Specially drawn for Talmudology by the incredibly talented Yosef Iskowitz.
At the end of the period of being a Nazir, a series of actions and sacrifices must be brought. One of these involves shaving the head, which allows the Talmud to digress into a lengthy discursus on men shaving the hair on the rest of the body:
נזיר נט, א
אָמַר רַבִּי חִיָּיא בַּר אַבָּא אָמַר רַבִּי יוֹחָנָן: הַמַּעֲבִיר בֵּית הַשֶּׁחִי וּבֵית הָעֶרְוָה לוֹקָה מִשּׁוּם ״לֹא יִלְבַּשׁ גֶּבֶר שִׂמְלַת אִשָּׁה״. מֵיתִיבִי: הַעֲבָרַת שֵׂיעָר אֵינָהּ מִדִּבְרֵי תוֹרָה אֶלָּא מִדִּבְרֵי סוֹפְרִים. הוּא דְּאָמַר כִּי הַאי תַּנָּא, דְּתַנְיָא: הַמַּעֲבִיר בֵּית הַשֶּׁחִי וּבֵית הָעֶרְוָה הֲרֵי זֶה עוֹבֵר מִשּׁוּם ״לֹא יִלְבַּשׁ גֶּבֶר שִׂמְלַת אִשָּׁה״
Rabbi Chiyyah bar Abba said that Rabbi Yochanan said: A man who removes the hair of the armpit or the pubic hair is flogged, due to the prohibition: “A man shall not put on a woman’s garment” (Deuteronomy 22:5). The Gemara raises an objection from a baraita: The removal of hair is not prohibited by Torah law but by rabbinic law. How then does Rabbi Yochanan say that he is flogged, which by definition is a punishment for individuals who have transgressed a Torah law? The Gemara answers: It was he who said this halakha in accordance with the opinion of that tanna, as it is taught in a baraita: A man who removes the hair of the armpit or the pubic hair violates the prohibition of: “A man shall not put on a woman’s garment.”
Commenting on the pasuk in the Torah which is the source for the prohibition (“A man shall not put on a woman’s garment”) Rashi cited today’s page of Talmud:
ולא ילבש גבר שמלת אשה. לֵילֵךְ לֵישֵׁב בֵּין הַנָּשִׁים. דָּ"אַ — שֶׁלֹּא יַשִּׁיר שְׂעַר הָעֶרְוָה וְשֵׂעָר שֶׁל בֵּית הַשֶּׁחִי (נזיר נ"ט)
NEITHER SHALL A MAN PUT ON A WOMAN’S GARMENT in order to go and stay unnoticed amongst women. Another explanation of the second part of the text is: it implies that a man should not remove the hair of the genitals and the hair beneath the armpit (Nazir 59a).
As we will see, Rashi was addressing a European audience in which the male depilation of body hair was indeed uncommon. But it turns out that now, many men, along with many women do shave their body hair. Here, for example are the findings of a paper published just a few years ago in the American Journal of Men’s Health:
“Pubic hair grooming is a growing phenomenon and is associated with body image and sexual activity. A nationally representative survey of noninstitutionalized adults aged 18 to 65 years residing in the United States was conducted. Differences in demographic and sexual characteristics between groomers and non-groomers were explored. Four thousand one hundred and ninety-eight men completed the survey. Of these men, 2,120 (50.5%) reported regular pubic hair grooming. The prevalence of grooming decreases with age, odds ratio = 0.95 (95% confidence interval [0.94, 0.96]), p < .001. ... The majority of men report grooming in preparation for sexual activity with a peak prevalence of 73% among men aged 25 to 34 years, followed by hygiene (61%).
So today, Talmudology will take you on a tour of the history of Jewish male body hair shaving. It’s a bit of a niche, I know, but an interesting one, made all the easier by reading a detailed article (34 pages plus a 10 page appendix!) on the topic by Steven (Tzvi) Adams and published in Hakirah (which you can find here). What follows is all taken from Adams, with thanks to him.
“The new male hair removal trend of secular society raises the
possibility that halakhah should no longer consider such grooming a
distinctly feminine behavior and men should therefore be permitted to
remove this hair. A survey of the halakhic literature shows that this is
hardly the first time in post-Talmudic history that halakhah confronted a
reality in which it was normal for men to shave their private body hair.”
Let’s start, as we should, with the Torah. As we have noted, there is a general injunction against a man wearing a woman’s clothing, stated in Devarim 22:5:
לֹא־יִהְיֶ֤ה כְלִי־גֶ֙בֶר֙ עַל־אִשָּׁ֔ה וְלֹא־יִלְבַּ֥שׁ גֶּ֖בֶר שִׂמְלַ֣ת אִשָּׁ֑ה כִּ֧י תוֹעֲבַ֛ת יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֶ֖יךָ כל־עֹ֥שֵׂה אֵֽלֶּה׃
A woman must not put on man’s apparel, nor shall a man wear women’s clothing; for whoever does these things is abhorrent to your God.
The rabbis of the Talmud expanded this prohibition to include a man shaving his body hair, which was seen as an activity primarily associated with women. Things start to get interesting when, in societies outside of the Jewish community, body shaving is performed by both men and women. Then such shaving is no longer a “womanly activity” or at least not solely one, and perhaps it should be permitted in Jewish law.
Islamic Hygiene Regulations and their influence on HALACHA
Jewish society is strongly influenced by the norms of the larger cultures in which it flourishes. And so, in the 9th 10th centuries, when Islamic hygiene regulations required that Muslim men shave their body hair, it wasn’t long before the Edut Hamizrach Jews living amongst them adopted this practice too. Meantime, the Ashkenazi Jews of Europe lived alongside their Christian neighbours who had no such requirement. In fact, Christian society by and large associated body hear with virility. And so, at least early on (by which I mean the 11th and 12 centuries) the question was never raised there.
“We were given a time limit with regard to trimming the moustache, shaving pubic hairs, plucking the armpit hairs and clipping the nails. We were not to leave that for more than forty days.… the Prophet said: “The fitra are five: Circumcision, shaving the pubes, plucking the armpit hairs, clipping the nails and taking from the mustache.””
It is therefore not surprising that the tenth century father and son leaders of the Jews of Iraq, the Gaonim Sherira and Hai, allowed the men of their community to shave their body hair. Here is how they justified their ruling:
ובאותם השנים לא היה מנהג הגברים להעביר בית השחי ובית הערוה שלהם והיו רואים מי שעושה כן כנשים שהם מתקשטות אלא היו מגדלים שער גופן עד שמניעין לגדלן מאליו על כן היה אסור להם
…
אבל אנשי מקומות הללו בזמן הזה אין בין הנשים והאנשים הפרש בזה אלא כששומעים כי יש הפרש במקומות תמהים מזאת ואומרים הללו בעלי גבורה וכלנו בעיניהם כנשים לפיכך מותר הדבר עכשיו באלו המקומות וכיוצא בהם התר גמור אין בו חשש כל עיקר
…Men [in times of the Talmud] would allow their body hair to grow out, and therefore depilation of body hair was forbidden for them... However, men in our countries in modern times are no different than women in this regard. Rather, when they hear that in other countries men do [not share their depilating practice] they are surprised. [Our men] exclaim [in jest] and say, “[those men] think they are so masculine and we are in their eyes as women!” Therefore, the matter [of male body depilation] is permitted entirely nowadays in these countries and other countries [where the practice is similar], it contains no possibility of prohibition at all…
That which you asked whether [a man] may remove hair from his pubes and armpit, you should know that when the Merciful One wrote, “the garment of a man shall not be put on a woman” (Deut. 22:5), and [now the Diaspora] is scattered to the four corners of the world, and every corner has unique clothing styles, behavior, and adornments – therefore, any practice engaged in by local [non- Jewish] men is permissible for the Jewish men who reside amongst them, even though such is the conduct of women of a different country...
(And by the way, this is not the only example of the influence of Islamic law on Jewish custom. Adams notes that although the rabbis of the Talmud abolished the requirement for a man to immerse in a mikvah (ritual birth) after a seminal emission, it was reinstated for the Jews of Iraq, when the ge’onim noted that a ritual bathing was required by an Islamic law known as ghusl jinabat.)
“The 9th century transformation in Jewish male practice from the Talmudic to geonic era coincides with the spread of Islamic hadith which required of adherents pubic and axillary hair shaving. ”
This depilation-is-ok ruling was accepted by the Rif (Rabbi Isaac al-Fasi, d. 1103), and followed during the middle ages, and by the Jews of Turkey in the eighteenth century. Indeed “there are rabbinic testimonies to the continuation of this Egyptian custom in the 19th century, and again in the 20th century.”
Meanwhile, In Ashkenaz
All this is in stark contrast to the practice of the Jews of Ashkenaz, where the prevailing custom among the Gentile population was not to shave the body hair. “European painting and sculptures from the 13th through 16th centuries” wrote Adams “include body hair in male but generally not female art.” The rabbis of Ashkenaz wrote nothing on the topic, which “can surely be attributed to a lack of relevance;” When they did write on the topic, they noted that manly men had body hair, which was the source of their strength (דע כי השערות יוצאים מהחום של הגוף, והוא סוד הגבורה). Only three early rishonim (the Rashba, Avigdor Cohen of Vienna and the Meiri) prohibited the practice.
Here are Adams’ conclusions, in case you are too busy preparing for Pesach to read the entire paper:
The geonim describe the cross-dressing (lo yilbash) laws as they apply to male body hair removal as being subjective; they change and adapt to custom according to place and time.
In contrast, when confronted with shifting male grooming customs, several European rishonim (Rashba, Avigdor of Vienna, and Meiri) viewed body hair removal with objectivity and saw no room for adaptation in application of the laws of crossdressing.
Jewish men in Muslim countries shaved their body hair because their society considered this to be a hygienic practice. The society in which they lived had a positive understanding of depilation (as part of body cleanliness) and to the ge’onim were inclined to interpret the prohibition of lo yilbash subjectively.
Jewish men in Christian countries refrained from removing their body hair in continuation of the tradition from Talmudic times and because their contemporary culture equated male body hair with virility.
Because European society had a negative view of male depilation, several European rishonim were disposed to rigid objectivity in applying the lo yilbash laws.
From a historical perspective, during most of the past approximately 1,200 years, the majority of global Jewish men have practiced body hair removal. Only in recent centuries as demographics shifted to increased Jewish populations in Europe did this change.
All of which goes to show that the despite claims that the Jewish people remained apart from the societies in which they lived, they were indeed influenced by those same societies. It doesn’t matter if that society wore fur hats, or removed their body hair. Just not at the same time.
