Well, I now know the sources of why some Jewish women cover their hair and skin, as well as the source of "kol isha." However, I'm not convinced that these restrictions are blanket statements about all women. It's not entirely clear, but it could be argued that these statements are contextual, referring only to a man's wife at the time he needs to say the shema. In other words, hearing the voice of a woman is not a problem because it may be seductive. Rather, if I hear my wife's seductive voice while I am trying to say the shema, that may distract me. An even strong example – if my wife's hair, legs, or full naked body is right before me, then clearly I would be distracted from saying the shema. But seeing a random woman's hair uncovered while walking down Broadway, not during davening? Maybe that's not what they're referring to.
Where the boundary is, however, is not terribly clear. For more investigation...
Wise observation Rami. No one's ever been able to fully convince me that the Shulchan Aruch got its ideas of Tzniut from the Talmud. From the (granted, limited) Talmud texts I've seen, none formulate it in quite the way that the codes end up doing. I'm hoping we see more discussion of it as we get towards Nidda, around seven years or so from now. ;)
ReplyDeleteYeah, hold that thought. I guess we'll really test the search-function on this blog at that point. And by the way, future Rami and Adam (and/or whoever else is working on this blog by then), nice job for making it this far. You're almost done!
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