About five years ago a new issue suddenly erupted primarily in the haredi community: women were wearing sheitels (wigs) made from human hair coming from India. Some, perhaps even much, of this hair came from a place called Tirupati, in South India, where there is a Hindu temple. Pilgrims coming to this temple, before entering it, shave their hair and place it outside the temple entrance. Millions of Hindus come annually to Tirupati – perhaps as many as twenty thousand a day – and vast amounts of hair pile up. The temple authorities, apparently realizing that this hair could constitute an additional source of income, began, many years ago, to sell it to wig-making companies.
When the origin of this hair suddenly became known to a number of rabbis in England, Israel, and the United States – it had already been known to others and halakhically discussed many years earlier – they declared it “tikrovet avodah zarah,” an idolatrous offering, something directly related to idolatrous practice, and hence “asur ba-hana’ah” – it was absolutely forbidden to derive any benefit from it. The resultant publicity of this ruling led to mass burnings of those very expensive sheitels.
Those devout women, who upon hearing that their sheitels were idolatrous immediately burned them, are to be lauded and applauded for their great piety. However, I imagine they were plagued with pangs of anguish, not only because they had to destroy what for them was a very costly and personal part of their apparel but even more because for many years they had been covering their heads with “idolatrous wigs,” thereby trespassing – albeit unwittingly – one of the most serious prohibitions in Jewish law.
Numerous erudite responsa were written discussing all sorts of halakhic aspects of this issue, the vast majority of them concluding that the sheitels were to be destroyed. Some more lenient responsa counseled that the wigs be exchanged – not necessarily such a practical suggestion. Only the barest minimum ruled that it was permitted to continue to wear them. 1
Unfortunately, virtually none of those learned sages had any real knowledge of India, Indian religion, or languages spoken in India, and I suspect that the majority had never even been in India, and certainly not in Tirupati. It is true that a small mission was sent for a few days to examine the temple, but none of the members had the competence or the linguistic abilities to make a real evaluation of the pilgrims’ hair-shaving activities, as they themselves admitted. More surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, they therefore consulted none of the international experts in the field of Indian studies2 nor the local Indian rabbis and authorities living in Mumbai and Delhi.
One of the few rabbinic authorities to examine the issue systematically from all points of view was the renowned posek R. Menashe Klein (ha-Katan), whose numerous volumes of responsa are very widely acclaimed and also largely accepted within the haredi community. Incidentally, he surmised that approximately a million women wore such sheitels, whose cost was upward of a thousand dollars each, so that the total destruction of the wigs might amount to as much as a billion dollars; he pointed out that hefsed merubbeh, an enormous monetary loss, is an important consideration to be taken into account by a halakhist. Even if his assessment was somewhat exaggerated, the halakhic point is certainly pertinent. His conclusion was that the sheitels are not prohibited, but he counseled against wearing them for other reasons. 3
His main arguments may briefly be summarized as follows. First, he described the situation in Tirupati, noting that the actual hair cutting takes place in a courtyard that is outside the actual temple and is not a part of it. Second, he affirmed what the local priests vigorously stated: the activity of hair cutting is intended as a form of spiritual amelioration, leading the individual to feel like a new and better person. But it is in no way a part of the religious ritual and therefore cannot be regarded as an idolatrous act. Third, he examined in depth the very widely held rabbinic view that present-day “pagans” cannot be viewed as idolators, citing the Talmud, Rambam, Me’iri, Beit Yosef, Rema, Hatam Sofer, etc. 4 Finally, he raised the issue of hefsed merubbeh, extreme monetary loss, alluded to earlier, as an additional halakhic consideration leading to a lenient, permissible ruling. He also strongly refuted the assertions of the English authority who had claimed to have examined the local situation at Tirupati, arguing that they were based on misevaluations.
Hence, and for all these reasons, he concluded that these sheitels are not to be branded as “tikrovet avodah zarah” and are not prohibited and certainly do not have to be destroyed. 5 Nonetheless, he ended by counseling that it be better not to wear such Indian sheitels, in order to keep a distance from even approaching idolatrous practice, just as a Nazirite is exhorted to keep his distance from a vineyard.
Without making an unequivocal statement as to whether the Tirupati hair constitutes “tikrovet avodah zarah” or not, my point is that the halakhic procedure whereby the rulings were concluded was highly flawed and therefore totally unsatisfactory. The posek (decisor) bears a great burden of responsibility before issuing a ruling that may bring about the loss of thousands of dollars to thousands of individual women and perhaps cause them deep anguish on learning that they had been trespassing so serious a prohibition.
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On February 5–6, 2007, I participated in the first Hindu-Jewish Leadership Summit in Delhi, India. 6 This summit was attended by a delegation of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, some prominent European rabbis, and major religious leaders of the Hindu Dharma. I was asked to participate, perhaps because I had served briefly as a rabbi in India many years ago and was therefore thought to have some understanding of Indian culture and religion.
Close to 30 Hindu religious leaders – acharyas and swamis – from all over India were present, including the venerable Sri Swami Dayananda Saraswati, and Acharya Arsha Vidya Pitham, and a very lively and probing dialogue took place. In our discussions we asked the religious leaders whether Hinduism is a polytheistic and idolatrous religion, and they all unanimously and most vigorously denied such an assertion, explaining the apparent outward manifestations of idolatry in 34 a completely different fashion.
At the end of the conference, all the participants signed a “Declaration of Mutual Understanding and Cooperation.” Perhaps the most significant clause in the whole document in this context is the opening one:
The participants affirmed that:
Their respective traditions teach Faith in One Supreme Being who is the Ultimate Reality, who has created this world in its blessed diversity and who has communicated Divine ways of action for humanity for different peoples in different times and places.
At a second Hindu-Jewish leadership summit, this one in Jerusalem and held on February 17–20, 2008, this declaration was further confirmed.
I wonder whether the learned rabbis who prohibited the use of Tirupati-based sheitels would have ruled differently had they had this document before them. 7 Perhaps not. Perhaps how Indian religious authorities understand their own religion is irrelevant to them. They know better, even if it causes the loss of millions of dollars and many, many heartbreaks…