Rebbetzin Esther Miller
A villager had a “Yerushalmi” siddur that explained which kavanot were needed for each prayer; lofty words and thoughts that one was meant to absorb were printed in small type. This man had to turn past pages filled with tiny letters before reaching the main text. By the time he had read “Adon Olam,” by the time he had reached the morning blessings… A Torah scholar from the city suggested: “Let’s exchange siddurim: you’ll take mine, since you don’t understand anything about preparing for prayer, about all these lofty meanings, anyway… And I’ll take yours.” Look at the wisdom in simplicity! The village Jew replies: “I know that things grow old and wear out over time. The siddur’s pages will begin to fall out and get lost. A page of kavanot will fall out, a page of midrashim and lofty meanings will get lost, but ‘Adon Olam’ will remain in the siddur. But if I take your siddur, the first thing to fall out will be ‘Adon Olam’! I cannot afford to lose it!”
We all try to be good Jewish women. In the battle with the evil inclination, something always suffers: good kavanot and lofty words fall away. What matters most is that the essence remains, that our “Adon Olam” survives. What in our lives can be compared to the first pages of the siddur, which can fall out? What is easiest to turn away from is tzniut, Jewish modesty. This is the least popular topic.
A righteous woman, may she rest in peace, with whom we had the privilege of speaking, used to say: the faster the physical world develops, the faster we must develop the spiritual world.
In the past, to prepare lunch, a woman had to go to the market, buy a live chicken, go to the shochet so that he could slaughter the bird, go to the rabbi if a question arose, take it to the women who worked plucking birds, and then go home to salt it. Only then could she begin the actual cooking process. All this work was for a single day, because there were no refrigerators. The same was true of laundry—not a single woman of those days would have believed that you could put all your washing into a box and take it out clean!
One of the reasons (we will not examine all of them) for this process is that the Almighty wants us to develop spiritually at the same pace!
There are many ways in which our generation has improved: there are many baalei teshuvah, righteous women have become Torah teachers, something that was almost unheard of before, and organizations devoted to chesed have been established. Yet the pace of this progress cannot compare with how rapidly the situation in the world is deteriorating.
Perhaps it is appropriate here to recall the words of the author of Shnei Luchot HaBrit (Sefer HaOtiyot), the great kabbalist Rabbi Yeshayahu HaLevi Horowitz, who writes that the stronger a particular yetzer is in a generation, the greater the mandate the Almighty gives the Sages of Israel. When Moshe received the Torah, a certain blank space was left in it, an empty square that is filled in each generation—one of the Sages of that generation receives the mandate to fill it. The further people stray from the Torah, the greater the authority the Sages will receive to safeguard and correct the conduct of their generation. The more permissive and depraved the world surrounding the community becomes, the stricter the enactments our Sages will be able to use to protect us. The world must remain in balance.
This means that if Mashiach has still not come in a year, two years, or three years, there will be new, stricter enactments from the Sages. The world is moving toward moral decay, and we must counter this with a movement toward holiness.
Rabbi Horowitz concludes: “And all of them are from the Torah.” In other words, all the new enactments of our Sages derive from the Torah.
Perhaps we can mention here a fairly well-known story about Rabbi Yechezkel Abramsky. When he was being held by the GPU, an interrogator beat him and demanded that he reveal the whereabouts of a Jew who had escaped, while Rabbi Yechezkel, understandably, remained silent. The interrogator then became utterly enraged and shouted: “Can't you hear when someone is talking to you? I'm shouting myself hoarse, and you don't react!” Rabbi Abramsky replied: “I hear you, but I hear another voice even more loudly.” The interrogator fell silent for a minute but heard nothing. “You're mocking me!” he said. Rabbi Abramsky replied: “Our Scripture says: ‘The voice of G-d is powerful; the voice of G-d is majestic.’ That voice is far stronger than all the other voices in the world—for every Jew. I hear that voice, so I do not hear you.”
The voices from outside, the alluring voices of this world, are growing louder. It is becoming increasingly difficult for us to shut them out. To help us hear the Almighty's voice more strongly, our Sages are receiving ever greater authority to drown out the voices from outside.
Is Modesty Beautiful?
Is tzniut beautiful, or is that like saying that a diet tastes good?
Let us begin with the fact that there are two kinds of beauty: relative beauty and absolute beauty.
About 13 years ago, I began working as a homeroom teacher in the upper grades. At the time, floor-length skirts were the height of fashion. We had to persuade the girls to shorten their skirts to the accepted length—three-quarter length. One of the teachers said to me then: “You'll see, soon we'll have to persuade them to do the opposite!” And that is exactly what we see today. I cannot remember ever being humiliated as much as I was by my students when I urged them to shorten their skirts to the accepted length!
When our daughters looked at their grandmother's wedding photos, they could not believe that everyone wore long dresses back then, even young women! Girls today see this as the height of covering up, something backward. Yet at the time, it was very fashionable!
An item's relative beauty exists because it looks beautiful now in the eyes of those around us. Today it is large, round glasses; tomorrow, small, rectangular ones. Today it is floor-length skirts; tomorrow, excessively short ones. This relative beauty, based on fashion, often conflicts with tzniut (tzniut means not only modesty but also restraint).
But there is another kind of beauty, about which our Sages said: «There is nothing more beautiful than tzniut».
A little girl does not understand why this particular skirt does not go with this particular top. Girls in general are not very good at coordinating colors. True beauty is an essence that one must grow enough to understand. A person who understands the beauty of the soul can understand absolute beauty.
Once I attended the funeral of a great tzaddik and saw Rabbi Shteinman, of blessed memory, in person, quite close to me. He had arrived a little late and therefore found himself at the back of the line of women. As he made his way out of the women's section, I looked at him and understood that photographs and paintings could convey none of it—neither the light radiating from his face nor his holiness. This is what true beauty can look like.
I try to attend my students' weddings. Often, they cannot boast of relative beauty, the kind valued by this world's standards, but on that day they glow so brightly from within that everyone around them says: “What a beautiful bride!”
Every person who has grown spiritually, worked on themselves, and corrected their faults has become more beautiful in the absolute sense. Moreover, at a certain point, they begin to see absolute beauty in others, beauty over which the demands of fashion have no power.
Indeed, judged by the standards of relative beauty, some modest items of clothing are unattractive. Just as a diet does not taste good. But women who follow a diet as part of a healthy lifestyle cannot look at a doughnut or fatty food without feeling uncomfortable imagining themselves eating it; they physically sense how heavy and unhealthy that food is. Such women's taste becomes so refined that they cannot eat food that is harmful to them. The same is true of tzniut: at a certain point, anything that is not tzanua (modest, restrained) evokes the same aversion that fatty food does in those who follow a diet. Taste becomes more refined and recognizes that modest, restrained clothing is beautiful.
Relative beauty diminishes over the years: the older a person becomes, the less beautiful they are. Yet sometimes we look at an elderly woman whose face shines with wisdom and holiness, and we realize that she is beautiful.
Uncomfortable and Unpleasant
Why do we feel so uncomfortable and upset when our appearance is criticized?
Several years ago, I began teaching at a seminary. The first day included a ceremony that began in the afternoon. Everyone gathered in the hall, after which they were to go to their classrooms. One of the teachers, whom I still greatly value and respect, called me over and said that she wanted to tell me something later in the staffroom. I went there after the ceremony, expecting her to welcome me as a newcomer. She did indeed congratulate me on joining the teaching staff, and then said that something about my appearance was immodest (a particular shortcoming). I am grateful to her for those words, because I felt what our students feel when we comment on their tzniut. I believe that every teacher should experience this herself before deciding how she will address this subject with her students.
A conversation about modesty often causes irreparable harm. Then tzniut becomes a sore subject that hurts whenever it is touched, like an injury that has left a scar. Teachers must take this into account, especially in the younger grades: rather than dwelling on the negative, they should show how beautiful, sweet, and gentle a girl looks when she is dressed tzanua.
In class, I talk with my students about outward tzniut (in clothing) and inward tzniut—modest, restrained behavior, good taste, and sensitivity. When the conversation did not concern outward appearance, when we talked about personal qualities, everyone listened attentively; the girls enjoyed it. Just as they enjoyed talking about Shabbat and character traits. The only time the girls found it hard to sit still, jumping up from their chairs, was when we talked about modesty in clothing. Then there were shouts and complaints. One of the girls told me honestly: “When we talk about personal qualities, that is something inward. Everyone can consider herself good, because it cannot be seen from the outside! It cannot be measured! When we talk about prayer and one's inner attitude, I can always justify myself and find many reasons why it did not work out this time, and say that my prayers still please the Almighty. But when we talk about tzniut, it can be measured in centimeters—and there is no escape, nowhere to run! Unbuttoned or buttoned, long or short—everyone can see it.”
One of the tragedies of our generation is that tzniut is perceived as a “school subject.” When a teacher teaches the laws of Shabbat, she is teaching “the Almighty's laws,” but when she teaches tzniut, it is a lesson on the requirements of the takanon (school regulations). If mothers taught their daughters from childhood that tzniut means “walk humbly before the L-rd, your G-d,” that it is an important human quality—humility before the Almighty—and that it concerns the sensitivity of the human soul, then modesty in clothing could be taught on that foundation when they were older. The girls would already have a basic understanding and an inner sense of the importance of these laws, and they would fit naturally into the overall meaning: tzniut in clothing is an outward expression of my inner world!
A good military commander concentrates his forces around the capital. He knows that if the capital falls, the entire country will fall. At that moment, small towns and villages do not matter to him. The evil inclination does the same. Since all our Sages say that modesty is the most important thing for a Jewish woman, the yetzer hara directs its main attack precisely there. Chesed and prayer matter less to it; its main aim is to strike at a Jewish woman's tzniut. That is precisely why it is so difficult to resist temptation when it comes to tzniut. This means that our main task is to withstand the attack specifically in the area of tzniut, Jewish modesty—both inward and outward.
Prepared by: Mrs. Zissi Skarzhinskaya