Dress II: The Details

The halachic category of dat Yehudit, introduced here, entails conduct and dress in line with the modest practice of Jewish women.

Jews should dress in a modest, dignified fashion. For a woman, communal norms for dress among Jewish women set that standard.

Given that this is the case, little more should need to be written about the halachot of clothing. In an ideal world, each woman would look around at what observant, modest Jewish women in her community wear, and simply take her cues from that.

Still, specific standards that halachic sources do discuss demand attention. Even within the religious community, clothing trends are sometimes in tension with Halacha.

Historically, Jewish women’s clothing usually covered much of the body, at least in public. Rashba specifies certain typically uncovered areas, about which Halacha voices no concern:¹

While we can infer from Rashba that the rest of a woman’s body was typically covered, he does not provide us with precise definitions of where the coverage would begin whether below the face, on the arm, or on the leg. We look more closely at the first two here.

Some halachot imply that a woman’s torso should be covered. For example, a male mourner whose parent has died tears his clothing from the neckline down to the area of the heart. A female mourner, however, wears two layers, so that she can first tear the inner layer, then turn it around so the tear is in the back, and finally tear the top layer. This allows her to fulfill the obligation of tearing while keeping her torso covered.²

Where does the face end and the torso begin? Classic sources do not present detailed guidelines,³ but some later authorities provide some guidance. Kaf Ha-chayyim (19th-20th century), for instance, decries women showing cleavage:⁴

More recent authorities, including Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, rule that a woman’s torso should be covered from the collarbone and down.

Since we don’t find this sort of discussion in earlier texts, reference to the collarbone is best understood as an attempt to demarcate an objective border between the uncovered face and the covered torso.

This leaves some room for leeway. In many communities, modest women wear clothes with necklines that are close to the collarbone, without fully covering it. Drawing on the Talmud’s discussion of erva, (which includes typically-covered parts of the body,) Rav Yehuda Henkin suggests a formal leniency to leave up to a tefach, or handsbreadth (8-10.4 cm), below the collarbone exposed.⁵ Accepted practice in a given religious community is critically important here.

Classical sources provide more detailed guidance about covering the arms. Two items on the mishna’s list of specific violations of dat Yehudit relate directly to women’s clothing, and the second of these has to do with the arms.

Elsewhere, we discuss head-covering, which entails a Torah obligation in addition to being a matter of dat Yehudit. Here, we look at the Talmud’s explanation of spinning in public:

When a woman raises the spindle, her garments could open or slip down to reveal her arms. Risking such exposure in public violates dat Yehudit.

In modern times, bare arms can seem innocuous. However, a second Talmudic source about spinning in the marketplace suggests that coverage of the arms, such as while spinning, can also prevent the sides of the torso from becoming visible.⁶ Furthermore, there is Talmudic precedent for seeing the arms themselves as particularly beautiful when they catch the light.⁷ Covering the zero’a also proves important for men, when they lead prayer:

The idea that shirts with sleeves present a more respectable and dignified mode of attire than sleeveless ones holds true for men as well as women.

Defining Zero’a

What part of the body is the zero’a? In the Torah, zero’a refers to the whole arm:

A mishna that discusses human anatomy, however, indicates that the zero’a is the upper arm, not including the elbow:⁸

In line with this mishna, Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach stipulates that only the upper arm need be covered. He includes the elbow as well, perhaps as a precaution against more of the arm or body becoming uncovered when in motion if sleeves are shorter, or perhaps to ensure that not even a sliver of the upper arm is ever uncovered:

Others, Rav Yehuda Henkin and Rav Nahum Rabinovitch among them, maintain that less coverage would be technically permissible. Rav Aharon Lichtenstein reportedly shared this view (according to his daughter, Rabbanit Esti Rosenberg).

Again drawing from Talmudic discussion of erva, Rav Henkin writes that up to a tefach of the arm above the elbow may be uncovered:

Rav Rabinovitch says it is sufficient to cover the majority of the upper arm, where that is accepted as common custom:

In light of the different halachic approaches to how much of the zero’a needs to be covered, religious community norms again play a decisive role.

In Dress III, we discuss more details, including extending the definition of the term erva, the leg, and skirts vs. pants.