An AquaSkort?

An aquaskort you know?

It's the latest in modesty fashion recreation-waer.

waist with shirred elastic; three sizes - stretches to fit size XS/S, (6-10US), S/M (12-16US), L/XL (16-22US); looks like a skirt but has a split & has "tictacim" to clip the legs together; drawstring on bottom hem to enable you to tie tighter below the knee suitable for exercising, biking, hiking, yogo, and of course, swimming.


Here:

(k/t=EoZ)

^

Arab Female Modesty

And this was where?

It was strange to see most of the women with their faces covered some in traditional Arab garb others in fine black silken attire. It was not unusual for them to drop their face cover if they thought no other Arab was in the area and I was surprised to see they wore full make-up underneath.

Saudi Arabia?

Egypt?

Iran?

And when?


The answer.

^

Hollywood Jewish Modesty Style

Uma Thurman:-

Previous modesty star model.

^

No Bareness, Women!

New modesty standards:

(k/t=DovBear - no relation)

A Jewish Conjugal Custom

As one opinion has it, the idea that conducting conjugal relations in Judaism in some circles using a sheet with a hole in it for modesty concerns is a silly error (in Hebrew). This Rabbi (in English) is confounded and replies, at best, that persons seeing the arba kanfot undergarment on laundry lines gave rise to the presumption. And even Jewcy disdains the thought. It's even in Snopes. And it is a book title.

There is/was (k/t=Failed Messiah) even a Hebrew-language blog entitled "Hole in the Sheet" but deals with the unfortunate experience of Sarah Einhorn (in Hebrew here).

As it happened, I was at the Hebrew University this past week for a conference in honor of Prof. Gadi Wolfsfeld, one of my lecturers for my MA degree and someone I have debated on panels, who is leaving that institution for IDC and took advantage to catch up on what's new in academic journals at the library. I picked up Massehet and found an article on the subject by (Natan Ophir) on Kavvanot of Conjugality on Erev Shabbat: Kabbalistic Romanticism According to R' Moshe Cordovero (but cannot find it online) and in Hebrew:

נתן אופיר, כוונות בזיווג בליל שבת: רומנטיקה קבלית לפי ר' משה קורדובירו

and he has a different take. To summarize:

a) in the book Tefila L'Moshe, Section 9:9, p. 187b,

the Kabbalist specifies (bottom of page) that at the time of conjugal union, the husband and wife should be naked:

"according to the secret, [they] must be naked at the time of sexual union".

Ophir opines that if the Ramak emphasized this rule, then perhaps there were persons who did not act in this way.

b) we do know that modesty concerns as regards clothing included, for example, the obligation for a woman to wear an undergarment that covers fore and aft to prevent even accidental acts by animals as recorded in the Talmud Yerushalmi, Megillah 29b-30a:

דף כט,ב פרק ד הלכה א גמרא - מפני כבודן של בנות ישראל הוא התקין שיהו מכבסין בחמישי מפני כבוד השבת הוא התקין שיהו אופין פת בערבי שבתות שתהא פרוסה מצויה לעני הוא התקין שיהו אוכלין שום בלילי שבתות שהוא מכניס אהבה ומוציא תאוה הוא התקין שיהו הנשים מדברות זו עם זו בבה"כ הוא התקין שתהא אשה חוגרת בסינר בין מלפניה בין מלאחריה א"ר תנחום בר חייה מפני מעשה שאירע מעשה באשה שבעלה קוף מכדרכה ושלא כדרכה

c) but what about that sheet and its hole?

As it happens, it does appear in the Talmud, again in the Yerushalmi, Yevamot 1a-b:

דף א,א פרק א הלכה א גמרא - אתיא דרבי הונה כאבא שאול דתנא אבא שאול אומר הכונס את יבמתו לשום נוי או לשום דברים אחרים הרי זו בעילת זנות וקרוב להיות הוולד ממזר. דף א,ב פרק א הלכה א גמרא מה אבא שאול כר' עקיבה דר' עקיבה אמר יש ממזר ביבמה מה דא"ר עקיבה ביבמה שזינתה מה דאמר אבא שאול ביבמתו אתיא כר' יוסי בר חלפתא דרבי יוסי בן חלפתא ייבם את אשת אחיו חמש חרישות חרש וחמש נטיעות נטע ודרך סדין בעל

relating to an incident of yibum, levirate marriage, when Yossi Bar Halafta, according to Abba Shaul, when having sexual relations with his brother's widow, did it five times through a sheet, obviously out of modesty concerns.

So, it was practiced in those unique, personal, circumstances but may have been adopted and R' Cordovero was adamant that it was wrong.

________

UPDATE

Natan sent me this:

Dr. Natan Ophir (Offenbacher)

Meditative Instructions For Friday Night Conjugal Intimacy:
Romantic Kabbalah in the Writings of R. Moshe Cordovero

Abstract of article published in Massekhet, vol. 10, by Matan Jerusalem, October 2010, pp. 87-113, (English abstract 12-13).

How should love, intimacy, and joy be aroused? What is the secret for transforming physical love into a spiritual vehicle? In what ways can conjugal sex become a powerful tool to connect to the Divine? Such questions are addressed by RaMaK, R. Moshe Cordovero (1522–1570), one of the most prolific Kabbalist thinkers in Jewish history. In Ohr Yakar, his commentary to the Zohar, and in Tefillah LeMoshe, his commentary and meditative manual to the liturgy, RaMaK provides guidance on why, when and how to make love.

RaMaK quotes with approbation a 14th century Kabbalistic dictum that a person who has not experienced physical sexual passion cannot truly discover spiritual love for God. He reprimands those who advocate pious sex by using the "hole in the sheet" method. In reality, they wedge an artificial separation between male and female and prevent a truly intimate union. Instead, relying upon the authority of the Zohar, RaMaK argues for a romantic-spiritual experience.

This article contrasts the tantalizing instructions of the RaMaK to the prevalent halachic-moralistic traditions of leading authorities such as the Rambam, Raavad, Tur and Shulhan Arukh who tended to mitigate the pleasure element in sex. In contrast, RaMaK justifies a romantic intimacy that breaks away from the ascetic trend. He frames conjugal sex as a redemptive undertaking that creates harmony in both interpersonal relations and in the spiritual world of the Divine Sefirot.

RaMaK demonstrates the inherent value of love and sex at the proper time and place. He explains why Friday night is most conducive to creating the spiritual transformation. He details the Kabbalistic premises underlying the physical-mystical sexual intimacy as essential to both channeling erotic desire and facilitating the flow of Divine Influx (Shefa).

In sum, this article analyzes RaMaK's exposition upon the Zoharic 'secrets' for arousing passion and then transforming it into a vehicle for spiritual unification. It demonstrates how this is part of a mindfulness practice inherent in the meditative Kabbalah developed by the RaMaK and his colleagues in 16th century Tzfat. The article concludes by suggesting that the RaMaK's approach is a rudimentary model of what we might call "Kosher Tantra".

^

After Clinton, Obama Gets Himself Involved

Hillary Clinton saw fit to comment on "modesty" issues here in Israel* and President Obama had followed her lead.

From his speech at the Reform Convention:

Now, since my daughter Malia has reached the age where it seems like there’s always a Bar or Bat Mitzvah -- {laughter) -- every weekend, and there is quite a bit of negotiations around the skirts that she wears at these Bat
Mitzvahs -- (laughter) -- do you guys have these conversations as well? (Laughter.) All right. I just wanted to be clear it wasn’t just me.

Well, is there a Jewish chatan in her future?

__________

*

Clinton said gender segregation on some Israeli buses reminded her of Rosa Parks; that proposed legislation in Israel to control the funding of left-leaning groups worries her; and that the attitudes of a growing and increasingly powerful ultra-Orthodox community, particularly its attitudes toward women, are reminiscent of Iran.

and

Clinton caused a furor in some circles over remarks she reportedly made in a closed-door session over the weekend expressing concerns over Israel’s democracy. According to Israeli media, Clinton was also appalled by the segregation of women by some elements in the ultra-Orthodox community.

P.S.

statement from William Kristol, chairman of the Emergency Committee for Israel, in response to President Obama's speech today at the convention of the Union for Reform Judaism:

"President Obama protests too much. It is not a fact that his administration has been strong in support of Israel. It is a fact that in the past month alone, Obama administration officials have blamed Israel for the failure of the peace process, blamed Israel for fraying relations with the increasingly Islamist governments in Egypt and Turkey, compared Israel to Iran, and blamed Israel for Muslim anti-Semitism in Europe. The president hasn't clarified or repudiated any of these remarks. Israel's security doesn’t come from campaign-season platitudes delivered to Jewish audiences. Israel’s security depends on an American president who stands with Israel all the time, in public and private, before audiences foreign and domestic -- and whose administration's first instinct isn't to blame Israel first. The president's wishes to the contrary notwithstanding, the Emergency Committee for Israel will continue to tell it like it is."

-- William Kristol

"I am proud to say that no U.S. administration has done more in support of Israel's security than ours. None. Don't let anybody else tell you otherwise. It is a fact."

-- President Obama, Friday, Dec. 16
^

Need A reason for Separate-Seating on Buses?

Mixed-gender seating can be problematic.

Hareidi Jews prefer separate. In New York, too.

And for breast-feeding mothers, it is easier, like in the Phillipines.

But if you need a practical reason to prefer mixed-seating here's one:

Couple Faces Criminal Raps For Sex On City BusCops: Pennsylvania duo’s lewd dalliance was caught on tape

A Pennsylvania couple is facing an assortment of criminal charges for having sex on a city bus, carnal activity that was captured by the vehicle’s surveillance camera.

According to a police criminal complaint, Amanda Confer, 24, boarded the bus on a Friday afternoon in late-August...Also riding the bus through Montoursville that day were “Pre-release inmates” Randell Peterson and Joshua Schill. The men were part of a work release program...

Investigators allege that Confer and Peterson, 32, sat next to each other in the rear of the bus, with Schill sitting in front of them. Before the illicit action commenced, however, Confer “turned over her infant daughter” to Schill, who apparently served as babysitter/lookout during the subsequent rendezvous.

...Confer “lowered her underwear” and, “upon sitting on” Peterson’s lap, “both defendants proceeded to have sexual intercourse for several minutes.”

Shortly after the tryst ended, Peterson and Schill exited the bus together, while Confer continued to ride on with her daughter.

...Confer and Peterson were charged earlier this month with conspiracy, indecent exposure, open lewdness, and disorderly conduct. They are scheduled for a November 4 preliminary hearing in Magisterial District Court.

^

Reverse Modesty

Seen:

Translation:

Entrance to Males Prohibited

(k/t=MominIsrael)

Getting Back (Very Back) To Modesty

Yesterday, I posted a picture of a (slightly) growing phenomenon of Jewish femine modesty attire, i.e., the black shawl movement. I have done so before here and there are references there to other posts on the issue.

Well, you can now join the "King's Legion" at the offices of L'Ma'aneinu, 03-5743752 if you are so inclined.  Here's their flyer:

They are, as should be, against "short and tight-fitting clothes".  But they go just a bit further.  They ask women to talk to other women, with 'pleasant words', to urge them to avoid immodesty which 'causes death and the distancing from the Shechina'.

Another flyer, handed out with that is this one, entitled "Clothes were made to hide":-

and it stresses that clothes were made for the purpose to 'completely hide the outline of one's body and one's figure'.  That one should not be able discern any 'protrusion of body parts'.  And therefore, knitted material and lycra are Torah prohibited.  It even goes into a bit of detail (which is problematic by on that later on):

the skirt or dress should hide the shape of the shin from under the knee at the part it begins to grow large [the back part between the knee and ankle - YM]

Posters have been put up with pictures like this one of women at the Kotel a century ago all in shawls and looose-fitting clothes. 

Incidentally, I have heard that because they did not have modern warm-keeping material, the best way to keep warm was layers of clothes but be that as it may, I noted an article in Makkor Rishon this past Yom Kippur by Bechol Serloui Bakol Serloi Ullman (if I am phonetically correct; I wasn't; thanks to RA) in Hebrew on the modesty issue wherein she writes that a modest society surely frames sexuality within the proper limitations, permitting women to be human beings but that Hareidi developments are distancing from this ideal and its modeesty culture possesses elements of pornography (which is what two women have written to me priviately when I have posted previously on this).  Her article is not yet up at a web page but I hope to remember to link it soon.

Here is an excerpt:

וכאשר מזוהה הצניעות עם כלל המידות הטובות, כל התנגדות לה היא אסון וכל שאלה עליה היא ערעור על סלע קיומנו. והאישה, המנסה להיות יהודייה טובה יותר, נדחקת לפינות האחוריות של האוטובוס כשבד שחור מכסה את איבריה הנשיים. היא מזוהה עם החטא; ואת החטא – אין לגלות ברשות הרבים. דומה שכוחה השטני גדל שבעתיים: יהיו הרחובות נפרדים. כוחה עצום כל כך עד שיש לכסות את כל גופה ממש. והיושב לצידה באוטובוס, הרי הוא מתחייב בנפשו.

זוהי פורנוגרפיה. בפורנוגרפיה חושפים את גוף האישה כדי למחוק את פניה שהם עולמה הרגשי; כאן מכסים את גופה כדי להימנע מכוח הפיתוי העז שלה; מול הפורנוגרפיה מאבד האדם את שיפוטו המוסרי ואת שיקול דעתו. והתוצאה אחת היא: ה"אישה" נעלמת. כבר אין מדובר בגוף החי, בבשר ודם בעל רגשות, חלומות, תחושות; כאן וכאן מדובר בגוף בלבד. וכוח הייצוג של החטא עצום כל כך והפחד ממנו רב כל כך, שכמו נראה שכל ייצוג של נשיות הוא המפחיד. למעשה, יש להכחיד את הנשיות עצמה.

Just hope we don't adopt a song like this.

^

The Anti-Light Rail Poster

The Hareidi response to the Light Rail is itt's too much immodesty all those people of both sexes packed too closely one to another:-

But that's a situation due to the free rides.

In another few days, it'll be like the buses.

Buses?

^

Shawl Away

I have displayed here (b & c) and here wall posters in the hareidi neighborhoods exhorting females to wera a shawl-like cover over their upper bodies as part of the correct modest fashion.

Here's what it looks like. I spotted her near Davidka Square:

And here's a close-up of the apparel:

^

Modesty Fashion in a Blaze

Naamah Sapir, you are not alone.

...She said there was an explosion of tzniut fashion blogs online, including Fashion-Isha and Frum Fashionista with Jewish women taking inspiration from modest styles seen in the pages of Vogue and other fashion magazines...

More.

^

A "Thank You' Wall Poster

Remember that poster, in Hebrew and English, asking those going to the Western Wall for dawn prayers on Shavuot holiday to use the Damascus Gate for men while the women were requested to pass through Jaffa Gate? (No? Well it's the fourth poster here)

Well, they were so pleased that they put up a thank you poster:

All the worthy and righteous women who went through Jaffa Gate, and especially those who did so later on during the day, are to be blessed and congratulated.  Through their actions, Israel is redeemed.

^

She Is Modest

In a previous post, I bemoaned the seemingly too-strict regulation about wearing T-shirts for a female basketball team.

Well, the young lady did get permission to wear a more modest apparel and here is Naama Shapir:

(photo credit: YMedad via Channel One TV)

^

Female Muslim Jerk Demands Modesty Attire

An Israel basketball player who wishes to dress modestly and wear a T-shirt under her shirt, can't.

But

Woman weightlifter fights to compete in hijab Yahoo


A 35-year-old weightlifter is battling to be able to compete in the sport she loves while wearing a hijab instead of the body-hugging uniform that's required.

Kulsoom Abdullah, who was born in the United States to Pakistani parents, discovered weightlifting at her gym, Crossfit, in Atlanta in 2008. She entered her first open competition last year, and was thrilled to find out that she was actually pretty good in the competitive sport. She can lift 70 kilos (about 154 pounds) to her shoulders, and 60 kilos (or about 132 pounds) over her head, in a move called the "clean-and-jerk."

Doesn't seem fair.

^

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.

^

The Immodesty of Chewing Gum

There is a new booklet out on the theme of female modesty. The author is anonymous although there are phone numbers for contact, a mailing address and some haskamot from Lakewood, et.

The cover:

An example of his thinking:

It is immodest for a Jewish girl to appear in the street with chewing gum in her mouth:-

even if it is not noticeable.

You are hereby warned.

^

No Watching Films. Of Any Kind. For Any Purpose

That's the message, well, command, of this wall poster I snapped yesterday near Kikkar Shabbat:

Despite blandishments in Yiddish, despite educational purposes, for purposes of a mitzvah, no films of any kind.

The reason?  This form of activity has been proven to lead to the destruction of modesty.

By the way, the date of that is December 8, 1990.  Recycled.

^

Wall Posters

A 'Plague' of Close-fitting Clothes:

More Warnings of 'Slutty' Women's Fashion:

Probably a copy of a poster from many years ago, in Hebrew and Yiddish, against women going in public with a teichel demanding more stringent levels of modesty:

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And Now, A Bit on Judaism

This wall poster warns of bugs in the food most used for the "signs" for the first night of Rosh Hashana:


This one warns about double-ovens without the proper division for meat and dairy cooking and baking and roasting and suggest one product, Dalongi? Delonghi (I was corrected but they only make table-top ovens):


And this is a new book, "Darchei Tohar", 120 pages of how to keep separated from your wife during her "niddah" time:



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