Kisui Rosh Series Part 2 with Laurie Novick- June 30

feel a special maybe we'll put them on the chair near you so that if people want you can get um I feel a very special sense of halal and hodah tonight the meanings that could be found in head covering and we also talked about the who of head covering right who needs to cover her head um I want to do a drop more on who just to to to to kind of like uh dot the eyes and cross the tees on the who question but really what we need to spend the bulk of our time with tonight are the questions of how and where okay and we're going to do our best to cover those uh as much as we can with the with the time we have. So just in terms of uh dotting the eyes and crossing the tees, we talked last time about how fundamentally laa a woman who is widowed or divorced is supposed to be covering her head but there can be room for um for leniency in certain situations. in particular cases of financial duress or cases where it would get in her way of being able to remarry and in some cases of of real emotional distress as well. I increasingly hear about Robonim who have permitted it in those cases. Um what something I didn't mention last time but I think it is important to mention is that when the postkim talk about why there's room for that leniency with a woman who is divorced or widowed what they cite and in particular the post I have in mind they're on the sheet but we're not going to look at them right now are um and Mosha Feinstein um both of them say that because we learn the hala of head covering the fundamental law of head covering from the case of the sot who was by definition married that we could argue that for a woman who has been married but is no longer married that her obligation is no longer on a Torah level and therefore even though we don't treat rabbitic law lightly there's more room there's more comfort in in in making allowances so for example we talked about raosha in terms of finances or dating raay And this is going to tie into something we'll discuss tonight. Rob Yose um ordinarily is not in favor of women wearing wigs. He permits a woman who is uh divorced or widowed to wear a wig to cover her head. So that's an example of how this can find expression in different ways. The second little subgroup of who that I just want to kind of finish off discussing is a kala, a bride. Um, at what point does Akala need to cover her head? It would seem from uh the Mishna we saw that this this young woman was going out to her wedding with her head uncovered. Um, and that we know that in Mishnaic times there actually was a gap between the two parts of Jewish marriage. Jewish marriage is affected in two stages. We have what's called ausin or hahic betroal. Um that's the that's the ring giving and harat. That's the point at which a woman already assumes fundamentally the status of being aish at that moment. And yet it's not fully a marriage until after nisuin which literally we translate as marriage and then the question becomes well how do we define nisuin? It's actually a really interesting discussion about at what point what counts as the second stage of marriage. Um and in effect actually there's a lot of things that could potentially count and this comes into play in the discussion of kot. So there is an opinion that already at the time of a woman should have her head covered even though that's not a simple reading in the Mishna. If we said that then a woman would need to go to her wedding already with her head covered because we now have and together right together. So you know what's she going to do in the middle of the ceremony? She's going to jump up like you know this fraction you know harudesly it's over we read the kuba and now the second that we go into the next moment she's how is that even working we don't understand it exactly so the the position where where a woman would come is either this is interesting it's either the position that really she should already be in or for the same problem I just said it's the position that it needs to be from nisuin and nisuin here is defined as kupa Because also according to that position, once we have eros the two stages of the wedding put together, when on earth is she going to do it? She's going to whip it out during the kuba reading. It's not going to work. So that's that's that posi that position whether you're saying it's a rousine already or nuin is defined by the initial hoopa is satisfied by coming to the wedding already with your head covered, which is what some communities do in particular. a lot of communities also. It depends. I'm sorry. Okay. So, ah another opinion and this ties into again how do we define nisuin the second stage of marriage. Another opinion is that this might be able to wait till now is interesting because that would mean then that for an Ashkanazi kala she comes out of the room and suddenly her head is covered. That would be one possibility. Now for Spartm that might give a little more room because Spartim often not always but often don't have a separate room and therefore they really could wait till after the whole wedding in theory if we say that yehood is the defining moment. Um Ravoia Feinstein actually has a ruling um it's on the sheet source 52. Um he has a ruling that uh that we can wait till till the till the day the next day the next day when it's not just but that was really seclusion that but that was really for the sake of becoming uh consummated marriage. Now irrespective of whether the couple actually consummated but he would say that it would be the next day. Um an opinion I brought here which is which I like in particular because I think it's it's very we talked a lot about last time about being Mamemed about um judging favorably what people do. And this is I think uh a lot of people don't cover their heads at weddings. A lot of people do and a lot of people don't. Um says you know what if you need to let's actually read this inside source 53. regarding covering the kala's uh head or hair at the time of the and the feast even though the brewer thinks it's already from the point of and how much more so it should already be at the point at which we have our wedding feast. Um however even so the doesn't want or there's another one of the one of the some some party to the wedding for whatever reason this is not working out and he doesn't make a hard and fast rule about exactly why he doesn't say it has to be I don't know on pain of death or just if for whatever reason this is not in the cards you can let it And you can rely if you need to on the bridal veil which covers the hair of the kala even though it's even though it's thin or often transparent. So what is saying which I think is actually a lovely thing and it's good to know is if you want to there's the ruling of raosha fine stain that can be relied on that could be said for for Ashkanazimm that could be said that it's not till the next day. There's a ruling of um and in general who don't practice a yehood at the at the wedding feast itself that it can wait till after also after which in effect would be the next day. If you want to be a little more concerned or you're you're worried about well what about all these opinions that say it really should be earlier well the kala has a veil on so she just has it can be you know on the back of her head. We're not necessarily, you know, there are times where you're very particular about how someone's covering her head and that's we're going to talk about the house today. This would be a case where I think what what is saying is also we're not being super particular, right? The the the veil is not necessarily meeting our ordinary standards for head covering. But in the case of the wedding, that works. I I I always I just think that's a very nice pock because it also gives another layer of meaning uh to the veil as well that it's not just sort of covering uh in front but it winds up being something uh meaningful for the kala after. So just just good to know. Okay, let's get into our topics for tonight. We're going to start with how to cover um and let's start by looking at at a chuva of Feinstein source number 54. to vote at Roisha. The fundamental prohibition when we're talking about head covering, it's based on the verse in parad ceremony and the cohen would undo the woman's head which means that there is a warning to the daughters of Israel not to go out with heads uncovered. It doesn't say that the warning is that the daughters of Israel not go out with their hair uncovered. It says head uncovered. It sounds like the fundamental Torah law is not about the hair. It's about the head and it's about overall overall is the head covered that says is the fundamental Torah law. He says not only that, it makes sense because the the Cohen doesn't have to undo and uncover every single hair, get everything totally disheveled. He just has to do, he goes on to say, he just has to do most of the head. The big portion of the head is what he would need to uncover and conversely what we would need to cover. Okay? So Ra Mosha is saying the Torah level of this mitzvah is learned from the sot and the Torah level dean of the sot the ha from a Torah level is not about hair it's about the head and if the minimum if the cohen it wouldn't have to be that every single centimeter had to be uncovered on the sot but he at least has to get it that generally speaking she's uncovered most of the head is uncovered it means that on a Torah level in general the head needs to be covered. Okay. Um, the covering really should be most of the head or something close to it. Okay. Now, if we think about this for a moment, if anyone else needs sheets, by the way, there's some extra sheets here. Please feel free to take. Um, if we think about this for a moment, this brings us back actually to when we were talking about ration for the mitzvah. Two of the main possible rationes that we discussed were dignity. We saw that Mishna talking about how it was really a way of shaming someone to remove her head her hair headpiece in public that this is a matter of dignity. You know, like we talked about Queen Elizabeth, the the dignified woman goes out with a head covering. And we talked about modesty. We talked about the law that we learned from the sot. And we talked about um the idea of erva and how it might even be that the idea of erva or something being akin to nakedness. Um that that might have been learned because the hair or the head was typically covered. And once something becomes typically covered, there's considered to be something unrefined or or or immodest about uncovering something that is generally meant to be or understood to be covered. What's interesting is that we might say that these are kind of two lines of thought in terms of thinking about the mitzvah. In a sense, we could say that when we talk about the sot and when we talk about this idea of dignity, maybe that's really where we're talking about the head, a dignified head covering. And you could potentially say that when we talk about erva or when we talked about data yehoud, which we defined as modest, what was modest accepted practice for the daughters of Israel, that there maybe we're talking more about hair, covering the hair. In other words, both of these aspects are represented. But it may well be that the fundamental Torah level is about the head and dignification and that the other level, the datachihood level and the VAVA levels come in where they're more about the idea of modesty. Of course, modesty and dignity are related concepts. But this is interesting to see. And one thing that you do see as you learn the different sources is that um hahik authorities who emphasize more the side of things talk more about hair and hahik authorities who emphasize more the sa side of things do tend to talk more about the head. Okay. Um and there are implications of this in terms of how to cover as well. So let's look back. Source 55 is going to remind us what we saw in the gamura. Please what we saw in the gamura about minimum versus more maximal requirements of head covering deta 54 on a Torah level this basket a kalata kalta this this you know we we talked about shikita banana right there something on your head it's it's it's not really covering everything necessarily it's on the head on a Torah level this is sufficient um on a datit level the modest accepted hala for the daughters of Israel that's not enough and the question is what's not enough about it so the miri who's an early provenal hahikic authority in source 56 says this he says what's the difference between the kalta and a better head covering he says even though usually when we talk about Palta we're talking about this this type of basket where a woman might put her spindles he wants to suggest a different explanation here by the way in my analysis right now I'm following my rebihuda and how he analyzed this particular this particular discussion it's like some kind of hat made of some kind of coarse fabric that she puts on at night it's like a night cap. He's saying the culta is actually not a basket. He thinks ordinarily a cult is a basket in this context the kalta is more a night cap. Now if on a Torah level the kalta is sufficient and it's this night cap but yehudit it's not is he leaning more on the dignity end or on the modesty end? What do you think? Sounds to me more like dignity because it's not so dignified to go out in your pajamas or in your house robe or in your slippers. Meaning if the idea of the head covering is that dignifies the wearer and you're going out and you're wearing your kind of like night cap. I always picture Ebenezer Scrooge here but we know the people wore like you know proper night caps. You're going out and you're and you're and you're you know you're kind of your schmata. It's not dignifying. It's not dignifying. Okay. So that's one possibility. Manorra level has is has your head been covered? Yeah, the head is actually covered. But have we really satisfied what Dati Hoodi wants? The mayor says no. The issue seems to be more one of dignity. Rashi um might suggest something different. Source 57, Rashi here um describes it as the Saul. He says it is like a basket. And in source 58 there's a version of Rashi that's brought down in one of the early um compendia of early authorities called the mubets and he says even a basket is not sufficient from the perspective of because there's a matter of here. It's not sufficiently modest because it's impossible that they won't see the hair through the kind of like the weaves, the fibers of the of the of the weave, the basket weave, you know, you can kind of see through a meshed basket sometimes. So, this is really interesting because what we have in effect are are are really these two kind of perspectives. And what's the Torah and what's the doit? Is the dot that it really needs to be more dignified? Is the dot that it really needs to be sort of more maximal coverage like better quality coverage coverage through which you're not going to see the hair. Right? So let's say a practical hawkic difference would be like um something stunning but see-through, right? A stunning dignified head covering but see-through. So the way Rashi's explaining it, that's an unstarted. The way the Miri is explaining it, maybe it would be okay. Or vice versa, we get back to the night cap. Rashi might be delighted with the night cap. It's providing very effective coverage, but the mir is not satisfied with the night cap because it's not particularly dignified. Okay, so these strands come through. And now let's see how this kind of winds up playing out when we talk about the extent to which hair needs to be covered because we know that the head being covered or at least most of the head being covered sounds non non-negotiable and the question becomes is there any room when it comes to hair being covered and we're going to start with more stringent perspective okay and the the classic source that's brought this is source 59 for this perspective is a story about a woman named Kimit And it's a sort of enigmatic talmudic story had seven sons. The kulan shimshuddah and all seven of them were able to act as coenad. I used to think what did they all die? No, no, no. The idea is that they had tuma like there was ritual impurity so the other one got a turn. Something like that. But she merited that all of her sons had a moment of serving in the mikdash as co which is a pretty extraordinary thing. Seven. Seven. Right. That's that's wow. So are astonished and they figure I mean I bet I bet if could have talked to Y they would have talked to her also. Right. What you have you have Aon you have Mosher Rabainu. You have Miriam. All of them are your kids. What did you do? So this is the kind of the later virgin. This is Kim Kim. What did you do? How did you merit to have these seven sons? And what did you do that you could merit this? She said to them, "In all my days, the beams of my house never saw the braids of my hair. My hair was never visible. I.e., you know, if the walls have ears, we often say, so here's the walls of eyes." What effectively what she's saying? My hair was always covered. And then the sages say, and this is where the story gets really enigmatic. Then the sages say her velo there are many who have done this and it didn't work for them i.e. this is not a guarantee. So it's kind of a tricky story because you can really take these this story in different directions. One direction you can take this story in is well Kimit was certainly praiseworthy woman. She did merit. It's a matter of fact that she merited to have these seven sons who are cogn. And she understood that the reason she merited it was because of what she did with her hair. And that's something we should take very seriously because she's clearly she's absolutely a meritorious woman. And it sounds like she very well may be on to something. That's the thing she latched on to as being as being, you know, significant. Even if she wasn't 100% correct that it would work for everybody, for her it's she felt that this is what tipped her over into another realm of being meritorious. That's one side. Another side could say, well, this is interesting because if she thinks that this is what made her particularly meritorious, then it sounds as though this was not the norm, this was not the standard or the expectation. Not only that, if you think about the sage's response to her, many have done that and it hasn't worked to them. It sounds like this is not an expectation for everybody. This is something that many women have done. This is not something that all the women do or that we tell all women to do. And then they add to that this business of and it didn't work for them. So then suddenly we're on this other level of h so is this do we do we take this at face value? This is a meritorious act. It's not going to work for everybody but everybody it's worth a shot. Or do we take this in this other direction which is well this is might have been a wonderful thing that she did but fundamentally it's not the thing that made a difference and it's not a basic expectation of every woman. Yeah. When you have um sons who are didn't the sons have to keep dying so that the next so it's I think ritual impurity would have been how how they would have gone in not not through death. Okay. Yeah. Exactly. I think it's it's it's a question that comes up. Okay. Now, the Zohar takes this and brings it to another level. And just a little background, something to that's important to know is for the Zohar hair is is has like significance to start with. Hair is associated with judgment. Or if you think about like Asov versus Yakov, Asov is hairy is and Yakov is not. There's there's a relationship. pick abalone. There's a relationship that the Zohar picks up on between hair and and something something strong, something that brings on maybe divine judgment. Um, and it also of course picks up on this Gmorra that we just read. Um so source 60 misara a woman who takes out from her hair um outside a some hair that's outside of the of of the what she's set up on her hair her head covering garuta she causes sorrow for her home and she causes her sons not to be considered important in their place of residence. and she causes some kind of negative force. The other thing it's not positive uh to be to be in her home. This is all caused by this hair that's seen outside of her of her head or outside. Therefore, a a woman should see to it that even a single strand of her hair not be seen by the walls of her home. They're obviously inspired by by Kim. Um, how much more so not outside. So, the Zohar takes the kind of more straightforward reading of the of the Kim story or a straightforward reading of the Kim story and runs with it and says really this is this is the thing to do. This is actually a spiritually dangerous force. Um, leaving hair out and and really hair should always be covered even inside the home. This this is not just a praiseworthy act of Kim. This becomes now in the words of Zoar a a normative practice. This is what you should do. And Abraham who is a major authority comments on the and he says he says the Zohar is superm that not a hear of a woman should be seen and so it is fitting to practice again we have a double-edged source here on the one hand what did he call this he called this ara right he says this is a stringency It's not the basic law. And what does he say? He says it's fitting to do this way. It's not what's required. And on the other hand, he's saying that from his perspective, this is the ideal way to go. Yes. So is this when women decided to shave their head? Like when did that actually? Yeah. Okay. So this is absolutely connected to this to that practice the practice of women shaving shaving heads. I don't know how far back it goes at least a couple hundred years. But the practice there there's two reasons given for the practice. One is this that we don't want any hair to be getting out of any head covering and if head is shaved that's certainly going to allow maximum control. The other reason that's given is mikvah um a concern that hair would not be properly prepared for mikvah and if you shave it then you'll never have any kind of an issue. So those are the two kind of explanations that are given for that practice. It's definitely 100% this is a major way in which that is rooted. Um and who is coming from a community where women shave zohar in our lands where outside the are having their heads fully uncovered and our women are very careful like the zoral I consider every sing back to hair being associated with the perspective right every single or if it's seen could be considered to be tantamount to we'll talk about his perspective about how much to cover um in a little bit. Okay. So the sofa reflects that tradition and his community that we're already shaving to my understanding. Okay. So that's one perspective. That's the that's that's the kind of maximalist perspective. But there's another perspective and it's not that this other perspective is some new age thing. The other perspective also goes way back and it starts we see it in the rishonim um Rashbos early authority Catalonia um from the B midrash of the Ran he says in a woman if her face her hands her her feet and her hair that is outside of her braid which is not covered we don't have an air of a concern he saying we're not worried. Thank God. This is, you know, one of the important reasons that we know that we don't have to cover our faces or uh or our necks or or our hands. This is not a hahic issue of VVA period. And among Would you like to come in? Okay. And among the things that he's saying are not are not a hik issue is her hair that is outside of her braid. And of course, the question is, well, what does that mean? Her hair that's outside of the braid. It's suggestive. It sounds like it means, you know, maybe like those flyaway hairs, hair at the nape of the neck, hair at the temples, you know, no matter some of us are better at this than others, but I I'm one of I'm a schlamazle when it comes to this stuff. You know, there's always hair coming out. Feel like there's always hair. I I tie it up and there's always something that's escaping my uh even my best efforts. Larasha kind of calms me down, right? It sounds like he's saying something slips out that that's not what we're talking about. That's not an erva issue. It's not a sneas issue. The rashba says this is all it's it's like her face. It's no different from the face says the rashba. And the rama pus begins this way. And so is also the law when it comes to women's hair that is comes out of the braid. Okay. So the also seems to pass this way. Once you say that there can be hair that comes out from the braid that's not considered to be an orn issue. So what you're saying is that the is not like is not it's not obligatory right it's a perspective but it's not it's not obligatory on everyone um from Egypt when we talk about hair being it's hair that is customary to cover and then he says something interesting see there's a gura which talks about second line a woman does all of her adornments and leaves a little bit what's the what's what's this little bit she leaves and the little bit she leaves is the what's the and he explains he says the must be what women do nowadays what's customary here in Egypt which was woman breeds all over her hair and she lets a little hair from the side come onto her face. That's what the garra is talking about the was explained. Our sages were lenient concerning this little bit of hair being left out that a woman not be um unappealing to her husband. There's a lot of discussion. It comes up in different garurs in different places about women and um women and grooming and cosmetics. And one of the factors that comes up often with respect to women in cosmetics, it might come up on like can she do something in during holo or can a woman do something on um when she's in a veos. Um one of the factors that comes up is that we see it as important to uphold a woman's grooming practices in general because that's part of the marital relationship. It's it's it's it's it's something that's there between them and it might be important. We don't want to put a woman in a situation where um it would be prohibited for her to look the way that she feels comfortable looking. Um we're concerned that that might that that might affect that kind of delicate dynamic between her and her husband. So it's it's an interesting idea, but basically what the Marama is saying is there's hair outside the braid that doesn't get covered. And this hair, it's not clear if he just means hair at the temples or if he even means something almost like, you know, what the Brits would call a fringe or Americans might call bangs or something like that. But if you've ever seen a very firm woman with all her hair covered and then she has like bangs, so there's a good chance that she's relying on the maramalashkar. Okay, which seems to suggest that that's not included in the in this. And what's interesting is back to how we started. If the fundamental law is about the head and then the hair is an issue of VA and on top of that and that's also ha but it's it's it's a second level connected level perhaps if we understand things in that way and we say that part of how the air status happens is what's customary to cover and in effect it works very nice with the Marshkar he's saying hair that's never been covered that's never been customary to covered and has nothing to do with the head being covered in a dignified in modest fashion is not an issue. Okay, so that's his perspective. And then you have um um ra this was quoted in a safer called I haven't been able to find this separately from except from that book. Those who want to claim that there's a Torah prohibition for even a hair coming out and being seen not correct because the custom of Sparty women is to have one or two finger widths of hair exposed in the front. Okay. So back to like things things we see sometimes you have woman with her head m is maybe all covered but in the front there's some hair showing. So two finger breaths is it's a hikic measure inbah and is 2 to 2.4 cm. So two two finger breaths would be four to 4.8 cm but I don't think ravo means here that you're supposed to go with with with the ruler in front of the head. I think what he's saying is that what was customary amongsty women to the best of his knowledge and you know he knew um was that the head would be covered but there would be a little hair showing in front a little bit. It wasn't it it wasn't a super punctilious thing to have every hair in the front of the head always be covered. So there's on the one hand we have one strand of thought that talks about full coverage of every hair and we have another that leaves room even within the rubric of datit and even when we're concerned for some hair to be uncovered um the most interesting ruling perhaps is raossha feinstein remotein does something surprising um we briefly we touched on in our last class and we and we we also I guess sort of from the side talked about it here The Mosha Feinstein does not think the fundamental hahic issue with head covering is erva. He says the fundamental issue is what we learned from the sot and erva is a secondary issue as it were. Um even so when Mosha Feinstein is trying to work out well how much hair could a woman potentially show what he does is he takes the measurements that are used in discussions of erva. In other words, there's a garra that talks about is like a hand breath, right? So if a te is like for makes sense, right? For hand breath, you can even see it. Okay. He says, well, there's a garra that says that if up to a tea, um if up to it's like works out to somewhere between 8 to 9.6 six cm um is is exposed of an area of the body that's usually not exposed. That's not that's still permissible say from an Arava perspective for a man to recite schma in the presence of that. So what Raosha what Raosa does is he says when I'm trying to figure out exactly how much hair a woman could leave uncovered, I don't want to just pull a measurement out of nowhere. I want to base it on something. If the measurement forva is that up to a tea could be left uncovered then and we know that the laws of air will wind up being applied to head covering then we could use this measurement for head covering too. So this is source 67. The whole head becomes a covered place of the body. Then the prohibition becomes like covered parts of the body like and therefore because when it comes to covered usually covered parts of the body there's a distinction between uncovering a uncovering less we can make that distinction when it comes to hair as well. So what Rav Mosha Feinstein winds up saying is that up to a tea of hair can be uncovered. Um so so far what we've seen is we've seen the position of the Zohar that said based on the garra right that's a reading of the gumra that said everything everything be covered in the mam thinks that's that's a good they take on and we know that there are communities that have embraced this in a very very passionate way to be a very very strong menhug in those communities. We also have the position we saw starting with the rashba that there can be these kind of stray hairs that that that don't count as being an issue. Moving on to the maramalashkar who's talking either about hair at the temples or bangs some kind of fringe not being an issue. And then we have raosha who tries to put a kind of number on it. Okay. Oh we had who talked about two and raha who says up to a. Now one of the interesting things that you can start playing around with is what does that mean? like is it a up to a square tea? It seems like he means up to a square tea. Now, you might have seen women who let's say a lot of the hair is covered, but then there's like a patch in the back that's uncovered or maybe a little bit in the front is uncovered and a patch in the back. So oftentimes what they're doing in that case is adopting the ruling of Rav Mosha where I don't know that Rav Moshe anticipated this but they're basically saying well if the limit according to Rav Mosha would be up to a tea being uncovered who says it has to be here it could be here it could be here it could be some combination thereof right so that's kind of that seems to be where that's coming from um it's important to know that Rav Moshe didn't think this was an ideal meaning he said this was good enough that from his perspective a talum could marry a woman who did this and she's not doing anything that's considered to be a transgression and at the same time he thought it was fitting to cover more so it's important to say that he did think it was fitting to cover more but he thought that the was that up to could be uncovered now there's one other position that's very important to bring out here and that's the position of mobinovich Ravenakam Binovich was a pose in Roshiva in Yeshiva Maladum previous prior to that he was originally I think Canadian he was in um was he Canadian or American anyway America fine Canada's in America I'll stop while I'm behind but he was in England for some time and then he came and he was Roshiva in post from Al Dumim and he he says something like this he says well wait a minute Ravosha himself said that the fundamental issue isn't Va and Rav Mosha himself said that the Torah level is satisfied by covering most of the head. Why do we have to say that the maximum that could be uncovered is a teak? Maybe it suffices for most of the head to be covered and then in matters of to follow what's normative custom. So let's just see how he says this inside source 69. Even when covering is required, if a minority of the hair, now it's not clear if he means literally less than 50% or if he means just a little bit. The word is kind of ambiguous is uncovered, it's it's it's access it's acceptable. And then he says and the bait who is the mahab of the says brought the rashba who also said this in the name of the rabb and we talked about this the hands and the and the hair that's coming out second to last line of the fundamental is that most of the hair on the head needs to be covered but it's permissible to take out a little bit of hair by the way that's also a little different if you think about it the rashba is talking about here that got outlash seemed to be talking about here that was left out seems to be talking about here that's taken out um and not necessarily a specific upward amount as long as in accordance with the practice of the Torah Torah following community where she falls. So there's a lot of people and this is important because this has had a big effect in Israel. There's a lot of people who follow and that means that they cover most of their head but then they leave hair out aside from that. Now somehow in Israel in some quarters this has evolved to being also um less than that like more like almost like a bandana kind of a thing. That's a little trickier. I've heard people say orally that they heard a more lenient position of that they could rely on for that. Um it's also not something to belittle because for a lot of women doing anything at all with this mitzvah is already tremendously difficult and there is a way in which some things are accomplished. there's that some of the head is covered that aspect of a dignified head covering there's some element of that um the rationale of there's there's a nod to modesty there's a nod to dignity there's even though it's not a reason for the mitzvah there is a signaling of being part of the Jewish community there's a signaling of being married meaning for women who just let's say wear a headband now some women do a headband and also like a fall or something like that but for a woman who just wears a headband um if it can cover rove of the ro. If it can cover most of the head, that's definitely better halically and more in line with at least what put in print. If it can cover everything except for a tea that's satisfying Mosha's standard. Um but it is important to know that I I don't think that I don't think anyone should um belittle or dismiss women who are making some effort to fulfill this mitzvah even if it's not necessarily um uh with a lot of support. Um and that's and that's that's important to know and that's accepted in and there are some communities where that's very widely accepted. And in a sense you could say that's sort of one of the tricky things about this haka to start with is we begin with the discussion both of the of the Torah and of datit and data from the beginning is defined as the modest things that Jewish women do. So it's hard to, you know, there are different views about is that something that's absolute and unchanging for all time or is there some wiggle room to say less than a majority of the head is still not simple holically. There's a lot more holic support at the least to cover most of the head. But it is important to understand that part of this is a natural outgrowth of this mitzvah is supposed to be reflective of what women do and what women learn from each other. And that can be sometimes um with more hahic basis and sometimes with less but it's part of the dialogue about the mitzvah from the beginning. Yeah. So let's say someone does for example someone should make a difference of the length of hair that's out. Okay. So you mentioned which is that so so that that's a good question. And so if you think about it back to it's sort of like how many opinions are you satisfying a little bit, right? Like if you want to satisfy the Zohar, you're not going to show anything. If you want to satisfy the rash, but basically you have your head covered and if something slips out, lon it's okay, right? Um if you want to satisfy the ma malashka, something might malashka, there might be a little bit of a bang, a little bit of a fringe, a here, there, a here, there. It's a question of how much. And I think there are different interpretations of this. And it's tricky because he doesn't specify y is telling you right to fa up front. It's not, you know, I don't know that it would be a difference if it's here or here. I think it might be a little more difficult to say that it's both bangs and and behind, but I don't know that you couldn't make that argument either. Meaning it's they weren't sitting there. Again, they no one though even Rav Mosha when he's giving a measurement, I don't think what he really meant was for Jewish women to start using rulers every morning. I don't think that was was way he was getting it. It was talking about the the the spirit of the thing is that on the whole the head should be covered except for about a tea. Um the my my Rabbi Rafhenkin this Rashian source 70 talking about um we saw last time the Mishna that a woman who was a virgin who went out to her wedding Davka had her head uncovered. Rashi explaining the Mishna said um okay he said her hair is on her shoulders. So Rhenin wanted to suggest that if Rashi defined uncovered or undone hair as being on her shoulders that maybe that's like an absolute limit like the hair shouldn't be on the shoulders. Um, but one of the tricky things here again is that this is something that was passed on traditionally and then some of these traditions get lost and we're trying to figure out um what to do based on and it's it's a lot of different factors that get put together in terms of how a woman figures out where she goes in the hikic spectrum of how I think it's important to know the different opinions even if your community might be more stringent or more lenient. And the reason why I think it's so important to note is because I've met many women who in the beginning it was a huge struggle and doing anything at all felt almost impossible. And conversely, I've met women who in the beginning covered everything and over time felt the need to uncover some and that became extremely important to them for for different reasons in their lives. So I think it's important to be aware that within the world of of halaha there are different perspectives on this and and at the same time yeah we have communities we have community norms and uh and it's it's it's very much kind of this personal this personal dialogue with with where do I fit within my community which postkimm do I which postkim do I look to um if in general you're aid of so it's much more simple to follow of Nom Labri than if you're not. Um if in general you follow Suckin for Mosha Feinstein, it's much more simple to follow of Mosha Feinstein than if you don't. That kind of that kind of a thing. But ultimately um I'm not going to posin for anybody in this room. That's not uh that's not my job. But I think it's important to know that there are these these different opinions and where they come from and that it's it's not all absolute. um the way that sometimes it might be presented as oh even here come out that's the end it's not it's not all absolute even though there are some communities that are even careful for for for the single hair okay we have just enough time to talk a little bit oh okay we don't have a lot of time um I want to talk briefly about wigs and then um and then we'll talk about where yes you how much time do we have the woman who joined the workshop isn't here yet okay So that helps us, but I don't want to when she comes, we need to stop. I don't like to be rude. Um, okay. Wigs. So there's a really interesting mission at Shabas. There's a whole discussion in in Shabas about how you can go out into the public domain. What can like be on your person? And one of the concerns is that you don't want to have something on your person in the public domain that you might be inclined to remove, even if it's something you would remove just to show to someone else. Why? Because if something if it's something that you might remove, it's also something that you might wind up carrying. And then we got we get into big problems of hot, right? We guess the AU wasn't as prevalent everywhere as it is uh as it is right here right now. Um and one of the items that you're allowed to go out with is a woman on Chabas 71. A woman goes out. She can go out to her courtyard with a panor. What's a panor in modern Hebrew? is how we refer to a wig. Now, if you actually look at the rashi, I didn't bring it, but rashi here seems to be describing something a little bit more like a hair extension, like she takes someone else's hair and braids it into her own. That sounds to me more like a hair extension than a wig, but still, it's a similar idea. In other words, we have this Mishnaic source for a woman going out with something that looks like hair and it's not her hair and it's okay. So, what might we infer from that? Could infer that hey, wigs might be okay and indeed You can find a proof in this to rely on for the women who go out with covering heads when they when they're married. And instead of um in and and and what they do is in the place of where their braids would be, they put someone else's hair, right? I love that line. Their fellow women's hair is what they put on. And it sounds clear that it's permissible for a woman to adorn herself with this. When we say when we talk about hair, what we're worried about is hair that's actually stuck to her skin. Really stuck to it. You see the hair coming out of the flesh. That's what it's talking about. Now, this is really interesting because I think it hits on both sides of wigs. Like, one of the reasons that some people don't like to wear wigs is because they look fake. And to the extent they look fake, it's because the hair is not coming out of your head. And that's exactly the grats for the head. On the other hand, the tension is that nowadays we have wigs that look very realistic. We have wigs that are really some of these amazing lace cap wigs. I think people who know know. I'm not very good at it, but I think the people who know always somehow know, but the people who don't know really wouldn't know. Sometimes, you know, it's it's nicer than it looks nicer than someone's hair and super realistic. And so, you have this this interesting tension where where the permission seemed to have been based in part on the fact that to the ext the hair is covered. Of course, it's covered. Her hair is covered, right? If there's someone else's hair on top of it, then it's covered. So to the extent then then we're talking about some sneerva issue. If there's something else on it that doesn't look like it's coming from her skin then it's clear that it's something else and it's not akin to nakedness and being uncovered. It's uncovered and it's clear. So we have this real tension now where wigs don't clearly look um covered or foreign. So um in practice in practice we tend to be very lenient about this. Why do we tend to be very lenient to that? This I think for reasons we've talked about here already because it's really hard for women to cover her head and being able to wear a wig is there's a hahic history to it and it enables a lot of women to feel more comfortable with it. Um, the Labavat Rebi in particular was especially fervent in supporting women wearing specifically wigs. If you know Kabad in Kabad, it's absolutely the Norman Kabad to wear wigs. And the reason why is because he felt that if a woman's wearing a wig, and this actually it's kind of like the Shabas argument, but in other scenarios. If a woman's wearing a wig, she's never going to be tempted to take it off. Come flip the page. I'll show it to you. Uh, source 76. A woman who wears a scarf on her head will tend to take it off in certain cases because of discomfort as opposed to a woman who dons a wig. Even if President Eisenhower himself walks in, she will not remove it. Right? He just in a sense a wig is a superior head covering because a full wig covers all the hair and the woman's never going to take it off. She'll feel comfortable in any situation wearing it. Um, and that's good. On the other hand, you have this tricky issue of well, does it does it need to be recognizably a head covering? Maybe and you have communities, by the way. You have a you have communities where only obvious wigs are considered permissible or also short wigs, SNES wigs, whatever. SNES wig, meaning these things are really complicated. Actually, the one that's the hardest with this is, are you familiar with Kipaf Falls? So, keep a fall is kind of like a a a partial wig that kind of like goes on the back and it's sort of like the worst of all worlds hahically because I it's not the worst of all worlds because there is coverage going on. That's not fair to say it's the worst of all worlds. There is coverage going on, not everything is exposed. But if the big hic is that it's giving more coverage and a woman is less inclined to take it off. So, the keep a fall isn't really doing that. And if the disadvantage of the wig is it looks like her own hair, the keep a fall. Absolutely. That's the whole kind of point is that the hair in front and the hair in back and it's blended in and it looks like her hair. It's like real camouflage. At the same time, there's some women for whom that's the only way they're going to be able to do anything. And again, that's certainly better than not doing anything. Um is is there an Indian of Okay, so this is really a maket. So Raaja Ysef, we don't have time, but Roady Yusf, I brought it here. Ravage was concerned about Mars. He was concerned that it would look like you're not following the mitzvah. He didn't think that it was appropriate and that's why you have a lot of a lot of women in that tradition I think who will not wear wigs. Um Rav Mosha Feinstein did not think there was an issue of Mara Zion. He felt that in a film community it's understood that women are wearing wigs and people will give each other the benefit of the doubt and assume that they're wearing wigs and therefore it's not an issue. One of the things I think is most ironic is that I think in recent times the wig has often come to be seen as more dignified head covering than other forms of head covering. And that's very interesting. Whereas if originally it was the dignified hat kind of right and then and then modesty was covering the hair, now you have the wig which covers the hair which is seen sometimes as more dignified. By the way, communities where they put a hat on top of a wig are kind of satisfying both, right? They're they're having the wig, the hair is covered, but then they're doing this extra level of dignifying and making it clear that something additional is going on as a signifier. Okay, we're almost out of time. Um, very quickly, it's I apologize. It'll have to be regular. I invite anyone who wants to look in on the DA website. Uh, we have an article about where in all of these topics you can look. We've written them up also about where to cover. But very quickly we saw when it comes to where to cover we saw something really interesting which is that we kept coming up with let's say bipro right to go out or to go out to the marketplace with the head uncovered and um just very quickly there's a gamura and it's a very important gamura source 80 where it's talking about this whole idea of the culta well why is the cult relevant once dati hudid is on the books and we know that we are not a society that only wants to satisfy the minimum dorita. We're a society that wants to follow hala. Once we've said that the ka that minimal head covering is only satisfying dita and not why is it relevant to discuss it at all? Why even bring it up? Source 80. He says, "Well, you don't have the the fundamental if you have the cult asks the following questions about it." Where is that actually going to do anything for you? If you say in the marketplace, it's not going to be good enough. In the marketplace, you definitely need your we know the cult is not sufficient. the And if you say in a woman's private courtyard that that's where she needs the cult, wait a minute, a woman needs a cult in her private courtyard. If so, you haven't left a single woman in the religion of still going to stay married. Wow. meaning he seems to assume not like what we saw in the Zohar that in general women there were places where women were not covering including this courtyard um or kahana depending on your tradition responded going from one courtyard to another courtyard by an alleyway that's where you'd use a culta huh the garra seems to be suggesting that there are different gradations of public and private. The most public being the marketplace, the most private perhaps or more private being the courtyard. The truth is there's more to discuss with that how we define the courtyard, how private it is, but for now we'll just say the courtyard. And then there's this in between zone where you're going from one courtyard to another. And the suggestion in the gamura seems to be that how how your head is covered can vary depending on how private the place is. So that in a marketplace you need the max you need. There are no no compromises. In your private zone there seems to be room perhaps and this is a mlo perhaps for nothing at all in your private zone. Nothing at all. Okay. Um, one of the debates becomes, well, if someone not from your household comes into your private zone, is it still private? Okay. And that's where we have women who might not always cover at home, but if there's a guest there will um, and then there's this in between zone. I think the modern day equivalent of this in between zone might be something like you're living in a building and you have a little area in front of your apartment in the hallway or it might be the laundry room or it might be the stairwell. And it actually might depend on the building and how public those different spaces are. But the idea that the Gomorrah is laying out is depending on how public the space is, you have a different level. Once a space is truly public, and we wind up laa usually saying that if there's people passing through who are not parts of your household, we usually treat it as public. Once a space is truly public, everything 100% dod. When a space is more private, there might be more room. Ways this could come into relevance. There's some people who take this to all the way to say, "No, even if I'm having someone over for shabas in my home, my head is uncovered." Okay, that is a valid hahic tradition. Okay. Um, however, if they go to their friend's house, they can't do that, right? Um, or and this is something a little different, someone who might in general when she's going out have her head covered a certain way, but if they're guests over might be a little more relaxed about some hair coming out of her head covering. There seems to be room for that. A little bit like in general, if you think about it, where the norms of what it means to be dignified and modest if you're going out, say, to the store are a little different. You might go in a house robe to your laundry room in your building. You might go out in slippers to grab the paper right in front of your house, right? Or in your backyard. Meaning, it sounds like those kinds of gradations, there's the fundamental hala that we're not going to compromise on. But it sounds like those kinds of gradations when it comes to hudit or sort of going beyond the fundamental, there might be some room depending on who's there in what circumstance. um that can become particularly relevant also for sometimes for women for whom it's really difficult um knowing that there's kind of more room to be a little less pun punctilious at home can actually make a huge difference in being able to fulfill the mitzvah sometimes so this is something definitely that was we have to stop that was it's something that I would encourage you to learn more to ask shas about not to you know not to jump into but it's important to know that there is a basis for saying that there is a distinction between different settings. Also, all women's settings like a private exercise class or something like that, we tend to be the same way that we might dress differently there than we dress in the marketplace. Okay, so it's important to know that that exists in the world of head covering as well. Okay, I'm going to have to end here. It's been an absolute pleasure and um I hope this just gets you more interested in learning more and in uh and in uh connecting more to this mitzvah. Thank you very very much.