It's All In The Eyes

In a previous posting last month, I dealt with a new modesty booklet that was published, instructing women and girls the proper ways to behave from a Hareidi viewpoint, which included, for example, not walking in the street while chewing gum, and surely not licking an ice-cream pop.

The comments sent me searching through my library and I found it: a pocket-shirtsize booklet published by the most strictest of the Hassidic sects in Meah Shearim, those who follow the outlook of Rav Aharon Roth z"l who founded the Shomrei Emunim court, with a unique history, now split into two.

As anyone who has visited Meah Shearim knows, you can see Hassidic men who will cover their eyes if a woman is approaching, at the least lower their heads or even stop and turn towards a wall until the female passes, if not crossing over to the other side. I have no problem with this as long as they don't initiate yelling or screaming, usually accompanied by the Yiddish-pronounced "pritzus!", from the Hebrew pritzut, or moral looseness or better, licentiousness. Of course, there's always someone more extreme.

And there are those who are less extreme. And even a blog (in Hebrew).

To return to the booklet, it is a collection of instruction, persuasions and quotations from Talmudic, Rabbinic and Kabbalistic sources on the subject of not looking at women (and dogs engaged in sexual activity).

Here's the cover:

Here are two pages from the booklet, 66-67:

You can read that the act of "separation" leads to a holy existence, that is, separating from impure and prohibited actions but there is nothing more serious that the Evil Inclination's effect on illicit sexual behavior and improper looking.  One who does not glance or look at things he should not be looking at is a holy person.  One who is 'warmed' by his desires needs to be cooled off and since the sin of illicit sexual behavior especially with one's self, that is, autoeroticism, is the overarching sin which connects all, then one who does not allow himself to be lured by his eyes actually affects all his limbs and physical parts. And he quotes from the Babylonian Talmudic Tractate Shabbat, 118b:

R. Jose said: I have never looked at my circumcised membrum. But that is not so, for Rabbi was asked, Why were you called 'Our holy Teacher?' Said he to them, I have never looked at my membrum?33 — In Rabbi's case there was another thing to his credit, viz., he did not insert his hand beneath his girdle. R. Jose also said: The beams of my house have never seen the seams of my shirt.34

33 Which shows that this modesty was peculiar to him.
34 I.e., he did not turn his shirt inside out when he undressed but pulled it over his head whilst sitting up in bed, so that he remained covered as much as possible out of modesty.

In any case, there is nothing wrong with being more than moderately modest but extremes really never end.

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