Wigs and Sheitels

 

One of the strictures of Orthodox rabbinical Judaism is the alleged requirement for a married woman to cover her hair.

Whilst married women in Synagogues will wear a hat or hair covering, the rabbis demand that the hair remains covered whenever they leave the house. A further twist to this is the European invention of a wig, or “sheitel”,  which is an imitation of hair but still can be quite fashionable.

If asked for a source to support this requirement, they point to the Sotah ceremony mentioned in Numbers 5.  This is the ordeal of the suspected adulteress.  The woman alleged to have committed adultery is brought to or near the temple, and made to take an oath of her innocence.

18 And the priest shall set the woman before the LORD, and let the hair of the woman's head go loose, and put the meal-offering of memorial in her hands, which is the meal-offering of jealousy; and the priest shall have in his hand the water of bitterness that causeth the curse.

It is the phrase וּפָרַע אֶת-רֹאשׁ הָאִשָּׁה

which is translated as letting her head (hair) go loose, that the rabbis see as justification for this law.  They infer that the normal state would be for her hair to be covered.  And that it is a case of modesty that a woman’s hair be covered, and in fact that a man cannot pray  in the presence of a married woman with uncovered hair.

This interpretation is problematic, since the Torah does not state that her hair is uncovered, but that it is let loose.  This could mean her hair is tied or platted. Moreover, the logic of the rabbis is entirely the opposite of what the Torah is suggesting.  If having uncovered hair is a severe breach of modesty, and prevents a person from praying, how could the Priest conduct this service in the presence of an immodest woman? Furthermore, how can she utter an oath to God whilst her hair is uncovered? She is in the Temple itself with her hair uncovered - quite the opposite of Orthodox halacha!

Incidentally, we have already seen how this Sotah ceremony was corrupted by the "rabbis" (who were in fact non Israelite converts to Rabbanism) http://tanakhemet.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/talmudic-whistleblower-akavya-ben.html

It seems that the custom was for women to tie or even cover their hair in the outdoors as a protection from the element, eg the Jerusalem sun.  This does not mean there was a commandment to do so. Furthermore, in Genesis 29, we see that:

1 Then Jacob went on his journey, and came to the land of the children of the east.

Later on, Jacob is deceived into marrying Leah in place of Rachel. This could only be achieved by her wearing a veil, as is the custom in the land of the Arabs, which is where the East was.  Thus “26 And Laban said: 'It is not so done in our place, to give the younger before the first-born.”

This also refutes the other absurd  claim of the rabbis that Jacob observed the entire Torah and Talmud, when in fact he is forced to observe local custom.

The most that can be derived from the above is that women might tie or cover their hair outdoors, but this is a secular and environmental custom, rather than a religious one.  As for the sheitel, it is a completely meaningless product of orthodoxy. It is not connected to modesty but to arrogance.