Bork Bork Bork!

maybe there can be too much of a good thing. but maybe not. enjoy in moderation.

modest mice

ALG tagged me with this thing they call a meme. Well, I hate to disappoint, and I also hate to do what I'm actually supposed to do now, so I'll give it a shot...
it's very long, and i don't know if i have anything interesting to add, but anyway...

1 Regarding sleeves, collars, and skirt-length/shorts/pants, do you dress the same way you did when you were five? Fifteen?

When I was 5, I owned one skirt, i think, and I was always begging my mom to let me wear it. I wore a lot of pink, purple, and turqoise (my mom tried to change that but i was steadfast) and used to do this thing that was, in my opinion, cute, where i wore t-shirts over turtlenecks in the winter (not that that's so relevant). i wore shorts in the summer, but never sleevless, probably at least in part for sun-protection. i definitely went (mixed) swimming at the town pool.
When I was 15 I was post-Camp Sternberg so I was in theory covering my elbows, though the fashion at the time was to do so with oversize t-shirts, which weren't quite as long on me as on others. i seem to recall that i would expose up to a tefach (measured by my very own hand, as opposed to in inches) below my collarbone, though i think my mom would sometimes get annoyed by this. i wore pants for basketball and other athletic things. i worse short sleeves for basketball too, actually, but i pretended they weren't. (this was psychologically easy given the general oversize t-shirt fashion of the time...)
also, at 15, almost all my clothes were too big (body image, etc...) and some shade of gray. (i include dark green, navy, maroon, and even white in "gray")

2 If you dress differently now, why?

well, the biggest way i dress differently is actually that i started wearing clothes that fit, and also ones with patterns and colors. i think that was just part of growing up and out of all the teenage body-angst. i wear lower necks now, i'm not sure why. i just do. maybe it's because, after learning a bit, i became convinced that the collarbone rule was actually made up. (as in, didn't exist more than, say, 100 years ago), and made-up halalkhot annoy me. (other examples of made up halakhot are the precise ways in which one must check vegetables, or the number of minutes one must spend bathing in preparation for mikvah immersion. maybe what i'm getting at is that these things should be formulated as standards, not rules...)

3 As a child, how, if at all, were you taught about tsniut in the home and/or school? What were the rules? How were they presented?

we had a dress code (skirts below the knee, no sleeveless or cap sleeves) in school. my mom wears pants and would have been happy for me to do likewise on my own time. the rules from school weren't really taught at all, just sent home in the handbook every year. as for the rules from home (which had more to do with no high heels and no slinky black dresses for pre-teens - ie, actual modesty), they came up shopping. my mom's reasons were usually incomprehensible to me (like certain styles being too "adult" or inappropriate). the school's reasons were basically "we say so."

4 How does your dress differ from your mother's in terms of tsniut (not, say, fashion sensibility)? From your grandmothers'? From your sister's or sisters'?

mother: she wears pants, i generally don't. she also, on the theoretical level, covers head, not hair, though her hair is so short this is usually not an issue. (she has shocked some friday night guests by coming to the table in a yarmulkah, but i think she may have given that up now...)
grandmother: there are pictures of my bubbe a"h at the beach in a bathing suit (and no head covering, as far as i recall) from the 50s. when i knew her she wore bubbe-style tichels (foam lined for shape) or sheitels. i don't know if she ever wore pants, though her sister (my great aunt, a"h) had some choice pant-suits from the 70s that she continued to wear when i knew her...

5 Do you dress differently inside your home and outside your home, regardless of who is present?

sometimes, mostly not. no real method to my madness here. except that for whatever reason i am definitely less makpid on covering hair at home (i do still cover my head for strangers...)

6 Do you dress differently depending on where you are or what you're doing? Is this for halachic or social reasons?

pants for athletic things (eg, hiking). stockings and high necks in certain neighborhoods, partly because i think these standards actually depend on local custom and partly because i don't like people thinking i need kiruv...

7 Do you dress differently if you are in a mixed (men and women) setting versus a women-only setting?

yes.

8 How do you define tsniut as a halachic concept, either as it currently stands socially or in some halachic vacuum?

i usually don't. by which i mean, i don't know.

9 If you had full freedom to rewrite halacha, what would you do with tsniut?

phrase it more in terms of standards than rules, though i think there are some things that can't really ever be ok (no exposed thighs, breasts, bellies, shoulders - probably for men too, as applicable). i might do away with hair covering, but i'd probably want all people of all genders to head-cover. wigs would be seriously reconsidered, except for parnassah reasons. (but that's largely cuz i think they're gross) more deeply, i'd want to reemphasize the non-covering aspects of tsniut. even as it relates to dress, i think the main point should be not to think abt what you wear all the time, spend a lot of money on it, etc. you know, cheap jeans and a t-shirt, (or maybe generic communist jumpsuits?), for everyone...

10 To what extent do your decisions about dress and/or head covering reflect:

* social reality of your Jewish community? (i.e., wanting to fit in, or, alternatively, not wanting to fit in)

a lot. but not so much fitting in as that the community (or some average of the various communities i circulate in) creates a default that i usually feel no reason to change.
* an immutable halachic code?
talk about loaded questions. definitely defined by halakha (with the possible exception of necklines, as discussed above), but i'm not sure what "immutable" adds here...
* personal physical comfort?
the main reason i wear sockless sandals, tichels > wigs or hats, etc, is comfort...
* feelings that people should focus more on your mind/actions than your body?
yes, but this more dictates my style than the rules i follow.

11 How would you rank the importance of following communal and/or halachic standards with regard to Shabbat, kashrut, and tsniut? (I'm not discussing nidah/negiah now, which is usually the third after Shabbat and kashrut.) Do they hold equal weight in your mind?

my instinct is to "rank" according to halakhah itself, in which case shabbat and kashrut seem to me to clearly have a more substantial de-orayta component, as well as generally more well-developed laws. (this is why tsniut doesn't substitute so smoothly for niddah in the big three...). all three are about the same in terms of how much i fret about them. (ie, i don't usually, for better or worse...) right now, i think shabbat is the one that i appreciate most on a "spiritual" or personal level, but that is subject to change in different life situations...

12 How important is the idea of "בגד איש" to you in determining your dress?

not.

13 How important are the ideas of "שוק באשה ערוה שוק באשה ערוה" and "טפח באשה ערוה" (see Brachot 24a) to you in determining your dress?

very.

14 If you are married or otherwise in an exclusive relationship, to what extent does your partner influence your dress decisions, tsniut-related or otherwise?

not very much. i mean, he'd care if i uncovered my head and started wearing miniskirts, but probably mostly b/c it would be a sign that our attitudes toward halakhah and torah were no longer similar... in general, i try to limit my fashion dictations (except when asked) to removing clothes with holes from spouse's wardrobe, and he's similarly hands off. we're just not that kind of people...

on this note, someone once questioned me on my wearing (very loose) pants around the dorm, and it came up that my mom wears pants. she asked "your father doesn't mind?" i think he would find that question just as amusing, and odd, as i did (and not because my mom wouldn't listen anyway...).

15 If you are dating, to what extent does your date influence your dress decisions, tsniut-related or otherwise?

16 How, if at all, do your feelings about your body influence the way you dress?

i think i sort of talked abt this above, and shabbos is coming...

17 Do you enjoy buying clothing for yourself?

not as much as i once did, partly because i've accumulated so much i've become picky and try only to buy things i will actually wear a lot. also i'm really cheap, and haven't found the hunt for bargains in new york to be as fruitful as i remember the one in boston being in my youth...

18 Do you think that looking attractive and being tsniusdic (either halachically or socially defined) are mutually exclusive or mutually inclusive? Do you think that looking sexy and being tsniusdic (either halachically or socially defined) are mutually inclusive or mutually exclusive?

i don't think either pair is either mutually inclusive or exclusive. though i do think that trying to look sexy is not tsniusdik, i think actually looking sexy (ie, in the eye of an onlooker) is up to that onlooker, who is free to make mountains out of molehills (or pinky fingers)...

19 What, if any, do you feel are positive results of tsniut? What, if any, do you feel are negative results?

positive: no more bad hair days. in general, i think at this point in life it helps my body image not to feel i have to show a lot.
negative results are being hot in the summer. also, the only thing that really bothers me about hair covering is sticking out in non-jewish settings (both on the level of "looking funny" and on the level of having details of my identity suddenly identifiable, subjecting me to tokenism, etc... ie, what happens to men when they wear a kippah...)

literacy...

from an article in the New York Times:

"The study found that eldest children scored about three points higher on I.Q. tests than their closest sibling. The difference was an average, meaning that it showed up in most families, but not all of them."

does the new york times really have to explain what it would mean to say "on average three points higher"? ack!

there is a joke in boston that goes something like this:

a man is waiting in the express checkout line at the supermarket, right under the sign that says "ten items or less (sic)," with a full cart. when he gets to the front, the cashier asks, "so, are you from hahvad and can't count, or are you from MIT and can't read?

apparently, the polite way to tell someone you are waiting for them to finally have children is to say "simchas by you!" or somesuch. of course, you can always be like the guy in shul who, after seeing me for the first time since my wedding, said "now, a bris!"

a word problem

miriam had $M in her checking account. She deposited a check for $N. The citibank machine said she had "N+M available now."
Let's say miriam writes two checks (C1 and C2) and makes one transfer to another account (T). Let's say fruther that C1+C2+T < M+N. Will miriam's checks bounce? If they do bounce, what does "available now" mean?

arggg...
(and apologies again to the person to whom this actually effected...)


the moral of the story is, of course, not to trust machines when they tell you things that you think don't make sense/may not actually be true...

have you heard "yoya" at any weddings lately?

Over at R. Josh's (and presumably elsewhere, though I'm not on top of the whole interweb) there's been a lot of discussion of a new OU/NSCY website promoting "abstinence." Well, the topic was posed to the lookjed listserve, and I found one response particularly...interesting.

Many are of the opinion that the entire matter should not be discussed,
heard written about, etc. Sex education is a "no no." The best way to curb
immoral behavior is to do whatever possible to remove it from the mind.
The more it is in the mind of people the more it will be explored, played
with, indulged in and violated. There is no way to avoid it. If you want a
liberal democratic "enlightened" society you will have to pay the price
with promiscuity, high divorce rate, tardiness in getting married (if at
all) and a general state of frustration and unhappiness. Sex education
does much more harm than good.

I have a lot of experience with communities where these topics are never
in the limelight. The youth are so pure that it is a pleasure to look at
their innocent sweet faces. ... Sex education is given prior to marriage and
everyone seems to be very content, on the whole.

This is the only really effective method. All other compromises generally
just don't seem to work, although there is positive and negative in almost
everything and I am sure that some have benefited from the website, but
the above method is much more effective.

Of course, there are some problems with this view. First, factually, my impression (all hearsay, obviously) is that it is not actually accurate to say that rebbeim in your average yeshivish boys school don't talk about sex (aka the yetser hora, etc...). Furthermore, even to the extent they don't talk about it, I don't think it is really that far from the mind of the young men in question. (If it is, countless tsnius books will need to rethink the "MenHaveNoSelfControlThinkAboutSexAllTheTimeCantBeTrusted" trope...)
However, I think he may be on to something with girls. For whatever reason, it seems to be completely possible to get many high school girls to sublimate all their sexual interests/energies. And it's true, the temimus of many such young women is a wonder, and harder to find among the coed-socializers. This leads to the second potential problem, which is that these girls are basically the only ones in their community totally not thinking abt sex, and the very fact that they are not educated seems to leave them vulnerable in many ways. However, I think the commenter brought a pov that at least deserves to be aired.
Which brings me to the title of this post. When i was of bar- and bat-mitsvah-going age, I recall the favorite dances being "yoya" and "yidden". I've noticed of late that "yoya" isn't as popular as it once was - I can't remember the last time I heard it at a wedding. Of course, fashions change, and the fact that yoya is a secular song whose lyrics, not being pesukim or otherwise recognizable from the litrugy, may be hard for poor American band leaders to sing (as well as perhaps "inappropriate" in heimishe settings...) probably doesn't help it.
On Sunday, at a friend's daughter's bat mitzvah, I witnessed another possible reason. It seems that the young folks have a new-fangled dance to yoya. this dance is, well, not appropriate. by which I mean that the same choreography could easily be transplanted to a music video. (I'm not saying that in the way old people refer to "MTV" and generally mean "not what we used to do," but rather that I really could be in a pop or hip hop video.) However, my initial shock (I am such an old fogey!) was replaced with bemusal (word?) rather quickly since it was quite clear the girls dancing had no idea. that is, no idea what they were doing could be done provocatively. It was kind of cute, and reminded me of the lookjed post above. Of course, the communities where sex-ed is a real no no tend to be the communities where sucha dance would be outlawed by any self respecting menaheles in a second. but still, the parallels remain...