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Back to Question of the Week Nathan |
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A: Parts of this question, including much of the "why" and also the "we" are addressed in two previous columns (Why do Jews wear yarmulkes? , Do women wear kippah just like men?). However, there's still some interesting ground to cover with reference to the "when," so here we go: There is, as we know, nothing written about head-covering in the Torah or the Tanakh. That is, of course, unless you include the famous proof-text adduced in the traditional hassidic joke: How do we know that our forefather Jacob wore a shtreimel? Because it is written (Genesis 28:10), "And Jabob went out ..." And would Jacob go out without his shtreimel? The Talmud seems to record a number of different practices with regard to head-covering. One passage (Berakhot 60b) seems to assume that people put a turban on as part of their regular morning routine. Another passage, Kiddushin 29b, indicates that unmarried men did not wear a turban. Finally, a different passage from the same tractate, this time from Kiddushin 8a, seems to indicate that only "great men" wore a turban: " ... Rav Kahana was a great man, so he required a turban on his head, but the rest of the world, no ..." From the Talmud, we find the symbolism of the turban to be variously the fear of God, respect, and humility or, on the contrary, high status. The above is all from the Babylonian Talmud and reflects Babylonian practice in approximately the first half a millenium of the Common Era. It apparently became the Babylonian custom in the second half of the first millenium for men to cover their heads, at least during worship. In the land of Israel in the Talmudic period, it was apparently the custom to go bareheaded. (See, for example, Genesis Rabbah 100:7, with a parallel in the Jerusalem Talmud Moed Katan III, 82c, in which a son of Rabbi Yehudah Hanasi goes bareheaded on Shabbat, because covering the head is a sign of mourning and one doesn't engage in outward mourning practices on Shabbat.) The difference between Babylonian custom and that of Erets Yisra'el extended in the early middle ages also to the rest of the Jewish world. Until about the 13th century, Spanish Jews followed the Babylonian custom of head-covering for men, while France and Germany did not. After the 13th century, throughout the Jewish world, it more and more was considered good manners to cover the head, especially in prayer, but this was generally not viewed as halakhah -- as law. The meaning ascribed to head-covering in this period was generally either humility or modesty. Maimonides includes head-covering as an example of the modesty of scholars along with the wearing of long sleeves. The issue of head-covering heated up with the beginnings of Reform. As Jews became integrated into the larger society in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, adapting the general habits of dress, many of them also came to internalize the general convention in Western Europe that respect was shown by uncovering the head. So, given that head-covering was not halakhah, they thought it more respectful to not cover the head during worship. It is interesting that even the Conservative movement did not emphasize head-covering. I have in one of my books a photograph of the faculty of the Jewish Theological Seminary in the mid-1940's. Almost none of the group of prominent rabbis and scholars is wearing a kippah. As I noted in a previous column, new issues of identity and new religious sensibilities have recently brought about a new popularity of kippah among liberal Jews. written by Rabbi Jeremy Schwartz |
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