover her hair? That is a dispute among the Poskim. Some say every strand must be covered and a wig cannot be used. Others say a wig can be used as long as it covers all the hair. Still others allow some hair to be shown as long as most of it is covered. Why these differences? The answer is based on how it affects men. Or more precisely how Poskim perceive that it affects men. There is a variety of opinion about that among the Poskim. And therein lies the controversy. Which has most recently been demonstrated at a gathering in Lakewood (which was addressed by “The Rosh Yeshiva and the Mashgiach”). And the calling posts (robocalls). One announcing it and another commenting afterwards.
Here are the issues as discussed by Eliyahu Fink on his blog:
Apparently, the rabbis suggested that the teachers of Lakewood shorten their wigs to make them look less alluring…
Rabbis are instructing women to cut their $2000 wigs. The wigs are expensive because they look nice. So the rabbis say that the women should chop the hair that won’t grow back on their costly wigs which look nice so that the women won’t look as pretty
A robocall congratulated the women who attended the (gathering) for cutting their wigs to a shorter length. The voice announced that because of the great merit of the righteous women who shortened their wigs to the new appropriate lengths there were (Baruch Hashem) no Hatzalah (local ambulance corp) calls in the entire Lakewood. This is truly historic as it was the first time ever that there were no Hatzalah calls for a few days…
(But the problem is that) there were Hatzalah calls in Lakewood this week. Several calls in fact. Some of them were rather serious too.
Rabbi Fink and many others were appalled by this for two reasons. One is the very demand that women are asked to not to look too good. That’s right. A woman may not look too beautiful lest she sexually arouse men. A wig that is too long is deemed sexually arousing.
In my view, these men are paying much too much attention to women. I guess if you live in a bubble like Lakewood something like a long haired wig can turn a man on. But for those of us who live in the real world, wigs are not a turn on. A beautiful woman that is dressed modestly by American conservative modesty standards will not turn on a man in America even if she doesn’t cover her hair at all. That is even true in Jewish law. Because Jewish law allows beautiful Jewish woman that are not married to not cover their hair at all.
I strongly protest the message that a Jewish woman is not allowed to look beautiful within the letter of Halacha in this country. Of course she can. In fact she must. It might even be a Chilul HaShem for a religious Jewish woman not to look her best in public. What isn’t permitted is for her to look sexy in public.
Now I’m sure that the retort to that would be: We are not asking women to be ugly. We are just asking them to not be too beautiful.
Really? Where do we draw the line? There are some very beautiful women in the world with short hair that are quite ‘alluring’. The physical beauty of anyone is based on their total appearance. It is not reserved only for wig length.
What makes this even worse is the complete lie these organizing Kanaoim told in order to encourage women to look ugly. Telling them they saved lives by doing it when this was shown to be false, undermines any credibility they might have had for their cause. People with a righteous cause do not have to lie to make their point. In fact truly righteous people do not lie at all in order to get their way.
