{"id":37655,"date":"2014-09-17T20:24:37","date_gmt":"2014-09-17T20:24:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?p=37655"},"modified":"2014-09-19T09:42:00","modified_gmt":"2014-09-19T09:42:00","slug":"tzniyus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/education\/tzniyus\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s Not About Tzniyus"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"tznius\"Some people have lately expressed the idea that the religious authorities should keep their noses out of matters of tzniyus<\/em> (modesty). These people feel that when \u201cthe rabbis\u201d (as if there\u2019s one collective group) talk about tzniyus<\/em>, it\u2019s because they have an unhealthy obsession with it. I disagree. Tzniyus<\/em> is a legitimate area of Jewish thought and Jewish law. It\u2019s as fair game for an educator \u2013 of either gender \u2013 to talk about as Shabbos or kashrus<\/em>.1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

It\u2019s certainly possible for someone to have an unhealthy obsession with tzniyus<\/em>. This is the case with any mitzvah<\/em> \u2013 indeed, with anything in life! But even if some individuals have an unhealthy preoccupation with a thing, that does not delegitimize the thing itself.<\/p>\n

The Torah is a large and varied palette. Different mitzvos<\/em> attract different people. Some are really into Shabbos. Others are into various forms of tzedaka<\/em> (charity) and chesed<\/em> (acts of kindness). Some people focus on lashon hara<\/em> (gossip). Others focus on tzniyus<\/em>. It\u2019s okay if they do. There are lots of mitzvos<\/em> and it\u2019s to be expected that different people will gravitate towards areas of Judaism that speak to them for whatever reason.<\/p>\n

And yes, some individuals can carry things to unhealthy extremes. This is true in any area. One could potentially have an unhealthy fixation on any mitzvah<\/em>. If you\u2019re up at 2:00 AM bleaching your entire kitchen because you just maybe put something meat on the dairy counter or vice versa, that\u2019s a problem. If you get into fist fights every week because other people are talking in shul, you\u2019re taking things too far. And if you blame typhoons in Singapore on lapses in tzniyus<\/em>, or if you throw bleach on those who are not dressed according to your standards, that\u2019s obsessive, too. But if a school has a dress code and expects it to be enforced \u2013 Jewish or not, that\u2019s just normal. Schools enforce dress codes not because of an obsession with tzniyus<\/em> but because it\u2019s a school and they have a dress code. <\/p>\n

A letter was making the online rounds recently, addressed by a high school student to her Jewish high school. In it, she attacks the school for what she considers an oppressive and antagonistic enforcement policy. I don\u2019t think her arguments hold much water. <\/p>\n

One complaint in this letter was that the enforcement of the dress code, which falls mostly on the girls, was sexist. The same week as this letter was being circulated, Tottenville High School in New York gave 200 detentions for dress-code violations, 90% of which were to girls. While some parents are likewise charging that school with sexism for the disparity, the reality is that teenage girls are simply more likely to break dress codes than boys. It was the girls who showed up in short shorts and tank tops in Tottenville, not the boys. Look at any school\u2019s prom pictures \u2013 it\u2019s the girls who have exposed skin, not the boys. Similarly, in Jewish schools, it\u2019s the girls whose skirts are too short. I assure you, if a boy showed up in analogously-short pants, he would also be called out for it, but such things are rare if they exist at all.<\/p>\n

Another complaint was that if a male teacher feels the need to look at the female students, he shouldn\u2019t be in the school and that the male students should be taught to \u201clower their gaze.\u201d That argument presupposes that the dress code exists for the sake of others. But dress codes don\u2019t work that way. Single-sex schools with same-sex faculty can have very stringent dress codes. Every institution from a public school to a military academy can have a dress code and expect compliance. The possibility of sexually exciting the staff doesn\u2019t even enter into the thought process.<\/p>\n

In truth, this isn\u2019t about tzniyus<\/em> at all. It\u2019s about school rules. This happens everywhere, not just in Jewish schools. I already mentioned Tottenville High School. About a week earlier, a Florida teen was in the news for a dress code violation. (There, the school made her change into a bright yellow T-shirt and red sweatpants, each marked \u201cDress Code Violation.\u201d Now that\u2019s arguably an oppressive and antagonistic enforcement policy!) <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the thing: institutions have rules and these rules often include dress codes. If students and their parents voluntarily choose to enroll in a particular school, they enter into a contract to obey these rules. I did not agree with every rule of my children\u2019s schools, but we complied because that\u2019s where we wanted to send our kids. The fault is not with the school for expecting compliance. Parents should teach their children that, whether they agree with a policy or not, they have agreed to it by virtue of their enrollment and people are expected to honor their agreements. If the policy is unacceptable, one can lobby for change while complying, or simply go somewhere else. <\/p>\n

Why don\u2019t we allow students to curse in schools? Is it because \u201cthe rabbis\u201d are obsessed with the laws of nivul peh<\/em> (unclean speech)? Of course not. We don\u2019t allow cursing in school because it doesn\u2019t foster the environment we want our schools to have. Non-Jewish schools have the same rule; the overlap between schools\u2019 foul-language rules and the laws of nivul peh<\/em> is coincidental. Similarly, the dress codes in Jewish schools may be informed by our religious laws but they are ultimately just school dress codes. Students don\u2019t push the boundaries because they disagree with the policy on theological grounds. They do it because they\u2019re teens. Be it in public school, Catholic school, or a Jewish day school, that\u2019s just what teens do.<\/p>\n

1<\/a><\/sup> <\/span>I, myself, have authored a book on tzniyus titled, appropriately enough, The Tzniyus Book<\/em><\/a>. I wrote it because I was working with teens who were being taught the whats of tzniyus but not the whys. For example, they knew that women were expected to wear skirts past the knees but not that the practice was derived from the Talmud based on verses in Shir HaShirim. My book is therefore descriptive (why things are the way they are) rather than prescriptive (telling people what they should do). But I would hardly say that I have a preoccupation with the subject. I don\u2019t presume to tell other people how to dress and, honestly, the subject of tzniyus doesn\u2019t even come up in conversation all that often. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some people have lately expressed the idea that the religious authorities should keep their noses out of matters of tzniyus (modesty). These people feel that when \u201cthe rabbis\u201d (as if there\u2019s one collective group) talk about tzniyus, it\u2019s because they have an unhealthy obsession with it. I disagree. Tzniyus is a legitimate area of Jewish<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":384,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[97,12,83],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-education","category-torah"],"yoast_head":"\nIt\u2019s Not About Tzniyus - OU Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/education\/tzniyus\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"It\u2019s Not About Tzniyus - OU Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Some people have lately expressed the idea that the religious authorities should keep their noses out of matters of tzniyus (modesty). 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