Tattoos, Shaving, Cross-Dressing and Chadash.

In several places the Torah forbids mutilating the body as a sign of mourning.  One verse says, "Don't make an incision in your skin for a soul, nor make a tattoo, I am God" (Vayikra 19:28.)  Another verse states "You are children of HaShem your God; don't cut yourselves nor make a bald spot between your eyes" (Devarim 14:1.)

 

The Ramban explains the connection between the beginning and the end of this last verse.  Since we are children of God, His chosen people, we have confidence that He will judge us favorably, and that the departed will find eternal rest with God.  While we are still dismayed that we are separated from our loved ones, our sorrow is tempered by the faith that the deceased will receive an eternal reward in the World to Come.  Therefore, our expressions of grief need to be restrained, to show that our sorrow does not approach despair.

 

An extension of this mitzva is the rule that we shouldn't mourn excessively even by permissible expressions of mourning (SA YD 394:1.)

 

Another link between these two sections of the verse is that when we recall that we are children of God, we recall that we are created in His image, which we should not deface (based on Rashi.)

 

DON'T DIVIDE INTO SECTS

 

Our Sages inferred another imperative from the verse in Devarim: Don't cut yourselves up – into different sects (Yevamot 13b.)  This is a prohibition on the community itself to slice itself up into divisive segments.  We should strive to have uniformity of communal leadership and conduct, and each community should have uniform customs (SA OC 493:3.)

 

This mitzva is also related to the first half of the verse.  Since we are children of God, we are all one family.  We have to express this by having the greatest possible degree of national unity, and at all costs avoid dividing ourselves into conflicting factions.

 

 

CHAPTER 170 – PROHIBITION ON SHAVING

 

The Torah forbids Jewish men to shave their beards (Vayikra 19:27.)  Men can only cut their facial hair using scissors, or with an electric razor which removes hair in a similar fashion.  (Before the electric razor, clean-shaven Jewish men used depilatories.)  The context of these verses suggests that shaving in this way is forbidden as a pagan custom (Beit Yosef YD 181), but this begs the question of why this practice should be connected with idolatry.

 

THE DIVINE IMAGE

 

One idea suggested by the context is that cutting the beard with a razor is akin to self-mutilation, which is forbidden by the following verse.  Such mutilation seems to contradict the idea that man is created in the Divine image.  This symbolism is absent in cutting with a scissors, which takes place at a distance, however tiny, from the skin.

 

REVERENCE FOR THE AGED, NOT FOR THE YOUNG

 

Another approach is to note that the beard is a symbol of age.  Even when a young man reaches physical maturity the beard doesn't fully grow immediately, and a beard usually becomes more prominent as a man ages.  Pagan culture, with its emphasis on fertility and bodily enjoyments, tends to glorify youth.  Ancient Greek art was fixated on youth, and our own modern culture, in places where traditional values are being lost, also seems to preach a type of perpetual adolescence.

 

Jewish culture emphasizes wisdom - which is found in the aged, as well as tradition - which leads us to honor our elders who are closer to the ancient events which are the foundation of our religion.  The symbolism of uprooting or shunning age is more prominent in the use of a razor, which tears the hair from the face, than in the use of scissors.

 

MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE

 

An approach based on Chasidut notes that the beard obscures the face.  This can convey that in this person there is more than meets the eye.  When we speak of a "bare-faced lie," we identify being clean shaven with being candid.  While one opposite of candor is evasiveness, the simplicity of candor also contrasts with the profundity of ideas which can not be transmitted by a simple word and an open glance.  This concealment is especially appropriate for a man, who is particularly charged with the study of Torah that connects him to the Source of wisdom and profundity (based on Likutei Halakhot Giluach 3.)

 

 

CHAPTER 171 – CROSS-DRESSING

 

The Torah explicitly forbids cross-dressing:

 

"A man's clothes shall not be on a woman, and a man shall not wear a woman's dress; for it is an abomination to HaShem your God to do either of these" (Devarim 22:5.)

 

The word "to’eva" – “abomination” is used about a dozen times in the Torah; in most cases it refers to idolatry or to sexual sins such as incest or homosexuality.  Perhaps what makes these transgressions "abominations" as opposed to mere aberrations is that they do evil through a capacity which is specially suited to holiness.  Murder is not an "abomination" because even when it is permissible it is at most a necessary evil.  But worship, sacrifice and sexual relations have a special potential for holiness and connection to God; when they are however used in a deviant way then the extent of the crime is magnified.

 

Cross-dressing is similar to homosexuality in the sense that it blurs the border between the sexes, a border which is meant to complete the Divine image by uniting the two distinct expressions it has among mankind.  What we wrote in chapter 152 is therefore relevant here as well.

 

So the same theme of the previous two chapters is continued in this one.  The prohibitions of those chapters involved defacing the Divine image in man by mutilating the body; cross-dressing compromises the Divine image by obscuring the demarcation between man and woman, thus preventing the full expression of the Divine image which can be expressed only by the union of man and woman, as we explained in chapter 145.

 

 

CHAPTER 172 – "CHADASH," PROHIBITION ON EATING NEW GRAIN CROP

 

In the time of the Temple, on the night following Pesach a small amount of barley was harvested and brought on the following day as a meal offering in the Temple.  This offering was called the "omer," which is the name of the measure of barley required.  All other grain from that year's crop is forbidden until the omer is brought.  Since the destruction of the Temple, the “chadash,” or new crop, is forbidden until the sixteenth of Nisan, the day on which the omer offering is obligatory in the Temple.

 

"Talk to the children of Israel and say to them, when you come into the land which I give you, and you reap its crop, bring an omer of the first of your reaping to the Kohen.  And don't eat bread, flour or wheat kernels until this very day, until you bring the offering of your God, an eternal law for all your generations in all of your settlements" (Vayikra 23:10, 14.)

 

The word "first" of your reaping reminds us of the same word used to describe challa and truma, mitzvot where a small amount of dough or of the new crop is dedicated to God and thus the remainder becomes permissible to eat  (See chapter 35 where this is explained at length.)  Here also on a national scale, the entire new crop of grain is not permitted until a small amount is dedicated to God by bringing it as an offering in the Temple (Sefer Ha-Chinukh mitzva 303.)

 

The omer is made from barley flour, an inferior flour which is not usually suitable for Temple offerings.  There is a practical reason for this, since the barley ripens early and the wheat is not yet ripe at Pesach time.  We explained in chapter 120 that the mitzva to bring the omer from barley, together with the counting of the omer which anticipates the offering of the two wheat loaves at Shavuot when the wheat is ripe, carries a unique message of balance in worship: On the one hand, God is willing to accept our service even if it is less than perfect, if that is all we are able to offer Him.  But this is not an excuse for complacency; such service is acceptable only if we conspicuously display our eagerness to serve God in the proper and complete manner, by prominently showing our anticipation of the day when we will overcome all obstacles to serving Him properly.

 

"EVERYTHING NEW IS FORBIDDEN BY THE TORAH"

 

The halakhic statement forbidding chadash, the new grain crop, can be rendered, "Everything new is forbidden by the Torah."  This statement has often been used polemically against reconciling ourselves to various innovations in society.  Rav Kook did not disagree with this interpretation, but suggested that we acknowledge its ramifications: While we are naturally suspicious of anything new and unfamiliar, once we succeed in elevating such an innovation to God's service we have shown that it can contribute to holiness, and we may consider it permissible (Ma’amrei HaRayah, "HaOmer veShtei HaLechem," pg. 474.)