I read through the teshuvos and your answers, so my understanding: “shok b’isha erva” is below the knee, above the elbow is erva territory, and the covering borders follow the custom of the place (Aguda, Lechem Chamudos). You also answered that where hair covering is not done at all, even among the frum, not covering is halachically fine.
Two things I can’t square. Women dressed totally differently 2,000 years ago than 100 years ago in Europe, so a European standard was never the Torah’s standard – and inside the sources themselves, even the Mishna Berura’s stricter line on the shok traces to the Bach, who retracted it himself. Ok.
So here is my question: on a secular college campus, shorts and tank tops are what everyone wears – not what people consider ok, what they actually wear, and everyone around them dresses the same. Does that count as the local custom such that wearing the same is fine? Or at some point is the custom itself immodest and the halacha overrides it – meaning there is a fixed floor (above the knee, above the elbow) that no custom can drop below? Because if custom fully decides, even a beach-town bikini custom would erase the inyan of erva entirely, and then “the halacha says immodesty” would have no meaning anywhere.
Thank you Rabbi.
rabbi, follow up on this, because your answer was about women and i realize i never saw the other side anywhere. what tznius is there for men at all?
1. the sources i know all point one way. shok b’isha erva (berachos 24a), the mishnah there, shulchan aruch OC 75. it is all about what a man may not look at. where is the parallel halacha about what a man himself has to cover? is there one?
2. if the answer for women is local custom (the aguda and lechem chamudos you brought, and your beach vs courtroom point), does the same local custom rule apply to men? shorts and tank tops on a campus, shirtless at the pool or the beach. is a man’s bare chest fine wherever everyone does it, or is there a floor for men that custom cannot move?
3. והצנע לכת עם ה׳ אלקיך (micha 6:8) is not gendered. does that pasuk actually put a tznius obligation on men, and if yes, what does it require beyond basic derech eretz?
4. practically. shorts in shul, davening in a t shirt and shorts at home, gym clothes. is any of it actually assur for a man, or is it all custom and context?
bottom line, is there any halachic tznius standard for men at all, or does it work exactly like you answered for women, whatever the place considers normal?
Thank you Rabbi! The challenge of ‘where is that halacha?’ reframes the whole question for me – if the Rambam and Shulchan Aruch never set an elbow-and-knee code, then it really is about what’s normal in the setting. And the beach vs courtroom example makes the context point concrete. Good Shabbos!
I think the question is assuming a fixed Torah dress code and then asking how far local custom is allowed to depart from it. My answer is that I don’t see that fixed dress code in the sources.
If the Torah required every Jewish woman in every country and every generation to cover to a particular point on the elbow or knee, where is that halacha? The Rambam does not have a section of Hilchot Tzniut establishing those measurements, and neither does the Shulchan Aruch. The detailed discussions of what parts of the body are considered ervah appear primarily in the laws of Kriat Shema, and even there the Shulchan Aruch uses the language:
במקום שדרכה לכסותו
“A place that it is normally her practice to cover.”
That is precisely why local practice matters. My understanding is that there is no universal Torah uniform for women. Dress is judged substantially according to what is considered normal and appropriate in that society and setting. That is also the position I explained in my discussion of tzniut.
So yes, if on a college campus shorts and tank tops are ordinary clothing and women are not wearing them as some deliberate expression of promiscuity, I do not see a halachic problem merely because an elbow or knee is visible. Under that approach, those normally exposed areas would also not create a problem for Kriat Shema.
The bikini example does not really change the principle. A bathing suit at a beach is normal beach clothing. The same clothing in a courtroom, synagogue, or business meeting would obviously be out of place. Context is part of what defines normal dress.
That does not mean absolutely anything becomes permissible because somebody somewhere wears it. Actual nakedness is still nakedness. Clothing specifically connected to promiscuous conduct or avodah zarah raises separate issues. But I do not see a fixed Torah rule that says the elbow and knee themselves are inherently forbidden areas regardless of time and place.
That is really the point. Before asking, “How far may society change the Torah’s standard?” we first have to establish that the supposed Torah standard actually exists. I don’t believe the elbow-and-knee dress code, as it is commonly presented today, was ever established as a universal halachic dress code. The sources point much more naturally toward normalcy, culture, community, and context.