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Is there is an issue for women to wear loose fitting pants?
Yes.
Not particularly a halachic issue, although there are shittas that say it is (don’t recall who off hand, but it’s from the early Acharonim) but minhag ha’olom is that pants are not considered tznius which is enough.
613,
The only problem is minhag hamakom. Meaning, if one lives in a community where it is considered untziusdik, and women therefore do not where them, then it is assur as a violation of daas yehudis.
I know a posek , when his daughter married a skier and the Skiing became a marriage issue. He told her to wear Pink with Flowers Ski Pants (something so feminine no normal male would wear)
The Bach (no meikel) allows women to wear pants agaisnt the cold. I think that yemenite women always wore pajama-like pants.
ZD you are a veritable encyclopedia of hetterim. I say that only half-jokingly, because one might actually need to come on to such a resource. I happen to know who you are referring to in this case.
to zahavasdad
pants r pant no matter wat color . if ur “posek” wouldnt twist the torah to get out of it watever heter he wants he would have less such problems with his kids
Ben Ish Hai was also matir women wearing pants. I see no issue with it; wearing skirts becomes a sociological statement for many.
seriously, this thread is getting dangerous
Everyone agrees that baggy pants are better than a short, tight skirt. But being the lesser of two evils doesn’t make something good or okay.
If it’s an inyan of cold weather, wear feminine pants UNDER a tzniusdig skirt.
Rav Aviner does not permit any kind of pants for women under any circumstances, not even pajamas!
However, many other dati poskim are more meikel. The Religious Zionist kibbutz movement specifically permits them.
It should be noted that modern trousers did not make it to the Ashkenazic Jewish world until about 200 years ago. They had been commonly worn in the Sefardic world by Muslim women long before. In America, women and men both started wearing trousers and overalls on a regular basis, except in cities, at about that time. I have seen century-old photographs of female railroad workers for the Southern Pacific railroad; every woman is in trousers or overalls (they looked like loose denim, but I could not be absolutely sure because they were black and white photos).
There are two potential issues with pants:
1) Male Garb.
2) The “separation of the legs” is visible.
The halacha regarding (1) is that male garb is determined by society. Therefore, in a society where women wear pants, pants would not be considered male clothing.
(2) was an issue raised by the Chazon Ish, and that would apply even if pants are not an exclusively male garment. However, it is only an issue if one interprets a certain Gemara extremely broadly, and that is debatable. I know rabbanim who do not agree with this interpretation, and thus do not agree that this is an issue.
Some say that pants are not tznius because they show the form of the legs. I do not think this is a point about pants. Obviously, any article of clothing a person chooses to wear should be chosen with discretion, whether it’s a pair of pants, a skirt, or a hat.
The halacha regarding (1) is that male garb is determined by society. Therefore, in a society where women wear pants, pants would not be considered male clothing.
Not so fast.
??”? ???? ????, ?’, ?”?
??? ?????? ??? ?? ???? ?? agrees.
http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=14510&st=&pgnum=168
I learned that women can wear baggy pants.
I don’t even own any pants, so the question has never come up.
DY: Without being really Ma’amik into this Inyan, suffice it to say that the Mechaber is pretty B’feirush like Yitay said. These Poskim were clearly adding “Tznifim Lehachmir” because they were trying to fix a Geder that was being trampled upon. Also, even if pants stayed a Kli Gever back then it’s nearly impossible to say they are one now.
(See SHU”T HaRashba 4:90, by the way, where anyone who studies history can tell you should hold that pants are an Issur D’oraisa of Beged Isha for men to wear and dresses (which are very similar to tunics) could be an Issur D’oraisa of Begged Ish for a woman to wear.)
Yitay,
Off topic: I (finally) posted a rebuttal to your “pashut pshat” argument in the “why women have to cover their legs” thread.
I am curious to hear your thoughts.
pants r pant no matter wat color . if ur “posek” wouldnt twist the torah to get out of it watever heter he wants he would have less such problems with his kids
There is certainly room for debate on this issue, However what is not up for debate is Kovod for a Rav.
pants r pant no matter wat color . if ur “posek” wouldnt twist the torah to get out of it watever heter he wants he would have less such problems with his kids
Now that Joseph moved to three letters, he will never run out of screen names! Boo Hoo 🙁
Now that Joseph moved to three letters, he will never run out of screen names! Boo Hoo 🙁
See, that’s why you were wrong to begin with; he always had the option of switching patterns.
See, that’s why you were wrong to begin with; he always had the option of switching patterns.
Only because you guys made me say something. One day he would have woken up without any new five letter words and quit.
It is all your fault.
He hit me back first.
He hit me back first.
See, now Joe is hitting people. Really, this has to be stopped.
DY – What is new with Joseph, fill me in.
Some say that pants are not tznius because they show the form of the legs. I do not think this is a point about pants.
A quote from the ??? ??????:
???? ???????? ??????? ?????? ?????? ???????
Sam2, I don’t know what you want from the Mechaber. In Siman 6, he says a case of issur where something is inherently “beged” isha. Some things change, but some don’t (also the Rashb”a seems to be makig this point). I also think you’re on shaky ground when you start attributing non halachic motivations for halachic arguments made by gedolei hapskim.
RB, a new sn (at least) every day, and the mods very much on top of it and adding “joseph” as a subtitle. Kind of a cat and mouse game.
DY: I agree it’s shaky ground. But it’s Shver when major Poskim start working around a pretty clear and B’feirush Shulchan Aruch. I think this is the most sensible explanation, and not that that changes the Halachic authority given by those decisions in the slightest.
(The Chassam Sofer has a T’shuvah where he says that one is allowed to exaggerate an Issur Derech M’litzah if he sees that it is being trampled upon.)
But it’s Shver when major Poskim start working around a pretty clear and B’feirush Shulchan Aruch.
I think I was being very reasonable in my explanation that their psak fits very well.
Also, I don’t know what the Ch’S meant, but this wouldn’t seem to be a m’litzah as much as a ziyuf, if you were correct.
DY: No, because there are still Shittos like the Rashba out there. They were rejected from normative P’sak, but they exist. Thus, to protect from Pritzas Geder, they can elevate the rejected Shittos to the accepted Shittos (the Gemara even does this sometimes).
I’m still not sure what you want from that Rashb”a…
DY: I have heard it used by 3 contemporary Rabbis as a source that pants stay Begged Ish L’olam Va’ed.
Okay, why don’t you think that’s normative halachah? The S’A seems to say it by white hairs, why can’t trousers be in the same category?
DY –
RB, a new sn (at least) every day, and the mods
very much on top of it and adding “joseph” as a
subtitle. Kind of a cat and mouse game.
Nothing new!
Nothing new!
The mods are more on top of it than before, and it seems that he’s not posting as often.
DY: The Nosie Keilim (either there or in other random places) as well as several contemporary SHU”Tim (I think R’ Moshe has one on this) point out that even that can change with the times.
Sam2 – I haven’t really gotten involved in this discussion until now, but having gone through the Rashba you brought I took it to be saying exactly the opposite of how you learned it. The last line (which I presume is the crux of your pshat) is talking about yochid (or small group) haragil b’issur, in which case his (or their) continued issurim cannot turn it into a heter for the rabbim so that ein choteh niskar. Now presumably he’s referring to Jews here (otherwise it’s not an issur). The rest of the teshuva says quite explicitly many times that the issurim of beged ish/beged isha is toleh on mokom AND z’man, in other words when the mokom in general at that time does not view something as beged ish/isha it is not. To me trousers (as they are correctly called in English… :-p) are an example of the latter, the world in general across most continents for most of history has seen them as gender-neutral clothes. For a short while in the 17th-19th Centuries in Northern Europe they were seen as predominantly (but not exclusively) beged ish, in which case then and there they would probably have been ossur for women. But seeing as the world in general (especially the places where most Jews tend to live..) nowadays has women wearing trousers, long before any yechidim or small groups within klal yisroel did so, this would not be a case of choteh niskar, as the mokom/zman already dictated that it is not specifically beged ish.
Sorry that was a bit long-winded, hope you understand my understanding of the Rashba…
I know R’ Moshe has a yeshivah where he assers taking supplements to restore black hair. Presumably, it was already common for men to dye hair (as is certainly true today). I’ll bl’n take a look.
DY: Look in his T’shuvah on looking in mirrors, I think he mentions it there.
There are two teshuvos which discuss hair coloring: Y’D 1, 82, and Y’D 2, 62. The latter is about looking in the mirror, from which R’ Bick asked a kasha on R’ Moshe’s earlier teshuvah.
In neither did I notice that he explicitly mentions the idea of the changing styles affecting the halachah. If I’m correct that it was already common for men to dye their hair (the second one was written in 5720), then the fact that he assers (when done for cosmetic purposes) would indicate that it remains assur because it’s inherently feminine. It’s not such a stretch to say that there might be things which are inherently masculine, and trousers would likely fit the bill.
Either way, ayin shom for an interesting pshat as to why looking in a mirror is considered beged isha.
“I have heard it used by 3 contemporary Rabbis as a source that pants stay Begged Ish L’olam Va’ed.”
How can something that was never worn by men until modern times be Begged Ish L’olam Va’ed?
Charliehall: Because these contemporary Rabbonim assumed that pants were solely a man’s clothing Mimei Kedem. I think one of them was quoted in an old thread on here, actually.
It should be noted that Rav Yehuda Henkin(grandson of the great posek Rav Henkin) quotes his grandfather in the sefer Bnei Banim chelek 2 page 211:38 that wearing loose pants does not present any issue and is consider tzanuah.Whether this is accepted by other poskim is debatable just like many other issues.
Just my hapence: With all due respect, you read the Rashba wrong. He explicitly rejected the possibility that it changes with the times. He brings that as the likely P’shat then said “V’eino Mechuvar”.
Sam2 – I have re-read it the teshuva and whilst I think you are possibly correct in how the Rashba reads it now makes no sense to me whatsoever, for the reasons I originally read it. The last line seems to assume that the first person or persons to do it are Jewish but when this is not the case ‘kol beged ha’raui l’isha’ seems to have no definition except that which women wear at any given point. Who decides what is r’aui?
Just my hapence: He seems to be assuming that that action was either done by women Mimei Kedem or that somehow Stimas Hatalmud was Kovea what is considered men’s and women’s actions (the Chazon Ish has a similar Shittah about a lot of things, so it’s not as strange as it might sound at first blush).
I think the key phrase is, “??? ??? ????? ????? ??? ??????”.
There are things which are inherently feminine, and the ???”? holds that ????? ??? ??? ???? is inherently feminine. The poskim who asser trousers feel the same way about trousers, possibly because of the ????? ????? issue.
DY: Yes, but “inherently” anything is always subjective. If the Amazons actually existed (they didn’t, but the point is that they or a society like them could have) they would have thought that weapons were inherently feminine. In parts of ancient Egypt, women shaved themselves bald. Hair on the head was “inherently masculine”. There has to be something that’s Kovea what is inherently masculine and what is inherently feminine. Because common sense, like male and female accoutrements, can change with the times.
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