Elana and Robin welcome their colleague and friend, char hersh, who in addition to being the Director of Administration, has worked in Jewish education for many years. They talk about everything from kippot to tzitzit, the rituals, the reasons, and the origins.

Show Notes:

  • char hersh’s bio
  • Vocabulary
    • Here are some words mentioned during this episode and their definitions:
      • Bimah: the podium or platform in a synagogue from which the Torah and Prophets are read.
      • Gentile: a person who is not Jewish.
      • Halacha: Jewish law and jurisprudence, based on the Talmud.
      • HaShem: (literally, ‘the Name’) is used to refer to God when avoiding God’s more formal title, Adonai
      • Hineni: Hebrew for “here I am.”
      • Kippah/Kippot: a brimless cap, usually made of cloth, traditionally worn to fulfill the customary requirement that the head be covered.
      • Mitzvah: a precept or commandment.
      • Pagan: holding or constituting religious beliefs other than those of the main or recognized religions.
      • Payes/payot: the Hebrew term for sidelocks or sideburns.
      • Tallit: a fringed garment worn as a prayer shawl by religious Jews.
      • Tallit katan: a fringed garment traditionally worn either under or over one’s clothing.
      • Talmud: (literally, “study”) is the generic term for the documents that comment and expand upon the Mishnah, the first work of rabbinic law, published around the year 200 CE.
      • Tzitzit: the fringes or tassels worn on the four corners of the tallit as reminders of the commandments of Deuteronomy 22:12 and Numbers 15:37–41.
  • Further Reading

Transcript:

Elana
Hey, Robin. 

Robin
Hi. I love how we always begin these episodes like we just stumbled on one another in the office. 

Elana
Yes, in our large cavernous office.

Robin
I definitely feel like we should always be carrying around a recorder all the time. 

Elana
You and I just had an impromptu conversation this morning about the evolution and future of the Jewish movements before you even put your bag down!

Robin
Yeah, I like walked in. Good morning. Let’s talk about this philosophical question. And we didn’t record it!

Elana
We didn’t. All right. Well maybe that’s maybe for another time. 

Robin
Maybe that question will come up. Okay. There’s so many conversations and questions. More than—

Elana
Don’t say it. 

Robin
Oh, I’m, I have to say it. There’s more than four. Ahh! 

Elana
Okay. I guess we have to get it into each episode at least once. 

Robin
Yeah. I mean, come on…

Elana
All right. Let’s get to it. I am Elana Rivel, Jewish Learning Venture’s CEO 

Robin
And I’m JLV’s. Graphic Designer, Director of jkidpride and PJ Our Way Engagement, Robin Matthews. 

Elana
And we are the hosts of More Than 4, a blogcast that answers some of the questions people have about Judaism. 

Robin
Just some. 

Elana
Just some. All right. What’s today’s question? 

Robin
Okay, so today we’re answering the question, “what’s the point of that little beanie?” You, you know, that question that we get all the time, right? I guess more explicitly, it’s, “what are the different things that Jews wear and what do they mean?” So I, I guess the beanie we’re talking about is a kippah. 

Elana
Kippah. Yeah. And I’m sure that there’s a much more eloquent way to phrase that question.

Robin
Probably. But maybe we’ll leave that to our guest today, who’s arguably one of the most eloquent people in our office. 

Elana
True fact.

Robin
True fact.

Robin
So today we’re joined by our friend and colleague, char hersh. And char brings more than six years of experience working with informal Jewish education, with a focus on connecting with Jewish history and engaging in cross-cultural learning. Previously they were a museum educator at the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia and the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City.

Elana
But not at the same time.

Robin
No, that would be a long commute. Really tough. They hold an MA in Public History and a BA in Religion from Temple University. 

Elana
Thanks for being with us today and for helping us answer this kind of nebulous question. 

char
Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. 

Elana
So let’s just sort of start and get a general, like is this something from the Torah, like the idea of special garments for Jews? Where does this sort of come from? 

char
Yeah. And there are so many different things that Jews can wear to express their Jewishness, their Jewish identity. And these things differ from your level of observance and your community and where you live in the world. And so little of it actually comes from the Torah. The Torah talks about some things related to clothing, like what types of materials your clothing should be made out of, how much of your body your clothing should cover, but most of the individual things that we wear comes out of the commentaries on the Torah, from the Talmud, from other centuries of writings.

Elana
So can you give us an example of— 

Robin
So, what is with the beanie? Yeah. I mean, let’s get cut right to the chase.

char
Yeah, so the kippah, also called the yarmulke. That’s the Yiddish term. 

Robin
Kippah is Hebrew?

char
It is. It’s initially presented as a way to indicate a fear of God or an awareness of God as a symbol of piety.

Robin
I have questions. The questions are: Why do only men wear them? Why do some people wear them all the time and some people only wear them in a synagogue? Why sometimes do women wear them? Why sometimes do women wear things that look like doilies? And…are those my only questions? Oh, and there are different-looking ones, like there’s biggole yarmulkes and teeny little ones, and they don’t seem to have any, like, you can buy them that have Red Sox logos on them. Like, they don’t seem to have any like rules really about them.

char
There are definitely some rules or maybe some cultural connotations, that may be a little bit more accurate. And the answer to all those questions really is, it depends on the community. 

Robin
Sure. I guess the first question is, why do only men wear them?

char
Traditionally, this gets back to some more traditional interpretations of halacha, or Jewish law, and the view that many of them only apply to men, which is not necessarily something that everybody believes these days. There are definitely some communities where only men wear kippot and women might wear something else or they might not wear anything on their heads at all. But there are also communities where women wear kippot, where people of all genders beyond men wear kippot. 

Robin
So the idea is the law, the Jewish law is, “wear the kippot,” but laws then only apply to men, sort of traditionally speaking. 

char
Yeah. I don’t think it’s explicitly said, just one of those things that’s sort of understood.

Robin
So, some people wear them all the time and some people only put them on when they go into the sanctuary.

char
People might only cover their heads in the synagogue because maybe it’s what they were raised to do. Maybe it’s what their community does. Maybe they want to make a distinction between being in a prayer space, a prayer time, and the rest of their lives; whereas, for people who do cover their heads all the time, it is about having that awareness all day.

Robin
So I have a teenage son and when he’s in our synagogue, he will wear a yarmulke when he’s on the bimah or whatever, but our cantor has said, “Well, you have a baseball hat on. That’s fine.” Like any head covering seems to go. Is that true? Just cover your head with whatever you want. Is that the idea? 

char
Yeah. At the other end of the spectrum, though, is the choice that one has to make sometimes if they’re living in an area where it is not safe to be openly Jewish. If you are in an area where you might encounter antisemitism or other discomforts, wearing a baseball cap instead of a kippah might be a way to still honor your Jewish identity. Have this reminder, but in a way that it’s safe. 

Robin
Yeah. That makes sense. 

Elana
So…

Robin
What else? We can talk about payes.

Elana
And facial hair. That’s connected.

Robin
So payes are the like long, well, they don’t have to be the long, curly… they have different styles, too.

char
Mm-hmm. They have so many different styles. This does actually come from the Torah, from — the mitzvah is to “not round off the hair at the edges of your heads,” is the translation of that particular mitzvah. And so there are so many different ways to interpret that. Like, what is the edge of your head? You know, what does it mean to round off your hair? All of that. And so, different communities have interpreted this in different ways. 

Robin
Is there a reason for it, though?

char
Yeah. So when you’re looking at mitzvot in the Torah, there are generally two different categories of them. One category is a commandment that has an easily guessed reason behind it. And then there’s another category that are mitzvot that don’t necessarily have a clear reason behind them. And this could be defined as something that cannot be intuited or something where the reason behind it is known only to HaShem.

Robin
God.

char
Yeah, God. And so this falls under that category of we have this mitzvah. We don’t necessarily have an obvious reason for it. But it is a mitzvah in the Torah.

Elana
It also could be related, you know, many of the mitzvot that don’t have that reasoning behind them often serves as a way to separate us. It’s sort of in response to what else might have been happening in the community. And so it’s possible that other folks were buzzing their hair. And this was a way to say, “actually, we want to feel a little different. So it could be that as well. 

char
Yeah. Absolutely. And I was reading that this was a common practice at the time for religious leaders in Pagan communities, to shave the sides of their heads as a way to indicate their own piety. And so this was a way to separate from idol worshipers. 

Elana
Sure, yeah.

Robin
That makes sense. 

char
Today, it can be a way to separate ourselves from gentiles and also to affirm our own Jewish identity. For a lot of people, it can be really empowering to go about the world and be visibly Jewish. And this is especially true for people who might not conform to one’s ideas of what a Jewish person looks like. You know, we have a lot of stereotypes around what Jews look like —

Robin
Because some people have no choice but to go around the world looking Jewish. But that’s not, that’s not everybody.

char
That’s not true for everybody. And the people for whom that doesn’t apply, they face a lot of discrimination in Jewish communities, whether it’s being questioned about whether they belong there, whether it is racism, other forms of ostracization. And so wearing these Jewish symbols, whether a kippah, whether it’s payot, whether it’s a tallit katan, the tzitzit, it can be a way to show, “hey, look, I’m also Jewish. I belong here as much as you do.” And so this has been a very powerful way of reclaiming and putting one’s stake in Jewish tradition for Jews of color and for people who’ve converted to Judaism. 

Elana
You know, there’s a number of social media sites that help to sort of promote that. So, on Instagram there’s, I think it’s “Own your Jewish Star or, “Own —” I think it’s, “Own Your Jewish Star” and people post photos of them with earrings or necklaces or, you know, whatever it might be that helps to identify them. And you really do see such a range of people who are choosing to promote themselves. Or on, “Hey, Alma” is another, Instagram…site? Site? Is that what you said about Instagram?

Robin
Account.

Elana
Um, right. 

Robin
Wow. We are old people. We’re old people. 

char
And I was having a really interesting conversation with a friend who was telling me about how these garments and accessories were a part of their own conversion journey. Where, as they progressed in their conversion, they started wearing, you know, some more jewelry, earrings, necklaces, and then once their conversion was finalized, they got a tattoo to celebrate it. A tattoo actually that says “Hineni.” Here I am. 

Robin
Oh, cool. 

char
Which is a phrase in the Torah that has a lot of significance. 

Elana
So if we’re talking about Torah as the guide to garments and look, can you talk a little bit about the tallit? About the prayer shawl, because certainly there’s reference, right? To the tzitzit, to the fringes of a tallit. It seems like that’s covered pretty well in there. 

Robin
And this again, is something sometimes people do in synagogue, sometimes exclusively, and sometimes people do all the time. You might see sort of like the threads hanging out from underneath clothing.

char
There is what’s called just the tallit, which is what you’ll often see in synagogues. The long shawl that people wear over their shoulders ,around their neck with the tzitzit, with the fringes hanging down. Then there’s also tallit katan, the small tallit, which is, if you’re out and about and you see people with fringes hanging out of their shirt, they’re most likely wearing a tallit katan underneath their shirt. If you’re looking at what is in the Torah, the tallit is actually not in the Torah. It is the tzitzit that are in the Torah. Just the fringes and they’re meant to be a reminder of the mitzvot of the commandments. 

Robin
And, so again, it’s just your, how you choose to observe, like whether you wear it all the time or just when you’re praying or…

char
Yeah. And you’ll see in different communities for some, the practice is to leave them hanging out, for some of the practice is to tuck them into their pants so it’s more of a private practice. And yet for some, you wear, a tallit only in the synagogue. 

Robin
Yeah, that makes sense. 

Elana
And not just walking around the synagogue, but during certain prayer services. So you would traditionally wear a tallit in the morning service. But not in the afternoon or evening service.

Robin
Why wouldn’t you wear it normally on an evening service? Do you know? 

Elana
I actually don’t.

Robin
We can look it up. We’ll put it in the show notes. 

Elana
We’ll try to find out. That is a good question. 

Robin
So what are some of the other things you had on your list? You mentioned so many different ways to identify…

char
Yeah, one thing that I do wanna mention though, about, tallit katan is that this is another practice that historically has been relevant mostly to men, but in recent years there’s been a lot of really fantastic efforts to open this practice up to women, to people of different genders, to people of different body types. Because, this is about clothing, this is about shirts. You know, historically, there’s been a bit of a limit as to the different types and sizes of those shirts, which can be really restrictive to people who might want to engage in this practice. 

Robin
Like they just weren’t made in bigger sizes?

char
Couldn’t, yeah, just not made in bigger sizes or not made in ways that fit easily along with clothing that is typically designed for women and so there have been a lot of different organizations recently creating both that sort of undershirt for a much wider range of body types and also attached to different types of clothing. I saw one shop that was selling basically crop-top versions of a tallit katan, which was super cool to see. 

Robin
And that’s interesting because that’s another thing that we talk about, right? Is how much skin you can show. Why is that a thing? 

char
A lot of people see these types of practices and think that it’s about shame about the body, but it’s actually the exact opposite. It’s about privacy and it’s about respect towards one’s body. 

Elana
It becomes more special, right? Think about it, if you keep covered and then you’re choosing only your spouse to be the one to see whatever parts of your body, then it’s more special for that person.

Robin
Right. 

Elana
So, I believe you also wanna talk about some of the, like, jewelry, tattoos, right? Like some of these things. 

Robin
Adornments. 

Elana
Adornments. That’s a good way. I like that. Let’s talk about the adornments. What can you share with us?

char
You know, it’s extremely common to see someone wearing a necklace with a Magen David, with a Star of David on it.

Elana
Well, there are citations — we know that Rebekah at the well had a nose ring. And bracelets. Or, she was given bracelets by Eliezer, the servant. And I think there might be one or two other women that are identified as having jewelry in the Torah. That’s not saying whether we should or shouldn’t or be allowed or not allowed, but I know that that’s been an argument for people to get a nose ring. “Well, Rebecca had it. I should be able to have it too.”

Robin
Because certainly what I grew up believing—it didn’t apply to me, it wasn’t applied to me, but what I grew up believing was that you were not supposed to do anything to your body. You were not supposed to pierce it or tattoo it or mark it or anything. And I think this came up in our conversation about what happens after you die. And it was related to that, so that your body is whole or something. 

Elana
That’s right. If these are the bodies we’re given, who is it, you know, who is it for us to make changes to our body that we were given? I think that that was where that perhaps had started. 

char
Yeah, that’s definitely a large reason why people are against things like tattoos and piercings and such. One other place in the Torah that people draw from for this prohibition is a line in Leviticus that says, “You shall not make gashes of your flesh for the dead or incise any marks on yourselves, which people typically interpret as being about tattoos. The more nuanced interpretations of this line over time have narrowed that prohibition to specific types of tattoos. So there are some who see this as prohibiting, specifically, tattoos that include God’s name or that include references to pagan deities. There are some that interpret this as specifically banning memorial tattoos. And there are some that base this prohibition of tattoos on the permanency of it. And there are some that interpret this as a ban specifically on voluntary tattoos. Because this band gets a little bit more complicated if you think about things like Holocaust survivors. And also certain people that have certain types of medical tattoos, um, Where it is part of —

Robin
Like radiation treatment, they might mark a spot.

char
Right. Exactly. Where having a tattoo is part of your preservation of life, which can override pretty much any mitzvah. 

Robin
My mother hates that I have a tattoo. I think that, I really think it’s just that Jews don’t do that. Like she has sort of that feeling about it. 

Elana
Yeah. I think what we’re probably seeing, as we do with many things with sort of new generations, right, is sort of a reclaiming of that. So in our generation, I’m in my fifties, right? We grew up being told you don’t have tattoos because you can’t be buried in a Jewish cemetery. Things have shifted, as chart just said. And that, you know, our kids and some of us, myself included, have decided to sort of reclaim that. There are people who choose that as a way of self-expression in the same way that Jews have always used clothing and adornment as a method of self-expression.

char
I love this idea of reclaiming these traditions. Which, pretty much anything that we’re talking about in this episode, there are people who are reclaiming it in different ways. You know, we spoke already about people of different genders besides men who are wearing tzitzit, who are wearing kippot. All of that, you know, for so many of these people, and myself included, honestly, it is about reclaiming these traditions and finding personal meaning in them. 

Robin
See, I told you they were among the most eloquent here! 

Elana
True fact.

Robin
Yeah.

Elana: Also true fact is that our listeners can send in their questions to be answered eloquently on a future episode. You wanna tell us how?

Robin
I absolutely will. They can send us an email at morethan4 — that’s the number 4— at jewishlearningventure.org. Find us on Facebook, at facebook.com/jlearnventure or reply in a comment wherever this podcast was linked, whether it was Instagram or Facebook or wherever you found it. So until next episode…

Elana
See ya. 

Robin
Bye.