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Observance

Does God Care About Shoes?

In this week’s Talmud study, Jewishness is not just moral and theological matters. It is a way of life.

By Adam Kirsch|December 11, 2012 7:00 AM|19comments
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(Photoillustration Tablet Magazine; original photo Masaaki Miyara/Flickr)
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There are two reasons, the rabbis argue, that a woman might be tempted to remove one of these ornaments on Shabbat: if she needs to take it off to immerse herself in the mikveh, or if she wants to show it to a friend. Thus the rabbis forbid any jewelry or hair decorations that fall into these categories. “Woolen strands and linen strands” woven into the hair are forbidden, since these would have to come off in the mikveh. So is an item called a “city of gold,” which is mentioned in the Mishnah. But as often happens, the passage of centuries has left the Amoraim uncertain as to just what the Mishnah is referring to. It falls to Rabbah bar bar Chanah to explain that a “city of gold” is a golden ornament engraved with a picture of Jerusalem, “like the one Rabbi Akiva fashioned for his wife.”

Rabbi Eliezer, however, dissents from the Mishnah, ruling that a woman can go out on Shabbat with a city of gold. His reasoning tells us something interesting about class distinctions in Talmudic times. “Who is accustomed to go out wearing a city of gold?” he asks. Only “a distinguished woman, and a distinguished woman is not likely to remove her ornaments and show them to others.” It is a hint that the pious elitism of the rabbis has a class and power dimension as well. (Remember their contempt for the am haaretz, in whom poverty goes along with impiety.)

Throughout, there is a certain tension in the Talmudic attitude toward women’s adornments. The rabbis never question a woman’s right to beautify herself. On the contrary, in Shabbat 62b, Rava teaches that if a man can afford to buy adornments for his wife and refuses to, he will be cursed with poverty. Yet on the very same page, the rabbis interpret a verse from Isaiah that blasts female vanity. If women “walk with erect posture,” or “fill their eyes with makeup and beckon,” or use perfume, the rabbis promise them a series of cruel bodily punishments: decay, bruises, baldness, sores, lesions, and excessive pubic hair (“their openings became like a forest”).

Later on, in Shabbat 64b, Rav Sheishet teaches that “whoever gazes at the little finger of a woman is like one who gazes at the place of her nakedness.” Yet what is the purpose of adornments if not to attract gazes? There is in these discussions a combination of worldliness and Puritanism that is hard to make sense of. Perhaps the rabbis distinguished between adornments like the city of gold, which was primarily a display of wealth and status, and makeup and perfume, which were too physically alluring. What is clear is that in patriarchal cultures, the line women have to walk has always been a narrow and perilous one.

***

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Adam Kirsch is a contributing editor for Tablet Magazine and the author of Benjamin Disraeli, a biography in the Nextbook Press Jewish Encounters book series.
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  • 41953

    So all you khokhims out there–are you going to defend this Talmud passage too???
    Sounds wierd and offensive to me, but what do I know?

  • http://twitter.com/MediaDude3 MediaDude

    Are you going to stop reading Hamlet because it deals with murder and incest?

  • 41953

    Hamlet has a plot. It is literature. The Talmud has no plot and is supposed to teach how to act.
    Big difference.

  • Binyamin Weinreich

    “It is all too easy for me to imagine the kinds
    of behaviors encouraged by the Talmud—all that counting and
    measuring—turning into full-blown obsession-compulsion.”

    Ever been to a Yeshivish Pesach Seder?

  • http://twitter.com/MediaDude3 MediaDude

    The Talmud is literature too. Should we only read literature that has a plot and doesn’t teach how to act?

  • 41953

    Do you want to talk about what shoe to put on first? If so, then this page of the Talmud is for you.

  • http://twitter.com/Shmuel510 Shmuel

    Seriously?

    (For background purposes: I was raised Orthodox, but am no longer observant.)

    When this series started, I found it intriguing. What might a literary critic bring to the Talmud? What might he get out of dealing with a work that has entirely different premises and approaches than what he’s used to? But it’s devolved into a sort of ahistorical reading, imagining a world in which the oral tradition did not exist, the Mishnah was not an intentionally cryptic set of notes, and the Rabbis were just making everything up as they went along.

    Which was bad enough, but Adam’s just taken the next step—perhaps an inevitable one, in hindsight—which is imagining himself in a world in which Orthodox Jews don’t exist:

    “As I read the Talmud, I often wonder how the directives of the rabbis were actually applied in daily Jewish life. In theory, there is a law governing practically everything a Jew might do, from praying to dressing to going to the bathroom. In practice, it seems it would be impossible to remember all of these rules, let alone follow them.”

    In practice, Adam could find out the answers to this quite easily by just going across town and talking to people. Every schoolchild in yeshiva knows that you put your right shoe on first, then your left, then tie your left shoe, then your right. (Unless you’re left-handed, in which case you tie the right shoe first.) Yes, there are lots of rules, but remembering and following them is not actually that hard.

    I could kind of sort of understand a willfully oblivious academic somewhere where there isn’t even a Chabad House musing about the implications of long-dead theoretical people with “an entire way of life in which there is nothing however trivial that does not participate in Jewishness.” But a columnist in Tablet magazine claiming to be unaware of the frum world, and that they do in fact practice all this stuff? And not considering that maybe instead of writing condescending speculations about what they might be like, he could try talking to them? Really?

    I’m out.

  • http://twitter.com/MediaDude3 MediaDude

    Mindfulness is a virtue. To cross-pollinate a little, in Buddhist teachings, the way to enlightenment begins precisely with focusing on mundane activities.

    It seems to me that there are far worse things than becoming aware of how and why we perform everyday, apparently unimportant activities, and then infusing those casual actions with divine intention.

    Even if you disagree, why the vehemence?

    Why try to spoil what others may love?

    I sense much hostility and defensiveness in your posts. It seems to me that you have not come here to open yourself to different perspectives and try new things, but to calcify your previous prejudices.

    If you hated the food at a certain restaurant, would you continue to return and yell at all the other patrons? Would you stand outside and picket the joint?

  • Tamar

    Why opt out when you can share your experiences and discover others’ perspectives? Consider this channel a place to stop, read, think, comment, and exchange views with others. My view on a win-win situation. The rabbis argued, even insulted each other yet stayed in the conversation. And for their persistence, generations of learners have inherited a treasure trove over which we continue to study,probe, discuss, and even (or especially) to argue.

  • 41953

    Kirsch also believes that God does not care about shoes.

    Apparently you do.

    When I read something that makes sense, I will say so.

    I am still waiting.

    YOu seem to accept everything uncritically.

  • ZPinchas

    The essential point is that even the smallest and most seemingly mundane of actions can be elevated to a religiously significant act. Jews strive to serve God at all times and in all ways possible.

  • 41953

    And what does God provide in return?

  • ZPinchas

    The action is an earthly reward in and of itself! I ask, is the physical gratification offered by–say–the most delicious meal or relaxing massage imaginable ultimately even comparable to the intellectual satisfaction of a profound conceptual epiphany? Or the unbridled joy shared by husband and wife upon beholding the human life they have brought into this world through the bonds of love?
    Indeed, the concept of reward and punishment is a central tenet of Judaism. But one ought to be mindful of the fact that while anticipation of reward or fear of punishment may constitute a legitimate impetus for observance of Jewish law, it is by no means ideal. In fact, within the traditional Jewish corpus, it is regarded as the “lowest” and most unsophisticated reason for behaving in accordance with the will of God.

  • 41953

    The nicest thing one can say about God is that He does not exist.

    If He does, he has a lot of explaining to do.

    If he lived on earth, people would throw rocks through his windows.

  • Mark Levine

    The point is to try to connect every moment of your life to God, making everything you do significant, sanctifying your whole life. So, you try to find a way to have the service of God in mind even while tying your shoes. That’s really the point.

  • http://www.facebook.com/doramaria.rave Deborah Rave

    Everyone “knows” Judaism passes thru the mother, right?

    Then why is it that not a single rabbi has even attempted to
    answer this

    $10,000 Torah Challenge !!! ???

    Can You Prove from the Torah that Judaism Does Indeed Pass
    Thru the Mother ?

    http://drorbenami987.hubpages.com/hub/Torah-Metaphors-A-10-000-Challange

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/John-Edward-Kendrick/1012462908 John Edward Kendrick

    Another Jew appointed to influence by President “the muslim” Obama…

    Let’s open the conversation about taking back the concession to print US currency from the privately held Federal (not) Reserve (none) and returning the creation of our currency–debt free–to the US Treasury.

    Any chance an orthodox Jew will take ending the Fed (repealing the 1913 Federal Reserve Act) into consideration?

    How does control of creation of money assist in promoting domestic and foreign policy agendas? Who are the ‘first spenders’ of late who get their hands on the newly created US dollars?

    How does being a ‘first spender’ (QE1, 2 bailout recipients) relate to having connections in high (Jewish) places?

    Could there be a conspiracy here to support the Jewish state and Jewish interests over the interests of the other 98% of the US population?

  • Basil Yacoub

    Even if you kill innocent Palestinian children you connect to God?

  • Basil Yacoub

    This is as ridiculous as Muslim scholars suggest to which to step in first your right foot or left foot?

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Does God Care About Shoes?

In this week’s Talmud study, Jewishness is not just moral and theological matters. It is a way of life.

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