It is commonplace that dress is a cultural artifact. Our assumptions about men and women, what roles they play in society, indeed our very notions of masculinity and femininity are products of the cultures in which we live and are often encoded in our dress. This is not only a modern notion, but appears early in our tradition in the discussion of kli gever and simlat ishah, the prohibition forbidding men to wear women’s clothing and women to wear men’s clothing.
The Torah states in the 22nd chapter of the book of Devarim:
לא יהיה כלי גבר על אשה ולא יבש גבר שמלת אשה כי תועבת ה׳ אלקיך כל עשה אלה
A woman shall not put on man’s apparel, nor shall a man wear women’s clothing, for it is an abomination to the Lord your God all who do these things (Deuteronomy 22:5).
This verse has been applied variously to modes of dress, behaviors, and grooming practices. An examination of halakhic sources reveals a great deal about how the Sages and our halakhic decisors through the ages have understood and applied this prohibitionץ
Let’s begin by examining this verse, which is composed of two parts. The first part informs us of the prohibition that falls on men and women. The second half of the verse seems to be a kind of rationale for the prohibition, but the connection between the first and second parts of the verse is not so clear. Does the second part delimit and modify the first part? Are all acts of cross dressing to’eivah, an abomination, or only some of them; if only some, then what criteria distinguish them from the others? Or perhaps the second part of the verse expands the first part, with to’eivah prohibiting not simply acts of dress but other behaviors as well.
Sifre, a midrash halakha to the book of Devarim, presents two alternative answers to these questions:
What is the verse teaching us, that woman must not dress in white garments and man must not dress in colored garments? Rather, the verse states “abomination” i.e., that which leads to abomination. This is the rule: Woman shall not dress in the manner in which man dresses and go among men and man shall not adorn himself with women’s jewelry and go among women. Rabbi Eliezer ben Yaakov states, “From which Biblical verse do we know that woman shall not bear arms and go out to war? ‘A woman shall not put on men’s apparel.’ From which Biblical verse do we learn that man may not adorn himself with women’s jewelry? ‘Nor shall a man wear woman’s clothing’” (Sifre Deuteronomy Piska 226).
The first statement in Sifre begins by dismissing the possibility that simply breaking the social conventions differentiating men’s and women’s apparel is prohibited. Presumably, men’s and women’s clothes at the time were quite similar, differing only in color; that alone does not constitute the Torah’s prohibition. Consequently, this view looks to the end of the verse to explicate the prohibition stated in the first part. Which types of apparel are forbidden? Clothing that leads to to’eivah, dressing in a manner that leads to illicit behaviors. What behaviors are prohibited? One must not attempt to pass as members of the other sex; mixing of the sexes, specifically when no one else recognizes that it has occurred, is forbidden. This suggests that women dressing in male garments and men in female garments without such intents would not be prohibited acts.
The second statement in Sifre has a different focus. R. Eliezer ben Yaakov points to quintessentially male and female roles and functions of the time. Men went out and waged war, and women beautified themselves with cosmetics and jewelry. These notions of masculinity and femininity appear often in rabbinic literature. 1 R. Eliezer ben Yaakov makes no reference to the second part of the verse; he adopts a more expansive view of the prohibition. His statement addresses proscribed feminine and masculine roles.
As we proceed through the halakhic sources, we will see the positions articulated in Sifre again and again. This leads us to question: What is prohibited – behavior or dress? Under what circumstances is certain dress prohibited, and what is the relevance of the wearer’s motivation and intent?
When we look to the Talmud, the focus again shifts from dress per se to behavior. The Talmud raises the question whether men may shave or pluck body hair and concludes that this act is prohibited. 2 In fact, our citation from Sifre is cited as proof that the behavior is forbidden. Nevertheless, despite a fairly clear conclusion in the Talmud, Tosafot qualify the statement by adding the element of intent. They argue that the prohibition refers to shaving done for cosmetic reasons; in other words, a feminine act. Shaving done for comfort is not forbidden. 3 They broadened the conversation from clothing to behaviors that are seen as gendered; at the same time they limited the prohibition by focusing on the intent and motivation of the action.
This focus on context is emphasized most keenly in the following responsum of Rav Sherira and Rav Hai Gaon regarding a practice in Babylon in which men shaved body hair, seemingly in contradiction to the talmudic passage discussed earlier:
It has been the practice of all the rabbis in the two yeshivot [of Babylon] for the past few hundred years to remove underarm and pubic hair and no one has restrained themselves from this practice.… This is what we observe; what constitutes men’s and women’s apparel changes through time and by geographic location. There are also differences among particular garments. Here, for example, men do not wear colored linen and cotton garments but they do wear very colorful wool and silk garments. Therefore, it would be permitted to wear such garments according to the fashion of the times and place. And if it were a time or place where such garments were not regularly worn, then they would be forbidden. Similarly, if there is one fashion in women’s and men’s apparel here and a different fashion in other areas, the fashion would dictate what is forbidden and permitted. For the matter of what constitutes men’s clothing and women’s clothing is not pre-defined; it is determined by customs and practices. In Talmudic times men did not customarily shave their pubic and underarm hair and they thought of one who did so as feminine; instead they grew their body hair until it ceased growing of its own accord. Thus, it was forbidden for them. And even nowadays those who live in Arabia have such a practice as they see a man who removes pubic and underarm hair as weak and womanlike. Consequently, Jewish men who live in those areas are forbidden to remove their body hair (cited in Teshuvot HaRashba 5:121).
This is a radical statement! We are being told that masculine or feminine garb and behavior are defined in relation to the fashions and cultural practices of the general society in which one lives. We are therefore to understand the statement in the Talmud in a historical context. In talmudic times, in some areas, it was considered feminine to shave body hair, but in our time and place, say Rav Sherira and Rav Hai, this is not the case. We cannot rule summarily on the halakha without reference to the broader culture in which we live and its fashions and practices.
“Dress carries heavy symbolic value”
In contemporary times, the discussion of masculine and feminine clothing (beged ish and simlat ishah) has often focused on whether pants for women constitute beged ish. If one applies the criteria of Rav Sherira and Rav Hai Gaon, because women in the larger society wear pants and these pants are constructed specifically for women, there would be no prohibition of beged ish.
In contrast to the Geonim, Dayan Yitzhak Yaakov Weiss, in his responsum on women wearing pants, articulates a very different ideal. A prominent halakhist, Dayan Weiss was a Hungarian rabbi who survived the Shoah by escaping his homeland. He served as a dayan in Manchester, England, for many years before moving to Jerusalem and heading the Edah Haredit. This responsum was written in 1958 in Manchester. 4
The questioner poses a leading question: Are pants for women forbidden because they are similar to men’s pants or because, originally, pants were only worn by men? Dayan Weiss begins his response with a strong statement of condemnation:
הנה אין זה צריך בושש דהוי איסור גמור, דחוץ מזה דבגדי שחץ כאלו, נעשים מתחילתם לעבירה, והם בגדי זיה, ומביאים לידי תועבת, ואף אם לא יהי׳ בכלל כלי גבר, המה בכלל תועבת ד׳ כל עושה אלא… עוד באמת המה בכלל כלי גבר ממש, דעדיין שם מכנסים עליהם, והגם שהם משונים קצת, מ׳מ שמם עליהם, וכמ׳ש בזה בפשיטות.
This question needs no consideration; certainly it is completely forbidden. Aside from the fact that these clothes of abomination are made for the purpose of transgression, and they are clothes of licentiousness and bring to to’eivah, were they not forbidden because of kli gever they would still be forbidden because of “for it is an abomination to the Lord your God all who do these things.” Additionally, they are kli gever for they are still called pants, and even though they are slightly different [from men’s pants], they are called by the same name.
Referring to the second part of the verse in Devarim 22:5, Dayan Weiss asserted that women’s pants are forbidden both because they indeed constitute men’s garments as they are still called pants; additionally, were they not considered men’s garments, they would still be forbidden as a to’eivah. Later on in the responsum, Dayan Weiss added that pants must not be worn even by small girls, even while indoors and even while skiing. 5
The force of Dayan Weiss’s condemnation of women’s pants is obvious from the polemical language of the responsum. It highlights the discomfort that many felt as pants for women were just beginning to be worn commonly. The issues go beyond a narrower question of whether women’s pants are beged ish to their cultural and social significance as roles for women began changing and expanding, and stricter notions of gender distinction were beginning to break down. Whereas Rav Sherira and Rav Hai Gaon seemed to view dress approvingly as a reflection of the culture in which we live, Dayan Weiss perhaps championed a separation from the general culture as he reacted to the early stirrings of what would become the sexual revolution.
Dress carries heavy symbolic value. It reflects our assumptions about gender and our notions about what roles men and women play in our society. It articulates our positions toward the cultures in which we live. It is thus inevitable that the halakhic literature on the prohibition of kli gever and simlat ishah provides such a rich panorama of views.