Dh wants me to stop shaving

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Forum -> Judaism -> Halachic Questions and Discussions

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HeartyAppetite

Fri, Sep 25 2015, 12:22 pm

I remember learning in school the reason for shaving. (Dont remember all the details though)few hundred years ago all of the european countries had one rav that represented their country. All the rabonim would get together to discuss halachos and make new psak halacha. ( I think it was called vad arba rabonos, or something like that) They decided that although the women covered their hair, it didn't prevent stray strands from sticking out. So they made psak halacha, that every country part of the vad will require the women to shave. Every women had to shave, and if she didn't, she and her husband were put into cherem. That is what I learned

Zehava

Fri, Sep 25 2015, 12:40 pm

Well you learnt wrong. There weren't even any shavers a few hundred years ago.

sequoia

Fri, Sep 25 2015, 12:42 pm

Carmen, are you hoping to make ANY friends here?

The people who are outspoken are also thoughtful, kind, and well-rounded. That is why they are popular, NOT because they have the "right" views.

A sincere question: what is your goal on imamother? So far approximately all of your posts have been mocking or attacking others. No other content. What are you intending to achieve?

gp2.0

Fri, Sep 25 2015, 1:03 pm

amother wrote:

For those of you who believe that shaving a women head never originated with pogroms and rape you are sadly very wrong. I have discussed this topic with several experts in Jewish history and they have confirmed this. I'll see if I can find any of the articles they wrote.

The obvious question then, is why don't all the girls have to shave too? Rapists didn't care if they were married or not! All girls should be shaved, toddlers to teens!

Speaking of stories we were told in school, the fish pot story is one of my favorites. It illustrated the chassidish school of thought that "whatever my mother does, I have to do the same to carry on our mesorah."

The Landau family had a peculiar way of cooking fish for yom tov. They would buy an entire fish, and cook the head in one pot, the tail in another, and the rest of the fish in a third. Generation after generation of Landaus cooked the fish for yom tov this way, until one little Landau piped up, "but why? Why do we separate the fish?" Her mother asked her mother who asked her mother, who smiled and said, "I needed a whole fish to have enough for our large family, but I didn't own a pot big enough to cook the entire fish at once!"

This story illustrates a large part of chassidish mentality. In past generations the only way for family minhagim to be passed down was for fathers to teach their sons and mothers to teach their daughters. Unfortunately some BS got passed down along the way. Some idiosyncrasies. Some OCD. Some anxiety. Some narishkeit. All of it bundled up with actual mesorah. So the poor veiblech and yingerleit had to keep doing it all, lest they lose something important. Nowadays we are more educated. We have more information. That's where the heter comes into play.

Brushing aside all apologetics and revisionist history, the only real reason chassidish women nowadays shave is because their mothers do.

sky

Fri, Sep 25 2015, 1:11 pm

so how many years back does shaving go?
(I don't shave)
My grandmother has very clear recollections that her mother and grandmother and all the women in their village shaved. In fact she remembers people being treated very poorly when they stopped shaving.
[The mikva was on my grandmother's property growing up so she knew a lot growing up. This was Czechoslovakia\Hungary border]

MagentaYenta

Fri, Sep 25 2015, 1:21 pm

amother wrote:

I would be happy if you just posted their names.

ra_mom

Fri, Sep 25 2015, 2:23 pm

Once your hair is long and tied back nobody should be able to tell wants going on underneath. I've always had long hair and always worn it pulled back in a pony and then pinned down.
In the meantime, follow Maya's advice and wear a wig when you're in the company of others.

ra_mom

Fri, Sep 25 2015, 2:24 pm

My grandmother never shaved. Her mother and grandmother didn't either. Where were these pograms? Only in Hungary?

Maya

Fri, Sep 25 2015, 2:28 pm

ra_mom wrote:

My grandmother never shaved. Her mother and grandmother didn't either. Where were these pograms? Only in Hungary?

My grandmother's family from Hungary didn't either shave. No pogroms there's either, I guess.

amother

Lime

Fri, Sep 25 2015, 2:45 pm

gp2.0 wrote:

.

Still looking may contact the authors directly. As to why young girls didn't have to cover it was know as the right of the first night when a girl was getting married it was the lords right to sleep with her before she was allowed to be with her husband. Now this may not be the only reason all the communities that shave do. Hair is discussed in Kabbala but if I remember correctly its that the hair should be covered.

gp2.0

Fri, Sep 25 2015, 2:58 pm

Lol the story of the feudal lord sleeping with virgin brides is just that, a story. There's no historical proof of it but it showed up in (secular) novels.

We Jews have always loved stories. We just have to remember that not every story passed down from parent to child is God's truth. Some of them are just really great stories.

BetsyTacy

Fri, Sep 25 2015, 3:09 pm

GP2.0 I thought there was historical basis for jus primae noctis--wasn't that a whole thing in Braveheart?
I think we're going a little off topic here for OP. I imagine (no shaving in my community) that the reasoning behind the shaving of only married women is that they have the status of aishes ish.

As usual, imamother opens my eyes to many other opinions/experiences.

imasoftov

Sat, Sep 26 2015, 12:50 pm

gp2.0 wrote:

Tell me about it! All that sweat, grime and body oil floating around. The absolute worst is a jacuzzi in a hotel. Touted as a luxury, there is no way those are cleaned as well as they should be. I avoid them at all costs.

I avoid them for free ...

israelgirl

Sat, Sep 26 2015, 1:45 pm

This should be in "immediate reactions" I guess I'm so clueless about shaving the head that my first reaction was wait, are there actually husband who LIKE hairy legs/underarms?

JMM-uc

Sat, Sep 26 2015, 1:48 pm

israelgirl wrote:

This should be in "immediate reactions" I guess I'm so clueless about shaving the head that my first reaction was wait, are there actually husband who LIKE hairy legs/underarms?

That was my first reaction too!

asmileaday

Sat, Sep 26 2015, 6:03 pm

gp2.0 wrote:

Brushing aside all apologetics and revisionist history, the only real reason chassidish women nowadays shave is because their mothers do.

This.

Fave

Sat, Sep 26 2015, 6:36 pm

gp2.0 wrote:

Brushing aside all apologetics and revisionist history, the only real reason chassidish women nowadays shave is because their mothers do.

But that's what is Mesorah is all about. Same as the levush the men wear (type of hat, length of suit jacket....).

Each sect has a different mesorah that gets carried over from generation to generation, and not everything has a clear historical explanation.

Happy18

Sat, Sep 26 2015, 7:24 pm

gp2.0 wrote:

http://www.britannica.com/topi.....gneur

Droit du seigneur, (French: “right of the lord”), a feudal right said to have existed in medieval Europe giving the lord to whom it belonged the right to sleep the first night with the bride of any one of his vassals. The custom is paralleled in various primitive societies, but the evidence of its existence in Europe is all indirect, involving records of redemption dues paid by the vassal to avoid enforcement of some lordly rights. Many intellectual investigations have been devoted to the problem. A considerable number of feudal rights were related to the vassal’s marriage, particularly the lord’s right to select a bride for his vassal, but these were almost invariably redeemed by a money payment, or “avail”; and it seems likely that the droit du seigneur amounted, in effect, only to another tax of this sort.

5mom

Sat, Sep 26 2015, 7:36 pm

Fave wrote:

It's still fair to point out that someone started the practice and that Jews haven't done this forever. It's also fair in some cases to point out that something may have started out for reasons that are not about religion.

Imagine that in Yeuhupitz, the mayor's brother had a monopoly on the sale of buttons. Starting in 1853, he sold only bright blue buttons, because he had a surplus. So the Jews of Yeuhupitz wore only bright blue buttons on their shirts. Thus was born a mesorah.

Now, must the descendants of the Yehupitzers forever wear bright blue buttons in order to be good Jews? You could argue that bright blue buttons mark their dedication to the memory of their fathers. But to say that the buttons are a kiyum in techeiles or something like that, and therefore the best practice for a frum Jew, that's pretty shaky.

Happy18

Sat, Sep 26 2015, 8:04 pm

5mom wrote:

Correct. Which is why in cases where there are certain minhagim a competent Rav can tell you it is halachically muttar to not follow that minhag.

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