העורך Editor
The Awful Truth About Cicero and Rome
- Neocons (who also love Athenian Democracy)
- Wonkish scribblers
- Kirkians
- Roman-readers
- Overeducated lawyer-types
- Did I mention neocons yet?
- Etc.
- Combos of the above
You say that he raped an actress,” Cicero told the court. “And this is said to have happened at Atina, while he was quite young.”There was a low, subdued chuckle from the crowd. They were all men — women weren’t allowed inside the courtroom — most from the town of Atina themselves. They’d made the 80-mile trip to support a man they respected, whom they believed had been unfairly accused.His name was Gnaeus Plancius, and in the year 54 B.C., he was one of the most powerful men in Rome.It was more than 2,000 years before the #MeToo movement, but a scene similar to the ones we’ve witnessed so often lately was already playing out. A prominent politician was on trial for corruption and bribery, charges bolstered by dirt his enemies had dug up from his past: the violent sexual assault of a young girl.…
Sheitels Are a Shanda: What Does Minhag or Mesorah Have to Do with Anything?!
The pro women’s wigs crowd is slightly on the defensive now.
Since they know they can’t win their case on its merits, they try to obfuscate the issue, saying things like this:
“If you are Sefardic and your mesorah and poskim hold that a shaitel is not acceptable, of course you should follow that. You don’t need a hotline. If you are a member of some of the Chassidishe communities that hold that a shaitel is unacceptable, then you are certainly obligated to follow the minhag of your ancestors. You also don’t need a hotline. What if you are a member of the many communities that have accepted shaitel as head coverings for generations? …Yes, there may have been poskim who did not permit shaitlach in accordance with their mesorah, but what these hotlines are doing is being motzie laaz; they are casting aspersions on the greatest of our gedolim, whose own wives and daughters wore shaitel lechatchilah. …They are using guilt and obfuscation to convince well-meaning women that this sacrifice as a korban to Hashem will solve their problems.”
Guilt indeed!
And yes, some of the anti-wig arguments are untenable.
But the anti-wig populists’ main point is valid: using a hair substitute to cover a woman’s hair in the public domain is equivalent to the story of the “Emperor’s New Clothes“, and is its own worst “Laaz”.
Using a Peah Nochris as a hair-covering is a joke, and a דבר שהצדוקים מודים בו as Rabbi Y. Brand says, no matter how many generations this went or goes on (although perhaps in some places wigs were so poorly fashioned, the fiction was not as glaring for a time). The whole idea is against the plain understanding of the Gemara in Nazir 28b which debates whether it would be enough for a shaven Nezirah, since, obviously, the Torah requires less beauty to be forbidden for the public eye than the husband needs Pat Besalo for Shalom Bayis. And it’s also against the Rishonim’s dictionary definition of “Wig” as another woman’s hair, used for those whose own hair isn’t nice enough for their taste.
Even Noahides used to cover married women’s hair. Needless to say, no historian or painter or the like ever dreamed of claiming even Goyim have ever used wigs as a hair cover.
אשמנו מכל עם, בושנו מכל דור…
Rashi Sanhedrin 58b:
משתפרע ראשה בשוק, שהיו רגילות אף הנכריות הנשואות שלא לצאת בראש פרוע.
There can be no “minhag or “mesorah” to clean or justify a Chillul Hashem, a perversion of common sense, and a complete error in reality (just check if a monkey or ox has hirhur from a wig).
(In a sea of situations rabbis felt compelled to wrongly “permit” things contrary to their own conscience, as in “Mechiras Chametz” for Jewish tavern owners, “Shtar Shabbos”, Heter Agunos, Heter Mechira, and so on.)
כל מקום שיש חלול השם אין חולקין כבוד לרב.
This travesty of a “Heter” is not only far-far beyond pathetic, its whole existence well demonstrates we cannot blindly rely on similar Ha’arama Heteirim from the same quarters, either. This understanding is the key to modern, nominally observant Jewry escaping the dark shadow of Jewish clericalism (i.e., following the “greatest of our gedolim” against what we know to be the case) and finally doing serious, national Teshuva.
For a more extensive treatment in Hebrew, see this short work we posted here.
New Translation for an Old Word: ‘טרוניא’ or TYRANNY!
The Sapir dictionary says the word טרוניא comes from the Greek “tyrannia” (τύραννια), which means tyranny in English.
Unlike modern Hebrew, the original meaning isn’t תרעומת.
Avoda Zara 3a:
אין הקב”ה בא בטרוניא עם בריותיו.
Rashi:
בטרוניא, בעלילה.
Jastrow (from Sefaria, underlined):
Shemos Rabba 34:1:
…בא אליהוא ואמר שדי לא מצאנוהו שגיא כח מי ששומע הפסוק הזה אומר שמא חירופים הוא ח”ו אלא כך אמר אליהוא לא מצינו כח גבורתו של הקב”ה עם בריותיו שאין הקב”ה בא בטרחות עם בריותיו לא בא על האדם אלא לפי כחו אתה מוצא כשנתן הקב”ה את התורה לישראל אלו היה בא עליהם בחוזק כחו לא היו יכולים לעמוד שנא’ (דברים ה’) אם יוספים אנחנו לשמוע וגו’ אלא לא בא עליהם אלא לפי כחם שנא’ (תהלים כ”ט) קול ה’ בכח בכחו אינו אומר אלא בכח לפי כחו של כל אחד ואחד.