Head coverings
Leslie has written a great post on head coverings, traditions and the “to snood or not to snood” question. If you are not Jewish, I suspect it would have little relevance to you, except for her excellent research and photo documentation.
But then I have to wonder where the tradition of women covering their heads in Catholic Churches originated. I suspect it might also come from Micah (6:8) as part of the “but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly” showing the spread of oral traditional along many cultural lines.
Me? As a lose member not aligned with much of anything outside of our military Reformadox community in Heidelberg I feel free to accept or reject those traditions which make sense to me. When someone else has done the research, it is even better. I can see covering my head as a sign of respect. I can’t accept it on the basis of it being a problem to the men around me (hello? if I have to be responsible for myself, so can they. It flies in the face of the Judaic tradition of personal responsibility).
I like kippahs, and playing around with different patterns to make designs while using up a lot of leftover sock yarn.
Slip Star Kippah
Podiobooks
7th Son – Descent by JC Hutchins. Partway through, and other than a couple of technical errors on VIP procedures, it is interesting and certainly well written. (never mind that without the errors the plot could not move forward).
Audiobookstand has some great deals right now, and free shipping…. (no affliation, yada, yada).
Hey Holly! Thanks for checking out 7th Son. I’m thrilled that you’re digging the story so far. Feel free to drop me a line at 7thSonNovel@gmail.com if you’d like to discuss those meddlesome VIP-errors, and how I might fix them for the print release of the novel (Fall 2009). 🙂
Again, I really appreciate the comments and hope you continue to enjoy the novel!
Hi Holly
The tradition of head covering for women (and not men) in Christian churches (which was a strict requirement until post-Vatican II for Roman Catholics) was from 1 Corinthians 11. In this letter to the Corinthians, Paul was preaching to converted Greek pagans, and “adapted” a local custom (think burka), saying a woman shouldn’t pray or preach in public without her head covered or she’d disgrace her husband. This would have been natural in Greek and Roman society, where women were lowly regarded and treated as chattel. But people who quote Paul as the New Law on/for Women now are sexist at best. (I think I will just leave it at that. Insert “fundamentalists ability to read historical documents” rant here.)
After Vatican II, the male heirarchy pointed out that women covering heads with elaborate hats was not humble but prideful, and it was declared unnecessary. At which point, in Catholic churches, women’s head covering ended. Just about overnight. Because we ladies knew that it was a sign of sexism, and we already have plenty of sexism to go around in the Catholic church.
Carmen
Thanks for your kind words, Holly. I’m not sure what Reformadox is (I’m plain old, garden variety Classical Reform), but we certainly agree on the issue of headcovering for women in the modern Jewish world.
And that slipped star kippah … ist sehr schön!
Now that’s a cute kippah.
I was going to write a long comment on where the Catholic veil tradition came from, but Carmen said it all. Though the writings of Paul have their merits, he probably didn’t exactly speak for Christ in his sexist preachings. Not all fellow Catholics agree with me on that, admittedly. 🙂
I always felt that we’re all responsible for ourselves too, yes, but we are also responsible for others – to teach others, encourage others, not to be a stumbling block to others, etc. Wearing a little headscarf to show humility before what one believes is a command from God through one of his apostles isn’t nearly the same as wearing an elaborate hat to show off. Just my opinion.