Chapter 22 has a unique list of seemingly random commandments:
You may not forego returning a lost object you come across. Make sure to
help an animal that is struggling under its load. Do not cross dress.
Send away the mother bird to take her eggs/babies. Put a fence around
the roof of your new home. Do not graft fruits. Do not have an ox and
donkey plow together. Do not wear “shatnez,” a combination of wool and
flax. Put strings on the corners of your clothes.
Finding a common theme for all these is a bit of a challenge, so we will
just focus on one of the above commandments –– the only one in the list
which is described as a “to’evah” (abomination) –– namely “the
prohibition against cross dressing.”
While it is not my goal to preach definitions for women’s clothing and
men’s clothing, it is worthy to note that those stick figures on public
restrooms still have a clear difference between them. Men and women are
not the same and were never meant to be the same.
Let us look at the exact wording of the verse: “There shall not be male
articles (vessels) on a woman and a man should not wear a woman’s dress
(i.e. clothing) for anyone who does these things is considered having
committed an abomination against G-d.”
Some try to define these warnings in very concrete terms. Targum
Yonatan, for example, says the verse means, “A woman should not be
wearing tzitzit and tefillin, while a man should not shave as a woman
does –– which would make him look feminine.”
Being a little more pragmatic (and clearly based on the Talmud Nazir
59a), Rashi says these prohibitions are to prevent a man from hanging
out with a sizable group of women and vice versa. But he adds that the
only style of dress included in this category is the kind that would be
considered an “abomination.” He leaves such a definition up to our own
imagination.
Many commentaries focus on the words “kli gever” –– male vessels –– and
say the general context indicates that women should not be wearing male
articles of war, such as swords, because if it would allow her to gain
access to the battlefield, it would lead to promiscuity.
The Sifrei (Midrash on Devarim) says: Is the Torah teaching us that a
woman should not wear white and a man should not wear colors? Rather,
something that leads to “to’evah” is to be avoided. A woman should not
dress as a man dresses in order to place herself among men, and a man
should not wear jewelry and makeup to gain access to places where women
congregate.
Netziv draws an important lesson from the back and forth on the meaning
of the prohibition. “Man is different from woman by nature and in
practice. This natural difference cannot be eliminated in a minute,
unless one regulates one’s practices to create what is called ‘second
nature.’ However, it takes no time to change one’s dress. Therefore the
Torah warns about both: Regarding the vessels of man, the Torah says the
woman has no business wearing them, unless she has worked and trained
herself to change her own nature to make man’s nature her own ‘second
nature.’
“Similarly, if a man were to wear a woman’s dress, it would only be a
preparatory move to hanging out with women, an action which we have
determined to be more than questionable.”
This space is not a soapbox for this writer’s opinions on how people
ought to dress. On the other hand, surely “modesty” is an important
principle for everyone to follow.
As we have not noticed too many men walking around in skirts and
dresses, these last words are aimed at those women who continue to
preserve feminine attire.
Thank you for being true to yourself, and for helping, through your
manner of dress, the line of natural difference between men and women to
remain distinct and clear. And thank you for preserving at least one
interpretation of 22:5 while the rest of the world caves in to new
fashion norms.
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