Guest post
My impression from what I've read and
conversations I've had with friends who went to Bais Yaakov is that there are
two frequently cited prooftexts for the importance of tznius.
Particularly, for the primary importance tznius is given in frum
women's religious life.
The first is the story of Kimchis. As
the story is told to talmidos, Kimchis was zoche to have all
seven of her sons serve as Kohen Gadol. The rabbonim asked her what she had
done to merit this honor, and she replied that the beams of her house had never
seen her hair. This proves how important tznius is. If you are careful
about tznius, the girls are told, you will merit great things. Things
like all of your sons serving in the highest religious position.
Unfortunately for those who want to use
Kimchis's example as a guide to the ideal way a bas Yisrael should behave,
there is more to the story. There are two versions of the story, one in the
Yerushalmi[1]
and one in the Bavli[2].
They have similar outlines, but different details. In both stories, there is a woman named
Kimchis whose son is the Kohen Gadol. He goes for a walk and some spit from a
person he is talking to lands on him, making him taamei, and one of his
brothers performs the avodah in his place. The names of the sons, the
people the Kohen Gadol talks to, and the circumstances of his excursion are differ
between the two versions of the story.
The differing details, including the
name of the Kohen Gadol involved, make it likely that this was a folktale and/or
a polemic rather than something that really happened. Both versions are subtly
critical of the Kohen Gadol, and the story revolves around an issue of tumah
and tahara, which was a point of contention between the Perushim and the
Tzedukim[3].
The Tzedukim, the priestly class, thought that the common people didn't need to
concern themselves with purity. It you were taamei, don't come to the
Beis HaMikdash, but unless you were a cohen who needed to perform the avodah,
it wasn't something to be concerned about. The Perushim, who were populists,
felt that everyone should try to remain tahar.
In the version of the story in the
Bavli, Kimchis's son Rabbi Yishmael was Kohen Gadol[4].
He apparently had a habit of carelessly conversing with people in the market,
because twice saliva from a person he was talking with landed on his clothes
and made him taamie. In one incident, his brother Yesheivav performs the
avodah for him, and in the other, his brother Yosef. The Gemara quotes a
bareisa that says all seven of Kimchis's sons served as Kohen Gadol,
implying that Rabbi Yishmael was often invalidated
for service and his brothers had to fill in for him.
This story is making fun of the
Tzedukim, who claimed to be uniquely concerned about their purity. The Kohen
Gadol, who should have been the most careful, became tammei all the time! So
much for the Tzeduki claim that tumah and tahara were too much
trouble for the commoners, concerns only for the elite. If even the most elite,
the Kohen Gadol, couldn't stay tahor, then the Tzedukim could not claim
ritual purity as their special concern.
The rabbonim asked Kimchis, "What
did you do to merit this?" (Having all of your sons serve as Kohen Gadol.)
Their question could be read as sarcastic, but Kimchis takes it at face value
and answers that it was because of her exceptional purity, "In all my days, the beams of my house did not see the braids of
my hair." The rabbis dismiss her explanation, saying that it was commonplace,
nothing special, and none of the other women who had this practice were so
rewarded for it. They refute Kimchis's suggestion that her Tzeduki devotion to
purity is anything special or praiseworthy.
Kimchis, then, is not an exemplar of tznius who was rewarded for her exceptional modesty, but a foil for
the rabbonim in a polemic about purity. Holding her up as a model a pure bas
Yisroel should strive to emulate is to not only miss the point, but to mangle
it.
The version of the story in the
Yerushalmi is kinder to Kimchis, but harder on her son. In this version, the
Kohen Gadol is named Shimon. He took a walk with the king on erev Yom Kippur.
When a drop of spit from the king's mouth made him taamei, his brother
Yehuda performed the avodah in his place. This is a stronger
condemnation of Tzeduki claim of being an elite unuiqly concerned with purity
than is the Bavli version of the story. Not only does the Kohen Gadol, the most
elite member of the priestly class, carelessly allow himself to become tammei,
he allows it to happen on erev Yom Kippur, when he is supposed to be
sequestered to prevent exactly this sort of thing from happening. Nor was this
a one time thing. It happened so often that all of his brothers serve as Kohen
Gadol!
The biggest difference between the two versions
of the story is that in the Yerushalmi version when Kimchis tells the rabbonim
that she merited all of her sons serving as Kohen Gadol because her house never
saw her hair (and in this version, her undergarments), they agree with her that
this is praiseworthy. They praise her with the pasuk from tehillim[5],
"Kol kevudah bas melech pnimia; Mimishbi'tzos zahav livusha,"
"All glorious is the princess within the palace; her clothing is of checker
work interwoven with gold." Yet even here, the focus seems not to be on tznius,
per se, but on reading the pasuk as describing cause and effect. The
"princess," Kimchis, kept her "glory" hidden even in the
"palace," her house, and therefore she merited "clothing… interwoven
with gold," the clothing of the Kohen Gadol which are described as being
interwoven with gold. Her care for her purity was the cause of her seven sons
wearing the clothing of the Kohen Gadol. Yet even here, in their praise for
her, one can detect the rabbonim poking fun at the idea of purity as a priestly
concern. Kimchis's obsession with her purity might have merited her seven sons
who served as Kohen Gadol, but what of the sons? They failed at keeping
themselves pure.
The pasuk the rabbonim cite is
the second commonly cited prooftext for the central importance of tznius
for Jewish women. More accurately, the first half of the pasuk, "Kol
kevudah bas melech pnimia," is repeated as a mantra for tznius.
It's taken out of context and mistranslated as, "The glory of a princess
is inside." A princess doesn't wear flashy clothes or draw attention to
herself. She is reserved, and her glory is not in her physical appearance, but
her inner attributes. Every bas Yisrael is a bas melech, the
girls are told, and should comport themselves appropriately.
There is no small irony in trying to
convince women that focusing on their appearance is improper with the first
half of a pasuk that goes on to describe magnificent gold-embroidered
clothing in its second half. This is not exactly a modest outfit. The pasuk
is part of a passage describing the wedding procession of a princess. It is not
a prescription of an ideal of modesty for the metaphorical daughters of the
King, i.e., Jewish women to whom God is a King and Father. Rather, it is a
description of a literal princess as she goes to meet her future husband in his
palace.
So it seems that two of the frequently
cited sources used to support the centrality of tznius in Jewish women's
religious life are misunderstanding or misrepresentations of those sources. The
story of Kimchis isn't a morality tale about a paragon of purity we should seek
to emulate. It's a farce undercutting the Tzeduki claim that tummah and tahara
were a special concern of the priestly elite.
And "Kol kevudah bas melech pnimia" isn't a
prescription teaching Jewish women that they shouldn't focus on their
appearance, but a truncated pasuk about a radiantly attired princess
that's been quoted wildly out of context.
[1] Yerushalmi. Yoma 1:1 (38d)
[2] Bavli Yoma 47a
[3] Schiffman,
L.H. (2003), Understanding Second Temple
and Rabbinic Judaism. Jersey City, NJ: Ktav Publishing House
[4] It's interesting that he's given the title "Rabbi," a Perushi
honorific. At the same time the rabbonim are making fun of him in a polemic undermining
the elitist attitudes of the Tzedukim, they also give him a title that lets
them claim the position of Kohen Gadol for one of their own.
[5] Psalms 45