sh'lach: fringe theories of halakha
hello!
What a week! I'm sitting down to draft this on Friday, at the last possible moment, because I've been wildly busy with work and other activities. Thank God for Shabbos -- though even Shabbos has become busy for me because the local People's Pride (no banks! no cops!) is happening tomorrow. The organizers actually texted me last year to ask if this would be a problem for observant Jews, which was sweet of them, although. Well. Anyway.
Let's talk Torah. Lots happening in this portion, once again, but let's fast-forward to 15:38, where we get a very familiar piece of text:
Speak to the Israelite people and instruct them to make for themselves fringes on the corners of their garments throughout the ages; let them attach a cord of blue to the fringe at each corner.
That shall be your fringe; look at it and recall all the commandments of haShem and observe them, so that you do not follow your heart and eyes in your lustful urge.
Thus you shall be reminded to observe all My commandments and to be holy to your God.
I haShem am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God: I, your God haShem.
Folks, we've got a mitzvah! And while I don't personally believe I am obligated to follow every mitzvah in the Torah, I do think I have to at least consider them. And while I don't consider the sages authoritative, I do consider them an authority that must be consulted on the matter. So let's go to the texts!
disclaimer א! I am not a halakhic authority, I am simply a Jew who has an excess of gumption.
disclaimer ב! None of this is meant to be a comment what you personally should or should not do. All 'you's are generic yous, and this is mostly me ruminating on my own experience.
First, we get a blanket statement from a baraisa:
ת"ר הכל חייבין בציצית
our sages teach: everyone is obligated in tzitzis
This would, of course, be the end of it (what Jew would ever argue with the sages). But this mitzvah has an unusual feature: the sages interpret "corners of your garments" to mean that tzitzis only need to be attached to four-cornered garments (which is why little tallises have those slits up the sides.) If you don't own any four-cornered garments, you don't have to observe this mitzvah at all (see Rambam's summary of this issue.)
This raises a crucial question: anyone who does not currently have a four-cornered garment is exempt, in a sense, from the mitzvah of tzitzis. Is it appropriate, then, to purchase a garment specifically with the intention of attaching tzitzis to it?
Believe it or not, the Rabbis have some concerns!
To understand why this might not be appropriate, let's look at another case of exemption. The Mishnah teaches that a groom is exempt from saying krias shema on his wedding night, but that he may say it if he chooses to do so. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel disagrees, and states:
לֹא כָּל הָרוֹצֶה לִיטּוֹל אֶת הַשֵּׁם, יִטּוֹל
not everyone who wants to assume the name may assume it
In other words, the groom may be saying krias shema when he doesn't have to in order to create a reputation of piety for himself. In that case, R. Sh. ben Gamliel is offering a warning: not everyone who wants a particular reputation [of piety] gets to have it.
The Gemara connects R. Sh. ben Gamliel's statement to the concept of yuhara, a kind of spiritual self-aggrandizement. And the Gemara offers us some guidelines to understand what is and isn't yuhara by comparing the voluntary recitation of shema by a groom to one who chooses to abstain from labor on tisha b'av:
קְרִיאַת שְׁמַע, כֵּיוָן דְּכוּלֵּי עָלְמָא קָא קָרוּ וְאִיהוּ נָמֵי קָרֵי — לָא מִיחְזֵי כְּיוּהֲרָא. הָכָא, כֵּיוָן דְּכוּלֵּי עָלְמָא עָבְדִי מְלָאכָה וְאִיהוּ לָא קָא עָבֵיד — מִיחְזֵי כְּיוּהֲרָא
when the ¡whole world recites! [shema] and he also recites: it does not appear like yuhara
but here, where the whole word works and ¡he doesn't work!: it does appear like yuhara
The groom who chooses to recite shema recites with his community. The person who chooses to work on Tisha B'av removes himself from his community.This would suggest the following conclusion: you may freely purchase garments specifically to attach tzitzis if that is the custom of your community. Otherwise, you are differentiating yourself from the community and must worry about [the appearance of] yuhara.
That's all very nice, but this is also a recipe for communal stagnation. If each individual can only do what the community does, then the community can only do what it already does. Not only will this produce oppresively authoritarian communities, it is also just completely absurd. No community sprang fully-formed from the earth with its current customs intact, so some individual innovation must be permissible.
Fortunately, R. Sh. ben Gamliel leaves us some wiggle room to explore this question, since he specifically says "not everyone who wants to can" instead of "everyone who wants to cannot." Not everyone can take on such an obligation, but some people can.
In the case of acquiring a garment specifically to wear tzitzis, we might be tempted to say that it comes down to personal motivation. If you are doing this mitzvah lishmah (for its own sake) then you may proceed. If not, if you're doing to to project a certain image, you will need to worry about yuhara. This particular solution is typically disputed by arguing that yuhara is at its root a question of how others interpret your appearance, not only of personal motivation (c.f. Rav Judith Butler).
I think we can refine our understanding of this by considering the Nazir vow that we learned in the Torah cycle a couple weeks ago. The Nazir vow, after all, goes excessively beyond any communal norms, and is in many ways designed to differentiate the Nazir from their community. You will know the Nazir, as the Zohar taught us, by their hair. But while the actions of the Nazir differentiate themselves from their community, the goal and process is still in some sense communally oriented: the Nazir ends their vow, for example, with sacrifices at the communal Temple.
In a way, by being explicitly designed to contrast with and create friction within communal practices, the Nazir vow is paradoxically about connection to the community. I sort of think about it as part of a conversation with the community: the Nazir is, in a sense, trying to communicate a broader point to their community via their individual action.
So I think the Rabbis were right in that the question is about your connection to community, but wrong in making the determining factor whether everyone else is doing the same thing. Here is, for me, the guiding question: are you taking on this mitzvah to differentiate yourself from your community, or to connect yourself to your community, to have a conversation with your community? In the former case, you need to worry about yuhara. In the latter, you do not.
But Ada, I can hear you saying, you just said yuhara isn't about intention. So why would the intention to connect to community make a difference?
I think that if you are truly taking on this mitzvah as an act of connection to your community, as a conversation with your community, then your inner intentions will become externalized and your community will understand what you are doing. Perhaps some people who don't know you will still think you are engaging in yuhara, but we can't base our life decisions on the opinions of strangers!
In fact, the Mishnah has a response if someone does challenge you on your behavior in this regard. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel's own son is known to have recited shema on his wedding night. When challenged on his behavior, since his father prohibited this, he responded:
אֵינִי שׁוֹמֵעַ לָכֶם לְבַטֵּל הֵימֶנִי מַלְכוּת שָׁמַיִם אֲפִילּוּ שָׁעָה אַחַת
I am not listening to you! I will not remove myself from the Kingdom of Heaven, even for one moment!
Very interested, as always, in your thoughts and challenges.
Oh, and isn't it just so cool that in this whole rabbinic debate there's like zero misogyny?
Good shabbos,
ada
p.s. in case you missed the sarcasm, the debate about who can wear tzitzis is RIDDLED with misogyny. but i'm tired of thinking of halakha in those terms, and i'm tired of debating misogynistic men both dead and alive. the relevant questions for me are the underlying debates, like the concern over yuhara, since i reject out-of-hand the idea that there should be one rule for women and one for men. if you would like a deep-dive into the orthodox halakha of women and tzitzis, i cannot recommend highly enough the two-part series on deracheha (here is a direct link to part one on "are women wearing tzitzis crossdressing", which is a whole entire journey.)