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Thursday 25 July 2013

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What does Jewish law say about women and hair covering? The topic deserves attention, particularly in light of the renewed observance of this practice among resurgent Orthodoxy and the BaaleiTeshuva ("reborn" Jews). My interest in studying the historical and religious sources of the practice was evoked both by stimulating halakhic exchanges I came across in various Jewish publications, and by my own experiences within the Jewish community. Modern halakhic studies tend to concentrate on the dynamics of legal issues, but what are some of the social and historical aspects of this particular religious observance?
My endeavor focuses on discovering how the hair covering custom grew, developed, and eventually became institutionalized in Jewish life. In my study of the subject I hope to further elucidate the practice, since hair covering is not necessarily a matter of only halakhic interest, but, as I illustrate, is also subject to strong societal influences. I evaluate relevant biblical and Talmudic sources and their medieval and modern rabbinic interpreters from a historical and social point of view. Finally, I offer some suggestions for reinterpreting this practice in light of societal changes.
Historians and anthropologists show that hair has diverse socio-religious and symbolic value in many civilizations. My interest, however, will be to isolate the meanings hair has held specifically in Jewish civilization at different times in history. Nowhere does the Bible present an explicit command for women to cover their hair. Yet because women in the ancient Near East, as in later Greece and Rome, veiled themselves when they went outside, one can assume that the custom probably also existed in ancient Israel. However, the function and symbolic value of hair in the Bible had little to do with the way Jewish customs developed in later centuries. Early classical rabbinic literature, namely Talmud and Midrash, presents an entirely different approach to the problem of hair covering. At the time of the Talmud hair covering for women became a regular ritual matter. In the Talmud hair covering was not only a fashion or a custom, but was objectified as a rule and regulation for women to follow as a religious obligation. Later rabbinic literature of the Middle Ages further reinforced women's hair covering as an integral part of Jewish religious observance. Only in the modern period was the practice seriously challenged as it faded from general societal convention. In the western world, particularly in America where age-old traditions were frequently bucked, Jewish women questioned the validity of the practice and attempted to influence rabbis to rethink the onerous religious observance.
Woman's Hair in the BibleThe Bible presents hair as an ornament, enhancing the appearance of a woman. The attraction of a woman's hair is poetically expressed in the Song of Songs: 'Your hair is like a flock of goats from Gilead' (Song 6:5). However, hair may have been covered in biblical times, since there is some evidence that the unmarried girl, like her married counterpart, may have covered her hair. The Song of Songs reads: 'Your eyes are like doves behind your veil' (Song 4:1). The verse indicates that the maiden kept a veil over her hair, even though she appears to be unmarried. Similarly, the betrothed Rebecca demurely covers herself upon first sight of her intended husband (Gen 24:65). Because the evidence is sparse, we do not know precisely if, or how this custom of hair covering was observed.
With regards to hair, the Bible seems to indicate that cutting a woman's hair was a way to make a woman unattractive. The sole place in the Bible depicting a woman's hair being cut is in the laws of the captive woman (Deut 21:12). After a period of one month, during which time she was permitted to mourn her family, the captor might then claim her for his wife. The fact that her hair was shaved at the beginning of her captivity, whether as a sign of her subjugation or as a part of her mourning, may also indicate to what extent hair was considered an adornment to women. Some scholars have suggested that cutting her hair made the captive less attractive to her captor, perhaps even with the intent that over the course of the month his ardor would cool and he would eventually let her go.
This practice of cutting a woman's hair, which only pertained to captives during biblical times, later developed into a cultural distinctive for some Jewish women. The practice of shaving a woman's hair upon marriage, while not directly influenced by this biblical account, became prevalent in central Europe and especially Hungary in the early modern period. Under the influence no doubt of the dominant rabbinical scholar and traditionalist, Hatam Sofer (1762-1839), Jewish law required a woman to cut her hair after she wed. This shows that a fringe biblical practice that only pertained to foreign women was eventually converted into a normative religious ritual that pertained to observant Jewish women. What the Bible imposed as a sign of both subjugation and mourning was transformed by history thousands of years later into an expression of female immodesty Although many rabbis inveighed against the practice of cutting one's hair after marriage, this ritual nevertheless took hold in a number of communities.
In post-biblical Judaism, covering of the hair signaled a transition in the female life cycle, symbolizing the departure from maidenhood into womanhood.
Hair Covering: Law or Custom?
The approach taken by post-biblical interpreters has been influenced by how they have categorized the practice, whether as law (halakhah) or custom (minhag). Was hair covering a custom in the Talmudic period, or a halakhically-binding rule? What was the force and authority of custom in Judaism? Religious authorities have disputed the matter through the centuries. The categories have not always been clearly distinguishable, particularly since custom in Judaism often receives the force of law anyway. Jewish law could even be based upon custom. For example, legal rulings sometimes cited custom as a historical, authoritative precedent.
Custom is formulated by the practice of the people, not decreed from on high by authorities. Yet custom in Judaism, unlike law, functions without preconceived intent and anonymously. This means that there is a certain anarchist, populist tendency in the process. Discomfort with the undefined lines of authority inherent in custom led some rabbis to formulate the principle that all custom actually comes from earlier, forgotten law (i.e., rather than just from the people). This represents an effort to lend greater legitimacy to what already constituted usual practice.
Custom has a force and dynamic of its own. It is one of the ways in which religious practice develops and is reinterpreted over time. However, the development of custom is not entirely allowed a free reign. Sometimes a custom was deemed inappropriate, and religious authorities stepped in to fight against it. This seems to be what has happened both in the case of modern women choosing to wear wigs or choosing to uncover their hair, as will be discussed below.

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