The Torah discusses the beauty of women in great and graphic detail (psikim). The Torah also goes to great lengths to preserve the outer beauty of a Jewish married women in the eyes of her husband and the world for all to see.
In the Torah (Devorim 24:a) it states that if a man no longer likes his wife, he is obligated to divorce her. Furthermore, if a man or woman knows in their heart that (if they had the guts) they would leave their spouse, then are according to the Torah, it as though they are divorced and may longer be together.
כי יקח איש אשה ובעלה והיה אם לא תמצא חן בעיניו כי מצא בה ערות דבר וכתב לה ספר כריתת ונתן בידה ושלחה מביתו (דברים כד א)
If a man takes a wife, and she no longer finds favor in his eyes, he should write her a bill of divorce and send her away from his house.
2)The Torah goes to great lengths to make sure that a woman stays good-looking and attractive to her husband so that “he is not to get disgusted by her.”
(Gemurah Yima 73:2) On Yom kipper it is forbidden for people to wash the face amongst other things, however, Reb Eliezer says that a bride within 30 days of her wedding should wash her face, so she looks especially attractive to her husband.
יוֹם הַכִּפּוּרִים אָסוּר בַּאֲכִילָה וּבִשְׁתִיָּה וּבִרְחִיצָה וּבְסִיכָה וּבִנְעִילַת הַסַּנְדָּל, וּבְתַשְׁמִישׁ הַמִּטָּה. וְהַמֶּלֶךְ וְהַכַּלָּה יִרְחֲצוּ אֶת פְּנֵיהֶם (יומא עג:ב)
When sitting shiva, one is not allowed to shower amongst other things, however, the Gemurah CITATION AVAILABLE says that a married woman should shower during this week so her husband is not disgusted by her and that she stays attractive to him. A married man on the other hand cannot take showers when he sits shiva. The obligation to be attractive and beautiful is on the women to her husband.
A bride does not become tumah (impure) to eat Korbonos (in the time of the Bais Hamikdash) while being intimate on her wedding night, Gemurah CITATION AVAILABLE says it could be in order not to mess up her hair and makeup. Hashem created women with the need and desire to look beautiful and to spend lots of time doing our hair and makeup. A bride spends a lot of time and money getting the perfect hair and makeup for her wedding, Hashem created us in this manner so that the bride wants to look the most beautiful on this special night when she becomes one with her husband, He also declared that the bride does not become impure from the first night of intimacy, so she does not need to go to mikvah that night or the next night in order to eat Korbanos.
In Parshas Ki Satza פרק כא פסוקים י-יד and יבמות מח the Torah discusses that a Jewish women must be attactive to her husband more than the non-Jewish women.
(י) כִּי תֵצֵא לַמִּלְחָמָה עַל אֹיְבֶיךָ וּנְתָנוֹ ה’ אֱלֹהֶיךָ בְּיָדֶךָ וְשָׁבִיתָ שִׁבְיוֹ: (יא) וְרָאִיתָ בַּשִּׁבְיָה אֵשֶׁת יְפַת תֹּאַר וְחָשַׁקְתָּ בָהּ וְלָקַחְתָּ לְךָ לְאִשָּׁה: (יב) וַהֲבֵאתָהּ אֶל תּוֹךְ בֵּיתֶךָ וְגִלְּחָה אֶת רֹאשָׁהּ וְעָשְׂתָה אֶת צִפָּרְנֶיהָ: (יג) וְהֵסִירָה אֶת שִׂמְלַת שִׁבְיָהּ מֵעָלֶיהָ וְיָשְׁבָה בְּבֵיתֶךָ וּבָכְתָה אֶת אָבִיהָ וְאֶת אִמָּהּ יֶרַח יָמִים וְאַחַר כֵּן תָּבוֹא אֵלֶיהָ וּבְעַלְתָּהּ וְהָיְתָה לְךָ לְאִשָּׁה: (יד) וְהָיָה אִם לֹא חָפַצְתָּ בָּהּ וְשִׁלַּחְתָּהּ לְנַפְשָׁהּ וּמָכֹר לֹא תִמְכְּרֶנָּה בַּכָּסֶף לֹא תִתְעַמֵּר בָּהּ תַּחַת אֲשֶׁר עִנִּיתָהּ:
When a Jewish man goes out in war and finds a pretty non-Jewish woman, he may take her home. He must shave her head, let her nails grow and allow her to mourn for 30 days.
אליעזר אומר, “ירח ימים” כמשמעו. וכל לכך למה? כדי שתהיה בת ישראל שמחה וזו בוכה, זו מתקשטת וזו מתנוולת. (ספרי ריג ה)
Why is this? And she shall dwell in the house [not in a separate apartments, but] in the house which the husband constantly uses so he sees her when he comes in and he when he leaves. He must see her endless crying, and her neglected appearance — and all this in order that she should become repulsive to him (Sifrei Devarim 213).
Rebbi Eliezer asks why is the Torah ordering a man to go through this dramatic process to marry the non-Jew? 1) so that the man sees his wife, the Jewish woman, happy. He sees his wife with her long hair looking beautiful, while the non-Jew whose hair was cut off looks neglected and ugly. 2) Before he marries her he must know if he really likes and cares for her for who she is and her qualities, not just for her beauty.
The Torah’s definition of a beautiful woman is someone with long hair, hence the captured woman’s hair get cut off to repulse her in the eyes of the master.
If the man is turned off by the non-Jewish woman, he is obligated to send her away and she goes free. If however after he still wants her after undergoing the above mentioned process, she allows her hair to grow back, cleans herself up nicely and he can take her as a second wife.
A Jewish woman, daughter of Hashem, is obligated to to go great lengths to let her husband see her as beautiful especially with her hair, which Hashem made for her to attract her husband to her.
Hashem created the world to perfection. When Hashem created the world, He said It is not good for man to be alone (Bereshis 2:18) Hashem then created Chave and made her look beautiful for her husband by braiding her hair PUSIK. Later, after her sin of eating from the Eitz Hadas, she became aware that she was naked. Hashem dressed her in leather clothing (Bershis 3:21) Hashem had cotton and He created all animals, but He chose to use leather as He determined it to be the most appropriate material for a woman’s dress.
Hashem molded us, and He could have made us in any which way He wanted. He made women into beautiful creatures. If there was an issue with seeing a woman’s hair, Hashem would make it so that when a woman gets married, her hair starts falling out. Just like He made a woman become infertile as she gets older.
However, that was not what Hashem did. He created every woman with beautiful hair that makes her look attractive. The Torah speaks about famous Jewish men and women who had beautiful hair such as Avshulem PUSIK.
Here are just a few places in the Torah where hair in mentioned in the Torah.
1)Hashem created Chava with her own hair, and braided her hair MEDRASH.
2)In Gemurah Shabbos where it discusses carrying on Shabbas where there is no airev, It says women are allowed to go out with a wig or their friend’s hair, which is a human hair wig or hair extensions made from another woman’s hair and is added to one’s own hair. (a hat is forbidden as it can fall off her head and cause her to carry it in her hand). GEMRAH
3) Soita, (see סוטה ח,ע) is a woman whose husband did not want her to go out with a certain man. He asked her several times not to go with him. However, he believes she went out with him again, and it bothers him. He takes his wife to the Bais Hamikdosh. The wife is brought into the holiest place on earth with her hair showing to all. The kohen goes over to this married woman, touched her hair and ופרע את ראש האישה messes up her hair to make her ugly.
The word ופרע is the same loshen as used by the nazir נזיר. Bamidbar 6:5.
Every nazir man or woman is not allowed to cut their hair, neither were they allowed to touch it to make it into a hairstyle, it had be perah long and messed up גדל פרע שער ראש.
Unfortunatly, when Jews were in galus, they were surrounded by Christians and Muslims whose ways are very different from Hashem’s Torah and the previous generation was influenced by the action of their non-Jewish neighbors. Jewish women followed the Chikas Hagoi and began covering their hair. The hair coverings in different parts of the world were different each according to the non-Jews they were surrounded by.
The Gemurah in Mesechtas Shabbos mentioned Shabbat laws that “Arab” women are allowed to do. The sages asked why are Arabs being discussed as non-Jews cannot keep Shabbos. They are chayiv misa if they do so, as shabbos is between Hashem and us, His beloved children. The Gemurah responded that it is referring to Jewish women who live in Arab neighborhoods and adopted the Arab dress code, hence they are referred to as Arabs and not Jews. A woman who wears the dress code and head covering used by religious Muslims or Christian nuns are referred to as that and not as Jewish women.
We have to be very careful not to fall for what religious goyim refer to as tznius or beauty as this is against the Torah.
Every woman should use her beautiful hair, which Hashem gave her, to make herself look and feel beautiful and so that her husband is attracted to her and only to her.
Today, wigs are part of society. It is not necessarily a Jewish thing, just like beards became the fashion trend with non-Jewish men, so too wigs became a fashion trend for Jewish and non-Jewish women.
The Goyim have a minhag to cut off pieces of their hair as an offering (korban) for their Avoda Zara. Sadly, some Jewish women adopted this minhag from the goiyim and are cutting off part of their wigs as a Korban. Jews are banned from bringing korbanos outside they bais hamikdosh and doing so brings lots of suffering to the person. Just like the children of Aharon (see article doing something extra for Hashem is Avoda Zara.)
The Torah warns that if a talmid chacham walks around with stained clothes, he deserves the death penalty. Why? Because that leads to chilul Hashem, desecration of Hashem’s name. People will look at hims and say: “look how dirty Hashem’s children are.
Sadly, we heard these words from the goyim in Europe before the Wold War. Hitler yemach shemo used it as a reason to kill millions of men, women and children.
Jewish men and women are the children of Hashem, who is the king of the world. We must take great care to look our very best so that non-Jews should point to us and say: there goes an elegantly dressed man/woman, wow he/she looks royal fit for the child of the king of the world.”
We cannot say that we dress in a way that we the Jewish nation understands that this is the way a kings’ daughter dresses. The Torah commands us to dress the way the world see fit for kings’ daughters.
We can look to Royal families of our times to see how they behave and dress to know what is expected. Think about the queen of England and her family, they are always dressed neatly, perfectly put together. They are well-dressed so they look and feel confident and superior to the rest of the world, they are royalty after all. They never walk around their home looking like a mess, so they don’t lose respect from their husbands, and they never walk out of their homes looking like anything less than perfect.
If Hashem wanted us to dress in a certain dress code, He would have written it into the Torah. Some people argue that today’s standard of dressing should be so self understood, and that we should be so refined that it does not have to state as a Torah law.
This is not how Hashem’s Torah works. Everything is written in Tenach, including that one is forbidden to kill another person. Isn’t killing a person or respecting our parents who raised us so simple and self understood? Of course it is, and yet Hashem wrote it into the 10 commandments.
Every one of the 613 mitzvas are written in Tenach and one may not add or subtract from that as is stated many times in the Torah. ( לא תוסף עליו ולא תגרע ממנו (דברים, י”ג, א.
A Jewish woman must always look her best inside her home for her husband and outside the home, so she is a walking kiddush Hashem. The Gemurah in Kesubes warns that a woman should never leave her home without her hair made. If she does so, she desecrates the law of Das Yehudus and her husband can divorce her without a kesuba.
