When I was a
rabbi in Framingham, Massachusetts the Cantor and I used to hold our weekly
clergy meeting after morning services at a local Starbucks. We invited the
congregation to join us and discuss everything underneath the sun. Every so
often the synagogue president and a lawyer who worked across the street came by
and joined us for a cup of coffee. The president came dressed in a suit and
most days the lawyer when he wasn’t going to court wore casual clothes. The
president chided the lawyer saying he did not go to work appropriately dressed.
The lawyer responded, “If you don’t like casual Thursdays, you’re going to hate
naked Fridays!”
Rabbi Chaim Weiner, writing for
the Va-ad Halakhah of the Rabbinical Assembly of Israel in 1999, wrote “Tz’ niut
(צניות), modesty, is
among the fundamental values in Judaism… The human body must be respected in
life and in death because of the image of God that is in it.” (https://www.
“Later in
that chapter, it is written: “And Moses was angry with the officers of the
host, the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, who came
from the battle” (Numbers
31:14); Rav Naḥman said that Rabba bar Avuh said that Moses
said to Israel: Perhaps you have returned to your original sinful behavior,
when you sinned with the daughters of Moab and Midian at Shittim? They said
to him: “Not one man of us is missing” (Numbers 31:49), we remain as wholesome in deed as
we were. He said to them: If so, why do you need atonement? The
princes brought these ornaments to atone for their souls. They said to him:
If we have emerged from the grasps of actual transgression, we have not
emerged from the grasps of thoughts of transgression. Immediately,
they decided: “And we have brought an offering before the Lord.”
The Sage of
the school of Rabbi Yishmael taught: For what reason did Israel in that
generation require atonement? Because they nourished their eyes from
nakedness.
With regard
to the verse that lists the ornaments, Rav Sheshet said: For what reason did
the verse list outer ornaments, i.e., a bracelet, with inner ornaments,
i.e., a kumaz? To tell you that anyone who gazes upon a
woman’s little finger is considered as if he gazed upon her naked genitals.
The atonement was for the sin of looking.” (Sefaria.org translation)
“How should
modern, non-Orthodox Jews relate to these traditions regarding modesty? On the
one hand, these traditions emphasize that the worth of people, and of women in
particular, should never be gauged solely in terms of their sexual
attractiveness. On the other hand, surely it must be possible to attain that
noble goal without requiring total, almost total, segregation from secular
society. And it is also worth noting that these traditions are based on
talmudic assumptions regarding a world in which women were rarely expected to
appear in the public domain. But more modern Jewish communities do not view the
ambient culture of North America (even with all of its negative aspects) with the
same kind of alarm. Engaging more fully with society is considered by moderns
to be an opportunity for cultural enrichment, for economic advancement, and
even for spiritual growth. How can such choose among the values that lie at the
heart of the tz’ niut laws without disengaging totally from the world around
them?” (Gordon Tucker, “Public Appearance and Behavior,” The Observant Life,
pages 374-378)
Certainly
circumstances and context have to be taken into consideration. “While the
constantly shifting context of the larger societies mores allows for no
universal guidelines of dress and behavior, automatic conformity to a single
standard must yield to a more mature understanding of the goals of tz’ niut,
and how to apply this value rationally and effectively in the society in which
we live. We may accept that it is reasonable to go to the beach, for example,
but that does not mean the even the scantiest swimsuits-those that are designed
clearly (and, in some cases, solely) to attract attention to the body of the
individual wearing it-are appropriate or should be considered licit attire. The
same is true of pants that are so tight that as the old joke goes, they
announce the male wearer’s religion… It is possible, without unnecessarily
restricting the fashion options available to moderns, to condemn certain kinds
of outfits as inconsistent with the dignity of human beings whom we hold to be
created in the divine image. To be sure, doing so requires subjective judgment
of intent, of context, and of sensitivities. But making such judgments is at
the heart of what it means to observe and truly uphold the principle of tz’ niut.”
“Thoughtful
reflection on the sanctity of the synagogue, then, should lead directly to
higher standards of modesty for men and women in their place. Moreover,
sloppiness (e.g. torn her dirty clothes) should be judged unseemly in the
synagogue…Also, appropriate dress is not merely the kind of costuming that does
not detract from the holy ambience of the sanctuary, but also the kind that
actively adds to it… Again, all this needs to be adjudicated in terms of local
mores; there are no universal rules. With the presence of God evokes, for
example, will always be very much depended on the images of God that we have
before us. But the common inscription over many synagogue Arks-‘Know before
whom you stand’-can serve each individual and community as the yardstick
against which tentative judgment of propriety may be measured.” (ibid.)
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