JERUSALEM (VINnews) — The custom of women shaving their hair after marriage was widespread in Galicia and Hungary prior to the Holocaust and is still continued in some communities, mainly from the Toldos Aharon sect and in old Yerushalmi families. Some said that the basis for the custom was a fear of sechita (squeezing liquid) on Shabbos or so that the hair does not represent a chatzizah (barrier) to immersion in the Mikvah.
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Many poskim opposed the custom, including Rabbi Yosef Shaul Natansohn in his Shoel U’Meishiv who said that such a custom may be Lo Yilbash [females adopting a male custom which is prohibited by Torah]. The mekubal Rabbi Yehuda Petaya said that the custom contradicts the kabbalistic opinion of the Arizal, who maintained that women should grow their hair and only men should shave their heads.
In a sharp response to a young man querying whether to keep his family’s custom of shaving married women’s hair, Hagaon Rabbi Shlomo Fisher Zts’l, who recently passed away, said that such customs are “bad and stupid”.
Rabbi Fisher wrote that “you can remain calm and need not be upset about revoking this bad and stupid custom [about which we can say Rabbeinu Tam’s anagram that Minhag is the letters of Gehennom] of married women shaving their hair, which is against halacha and defies intelligence as well as causing great distress to women.
“The gemara (Eiruvin 100b) says that women are accustomed to growing their hair long. In the Rambam (Avodah Zarah 12:10) it says that a woman may not shave her head and in Nazir 28b it is written that a husband may say: “I don’t want a shaven headed wife.” The women who shave their hair wear a sheitel (wig) when going outside and in the home they are contemptible to their husbands and this is the opposite of the Torah’s imperatives. Rashi writes (Devarim 4:9) that when you perform the Torah’s statutes in the proper way you will be considered wise and perceptive but if you distort them you will be deemed fools.
“The sephardim maintained kabbalistic customs throughout the generations even more than Ashkenazim and were more acquainted with kabbalistic stringencies but they never even considered maintaining this bad custom of having women shave their heads. If the custom was not maintained one must rejoice in this and not be upset.”
Stupid clickbait article with no Toeles. Thank you for fomenting more Machlokes.
How can you write such an article disparaging a minhag that tens of thousands of frum women ( not just toldos aron) keep and have kept for many hundreds of years, an article full of ignorance and lack of any current or historical knowledge of this minhag,
Does this Rav compare in torah to the Tzanzer Rav? Or in later times to the Satmar Rav or the Klauzenburger rav just to mention a few, did he have the ahavas Yisrael that they had in their pinky to say what does or does not distress women?.
And where does sechitah come into this? It’s obviously stemming from tzenius,so hair should not stick out from under a kerchief and other reasons, but that’s not the point. You don’t bash a minhag that tens of thousands of frum women keep and have kept just because you don’t understand it ,I would suggest that you rather write about the half a head of hair not covered by tichels and snoods .
This seems to be a one sided article. Why not post the other side of the aisle? Why do hasidim shave?
Why bring this up now and here? It will just bring defamation and machlokes for no reason.
This article is BAD AND STUPID
I am happy to inform you that this article was NOT written by Rabbi Y Hoffman.
I don’t think anyone is checking out VIN in order to decide what minhugim or traditions to follow. Please stick to the news.
Why use such a title for your article? There are those that are makpid (satmar) why disparage them?
with all due respect to this Rav. אלו ואלו דברי אלקים חיים. As far as I know almost every chasidishe group advocates woman shaving their head after marriage. It’s not only some hold outs in Yerushalyim. All this article will do is cause people to besmirch other yidden
Why was this article posted? No one woman will choose to shave her head or not to do so because of this article. I also doubt that those who hold by the minhag read VIN.
I am not so familiar with this inyan, however, if the Satmar Rav was okay with this minhag, and if other Malachei elokim, anoshim kedoshim and geonim were in favor of this minhag, then one not need worry about this holy minhag, for it is surely a minhag kodesh. Emes, veyatziv, venochon, vekayam, veyashar, vene’eman, veahuv, vechaviv, venechmod, venaim, venora, veadir umesukan, umekubal, vedov, veyafeh hadovor hezeh aleinu leolom voed.
The women of the Toldos Aharon chasidim doesnt shave their head. Maybe you meant a dif sect
Everyone has the Rav.
Because it is disgusting for a lady to shave her head
By yetziyas mitzrayim it is brought in the Midrash that the mirrors of silver that the women used to beautify their hair with for their husbands were given for the Mishkan.
The origin of women shaving their heads harks back to the feudal middle ages when the local nobleman had ‘droit de signeur’, i.e. the right to have intercourse first with every newly married girl in his district. In order to make themselves repulsive to the poretz, Jewish girls would shave their heads os that he would find them disgusting. That they maintain this need to be disgusting is, of course, ridiculous.
Hasidic men shave their heads, and their wives do so too. Who says Hasidim ain’t progressive?
Satmar does it
the rav is a hundred percent right. There is areason why the litvak and sphardishe ladies dont shave their heads. And at the same time the other side’s mesorah is also a hundred percent right. there is a reason why chasidishe ladies shave their heads. it is a concept that is very hard to understand called Ailu Va’ailu divrei elokim chaim
how many hundreds of years? learn history, son. Ignorance is not a good minhag.
I had to read this article twice to see if I’m seeing right, did I login to foot steps.
Posting an article like if some fanatic extremists came up with tried idea.
didn’t the rabunim of the Vaad Araba arutzes ( ever heard about it?) know of all these Gamuras, and other poskim?
To write such article is plain simple השכלה.
and BTW the minhag has nothing to do with Samar or Klozenburg.
I wonder what’s next.
What else that yidden do for so many years is stupid?
VIN should remove this article and give an apology to these thousands of Yiddish women who follow the mesorah of their mothers for hundreds of years
The Rebbetzin of the Lubavitcher Rebbeh shlita did not shave her head.
There is a strong case against that too.
Everyone should do what their parents did! Period
Rav Shlomo Fischer happens to have a daughter Chana Kahat, a left-wing-Mizrachi feminist activist who partly covers a shack of hair.
I am pretty sure, that R. Shlomo, before his ptira, albeit his outstanding of mainstream chareidi hashkafa, would be very glad would his daughter shave her hair.
My guess: this was something the rav said decades ago, if altogether.
Can’t believe the ע”ה of many commentators here.
Herein is a list of many (that I recall from memory. If one wants I can post the exact m”m) mentioning them – not subject to any specific region:
The Netziv (of Volozhin!) mentions/ supports the minhag in עמק שאלה on Sheiltos
(דברי שאול (להשואל ומשיב
חתם סופר
ספר יד קטנה על הרמב״ם (א מגדולי י.ל.
בעילום שמו, יש לו הסכמה
‘מה’ישמח משה
Mentions it and debates whether it goes against לא תלבש. Seems like there was no such minhag in his town etc)
It seems like it was a Tekanah of Vaad Arabah Arotzos. It deteriorated or completely vanished from some states due to certain Tzarist decrees. (See writings of Rav Shlomo Kluger. ואכמ”ל
One may very much argue:
כיון שבטלה בטלה
It’s a minhag that is only kept by a very minute number of kehilos/chasidim.
I would strongly suggest the Rabbi of this article check why the Zohar recommended women to shave their heads.
Rav Shlomo Fisher surely did not mean what you wrote here. Additionally, this article is the epitome of ignorance, because every fact you stated was completely wrong…
This article smacks of the people who wear a kerchief with half their hair showing and saying “Rav Moshe said this is what women ought to do…”
Considering the ignorance of a widespread Minhag, I would look into these “facts” from Rav Shlomo FIsher’s letter before believing everything I just read.
A fellow visits the Rabbi and is afraid the Rabbi will notice he shaved his beard in a forbidden manner, with a razor blade, G-D forbid. But the Rabbi did not notice this. When he walked out of the Rabbi’s quarters, the fellow said with a sigh of relief, “Wow, that was a close shave!”
Old minhag, but if you ask people who do it, they don’t know the source. It is distressful to many women today, because it’s got to be awful to look in the mirror and see yourself like those women who had their hair shaved in Auschwitz, etc. Of course those who insist will still do it, but remember, it’s not halacha, and it took lots of courage for a rav to say the truth.
The Satmar Rov said the geulah is hanging on the hair of the sin of women having long hair. It seems abusive to me to force a woman to keep long hair under a sheitel. Having no hair is much more comfortable.
Did this ruv also say anything about men getting drunk on shabbes and yom tov as long there is whiskey in the bottle?
The mother of the Chazon Ish shaved her head.
You all have it wrong the custom was started because a lice epidemic And as most traditions start we make it a religious statements
Not only in Galtzia and Hungary, but in Lithiania, Belarus and Ukrain until Nikolai the First gzeros.Goood idea to do some serious research before putting out articles like that. Besides the fact that, to whoever knew Reb Shlomo Fisher, not everything that came out of his mouth is Toire Mesinai.