Two of the most current manifestations of the alienation of modern culture from the insights of Judaism are found in the recent decades-long fads of shaving the head, and adorning the corpus with tattoos. Both of these are reflections of how far man has strayed from the natural ways, and an introspective examination of both would be fruitful.
Cutting the hair is forbidden in Judaism, if one takes the injunction “Thou Shall Not Round the Corners of Thy Head” seriously. Ben-Zev finds it curious that Orthodox Jews will refuse to cut their beards, as well they should, but are willing to cut their hair. Does not “corners of thy head” include the top of the head if it includes the bottom?
It’s very clear from the Samson story, that Jews were intended to keep their hair intact, and wear it long. Now what could be the reasons for this?
Modern statistics on melanomas have shown that intense sun on the skin for protracted periods is not healthy. Could it be that the founders of Judaism understood this, and urged people to keep their hair in order to shield the skin, especially the neck, and the ears with their ultra-thin skin, from the intense ultraviolet rays of the Middle East? In hot desert climates, we often find people fully cloaked all day long, because they know that direct sun on the skin is worse that the retention of head caused by the clothing. When they have the genetic ability to grow their hair in long wavy strands, they tend to do so. (Note that many Hindu holy men in hot India grow their hair down their backs.) Is this Nature’s way, or G-d’s way, or giving them a sort of head shield against the sun? Or did they feel that as an emanation of the body, and an attractive one at that, hair was an expression of the masculine fertility of G-d? Masculine we say because, as one will notice, the human male tends to be much more hirsute than the female. And are we wrong in our impression that the Essenes did not clip their hair? And one should also note that, prior to modern times, in that other great cluster of cultures that worshiped the One Great Spirit, the American Indians, we find them almost invariably wearing their hair in accordance with Jewish law, except for the Mohawks who yet did not completely shave their heads. It’s safe to say there were no skinheads in America before the coming of the White Curse.
We find it interesting too that in both Greece and Imperial Rome, short hair and, in the Roman case, facial shaving, were very “in” for both the ruling classes and the masses. These “beautifications” of the male would seem to fit in well with the sexually inverted cultures which these slave-owning, essentially Fascist, societies extolled as a virtue. But in Judaism we find no such confusing the male as object with the male as power. Judaism regards the male as human moral power, realized in the act. Greece and Rome saw the male as an object, to be humiliated and exploited through slavery and conquest. One philosophy raised human dignity; the other destroyed it.
Now, all this does not mean that Ben-Zev thinks that modern Jews shouldn’t wear their hair or beards exactly as they want, nor does it mean he thinks that anyone who wears their hair short, or even barely visible, and also shaves their face, is somehow perverse. How to wear one’s hair and beard is purely a matter of taste, and actually to conform to some norm out of fear of being different is in itself not a very masculine quality. So the modern “masculine” thing is to display oneself just as one wishes, and not worry about what anyone thinks. Shave if you want, wear your hair like you’re living in a prison camp if you want, it’s a minor peccadillo compared to the crimes that are going on in the world. But somehow, Ben-Zev envisions the modern Jew looking something like Samson, bringing down the pillars on those mahmzers.
And what about that modern abomination called Tattooing. “Thou shall not make unto ye a graven image.” And the body of living energy that is a human being, made in G-d’s image, is now subject to having graven images tattooed all over it in this sick modern world. Thank G-d, Jew’s are not as prone to this as non-Jews in the general culture. But can there be anything more depraved then a modern Jew with tattoo artwork all over his skin? He has been taken in completely by the non-Jewish culture. But again, a person who has had tattooing should not be treated any differently than any other person. The sin they have committed is against themselves, because they did not understand, or because they were never exposed to someone who said. “Tattooing? No way! But this is why.” Then they might have understood.
However, this does not in any way denigrate the tattooing carried out by native tribes all over the world. Perhaps such tattooing is a mechanical attempt to counter the constant deterioration of the human body, once it passes its physical apogee of perfection. Perhaps it is a reaction to a hard, arduous life, without the framework of the Torah as a set of guideposts to guide reflection. Perhaps it arises out of boredom, or the very popular, Ben-Zev has noticed, activity of human beings known as “trying to improve their appearance”. But it is not the product of being exposed to the modern plastic world.
So skinhead and tattoo: let’s leave them as the last relics of an effete, dehumanized society. Ben-Zev feels they have no place in Jewish culture, or the Coming World. — Baruch Ben-Zev
Tags: head shaving, Judaism, Orthodox Judaism, shaving, tatooing
