A Return To Jewish Modesty

So, who did you pick up at the SOY Seforim Sale? Ahem....I meant what did you pick up? Did you happen to purchase the chart book? That's right, the chart book. I'm not talking about the Breslov Prayer Calendar or that book with colored diagrams of a lulav. I'm talking about "Modesty - An Adornment For Life," a companion booklet to a much larger and exhausting tome on female modesty. Check it out. It's the ultimate guide for modesty in this age of obsessive/compulsive halakhic minutiae. And you don't even have to read it. You can simply look at the pictures.

Inside, the reader can view pictures of women dressed both modestly and, of course, immodestly. But don't get too excited. The potentially compromising and immodestly portrayed models are actually sketches of men wearing female clothing. That's right - men. Not to worry, though. Women constitute the remainder of the chart book. Indeed, no image spared; no angle is overlooked. Every jot and tittle of the female body, every alluring inch, is - so to speak - covered.

The modestly rendered sketches are labeled "Kosher" while the immodest sketches are labeled "Not Kosher." Apparently, even with the dignified and ennobling halakhot of female modesty, women are just pieces of meat. But they are carefully inspected pieces of meat, fit to be served at the most stringent and exacting of Jewish tables.

The chart book is yet another example of the mind-boggling explosion of painstaking halakhic inquiry that has seized the Jewish community. Too be sure, that's not necessarily an undesirable trend. Torah as studied in meticulous detail is part of what makes Judaism enriching. In addition, detailed and precise halakhic inquiry is quite essential to the halakha's development and endurance; and the degree to which this occurs en masse is the degree to which more of the Jewish community is exposed to the viscera of Jewish tradition. But making the study of modesty radically halakhic necessarily clouds the true meaning and intent of modesty itself.

Do we really want to think of modesty in such a legalistic way? Do we really want to spend time closely inspecting the length of our clothing only to find ourselves playing halakhically brilliant measurement games? After all, every legal system has its loopholes; and if there is no desire to adhere to the ideology embodied in the halakha, the halakha can be reinterpreted and reshaped. This is true of any legal system and it has certainly been true of halakhic modesty.

As applied to modesty, this rigidly legalistic way of approaching halakha is already having confusing sociological results. That's why a visible number of Modern Orthodox woman dress in a halakhically modest fashion but remain hopelessly immodest. I'm referring, in part, to the preponderance of sheitels that are more attractive than real hair and shirts that cover the sexy and forbidden elbow, but are snugly tight. Both of these examples, among many others, emerge from a modesty-culture that is formally legalistic and that has very much missed the point.

Ultimately, the reader of the chart book will learn nothing about modesty. The initiate to Jewish modesty would do best to look elsewhere. I'm referring to "A Return to Modesty" by Wendy Shalit, a book not available at the SOY book sale.

Wendy Shalit graduated from Williams College in 1997 with a BA in philosophy; and although she is only 23 years old, she's been called a "prodigy at cracking the codes of culture" by the likes of George Will.

Shalit's book, as the title suggests, is a defense of female modesty. But it's also a harsh indictment of contemporary American culture. Shalit surveys the current scene - rampant stalking, gang rape, eating disorders, loveless "hook-ups," the demise of courtesy, sexual harassment - and concludes that this sexually aberrant condition is the product of a society that has shunned and stigmatized female modesty.

"I propose that the woes besetting the modern young woman - sexual harassment, stalking, rape...are all expressions of a society that has lost its respect for female modesty." Later, Shalit claims that "It's no accident that harassment, stalking, and rape all increased when we decided to let everything hang out."

Her position is well-researched and her arguments are convincing. She draws from a wide array of sources, ranging from university research to Cosmo and Marie Claire. She also cites numerous Jewish sources, including the Rambam, Rashi and Rabbi Norman Lamm. It was actually an encounter with an Orthodox relative that convinced Shalit of modesty's virtues and value.

And what, according to Shalit, is the value of modesty? "Woman who dress and act 'modestly' conduct themselves in ways that shroud their sexuality in mystery. They live in a way that makes womanliness more a transcendent, implicit quality than a crude, explicit quality."

Ultimately, Shalit argues that modesty is a powerful tool. When it is absent the consequences are devastating. When it is present, it is not only a stabilizing cultural force, but it's an ennobling and transcendent quality. This point may not be obvious to traditional Jews in the midst of confronting modernity. To these Jews, a hair-splitting chart book is certainly no guide. The Jewish community desperately needs to internalize Shalit's research. Only then can the chart book have any meaning.