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Saturday, August 15, 2009

Tzniut - Jewish Modesty: then and now, A video

I found this to be really insightful. It shows how the concept of modesty as it was kept in Judaism was very similar to what we see preserved in Islam. It was only in the last century that the Jews' traditional dress was changed to more closely resemble that of the Europeans. The author of the material also discusses some of the reasons for modesty and the true meaning of the Hebrew word Tzniut. It translated more accurately as subduedness, which is why modesty should be part of our submission to our creator.

Enjoy!

11 comments:

caraboska said...

Very interesting and thought provoking. I also admit to being curious about the speaker's accent in Hebrew, because it is one I have not heard before...

Anonymous said...

That was an awesome video...so much I didn't know.
Like he said it's amazing how much can be lost in one generation!

Stacy K. said...

@caraboska, The speaker reads Hebrew with a Yemenite accent. This means that he differentiates the pronunciation of tet and tav, qof and kaf, sin and samekh as well as the vowels each being distinct. He actually has some videos posted on this as well under his YouTube account.

Stacy K. said...

@Tiff, I know! It is interesting though how there is a small movement to bring it back the other way. It will be interesting to see what the next generation does with it if we're all still around then.

Anonymous said...

Interesting! I like it how the men cover a large portion of their body as well. And the women's dress code isn't super strict but still modest.

WhiteOrchid said...

Very interesting video. I never knew that jewish women back then covered their hair

Stacy K. said...

@Aynur, I like men to be more covered too. Maybe navel to knees is enough for certain situations, but who doesn't like a guy in a thobe?

Stacy K. said...

@WhiteOrchid, Yeah there are very few that I've seen who cover today. The European Jews started wearing wigs to cover their hair, which kind of defeats the purpose in my opinion.

Anonymous said...

Stacy - totally. :)

Anonymous said...

In the city I used to live in there was a huge orthodox and hassidic community (2nd biggest in the USA) and I saw a lot of women using scarves to cover up. Sure I saw some women who wore *obvious* wigs but I also saw a lot of younger women (teens, twenties and 30's) with a very boho look and a pretty scarf tied up in bun style or tied behind the head and the ends arranged nicely.

Quite a pretty look...I think the wig and snood looks rather blah.

Languages and Learning to Love said...

It is very interesting. I watched the whole thing. I found his perspective to be true from many experiences I have had in the past year.
Even in America, people of many cultures are dressing very improper.
We have rights but...
It's sad to see that Culture has put a stigma on the word modesty. Like its a bad thing to respect your body.-In Corinthians chapter 6 Christians should see that it describes what a body symbolizes-It is suppose to be a symbolize the temple.