Parshat Ki Teitzei

Posted

Not being ‘cross’

By Rabbi Avi Billet

Issue of Sept. 12, 2008

Chapter 22 has a unique list of seemingly random commandments:

You may not forego returning a lost object you come across. Make sure to

help an animal that is struggling under its load. Do not cross dress.

Send away the mother bird to take her eggs/babies. Put a fence around

the roof of your new home. Do not graft fruits. Do not have an ox and

donkey plow together. Do not wear “shatnez,” a combination of wool and

flax. Put strings on the corners of your clothes.

Finding a common theme for all these is a bit of a challenge, so we will

just focus on one of the above commandments –– the only one in the list

which is described as a “to’evah” (abomination) –– namely “the

prohibition against cross dressing.”

While it is not my goal to preach definitions for women’s clothing and

men’s clothing, it is worthy to note that those stick figures on public

restrooms still have a clear difference between them. Men and women are

not the same and were never meant to be the same.

Let us look at the exact wording of the verse: “There shall not be male

articles (vessels) on a woman and a man should not wear a woman’s dress

(i.e. clothing) for anyone who does these things is considered having

committed an abomination against G-d.”

Some try to define these warnings in very concrete terms. Targum

Yonatan, for example, says the verse means, “A woman should not be

wearing tzitzit and tefillin, while a man should not shave as a woman

does –– which would make him look feminine.”

Being a little more pragmatic (and clearly based on the Talmud Nazir

59a), Rashi says these prohibitions are to prevent a man from hanging

out with a sizable group of women and vice versa. But he adds that the

only style of dress included in this category is the kind that would be

considered an “abomination.” He leaves such a definition up to our own

imagination.

Many commentaries focus on the words “kli gever” –– male vessels –– and

say the general context indicates that women should not be wearing male

articles of war, such as swords, because if it would allow her to gain

access to the battlefield, it would lead to promiscuity.

The Sifrei (Midrash on Devarim) says: Is the Torah teaching us that a

woman should not wear white and a man should not wear colors? Rather,

something that leads to “to’evah” is to be avoided. A woman should not

dress as a man dresses in order to place herself among men, and a man

should not wear jewelry and makeup to gain access to places where women

congregate.

Netziv draws an important lesson from the back and forth on the meaning

of the prohibition. “Man is different from woman by nature and in

practice. This natural difference cannot be eliminated in a minute,

unless one regulates one’s practices to create what is called ‘second

nature.’ However, it takes no time to change one’s dress. Therefore the

Torah warns about both: Regarding the vessels of man, the Torah says the

woman has no business wearing them, unless she has worked and trained

herself to change her own nature to make man’s nature her own ‘second

nature.’

“Similarly, if a man were to wear a woman’s dress, it would only be a

preparatory move to hanging out with women, an action which we have

determined to be more than questionable.”

This space is not a soapbox for this writer’s opinions on how people

ought to dress. On the other hand, surely “modesty” is an important

principle for everyone to follow.

As we have not noticed too many men walking around in skirts and

dresses, these last words are aimed at those women who continue to

preserve feminine attire.

Thank you for being true to yourself, and for helping, through your

manner of dress, the line of natural difference between men and women to

remain distinct and clear. And thank you for preserving at least one

interpretation of 22:5 while the rest of the world caves in to new

fashion norms.

Comments on this article? Write to avbillet@gmail.com