Rabbi Yissachar Frand
Continued. The beginning is here
But how can we claim today that all women were created modest?
Do you know what goes on in the streets (G-d forbid that we should witness it)?! Wherever we go, all it takes is stepping beyond the boundaries of a very religious neighborhood—and there is nothing resembling “inner modesty”! Billions of women around the world do not fit this concept at all—quite the contrary, everything is on public display! What happened to “built-in modesty”? Or were these women originally created from something else, rather than from a concealed part of Adam?
Those with daughters, even daughters who attend schools that observe the laws of modesty and provide separate education for boys and girls, know how difficult it is in today’s world to uphold the boundaries of tzniut, modesty. The spirit of the times, so to speak, is extremely hostile to modesty and everything associated with it.
How can we be certain that woman was created modest in her very essence when we see precisely the opposite in the modern world?
The answer is that we live in a world of falsehood. “The darkest hour is just before dawn”; in modern society everything is utterly turned upside down, and with each passing year the truth is buried ever deeper beneath a layer of falsehood. What was originally natural to every woman and girl, what should naturally be present among the women of any society, is now seen as a great spiritual battle.
Edom’s values—the body, outward beauty, promiscuity, displaying bare flesh—have become so firmly entrenched at the top of society’s scale of values that modesty in any form becomes a subject of debate and discussion—even in relatively traditional societies. In marketing terms, “tzniut is an extremely hard sell today.”
What is happening today is unnatural. In the Victorian era, for example, no woman would have dressed even in her own bedroom the way many dress on the streets today. And we need not go so far back in history for examples—just over 50 years ago, today’s fashions would have been a challenge to society, and appearing in such clothing in a public place might have meant an administrative fine.
Society has changed its attitude toward what was originally natural to every woman, and now it requires tremendous effort toward spiritual growth.
The most widely recognized model of womanhood in our tradition is the passage “Eshet Chayil,” in which King Solomon praises the “woman of valor.” Among other things, it says, “Oz vehadar levushah,” strength and beauty are her clothing. (Mishlei 31:25). The word hadar also means “beautiful.” King Solomon is saying that a woman of valor certainly has beautiful clothing—this is clear and needs no further explanation. Yet there is another attribute of her attire: “oz,” meaning strength. How are we to understand this?
The answer could not be more relevant to what we are discussing.
King Solomon points us to a time when a worthy woman will need extraordinary inner strength to dress in a manner befitting her status.
The “woman of valor” will have to go from store to store until she finds something suitable. She will have to endure people staring at her “unusual” style of dress, especially in summer—against a backdrop of shorts and tank tops, a woman dressed with dignity looks almost like a visitor from another planet. This is what requires strength—this is Oz, this is Gevurah.