What sin is he referring to that is so terrible? The cardinal sin of Avodah Zara – idol worship. A cardinal sin we are sooner to die for rather than commit. We are to choose death over idol worship.
I’m sure not too many people know what I am talking about. But the truth is that this is not a new problem. If it is indeed a problem at all. I am here to tell you it is not.
I am not a Posek. But others who are - have studied this issue and have long ago Paskined. It is what we might call ‘settled law’. But according to this Posek that is far from the case. From Arutz Sheva:
Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, the Chief Sephardic Rabbi of Israel, denounced the custom of married women wearing wigs, saying during his weekly lecture Sunday that wearing wigs brings “idolatry” into the wearer’s home… claiming that the hair used to make virtually all wigs sold today are collected during “idolatrous” rituals.
“I looked into the matter, and found that the hair used is almost always from idolatry.
This is not a new issue as noted in the article:
In 2004, claims that most hair used to make wigs sold to the haredi public originated from “idolatrous” rituals led to mass public burnings of wigs deemed to be “non-kosher”.
The claims were sparked by an investigation by rabbis into the commercial collection of hair used for the wigs, most of which are made from hair cut in India as part of a ritual in honor of the Hindu deity Vishnu.
Upon further investigation at the time it was determined that the hair from India is not used for idol worship at all - despite appearances to the contrary. Apparently, Rabbi Yosef could not leave well enough alone. He had to see for himself what was happening and decided that it was used for idol worship after all. Casting aspersions on the the Psak issued then as well as the thousands of women who have been wearing these wigs since then.
I said that he means well since his goal is to prevent the Jewish people from committing a serious sin. But I have to wonder if there wasn’t a little bit of subliminal bias behind this Psak. Here are some additional comments he made:
The Chief Rabbi also criticized the practice of wearing wigs on the grounds of modesty.
“What does the Torah mean when it says ‘let the hair of the woman's head go loose’ ? We learn from here that a woman must wear a hair covering, for modesty. What kind of ‘modesty’ did the Torah refer to? With a wig? I’m not talking about Halacha [Jewish law], I’m talking about common sense. This is modesty? This is the madness of girls.”
I suspect that his Psak might have had some sort of unconscious motivation. When an issue as serious as this has long ago been thoroughly investigated and determined not to be a problem, the fact that Rabbi Yosef decided to reinvestigate it is suspect. That he saw a problem is not a reason to negate the previous Psak.
Does he think his investigation was more accurate? Or is it that he read into it things which were not there because of how he felt in general about using a wig to cover a married woman’s hair? It might also be the case that he has bias based on the fact that Sephardi Poskim do not allow wigs to be used for that purpose?
I am so tired of people who think they are saving Jewish souls by making life harder on them. In fact his Psak may very well do more harm than good. I believe that a lot fewer women would cover their hair had they not been permitted to use a high quality wig to do so. I believe that instead - it would have fallen into almost complete disuse. That is in fact the direction it was going in prewar Lithuania, the epicenter of the Torah world in Europe. Married Orthodox Jewish women increasingly stopped covering their hair. As did secular women before them.
Which is understandable considering that the idea of a married woman covering her hair as a matter of modesty makes absolutely no sense since unmarried woman have no such requirement. Is it possible that we allow our unmarried women to be immodest? I don’t think so. And yet married women that don't are considered immodest?! That contradiction is the kind of thing that can easily dissuade women from covering their hair - since the rest of society doesn’t and are considered quite modest (assuming they dress accordingly).
I therefore strongly object to both Rabbi Yosef’s Psak against wigs and his attack against women who wear them. Instead of improving observance of this Mitzvah which may have been his conscious goal, he may have actually contributed to causing its abandonment by more than a few women.
