Sunday, January 24, 2010

Modesty is not about stockings…or wigs…or skirts… (by Lily)

Sheitel (bangitout.com)

Ah, tznius (modesty) – one of the frum world’s most-talked-about topics, of unique obsession to Ba’alei Teshuva. It is one of those observances that can encompass myriad chumras - more than a new recruit can even keep up with at first. Coupled with the often-publicized notion that improper observance of tznius by the Jewish women is to blame for a number of the communities’ tragedies, the topic of tznius is overwhelming for the newly religious (and a great challenge to undo for the formerly frum).

I’ll preface this post with a little information about myself,now and pre-Lubavitch. I have always been a pretty quiet person. I like to read, have coffee with friends, shop, and go for long walks on the beach (ok, the last one is a dream, but you get the idea). With the exception of some trendy outfits as a teenager, I’ve always dressed fairly conservatively – jeans, pretty tops, low heels. When I started making the transition into Orthodoxy, however, my perception of modesty was altered and corrupted – to the detriment of my self-image and confidence.

heavenwarddesigns.com

In my early stages of becoming frum, one of the most profound aspects of frum life was tznius. I was absolutely fascinated by the glamorous, silky, stylish sheitels of the rebbetzins I met. The swish-swish sound of the floor-skimming denim skirts the “girls” wore during the week was captivating. On Shabbos, all the women at the Chabad house looked like models. Their barely-covering-the-knee skirts, knee-high leather boots with heels and stunning jewelry were high-fashion. I started to change my style of dress slowly, and within a month or two, I had purged my closet of all the jeans, open-toed shoes, short-sleeved tops, and anything else immodest. All of these items were replaced with long skirts I purchased at Goodwill, crew-necked long-sleeved shirts and a collection of stockings and knee-high socks. I never quite mastered the “Hot Chanie” look, but I was pretty satisfied with my progress. I wanted acceptance, and the community seemed to be responding favorably (my barometer was all of the phone calls, Shabbos invitations and whatnot). All was well. I was adapting very nicely to the tznius rules…in my city, anyway.
When I got to the yeshiva, however, I was in for a surprise. The second day I was in Brooklyn, I selected a just-below-the-knee, pink and white paisley skirt, a white, long-sleeved button-down blouse, sheer stockings and a pair of black flats. I went out to do my errands on Kingston – but didn’t make it too far. Blocks from my basement apartment, a lady stood on the corner. As I came into her view, she called me over and harshly reprimanded me for my immodest clothing. According to her, the reason I hadn’t found a shidduch yet and started a Jewish home was because of my lack of tznius. I went home and cried. Because I was in such a fragile and easily-influenced state of mind (we’ll talk more about this during book club discussions!), I really took her words to heart. I became obsessed with tznius.
There’s a bus in Crown Heights that takes you to the heart of Boro Park, where you can shop to your heart’s content for anything and everything Jewish, frum, and Kosher. Along the lengthy blocks, one can find Chassidim of all backgrounds. Walking from store to store, I attracted less-than-kind looks from the Chassidish women. I quickly realized that my dress was to blame. Dressed in a deliciously swish-swishy denim skirt, long-sleeved tee and a hoodie, I was not in uniform for Boro Park. The ladies there were decked out in fancy skirt suits, dripping in diamonds, and wearing vintage-looking stockings with seams running up the backs. Their sheitels were simple, and many wore an additional headcovering on top of the wigs. I was sold. This, I thought, is modesty. They look so elegant. “We are meant to dress like daughters of the King,” I remembered hearing. These women look like that!
And so, I began to emulate the modesty in dress of the Chassidim. I received accolades from many in my Lubavitch circle of friends in Crown Heights and elsewhere. “Leah, you’re amazing! Such an eishes chayil!” I came to enjoy the attention and the now-sickening notion of “out-frumming” others. It was a spiritual high that came at the cost of others’ self-image. I was doing to others what the Tznius Police lady on Kingston had done to me. Blinded by my pursuit of holiness, however, I kept going. Sheer knee-hi’s became stockings, which became opaque, which became full tights. Skirts had kick-pleats; denim was out. Pajama pants were definitely gone, too, and replaced by matronly robes.

The height of my obsession with modesty came when I received the book pictured at left, Modesty – An Adornment for Life. I joined an online study group that helped me navigate the expansive tome, which even included quizzes. This book, authored by the famed Rabbi Pesach Eliyahu Falk of Gateshead, UK, covered every conceivable minutia of tznius. It was terrifying fodder for the constantly-racing mind of the Ba’alat Teshuva. I made it my goal to adopt as many of the chumras in the book as possible. I became very, very plain, very quickly – and extremely quiet, to avoid immodest speech. I went above and beyond the book in many areas, including shaving my head a la Satmar to ensure total immersion in the waters of the mikvah, and to prevent myself further from exposing my hair to anyone, even my husband.

I felt accomplished, but at the same time, I experienced twinges of sadness at times as I gazed at the nearly-bald person in the mirror each day. On the road off the derech, I let go of a lot of my tznius chumras before totally frei-ing out. I did my very best to become a Hot Chanie, but I just couldn’t handle those boots – and I felt kind of stupid in a Jessica Simpson-style, expensive, flippy, silky, long, shiny, one-eye-covering (you know what I mean…see the pic below right for example of hairstyle) sheitel at the grocery store. It just wasn’t me – and neither was the concept of modesty in the Orthodox world.
The hardest part of phasing back into wearing pants/short sleeves/open toes/you name it was coming to terms with the idea that you can dress normally without looking like a lady of the evening, euphemistically speaking. Like so many things in the frum world, tznius is all or nothing. You’re either with us, or against us (literally, as community tragedies are so often blamed on a lack of female modesty). For about a year, I experimented with my clothing and accessories. At times, it was too much. In jeans and a sweater, I felt horribly exposed. I had been taught that leg contours in pants were extremely provocative. Wearing a baseball cap instead of a wig or a scarf, I felt like a traitor. But as time went on, I became comfortable being myself. It became fun to go to a store and have the choice of buying whatever clothing I felt like. I looked attractive, conservative and modest by my own standards. Little by little, my Old Navy style came back. I became more confident, too – two weeks ago, I ditched the sheitel for good. My hair is still growing out from the final buzz cut over a year ago. It’s not a hairstyle yet (more like lots of bobby pins and a can of hairspray), but I’m proud of it. It’s a tiny ponytail, yes, but it’s mine.
I’ve come up with my own definition of modesty. It’s not about stockings, or wigs, or skirts – it’s about valuing oneself enough to dress and conduct herself in a way befitting a human being worthy of respect. It doesn’t matter what color your nail polish is, or what kind of shoes you’re wearing, or whose head your sheitel’s hair came from – it’s about fostering a healthy sense of self-worth. Showing off every inch of one’s body doesn’t work with this philosophy, and neither does covering up from head to toe. What are your thoughts about tznius? Have you ever had an encounter with the Tznius Police? How have your views evolved or changed?
With love,
Lily

5 comments:

  1. Has your book club evolved to anything? Is there still room for new members?

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  2. Lily,

    I deal with this on a daily basis! When I first came to Boro Park I went all the way down to palm stockings with seams and now I realize that I am not even being myself and it has hurt my self confidence tremendously. I am not sure how to come back from it. I suppose the only thing to do is to move away and start over. But I am still frum! Even if by a thread. I no longer know who I really am, all the praise just made me feel so good that I went with it for many years and now I feel like my body isn't even my own. It belongs to everyone else and I must listen to them. First you give up your style for them, then you give up your music, your movies, your 'goyishe' literature and what is left?

    I thought it was funny, the other day I went shopping with a friend and she told me that I must start wearing skirts with pleats so that I fit in. Since when does a regular pencil skirt make one stand out among the crowd? And by the way, I think the women in BP (elegant they are) tend to stare at everyone in that judgemental way, not just you, they do it to eachother too. I am learning not to care.

    I'd love to meet other people who have gone through this, I feel like I am battling a whole nation on my own. If you'd like to chat your email would mean a lot to me: sdebeau (at) y a h o o (dot) c o m

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    1. I'm going through this now. Modesty is important to me but I feel like it's relative and now I don't know what standards to follow. Because I've been wearing skirts for about 6 years now and in a very Jewish neighborhood where everyone knows each other, I realized that what began as taking something upon myself because I thought it was right became a status marker, something that if I stopped doing it, I would have to deal with the social consequences, reputation stuff etc. I want to do things for the right reasons but existing in a community makes that hard if you care about what others think, which I am of course guilty of. I have not journaled these things out so I'm just doing it here, sorry haha.

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  3. Thank you for this blog. I don't know what has become of it, but thank you.

    I was never a baal teshuva in Chabad but for years I have been dreaming about it: watching the documentaries, reading the books, reading Chabad.org until I cried, ogling the pictures of simchas, stalking insiders' blogs and forums, drafting my letters to the Rebbe, and spending entirely too much time on Freeda.com.

    The mystique was overwhelming; it seemed like the solution to everything. Since adolescence I had wondered how to live a holy and meaningful life, how to be a good person, how not to fritter away my life on worldly pursuits. I had looked for answers and for guides, but nothing was consistent. No one seemed to have figured it all out. Living the right kind of life, or even knowing what it was, seemed an impossibility. And then I visited a Chabad house and it was as though the book had been opened for me; all the answers were there. These people had completely answered the question of how to live, and how to live before God.

    Not only that, but there was such warmth, such comfort, such a support system, and what seemed to be such an understanding of people, their weaknesses and frailties and their needs. And then, of course, the glamour of it all: the genteel homes full of seforim and children; the men's aristocratic outfits and black hats; the sumptuous mikvahs; the big-hearted shlucha with her challas and her children and her sheitel, beautiful yet approachable, exquisite yet humble. Surely this was the type of woman to be. Surely this was beyond anything else I had hoped to achieve: any degrees, any distinctions; the empty, futile worldly recognition; the lie of choices; the charade of the independent self.

    I stopped short of making concrete plans to join. Sometimes I would see something and hesitate: the Rebbe's position on Ethiopian Jews, for example, or his failure to write a letter to the family of Gavin Cato. Chabad's seemingly bitter loathing of Matisyahu and Shmuley Boteach; the aspersions and the spit cast on the woman who showed up at school in a tichel or the girl who showed too much knee. The suspicion of evolution and secular education; what kind of childhood the poor gay kids in Lubavitch must have. The story about the husband who left his wife when she got M.S. The tradition amongst bochurim on mivtzoim to give "Shefoch hamatcha" to gentiles who ask for a prayer or a verse from the Torah. The judgment, the put-downs, the shame. ...And finally, your blog. I have God to thank that I found it in time.

    To be a human being--not enough for Lubavitch. To be a good person--what does that matter if it isn't Torah. To be a Jew--they'll tell you this is enough, but later you'll learn that it isn't. To be a frum Jew--never right, never enough. If you have even one difference of opinion with them you can never fit. All you can do is hope to be brainwashed enough, someday, to fit in--or to tough it out for the sake of having FFB children, who will no doubt be luckier.

    This, I have learned, is the reality of Chabad. It was a shock to learn it. It was scary and heartbreaking and revolting to have my former vision shaken. I cannot imagine how it would be to learn these things after having given so much of one's life to Chabad, after enduring the belittling and infantalizing and living through the strangeness, the alienation of being a young baalat teshuva in that community.

    I hope this revelation does not estrange me from Yiddishkeit. I hope I will find a Jewish home that feels like home someday. I strongly hope the same for you too, Mimi and Lily. You have been through so much, and you deserve to be among people who truly put ahavas Yisroel and ahavas habrios first. B'hatzlacha.



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  4. Thank you so much for your comment and your words of understanding. I invite you to visit my new blog/website at www.hayleyamanda.com.
    With love,
    Hayley (Lily)

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