Letting My Hair Down

I have a picture of me at my graduation from the Columbia School of the Arts in which I am standing with my mother, my mother-in-law, and my grandmother. Though they are all Orthodox Jews and all married, none of them are covering their hair in accordance with

or Jewish law. Underneath my pale blue mortarboard, though, I am wearing a wig.

In their generations, only the most observant of Orthodox women covered their hair: It was, as my mother says, "just not done." But in my generation, it is done. Modern Orthodox women like myself have started to cover their hair when they get married, blending a stringent observance of halakah with Ph.D.'s in psychology and literature, jobs in law and medicine, graduate degrees from Columbia.

The way in which I covered my hair was thoroughly modern as well. For me, there were no tightly wrapped kerchiefs, no straw-like wig detectable a mile away, the kind you would expect to see in old, Hasidic neighborhoods in Brooklyn or Israel. I bought an expensive fall--a sort of demi-wig that starts in the middle of the head and, when covered with one's own hair, is almost impossible to detect. I wore bright-colored baseball caps and funky hats that made it possible to think it was a fashion statement I was after.

But hair covering is, of course, a religious statement, one that, to those in the know these days, signifies that you are in the fold, fully and unconditionally. Ask, "Does she cover her hair?" and this supposedly will tell you all there is to know about someone's religious commitment. As the Orthodox world becomes more stringently observant and more theologically conservative, hair covering has not only come back into fashion, it has become the litmus test of where you stand.

The source for hair covering comes from the biblical case of the suspected adulteress (Numbers 5:18). Her husband brings her to the Temple, and to shame her, the high priest uncovers her hair. Because having her hair exposed was so shameful, the rabbis deduced that a righteous woman would keep her hair covered. Various reasons are given for this law: A married women's hair is

--"nakedness"--and, like other parts of her body, must be covered. Other rabbinic interpreters explained that a woman should cover her hair as a sign of being married and thus unavailable to other men. Based on these varying explanations, some women cover all their hair, all the time. Other women wear hats as a sign of marriage but don't cover all their hair or don't cover it in their homes where their married state is clear.

I covered my hair not because I needed reminding that I was married, not because I thought my hair was ervah. I did it because it is largely acknowledged to be the halakah, the law. I had grown up with, and believed in, the idea that following halakah is not about liking it or finding it meaningful or necessary. It is about adherence to God's will, to subsuming one's own desires to His.

When I first got married, I didn't mind covering my hair. I felt good that I was following halakah. I liked looking in the mirror and seeing the young, Orthodox married woman I was. And I liked the feeling of fitting in. Even though I covered my hair in the most lenient, liberal way possible--not all of it and not in my own home--it was enough to establish my place inside the camp.

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