No Hiding Allowed – Face-ing Our Maker

Sep 1, 2022 | Style & Fashion

Written by Meira Schneider-Atik

Myth: Modesty/dignity demands that women hide their faces.

Truth: True modesty/dignity demands that women SHOW their faces.

Elul is my favorite month of the year and not just because it’s my birthday month (although that does give me an excuse to treat myself and my family). I actually like the idea that we get to do some reflection in preparation to face our Maker on the Yamim Noraim (High Holidays). One of my recent reflections has to do with math. 

I’m not a math whiz like my dad or my son but I was an advanced math student when I was growing up and I’ve found that math can be relevant in unexpected places. In sixth grade, we learned several properties of math. One of them was the Transitive Property which goes like this:

X = Y

A = Y

Therefore, A = X

This bit of math can be used to explain why some Jewish publications don’t want to show women’s faces. It goes like this:

A sexual object is something that provokes impure/sexual thoughts.

A woman, even if her face is the only thing you see, provokes impure/sexual thoughts.

A woman, even if her face is the only thing you see, provokes impure/sexual thoughts.

 

Therefore, a woman is a sexual object and must not be seen by the men who want to keep their thoughts pure. 

The problem with this is that true tzniut (modesty/dignity) demands that men and women see each other as real human beings created in God’s Image and not as objects of any kind. So back we go to the Transitive Property as it applies here:

Women are erased from view because they are sexual objects and might provoke impure thoughts for the men.

Modesty/dignity demands that men AND women see each other as real human beings and not as sexual objects.

Therefore, erasing women is NOT in alignment with the laws of tzniut (modesty/dignity).

Unfortunately, many of those who defend this practice will hear all of the above but instead of acknowledging the problem, they’ll continue to defend it by going into long speeches about the greater tzniut (modesty/dignity) of women using a lot of euphemisms and fancy language. If you pay attention to them and strip it down (in this case, stripping is not undignified), you’ll see that it’s the equivalent of “I don’t have a cold. I have acute nasopharyngitis.”

It’s the same thing but in fancier language. This is where another mathematical property comes in handy. It’s from algebra and it goes like this: State the problem in non-reducible terms. Go back to the transitive property as shown above. It’s that simple.   

Should we be working on tzniut (modesty/dignity)? Absolutely yes. All year long. We need to reflect on who we are as real people and how we feel about ourselves and about God. When it comes to our appearance, we need to consider not only covering up but doing it in a way that reflects who we are and what statement we want to make to the people around us. And we need to work on looking at other people and seeing them as real people and not as bodies or as any kind of object. But we have no way of rising to that challenge if we don’t see their faces.   

However, we also need to work on all of our mitzvot. Tzniut (modesty/dignity) is one mitzvah among many. And we need to do that kind of work all year long too.   

For Elul and the Yamim Noraim, let’s prepare to face our Maker, literally and figuratively, in the best ways possible. 

Modesty/dignity demands that men AND women see each other as real human beings and not as sexual objects.

More From Meira Schneider-Atik

Related Articles

Related