kitsch

while i can't really find a way to excuse having run across this on youtube, once i did i felt like i should watch to the end to confirm my suspicion that the adult woman's face is always blocked out (it is: by hands, siddur, or flowers). Watching to the end I saw something curious. At around minute 5 we see an invitation to a "Wedding" between "he-hattan: ha-shabbat" and "ha-kallah: am yisrael." Now, there are those* who objected to the personification of shabbat as female in (inter alia) BT Shabbat 119a.** But once it's going to be a wedding, it's pretty clear that shabbos is the woman. So, perhaps the skilled videographer is used to B"Y being the kallah vis a vis God and just assumed we always are (ie, replaced shabbat for God, a questionable though not insane theological proposal). Or, even more perhaps, the same impulse to block out women's faces is related to being squeamish about eroticizing shabbat. Well, at least it's consistent...

* Rambam, hilkhot shabbat 30:2 (", וחכמים הראשונים היו מקבצין תלמידיהן בערב שבת ומתעטפים ואומרים בואו ונצא לקראת שבת המלך.")

** רבי חנינא מיעטף וקאי אפניא דמעלי שבתא, אמר: בואו ונצא לקראת שבת המלכה. רבי ינאי לביש מאניה מעלי שבת, ואמר: בואי כלה בואי כלה.