Close to 100% of the sheitels I see on women are MUCH sexier than a real woman's hair. These sheitels look like they came from a Revlon ad. Maybe there are some ugly $100 wigs on some women somewhere, but even there I'd venture to say that those sheitels are nicer than those women's real hair.


Anyway, I understand that halachically if it is not your own real hair then technically it does not need to be covered, and that's great. But the technical halacha aside, if showing hair is immodest for a married women, and is tantamount to showing erva, I don't understand who these women are kidding with the showy modelesque hair.

Are they basically saying that woman's hair is not *really* erva, and they are just trying to satisfy the letter of the law and cover their hair with hair? If so, then I agree with them and support their decision 100% because I think the haircovering thing is dumb, and if not for the halacha no one would ever do it and think it is immodest.

If that's not the reason, can you tell me what is?

As a male I happen to think that today's shaitels do not fit the spirit of the law, and quite frankly I think there can be no question about it. That said, I'm not a woman and I know that the mitzvah of keeping your hair covered is not an easy one, so I'm not exactly in a position to judge. There are plenty of other examples of common practices that violate the spirit of the law to pick on.

Erm, how does this not totally contradict your "Sheitels and snoods" thread?

In that thread it sounded to me like you were advocating that women wear sheitels.

maybe there is no spirit of the law here. regular hair does not suddenly become sexual as soon as the woman puts a ring on. the hair covering thing is just something that is suddenly the big deal, but it has nothing to do with actual trait of modesty.

There are women who will stick with synthetic (as opposed to custom) sheitels, in order to be wearing an obvious looking wig. There are also women who will stay within certain guidlines when having a sheitel styled (custom or synthetic), by carefully choosing the length and style to adhere to 'tznius guidelines'. My sheitel macher told me a few weeks ago that she sells a brand of custom wigs, but is only allowed to sell to the public on 2 conditions given by the maker - the length and style adhere to 'tznius guidelines'.
For most young girls, to wear a wig is a huge pain in the neck at first, even if they are happy to hide their frizzy mop underneath. However because there are no clear cut 'halachos' regarding length or style, peolpe can still be adhering to the mitzvah of covering their hair, even if they are trying to glam it up like a model.
Grey areas like this don't really have a clear-cut answer IMO.

I am.

I didn't make up the rule about hair covering, but since there is such a rule and a shaitel covers the hair more completely than other coverings (unless your head is shaved) I wear a shaitel.


There are good and bad shaitel days just like there are good and bad hair days. The people with marvelous shaitels probably took very good care of their hair too. I do not think my shaitle looks as good as my real hair, at least the way my hair looked before I started covering it.

There, in a nutshell, is why Sephardic poske din rule against the use of wigs.

Even if it looks not better but similar to the real hair, it still seems to show to me that you regard hair covering as merely a technical rule to be followed, rather than something that is meant to relate to the attribute of modesty.

<too tired to get into the whole spiritual-significance-of-married-womens-hair drasha>

My sheitel looks WAY better than my real hair ever looked. I always took good care of my hair, but it had very limited raw potential. A few busybodies (not my Rabbi) have told me that now that I'm a widow I don't have to cover my hair. Whether or not that is true, there is no way I would go back to my own hair.

modesty = synthetic (or really bad looking) sheitel?

Is that the reason you wear it... Interesting...

if the idea is that hair on a married woman is immodest, then how are matters improved by a sheitel which makes the hair more beautiful than the real thing?

Any hairstyle that would be considered overly glamorous and provocative is not tznius in a shaitel either. Covering the hair is just one aspect. The style that you cover it with also matters.

I've always bought shaitels that are very similar to my natural hair in color and texture (straight brown, which is one of the easiest shaitel styles to match). I don't think the shaitel can compare to the silkiness of my own hair. It's just different, trust me.

(didn't we have tens of such threads?). her own hair is immodest.

did you see my recent post (don't remember which thread already) that a sheitel macher recently told me that, iirc, R'Blumenkratz paskened that a woman can wear a sheitel made out of her own hair (cause it's no longer an erwa as it's not attached). this is soemthing i would say doesn't go in the spirit of the law.



what do you call a provocative hairstyle (besides super-ling hair)? too many layers? updos? cute curls?
i hate to see many women wearing the same style, just in different colors (length between teh chin and the shoulders, brushed down)

that's exactly what I mean. tell me, why is davka her own hair immodest, and only when it is attached? if you forget the letter of the halacha, it doesn't make any sense. what if a woman is wearing a sweater that is colored like bare ######? is that suddenly more ok?

I don't know. Whatever Moshi has in mind.

sorry, that is for someone more knowledgable than me.

isn't there the whole set of laws (forgot what they are called) than don't make sense?

why, you never saw clothing of the colors close to teh skin colors? i doubt, though, you could confuse them with one's skin (although, i have a friend who wears this jumper with a long-sleeved t-shirt underneath. the t-shirts is pretty tight, and is beige color. every single time i see her, it takes me a minute to realize there IS a t-shirt underneath the dress)

if a brunette would wear a blond sheitel, will it be better to understand for you? (i'm trying to make sense of your sweater example)

Hukim.

you made a statement


to you, what hairstyle would be considered overly glamorous and provocative?



right, thanks.

I would be stunned to find out from someone knowledgable that hair covering falls into this category.

Usually laws of modesty make sense.

For example, if your skirt is above your knees, you will expose your thighs when you sit. If your sleeve is above your elbow, you will expose your torso. If your top is too low-cut you will expose cleavage. These are not arbitrary delineations, they make (almost) perfect sense.





no, because i have never seen their real hair. besides women dye hair. my sweater example is that if you cover up real erva (e.g. b**bs) with fake erva (e.g. sweater painted like b**bs), that would not fly in any circle. But for some reason here, covering up real erva with fake erva is ok.

Moshi made a statement:



I was suggesting that maybe there's something overly provocative about the style of those shaitels, not the fact that they are shaitels. I know the shaitel I wear could never be described as provocative.

i hear.



methinks it's the way those ads are made that is provocative (hair blowing, etc), together with the bright red lipstick and surroundings, not the fact that it's hair.

Moshi, ask yourself why a certain character felt the need to say, "They're real and they're spectacular" if real didn't matter.

Real is more attractive than fake. It's as simple as that, even if on first glance you may be fooled into thinking it's more attractive.

All I'm saying is that they look like really nice hair. If hair of a married woman is by definition sexual, no? So, how much more so is something that looks even nicer than the actual hair of a married woman? Unless you hold that the only reason married woman's hair is sexual is because the rabbis said so and the rational laws somehow do not apply.

You're comparing melons and oranges here (sorry Mordechai, I tried). The former is a whole different issue.

No, I'm not. It's the same reason why women wear make-up but try to make it look like they're not -- because natural is nicer than artificial, even, like I said, if you are fooled into believing that artificial is nicer.

Real flowers are nicer than silk.

Wool is nicer than polyester.

Real is nicer. Period.

B**bs are not the same as hair. An unmarried woman is not required to cover her hair, but she is required to cover her b**bs. Perhaps if unmarried women were permitted to go topless, they would also be wearing sweaters painted like b**bs

The Rambam would disagree with that statement.

I disagree. My hair sucks, if I wear an awesome looking wig, my fake wig will look nicer - to the sight - than my real hair.

There's no clean answer for this. Let's just say that your "to the sight" is the key. It's not quite about what you can see with your eyes.

The hair in my sheitel is real hair, and much nicer than mine.

I'm not going to go up to a strange woman in a sheitel and start caressing her hair.

Good for you!

That's not what I meant, but you're on the right track.

Also, you can wear a sheitel made of your own hair.

Not according to everyone....

Not all off them.

In many sefardic communities--mine included, the vast majority of women wear wigs..


So you want your wife to wear and ugly wig? What kind of wig fits your criteria?/



Hair of a married women is erva, It has to be covered, there is no halacha that you need to look ugly while covering it. There is also no halachaa that says the whole world has to know that your hair is covered.

Oh--my hair is nicer then my wig--and I'd much prefer to go wigless. Even though my wig is gorgeous and most people do not know its a wig. I know it is a wig, and that is really the main point of it.

What's b**bs?

Anyway, I fully intend on wearing a stunning and sexy wig. Waaaaaay prettier than my own hair. It will be long, thick, silky and simply beautiful. I'll start saving up for it now.

Are you saying that the main point of covering hair is so that YOU, the woman, know that it is covered, even if it looks natural and to all the men looking at you it looks like real beautiful uncovered hair? That's fine as long as YOU know it's covered? This does not make any sense and just confirms to me what I already about this "mitzvah".

I'm sure many Sephardic communities are going to eat seu'dath Purim before hatsoth also. I think we cater too much to Ashkenazic Orthodoxy, but that's a completely separate subject.

When I was deciding how to cover my hair, it was very important for me to understand the Halacha. They way it was explained to me, the purpose of the Mitzvah is to show other people that you are taken, you are a married woman. Which is why, the halacha states that you are supposed to cover your hair when you go out, where it may not be obvious that you are already spoken for. In your own home it is clear that you have a husband. When I heard this, I had originally planned to just cover my hair outside of the house, not because I have a problem covering my hair, but I felt that this is a mitzvah that is so misunderstood, that I just wanted to do as Halacha implied. However I was nervous about what kind of message that would send. After a little more research, I also found that the Shulchan Aruch says that a woman is to dress in her house when guests are there the same way should would dress at the shuk. Which implies that a woman must also cover her hair at home when guests are present. Regardless of all of this, no where in halacha does it imply that a woman covers her hair for modesty. That being said, the only problem I see with the "super amazing sheitals" in a halachic sense (we will forget my other issues with them for now), is if it is not obvious that the woman's hair is being covered. That to me completely defeats the purpose.

You sure it says that, and not that a woman must dress in her chatzer [courtyard] as she would in the shuk?

Covering erva has nothing to do with modesty?

so are women covering their hair just to show they're married or because it's erva? because if it's just the former, then there are other ways (especially these days with rings) to tell if someone is married.

Why are you complaining about sheitel and not about eiruv? Isn't it ridiculous that by putting up some poles and string around the city, you're making a public place into a private domain? I mean, who are you kidding? Obviously the city streets are public. However, chazal permitted eiruv, and they permit sheitels too, even if logically it's not in the spirit of the law.

R. Messas of Morocco argued that since in his day (the 50's) hair covering was not the societal norm, it was permissible for a married woman not to cover her hair. It is entirely possible that some things are flexible and determined by society at large.



Where in the Gemara, Rambam, Tur, Rif, or Shulhan Aruch does Hazal permit wigs?

Shabbos 64a.

Mishnah Shabbat 6:5?
Click to view attachment


ETA:
darn, ya beat me, Jeanette. that's what I get for doing my taxes.

That's what R'Broyde writes here:
http://houseofhock.blogspot.com/2004/11/he...stion-by-r.html



Similar such sentiments are expressed in Yam Shel Shlomo commenting on Kiddushin 81b. He states:
All is dependent on the that which one sees in one's eyes and feels in one's yetzer. Thus it is permitted to speak and look at an ervah, and ask about her well being. This is what the world relies on as we touch, speak, and look, but still in the bathhouse it is prohibited......
This view is quoted by Pitchay Teshuva Even Haezer 21:4.

All of this has a foundation in the famous formulation of the Ravya on Brachout 24a (siman 76) that all body parts of a women are only prohibited for a man to glaze at when normal women in his society cover these body parts, and thus they are erotic because they are covered. Otherwise (i.e, when normally revealed) they are not erotic, and need not be covered(4).
...

In a society where hair is generally treated without erotic content, such is permissible all the time, these rishonim would claim. And it for exactly that reasons that hair covering is classified as a dat yehudit (and not a dat moshe) in the Shulchan Aruch (as noted above) as it can change based on social norms(5).