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Modesty Rules

By on July 14, 2020
wow

By Beatrice Weber

“How could you send her that way to Shul? Didn’t you see that her knees were showing?” The rough voice rang through the screen door.

I was seven years old and had returned home with my father from our local community synagogue; the Hasidic Jewish Shul in the neighborhood. It was a warm spring morning, and the rare celebration of blessing the sun had taken place at dawn.

I had walked the two blocks in our suburban neighborhood alone and joined my father who had left earlier. Joining my father meant that I stood next to the small group of women who clustered together silently on one side of the brick building. My father stood on the other side, with the much larger group of hatted black clad men who prayed loudly in unison.

The loud ticking of the clock in the small kitchen where I stood did not stop the voice from entering the house.

“It is immodest. She can’t come like that.” My father was insisting.

I looked down at my white patterned knee socks and black-patent leather shoes, shriveling inside.

I tried so hard to be perfect.

Did I fail again?

We young girls had many modesty rules. From the age of three, I had to wear long dresses that covered my knees and long wrist length sleeves. My hair had to be modestly styled and t-shirts with words and symbols were not allowed. I was taught that dressing modestly would protect me and keep me safe.

I was eight years old, and attending summer camp in the Catskills with my family. My parents rented a bungalow on the grounds. My father drove up from Canada each Thursday evening to spend the weekend with us.

I heard my mother complaining to my father when he arrived one Friday morning.

“The counselor insisted that the girls can’t wear the red shirts I bought them. They are so young and it is already not allowed.”

I was required to wear thick navy tights during the week and white tights on Shabbat that summer. I was eight and my mother had told me that I would only need to start wearing tights when I was nine, yet, when I got back home, I insisted on continuing to wear the full-length tights.

I was a good girl and wanted to please.

I was 12 and my mother and I were preparing for the Shabbat dinner in the kitchen.

“Please go to the dining room and get the dinner plates. They are on the bottom shelf.”

I headed towards the dark wooden wall length china-closet to get the plates. The group of black-clad men, our Shabbat guests, had arrived and were in the dining room. I hunched my shoulders, bent down, and avoided eye contact as I was taught. I awkwardly bent over, tugging at my skirt to make sure that I stayed covered, and left in a hurry with the stack of gold-rimmed plates.

Almost immediately, I heard my father telling my mother:

“She’s 12 already. She should not be coming into a room full of men. It’s not modest.”

Had I done something wrong again?

Would I ever figure it out?

My principal at the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish high school I attended was an elderly rabbi. One of his duties was enforcing the modesty rules.

“A Jewish woman is a princess, and the hallmark of a princess is modesty.” He announced during our first school assembly.

Walking through the locker-lined laminate covered hallways, I would grasp at my skirt, lengthening it to reach the required four inches below my knees, no small feat for my tall frame. Anything less was considered immodest.

At 16, I was sent to an elite Girl’s Seminary in Northern England, to study Jewish texts and traditions in depth. The classes were large and the teachers esteemed and well-known Rabbis. One of the Rabbis would become famous a decade later for his series of books on modesty which included intricate diagrams of women’s necklines and knees.

The teachers sat on a podium, a microphone hanging from the ceiling to ensure their voices carried to the oddly shaped corners of the room. A young handsome rabbi with a black, wispy beard and a clipped British accent taught one of our first classes.

“Girls, when you dress immodestly, wear tight clothing, or speak loudly in the streets, you are inciting impure thoughts of strange women in men and cause them to have an involuntary physical reaction. This is forbidden for men and an ongoing struggle. You must always dress and act modestly and by doing so you are preventing men from coming to sin.

In a strange sort of way, I felt relieved. I finally understood why I needed to dress modestly. It was so that men should not have impure thoughts, it was about them. Nobody had explained it to me this way before.

I was 18 and excited to get married. I didn’t know the young man very well, since I had met him only three times across the dining room table, but I felt relieved. He was my husband, I could relax. I wouldn’t have to worry about him having impure thoughts.

Marriage was a holy union, I was told.

My excitement was dashed almost immediately.

“Make sure to cover your hair”. My husband insisted when I got ready for bed the first night.

“And we need to be completely covered when we do the mitzvah.”

He was referring to the commandment of having sex the first night to consummate the marriage. “The holy books say that terrible things can happen if you expose yourself.”

I complied.

I was used to obeying the rules.

Years later, I divorced and began dating, still wearing my short modest wig, subdued colored clothing and long skirts.
“I will pick you up from your party and drive you home.” Offered my date, whom I was meeting in person for the first time.

I was surprised when he swerved off the highway a few exits before my town and pulled into a darkened parking lot. He leaned over and putting his arm over my shoulder, began pulling me towards him, kissing me. I froze as I felt his hands on my legs as he lifted my skirt reaching higher and higher between my legs. But I smiled, forced my body to relax and kissed him, fulfilling a man’s wishes as I had been taught.

My religion taught that modesty would protect and keep me safe, but in fact it made me compliant and afraid, doing a man’s bidding, while squelching my own feelings.

Several years later, when I was 45, I was attending services at an egalitarian synagogue, forbidden by my upbringing. My big curly hair was exposed and my dress an immodest bright pink and too short. I sat with both men and women on the wooden benches and participated fully in the services, singing loudly, something previously forbidden. I now felt at one with the congregation. Instead of feeling bad or immodest, I felt at peace, and respected.

Breaking the rules of modesty, made me finally feel fully human and seen.

 

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wowBeatrice Weber is an Interspiritual Minister, writer, speaker, and coach. She empowers people who have experienced religious, familial, or community trauma connect with their own inner greatness and create empowered and joyful lives. She was born and raised in the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Community and was married off to a Rabbi when I was 18, never having graduated High School. After 22 years and 10 children, she left the marriage with her four youngest children, despite severe opposition from her family and the community. Here she writes her experiences growing up with many modesty rules and the impact it had on her life.

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