Dh wants me to stop shaving

gp2.0

Thu, Sep 24 2015, 11:52 pm

amother wrote:

Ya wanna know why we shave? Because tonight at the Mikvah it was full of someone else's long hair .yuck! At wits end

Lol. The mikvah is also full of underarm hair and pubic hair and body fluids like saliva and mucus and who knows what else. LOL

Basically, of all gross things that are likely floating around in a communal bath, head hair is probably the least gross.

amother

Slategray

Fri, Sep 25 2015, 12:00 am

gp2.0 wrote:

Lol. The mikvah is also full of underarm hair and pubic hair and body fluids like saliva and mucus and who knows what else. LOL

Basically, of all gross things that are likely floating around in a communal bath, head hair is probably the least gross.

Thanks for grossing me out Exploding anger

amother

Papaya

Fri, Sep 25 2015, 12:04 am

gp2.0 wrote:

Lol. The mikvah is also full of underarm hair and pubic hair and body fluids like saliva and mucus and who knows what else. LOL

Basically, of all gross things that are likely floating around in a communal bath, head hair is probably the least gross.

Thankfully the gross stuff you mentioned are not visible to the eyes but long hairs are, and if those get entangled on your fingers or elsewhere on your body the tevillah is not a kosher one.
I always ask my attendant to fish out the hairs before I enter the mikva. She gladly does it.

pickle321

Fri, Sep 25 2015, 1:54 am

Lita wrote:

Op- I read that the minhag started after there was many pogroms (and rapes) back in eastern europe.The rabbis decided that when the attackers would run up and grab a woman and uncover her hair, if she was bald it would repulse them and she would be left alone.
Your husband should be a man and take the blame.

If this is the case why would we make men be repulsed by their wives? Sounds like a pretty horrible mesorah.

Carmen Luna

Fri, Sep 25 2015, 2:14 am

amother wrote:

youre right. I dont want to shave. ( and truthully, which woman would, if given the choice... Wink

) as I said, Im disillusioned with chassidishkeit. however I want to make an informed decision. I am not like one of these people who are all like " my husband lets me do a, b, ,c and then to whatever and whenever they want. Im being pressured by my husband but its ultimately in my hands. I have the go ahead... but where does this come from, chassidish or kabbalah and what is it all about?

OP, 1st, I want to say I totally understand where your coming from. No offense to the other amothers, but based on their post's, they dont begin to understand our culture. I just want to point out that it has nothing with Chassidus and DEFINITELY NOT with anything bubbeh masseh about rape in the heim. Rolling Eyes

... Just you should know the Chsam Sofer was extremely against letting a woman grow her hair and he was far from chassidish. He even left it in his tzavuah. Im really not trying to tell you what to do, but just know, that this is a mesorah going back many many years.

Carmen Luna

Fri, Sep 25 2015, 2:21 am

amother wrote:

Here is the Mesorah-

The custom only a few hundred years old.In Europe there were areas where the local nobility/royalty would sleep with new brides on their wedding night and it was a very traumatic thing. So people started shaving the women's heads to make them less appealing.

Holocaust happens, Jews come to America. Many don't shave.

In 1951 the Satmar rebbe says women need to start shaving their heads as a Kapara for all the kesoshim.

[is that really true?] ~edited~

asmileaday

Fri, Sep 25 2015, 2:32 am

Carmen Luna wrote:

[is that really true?] ~edited~

And yet for some reason this is what we were told over and over in school and anywhere else What

I clearly remember being in camp and the shabbos speaker told this story: A woman was walking down the street late at night, her jewelry in clear sight (don't remember if it was Friday night or coming from a wedding). A thug attacked her and tried to grab her jewelry and knocked he down. Her wig fell off and the thug yells "undercover cop!" and runs away. (Her shaved head was exposed.) What a miracle. The power of mesorah. Again What

amother

Honeydew

Fri, Sep 25 2015, 3:32 am

Quote:

unless you live in KJ, you shouldn't have a problem finding other mikvaos to toivel in. In Williamsburg there's Pupa. Or you can do as I did, and pretend to be a foreigner in the Satmar Willi mikvah.

When iI lived in Willy and did not shave the lady in papa mikes always tried to convince me to shave. I felt horrible. I'm coming here to toivel and not to get mussar
In satmer nobody has ever told me anything
Thank gd I don't live there anymore

Carmen Luna

Fri, Sep 25 2015, 3:36 am

asmileaday wrote:

And yet for some reason this is what we were told over and over in school and anywhere else What

LOL. So from that story that happened within the last 3 decades at most, you found that to be the reason behind this holy mesorah. You amuse me, please do continue.

5mom

Fri, Sep 25 2015, 5:50 am

Carmen Luna wrote:

The Chasam Sofer wrote in his will to the kehilla in Pressburg that women should be careful not to uncover even a single hair, and that they should not wear wigs. It's pretty clear that they were expected to have hair. He wanted them to wear a tichel that covers everything. I don't know where you got the idea that the Chasam Sofer advocated shaving.

In any case, the vast majority of Jewish women over the years did not shave their heads. As another poster pointed out, a husband may annul his wife's neder to become a nazir on the grounds that at the end she will cut her hair short (not even shave it entirely) and it's reasonable for a man to prefer his wife's hair long.

I don't object if a particular community wishes to impose this on themselves. I do object if you think it's the height of religious observance. Plenty of holy modest women did otherwise, and you disrespect our grandmothers when you suggest that a woman can't be modest without shaving off her hair.

Maya

Fri, Sep 25 2015, 7:08 am

The Chasam Sofer's tzavuah states that his descendants should not wear sheitels. I am a direct descendant and my family has been wearing sheitels for many generations going back, as does my entire extended family going as far as second cousins, all einiklech from him. I don't know where the discrepancy comes about.

Either way, there is nothing in there about shaving.
I think I am correct in stating that shaving right before the war was done mostly in very Chassidish places like Poland and maybe small backwards towns in other countries. Based on my family's history, it seems that women in places like Budapest and Austria did not do so, and started only after the war in America when the Satmar rebbe made it his pet subject.

watergirl

Fri, Sep 25 2015, 7:12 am

Carmen Luna wrote:

LOL. So from that story that happened within the last 3 decades at most, you found that to be the reason behind this holy mesorah. You amuse me, please do continue.

Can you please tell me why so many of your posts have such a nasty tone? On this whole board in general - you come across as aggressive. Regardless if you agree or disagree, you are a new poster here. Why not take it easy and chill out a bit?

amother

Aubergine

Fri, Sep 25 2015, 7:26 am

Maya wrote:

I think you reversed the countries.
Poilish chasidim (Ger, ) do not have the Minhag to shave.
Budapest did have the minhag. That's where my family originate from and as I said before we are not satmar.

Maya

Fri, Sep 25 2015, 7:30 am

amother wrote:

My experiences are the opposite. I imagine all data would be individual, as it seems so much of the practices are idealized and romanticized and perhaps not as uniform as we are told.

amother

Hotpink

Fri, Sep 25 2015, 7:32 am

gp2.0 wrote:

Lol. The mikvah is also full of underarm hair and pubic hair and body fluids like saliva and mucus and who knows what else. LOL

Basically, of all gross things that are likely floating around in a communal bath, head hair is probably the least gross.

It is so hard to do this to begin with.

Iymnok

Fri, Sep 25 2015, 7:36 am

gp2.0 wrote:

Lol. The mikvah is also full of underarm hair and pubic hair and body fluids like saliva and mucus and who knows what else. LOL

Basically, of all gross things that are likely floating around in a communal bath, head hair is probably the least gross.

Now consider the swimming pool that no one did chafifa before entering- even showering is doubtful.

amother

Aubergine

Fri, Sep 25 2015, 7:37 am

Maya wrote:

My experiences are the opposite. I imagine all data would be individual, as it seems so much of the practices are idealized and romanticized and perhaps not as uniform as we are told.

OOC do you know any gerer people that shave? One side of my husband's family is ger and they don't have this minhag. I also went to a school that has many different types and we discussed it among ourselves. I was told by many different people that it's not a minhag there. (Including someone whose father is a chasidish Rav shtamming from a ger type of chasidus.)

freedomseek

Fri, Sep 25 2015, 9:20 am

No one in Poland ever shaved!

The only written evidence of this minhag is from vaad arbeh haarotzos stating that women should shave their hair as there was a question of chatzitza for Mikva .(lice)
There is a Zohar about hair grown during nidda has a tumah but this was just cited after the minhag was implemented. Not the reason.
This whole minhag is about two centuries old.....
Good luck op, I'm contemplating the same thing.
Social pressure is a big issue!

amother

Jade

Fri, Sep 25 2015, 9:24 am

Op it must be very hard on you to have this pressure from your family, no one should tell you what to wear under your sheitel,
As a general observation I believe the issue is that the newly wed kallah has no opinion in the matter, I think every girl should be given the choice when she gets married if she should shave or not, once you shave it's hard to stop.

DrMom

Fri, Sep 25 2015, 9:36 am

I learned (here on imamother; shaving is not mainstearm in my community) that some women shave because a married woman's hair (head-hair only, apparently) has "klipos" on it and shaving removes these klipos.

But I don't understand this klipos business at all, so beyond that part, I am lost.