This was an ad placed in a Haredi weekly ad booklet distributed in Bet Shemesh. I get a kick out of it.
The ad starts off as a satirical ad selling a product called the Kippah Wig - a toupee to wear instead of a Kippah.
The translation:
The Kippah Wig for Bnei Torah - To be with, but to appear without!
A new collection has arrived of Kippot Wigs made from synthetic hair. For orders, send a sample of hair from your beard or payos for specific customization. Ben Torah!
Why don't you buy for yourself a Kippah Wig? Then you and your wife can wear matching wigs! You are afraid to appear as if you are bareheaded, or like a secular jew? Then why do you let your wife look like that?
The prohibition of hair by a woman is much more serious than the prohibition of hair by a man (comment: prohibition of hair by a man? What prohibition?). All the Gedolei Yisrael have paskened that a wig that is like hair is prohibited according to everybody, because all prohibition of hair is due to pritzus. And today's wigs cause more stumbling than regular hair, as any little boy and girl know.
You also know very well how much the yetzer ha'ra causes you regarding the wig of other women, so how is it that you go with a kippah but you are not afraid that your wife goes with a wig and causes the public to sin in a terrible way billions of times in her life. The Rambam writes, whoever causes others to sin has no portion in the World to Come.
The Admor of Lelov says it is better for one to remove his beard and peyos rather than let his wife wear a wig.
if you have not yet been convinced, or if you have questions, call 02-582-5891 during the evening hours.
I think this is the funniest ad I have seen in a very long time...
I knew a man in Manhattan who used to wear one of those to work.
ReplyDeletevery funny post.
ReplyDeleteI do not like doing this. But a MUST READ Vort on Pesach was just posted on www.vortlach.blogspot.com
I weep for the future of these communities if every little boy and girl knows about pritzus.
ReplyDeletePlease put me down for one of these wigs......as soon as they go in cherem.
ReplyDeleteI like the part that says that ALL the gedolei yisrael have paskened that it's assur according to all opinions.
ReplyDeleteThey don't understand that there's something wrong with that statement.
My favorite part is that they address the men about "letting" their wives wear wigs. Because, you know, women themselves have no brains or free will of their own . . . and they don't like to read, either, because they are a little dumb, so we'll just address the ad to their husbands, who will tell their wives what to do. Surely no one will end up sleeping on the couch.
ReplyDeleteSarah,
ReplyDeleteObviously, you are a woman. Who let you on the computer, much less post on a non-mehadrim blog (i.e., no separate comments section for men and the occasional holy woman who writes with the permission of her father/husband and a majority of chareidi robbonim)?
For shame!
Sarah, Yoni, and everyone in general, why are you shocked that women are addressed through their men. In ortho judaism and in the torah (and the two are not the same) women are clearly subserviant to their men. Women are clearly akin to property under the domain of their man. If you don't like that than you have a problem with OrthoJudaism and the Torah. But just because that way of thinking is distatsteful to modern thinking does not make it not so.
ReplyDeleteI'll take one to go along with my rogain so i'll have something till it kicks in?
ReplyDeleteDan G,
ReplyDeleteYou're completely off your rocker (that's blog-comment code for "I'd like to politely disagree"). For example, if you look at a ketubah, the man has no rights, only obligations toward his wife. My wife has no responsibility to keep me happy; I, on the other hand, am commanded to make my wife happy. That's just one example. There are actually no halachot that I can think of which make women as a group subservient to men.
Interesting that you choose the ketubah as an example; a contract that is not used at all as a contract, sort of like paying a bill with monopoly money and saying "butlook, it has numbers on it and therefore is valid as money." when was the last time a person paid off his divorced wife with sheep?
ReplyDeleteAs for halachot, or other examples in both the torah and orthojudaism, where the women are subserviant, the list is way too long for this blog post, but I will give you a few.
#1 - rape a woman. Read what the torah says about it. (if you're lazy just let me know and I will give you the details.)
#2 - torah rules of polygamy allow men to marry more than one wife but not the other way around.
#3 - the morning bracha, again, no revearse of thank god Im not a man.
#4 - the rules of tzniut
#5 - rules of divorce, man can and women can't
#6 - abraham sent his wife away
#7 - abraham lent his wife to other kings
#8 - (and this one is orthojudaism and not quite torah) it is not accepted(although allowed, but if not accepted it is a distinction without a difference) but they don't put on teffillin or read from the torah etc.
#9 - (again this one is for orthojews and has zip to do with actual torah) the education of women is not even a second class education, their educational focus is being a wife/mother/getting a shidduch....doesn't it talk in the gemara about how women should not study too much, esp. gemara.
#10 - Although women can inherit, it certainly wasn't so clear cut in the torah,although it was very clear cut for men...so I gues you could say that this one shows that women are slightly better than property.
need I go on? But I say, tackle the rape issue and than we can talk. jeez, don't you guys know any torah? or is it all gemara and modern day chumrahs?
Yoni,
ReplyDeleteYou need to develop "a sense of things" (that's the response I always got when what I thought was a logical inference butted common practice.
Sarah (I apologize for using your name) - if you are married we should address you as rayato of your husband.
KT
yoni,
ReplyDeletewelcome to our family. now you got danny started
sarah and yoni (yikes, was that bad to put you two together like that?), thanks for makin me crack up ;)
ReplyDeleterafi, funniest? oolay. but sad. yes, i know you know.
glad ur blog is still around (even when im not).
thaks sabra.
ReplyDeleteActually the thing I found funniest is the picture.
The right side is supposedly a guy wearing a wig instead of a kipa. The left side is the guy with a kipa instead. yet he still has the same full head of hair. Shouldn't he be bald if he removed the wig?
According to the article in Makor Rishon this week on Keren and RBS, this ad is more insidious than it seems. It spoke of a campaign among "kannaim" to get rid of wigs.
ReplyDeleteYoni. What happened? Did you run off and become secular? Are you looking for answers? Or have you changed your mind and accepted that women are second class citizens in the torah and orthodoxy.
ReplyDeleteWell, its like they say, god works in mysterious ways. Who are we to judge if he thinks the ladies should be subserviant to the men. (I forget, wasn't that one of the by products of the etz haddat?)
yeh i was kinda wonderin about that myself. then i looked at the time and figured i'm better off goin to sleep then scratchin my (wigless and kipaless) head over that one.
ReplyDeletelechaim.