S/O Tznius | Imamother

keym

Wed, Jul 12 2017, 5:45 pm

MagentaYenta wrote:

What does the height of a foot covering have to do with tznius? The most current instruction in Crown Heights mentions shoes not being higher than ones ankles. For goodness sakes women in CH are schlepping kids and strollers all winter long what the heck is wrong with a boot?

And thats exactly what I wanted to know. (OP here). whenever we discuss tznius, the sources and halachos sound reasonable straightforward etc. But then we meander into shaitel length, boot height, women in pictures, and so much else that just causes resentment. Why cant we go back to following the basics of knees, elbows, collarbones, hair covering etc as standard in your community.
This is why I started my OP.
I am very tznius even in my rw community. And even I get enundated and pressured to take on more. And we wonder how the burka ladies spawn from.

I should have been clearer in my OP that it seems from the sa that what is halachically supposed to be covered should only be covered as minimal as necessary. Hence all the halachos of how to get dresses, use the bathroom, etc.

SixOfWands

Wed, Jul 12 2017, 5:48 pm

MagentaYenta wrote:

I saw that, but it also referred to "winter boots should not draw attention." Color me confused. But as a guess, its a ban on "shooties."

Do these rabbis have a subscription to Vogue, and peruse the latest fashions so they can know what to assur?

MagentaYenta

Wed, Jul 12 2017, 5:54 pm

SixOfWands wrote:

They certainly spend a lot of time scrutinizing female fashion. One has to wonder.

penguin

Wed, Jul 12 2017, 7:39 pm

I'm sure regular boots for the winter are fine. I think they're talking about shoes that wind around the leg. Clearly meant to evoke Roman gladiators or something. I personally think they're ugly but perhaps to some men they are attractive.

chanitroy

Wed, Jul 12 2017, 7:53 pm

Btw the guidelines published recently in collive.com were not created by the rabbbi's in crown heights, or not by any other rabbi's. They where created by a group of women in leadership positions in eretz yisroel. They got the guidelines signed by rabbanim in eretz yisroel so that there should be a rabbinic approval to the guidelines, and not just ladies coming up with something on their own, but that they comply with Torah standards, and are a way of accomplishing the basic laws set out in the shulchan Aruch. I hope this sets the record straight and ppl don't joke about rabbis looking at vogue magazines...

amother

Wheat

Wed, Jul 12 2017, 8:01 pm

keym wrote:

But then we meander into shaitel length, boot height, women in pictures, and so much else that just causes resentment. Why cant we go back to following the basics of knees, elbows, collarbones, hair covering etc as standard in your community.
.

Why don't you ask the same Rav this question? I would be very curious to hear his answer.

Though IMO shaitel length is different than the others you mentioned since a very long sheitel is definitely quite attractive. The others you mentioned are already more grey areas and I would love to hear a regular rw Rav's opinion on that.

MagentaYenta

Thu, Jul 13 2017, 12:12 am

DREAMING wrote:

I think it means high top shoes are not allowed because it clearly mentions "winter boots should not draw attention "

I figure these men are spending an awful lot of time studying womens fashion (far more than I do). The least they could do is provide some illustrations.

I have rainboots that are black and white zebra striped, and I have fashion boots that are much plainer with some serious heels. Of course my boot collection also includes all weather ankle boots (the Nikes are hot fuschia and blue). But the end result is I've got a variety of boots depending on the weather and what I'm wearing. Their description was as clear as mud.

WhatFor

Thu, Jul 13 2017, 1:31 am

Chayalle wrote:

(snip)
Story we had once: There was a man in our neighborhood who was something of a Kanai - his family was super RW and he tried to get everyone else to follow. He knocked on our door and told us that our daughter - who was 10 at the time - was wearing dresses that were too short, he could see her knees, and "bringing down the standards of tznius in the neighborhood" (his exact words.)

Funny thing was, I had just done try-ons with my DD the previous week and all her dresses adequately covered her knees. (I do this periodically, for shopping purposes more than anything else.) So I was pretty taken aback by these accusations. We asked our Rav, whose only reaction was "he should not be looking at her knees". Period. (RW Lakewood Rav, BTW). He said we should pay no attention. So we didn't.

This particular DD happens to be rather lively and spunky, she was the tree-climbing type...Rav said not to worry about any of that, she will outgrow it. She has, and is very tzanua as a teen B"H.

My point is - don't drive yourself nuts.

If a grown man knocked on my door to comment on my ten-year old child's clothing, particularly that they were immodest, I'd be concerned that he's paying such close attention to the clothing and body parts of a child and warn my children to never talk to him. What a creep.

zaq

Thu, Jul 13 2017, 10:32 am

MagentaYenta wrote:

You flunk, MY. Fuchsia and blue will definitely attract attention. I happen to think that brightly-colored boots, like brightly-colored anything else, make for a pleasant bit of visual cheer on a dreary overcast day.

I'm not a fan of Day-Glo sneakers, though. All you see is these eye-searing, disembodied FEET walking along . Hey, maybe that's a solution to the "tznius crisis". Have everyone wear shoes in fluorescent colors. No one will notice anything else about their mode of dress.

Chayalle

Thu, Jul 13 2017, 11:07 am

WhatFor wrote:

Yeah, that's pretty much how I felt.

amother

Seafoam

Thu, Jul 13 2017, 2:23 pm

Hi. I appreciate the facts on this thread.

I have a question what to answer to someone who says that women who show Ervah / and causes a man to sin the woman is over 2 aveiros because a) she showed Ervah 2) she was a stumbling block.

amother

Green

Thu, Jul 13 2017, 3:01 pm

amother wrote:

Ervah according to who? The Gemara or modern day fanatics?

iyar

Thu, Jul 13 2017, 7:54 pm

MagentaYenta wrote:

I briefly got stuck on the face of a 30ft waterfall last summer, is that close enough?

Please Magenta tell us where you were!
I'm positive I can't be the only one who's waiting to hear more.
This sounds so interesting!
And fun!
We'll only tell you if it's close enough if you tell us about it. Otherwise you must go find a tree to climb.
(Sorry but all the talk about covering up -which I do make a serious effort to do btw - is so not intriguing.)

iyar

Thu, Jul 13 2017, 7:59 pm

Winter boots should not draw attention?
Please edit to read-
Clothing in general should not draw attention. Nor should you draw attention to yourself by speaking or otherwise behaving immodestly. If you're a woman you'll know what makes you provocative, and you can save it for when you wish to be.
Winter boots should not draw moisture, including rain, sleet, melted snow, and other precipitation.

Water Stones

Thu, Jul 13 2017, 8:30 pm

MagentaYenta wrote:

I live in Crown Heights and my dh says it means shoe can not be high over ankles, but boots can be if its weather boots not for fashion kind of boots. It's for being not making your shoe fashion to draw attention. I don't understand that and he doesn't, too! But that's what he said he learned.

I wear "wellies" in the rain and snow. But if I liked ankle boot fashion shoes, why can't I wear them if I wear pretty fashion shoes to simchas? I don't like the ankle boot, but if I did.

zaq

Thu, Jul 13 2017, 9:01 pm

tichellady wrote:

Agreed! There are lots of weird stories in the Gemara. We typically don't learn halakha or appropriate behavior from them ( I am thinking right now about the student who climbed under his rabbi' s bed to learn about sx by watching the rabbi and his wife )

That one doesn't win the prize for most bizarre anecdote in Gemara but it is up there. You never find out how the Rebbetzin felt about it, either.

marina

Thu, Jul 13 2017, 11:33 pm

Personally, I love love love the one about the guy who falls off the roof right into.... a v@gina and the discussion of whether that constitutes marriage.

I can totally see how this got started too. A girl is pregnant and the dad is about to get expelled from Yeshiva Beis Medrash D'Sanhedrin and then he's like, hey it was a total accident, I was trying to fix the gutters up there and whoops, slipped and next thing I know...

PinkFridge

Fri, Jul 14 2017, 7:43 am

marina wrote:

You have not been one of the more vocal voices about learning gemara, though for all I know you've finished Shas twice.
I am always amazed though when I hear (others) talk about how women should learn gemara, yet they seem to have such disdain for its contents. (Again, others, not even necessarily here, this just triggered me to post.)

ETA because I don't want this to get personal: a few years ago I read a blog from some young woman who basically had turned learning gemara with her chavruta into a drinking game, putting a quarter in the pot anytime they came up with something misogynistic. Please, people, don't post a link. The blogger is supposed to be a lovely woman and for all I know she repudiated her youthful ignorant ugliness. In which case I'll delete this. So just in case, no one quote me.

Please folks, don't let this devolve into the same.

Last edited by PinkFridge on Fri, Jul 14 2017, 1:22 pm; edited 2 times in total