Modesty
...u think that it wouldn’t cause as much trouble as it does. But in actuality this causes SO much mayhem it’s not even funny! Let’s move on to see what else this modesty issue could bring up. Well, there is this organization for jews called USY: United Synagogue Youth. They love to throw parties. Especially ones where they all get together and stay over night somewhere. But this also involves staying during Shabbat, and Shabbat has it’s OWN dress code. I happened to find one of the permission slips for a USY event and looked it over: BASIC USY STANDARDS OF DRESS 1. Clothing on which any profanity or inappropriate language, pictures or symbols are written, printed or depicted is not permitted. (A fair enough rule. I can understand a shirt saying “Make 7/Up Yours” being inappropriate, but that doesn’t have much to do with modesty.) 2. No visible underwear is permitted for both males and females. (This makes sense. Underwear is very distracting and depending on the underwear visible, could possibly make such things as the posterior look like a play thing and that brings us down from “holding the human body in the highest regards.”) 3. During Tefillah, inappropriately short skirts or shorts, or tight garments, are not permitted; shoulders must be covered for both males and females (Making the body a distraction from prayer is very inappropriate.) 4. Tank tops, 2-piece bathing suits (except where midriff is covered), bare midriff styles, halter-tops, leggings, or see-through blouses are not permitted. (Refer to number 2) As I dug deeper, I found out that the modesty issue really does cause problems! In fact, it led to a revolt against Barbie. Not revolt like the revolutions of 1848, but revolt as in “I refuse to give my daughter this toy.” Why? Well because the writer of the article about “Banishing Barbie ” is a feminist who believes strongly in tzniut. She says, “Tzniut means an awareness of being in God's presence at all times. ” An awareness of being in God’s presence at ALL times? Well well well! This certainly spices it up a bit… now we’re throwing God into our brothel of modesty. As I read more into this article, my dear writer had more to say to help me learn: Clothing reminds us that the body is merely the vehicle for the soul and that physical drives and pleasures should not be viewed as ends in themselves. In a sense, then, our clothes protect us from the animalistic nature of our bodies. Animalistic nature? I’m not sure if she’s saying this out of her feminism or her judaism but I think she has a point. Without clothes life would certainly be strange. We’d be walking around naked all the time and women would have to be wary of men all over who are overly horny and rape them. I learned about this in history class! The coal mines back when the train was invented! The industrial revolution, I believe? Men and women couldn’t wear too many clothes becaues they had to crawl around in tight spaces all the time and w...