A Chat About Modesty

Mrs. Shaffer: Hello, Janet, how can I help you? 🙂

Janet: Could you tell me please why there are so many laws about modesty for Jewish women?

Mrs. Shaffer: I’d be happy to …:)

Mrs. Shaffer: First of all, realize that ‘modesty’ is not really what the laws are about

Mrs. Shaffer: They’re the laws of ‘tzniut’…unfortunately there’s no really good translation for that word

Mrs. Shaffer: What it means, literally, is ‘hidden’ or ‘discreet’

Janet: Hidden? Hidden from what?

Mrs. Shaffer: And what’s wrong with a woman’s body that it has to be hidden??

Janet: I don’t understand why the body has to be hidden. Could you talk about the concept? And then I want to know about the laws.

Mrs. Shaffer: ‘hidden’ means that which is internal

Mrs. Shaffer: it means we have an internal self…that self’s core is the Neshamah, the Jewish soul

Mrs. Shaffer: our body is the housing for our soul…that is why we treat it with respect and dignity

Mrs. Shaffer: covering, recognizing that there is that which is ‘hidden’ or ‘internal’ projects the absolute value of what’s behind, or inside of, the covering

Mrs. Shaffer: a Sefer Torah, for example, is the most precious object in Jewish life…yet it’s never displayed in the middle of the synagogue, uncovered, unrolled…

Mrs. Shaffer: it’s always covered, with a beautiful covering to be sure…and then placed inside an ark…and then that’s covered as well….all these ‘coverings’ denote respect …awe and respect for the holiness of this object

Janet: ok. I remember u said s/t about the reason for modesty is b/c of dignity. Why does covering ur elbows or knees make u dignified?

Mrs. Shaffer: ok…dignity…:)

Mrs. Shaffer: human beings are infused, naturally, with a sense of self. This sense of self is, in an emotionally healthy person, in someone who’s developed a wholesome sense of self…this sense of self is also connected to a sense of dignity…self-dignity

Mrs. Shaffer: historically, when someone wanted to humiliate another human being…in slave/master situations,…prisons…most recently, most horrifically when the Nazis were rounding up Jews to exterminate them….the first thing they did in the process of killing them, was to strip them of self dignity

Mrs. Shaffer: they undressed the Jews

Mrs. Shaffer: they made the Jews stand around in public, naked

Mrs. Shaffer: and this nakedness very much stripped them, as well, of the ability to function…to think about possible alternatives (not that there were any at all…but my point is the sense of helplessness that was so strongly reinforced by the nakedness… they were now bodies, mannequins… not people.)

Mrs. Shaffer: because the dignity of selfhood is projected to others by our clothes…we clothe the external self in a way that projects,…or at least ought to project…the inner self.

Mrs. Shaffer: at times we dress with the intent to impress, but we always dress with intent to express. We have an image of self in mind, and that is how we want others to see us. So we dress accordingly.

Mrs. Shaffer: to dress elegant and modest is to express that I am a beautiful person from without, but I have much more beauty within. My appearance is attractive, but my personality is striking.

Mrs. Shaffer: when the body is emphasized it takes away attention from the “person” in the body. Clothing that doesn’t flaunt the body says “you might notice my looks, but please look at my character”.

Mrs. Shaffer: so the beginning of the deterioration of an inner self-dignity is the stripping of the person of any external statement of inner person…

Mrs. Shaffer: in order to have a sense of self that is dignified, we have to clothe our body

Mrs. Shaffer: we have to clothe the external in a fashion that allows the expression of the internal

Mrs. Shaffer: ok…let me give you another for instance….imagine you’re just coming out of the shower…and you’re still in your robe… and you haven’t yet made your appointments for the day

Mrs. Shaffer: what you’ve got on your mind is a date with some very handsome dude, a job interview at a law firm, meeting your brother’s fiancé and prospective in-laws…and a dinner/opera event with the president of UJA

Mrs. Shaffer: sound good? 🙂

Janet: awesome:-) u got a really good imagination 🙂

Mrs. Shaffer: ok…so here’s the scenario…you don’t know which is going to happen when (assume for the sake of this exercise, that dinner/opera can take place at 11 in the morning or at 8 in the evening…ok…we’re not talking about timing here…all of this could happen at any time during the next 12 hours)

Mrs. Shaffer: so…you get a call…telling you that you’re on…you have to get into the cab that’s coming to get you right now, and the driver’ll take you to your appointment

Mrs. Shaffer: so get dressed fast

Mrs. Shaffer: what’s your first question going to be? It’s got to be, where am I going, which appointment of all of the above, right?

Janet: yeah, ok, so what’s ur point?

Mrs. Shaffer: why don’t you just get dressed? or, for that matter, go in your robe?….why do you have to know which appointment?…Obviously…you have to know, because for each one you’ll have to dress differently

Mrs. Shaffer: clearly you’re not going to dress for a serious job interview the same way you’re going to dress for a date all of whose buttons you want to press…:)

Mrs. Shaffer: (within the boundaries of propriety, of course)….:)

Mrs. Shaffer: you don’t want the lawyers of this very prestigious high-power firm to see you as a woman…you want them to see you as a lawyer

Mrs. Shaffer: so you’ll dress to be taken seriously as a lawyer…never mind that you’re an attractive woman….you get my drift? 🙂

Janet: yes, but why are u saying that it’s ok to dress like a woman on a date? That should be when I’m supposed to want to be more serious isn’t it?

Mrs. Shaffer: good point…you want your date to take you seriously…but…

Mrs. Shaffer: you’re not interviewing for a job…you’re developing a relationship with a man

Mrs. Shaffer: and so, within the bounds of propriety, or tzniut, you will dress in such a way as to let him know that you’re very much a woman

Mrs. Shaffer: albeit a serious woman

Mrs. Shaffer: a woman.

Mrs. Shaffer: So you see the clothes you wear are very much a statement to everyone around you. You’re telling people how you want them to think of you and what you want from them.

Janet: So what am I saying when I dress modestly?

Mrs. Shaffer: Modest clothes, dressing in the way the Torah prescribes, that’s a way of dressing to express the neshamah—the G-dly soul inside you.

Janet: So when a woman shows her body, she’s showing her body.

Janet: And when she covers it, she’s showing her neshamah..

Mrs. Shaffer: Because she’s saying, look deeper.

Janet: Just like the Sefer Torah you mentioned before.

Mrs. Shaffer: …my fingers are beginning to get numb…your turn to type…have you any other questions? 🙂

Janet: I’m dumbstruck actually. This is fascinating. Thank u very very much.

Janet: but how come the Torah laws are so strict?

Mrs. Shaffer: they’re not :)…they outline the basic parameters of the way in which we, women, should maintain a sense of self. The clothes for the essential self—the neshamah.

Mrs. Shaffer: after all…in our society we’re in real danger of reducing each other, men and women, to merely physical entities…just look at the billboards and commercials

Mrs. Shaffer: whatever the product advertised…what the media is selling is a body

Mrs. Shaffer: usually a female body

Mrs. Shaffer: the Torah laws protect us from thinking that way…from viewing each other as bodies rather than humans with a soul…and mind, and heart, and thoughts and ideas and desires and longings and dreams…etc…etc…

Janet: this is wonderful. I’m very grateful for this site. Thank u very much for ur time and ur patience. I have to go now but I’ll come back for sure, u can bet!!!

Janet: bye for now

Mrs. Shaffer: 🙂 bye