There can also be practical considerations for the the wig. There are places/times where it would not be appropriate to wear a head scarf, or where you do not want to draw attention to your religious beliefs – and the wig allows you to adhere to the law without flouting convention. I went to law school with many Orthodox Jews, and the women who were observant enough to cover their hair generally had a wig for court.
If your hair is your glory though, then wouldn’t going bald be a sin? 
Seriously, I’m not mocking the Jewish religion, it just doesn’t make sense to me – unless it’s to sacrifice your vanity.
Maybe, but every married orthodox Jewish lady I’ve ever seen has had a very glamourous wig. I distinctly remember seeing an article about a high ranking orthodox rabbi and his wife - he had the pin curls, black coat, hat, etc. She looked like Marilyn Monroe.
I’m just sayin…
All Abrahamic religions, Christianity as well.
Jews would never consider something that is medical and you have no control over a sin. Similarly, if you were take a medication that makes you lose your hair, it wouldn’t be a sin, quite the opposite - to maintain your health and life you may break virtually all other laws. Jews don’t have a conception of sin that’s the same or even similar to Christianity. It’s not that hair is “your glory” it’s that it is something personal and intimate as another person said. You share it with your close family only.
Oh, yeah, and I remember some pics of the wife of the Saudi King (I’m not sure whether she counts legally as the queen), in her birthday party, where the only skin she showed was hands and face but you could have counted any moles she had through the painted-on dress…
And then there’s the Spanish mantilla, which would have sent St Paul into apoplexy…
It’s called following the letter, rather than the spirit, of the law, something a number of religions manage to persuade themselves is okay, for some reason.
I’m not a scholar of Judaism by any means, but I’ve heard that the idea of obeying the spirit of the law is an inherently Christian idea that we are imposing onto them. The point of many Jewish laws is to obey them, and the meaning can be debated for all eternity (because study is itself an act of faith).
I read once about medieval catfights among women in southern France, where they would dishonour each other by pulling their headcoverings off. I believe that prostitutes were expressly forbidden from wearing certain headwear because of their dishonourable status. So I would guess that adult women covering their hair (and legs) is common among the three Abrahamic faiths.
So…it’s an Orthodox Jewish gal I’m looking for. 
Huh? I never said anything about health – and I knew that things that happen for medical reasons are punishments. Why are you reading things into my post that weren’t there? And there wasn’t anything in the post about the woman losing her hair due to illness. I’m talking deliberate baldness.
Okay, rather than it being a sin, if you don’t have any hair, how can you share it with someone, is what I’m asking. Basically it sounds more like you’re sacrificing your hair.
You might have asked me, you know. (Just found this thread now.)
Yes, I am an Orthodox Jewish married woman. The halacha (Jewish law) is that married women must cover their hair; what they cover it with is , according to the majority of Ashkenazi opinions, besides the point. (Shower cap, insanely expensive custom wig, whatever.) Think of it as an ancient wedding ring, whose function is to announce that a woman is married. Any other functions that one assigns to it are ex post facto explanations as to why covering one’s hair serves as a symbol of marriage. The idea that one is ‘saving one’s hair for one’s husband’ is something that I’ve heard a lot as an apologetic, but haven’t really seen much in halachic sources. To be honest, I think it’s a silly idea. My hair, at least, looks much, much worse now that I have to keep it tightly tied up all the time, so it will fit neatly under whatever I’m wearing that day, and most of my friends say the same.
What one covers it with is a function more of community norms than anything else. My community is pretty everything-goes; I mostly wear scarves and hats, but I have peers who almost always wear wigs, and those who don’t own a wig at all. (I also have friends who identify as Orthodox who do not cover their hair at all outside of religious settings, and friends whose amount of hair covered ranges from every last strand to those who have a fairly symbolic wide headband on, with the rest of their long hair down.) Sefardic women traditionally don’t wear wigs; Lubavitch women (the least insular Hasidic group) only wear wigs, never wearing hats/scarves when out and about.
Trust me, when I wear a wig, I am eminently aware that I am wearing a headcovering, and members of my community can tell pretty easily, also.
Sonnenstrahl’s point about letter of law vs. spirit of law in Judaism vs. Christianity is a good one.
Yes, I think this is a very important thing to keep in mind.
Sorry, I truly don’t mean to open a can of worms here, but it occurs to me that this gives me a bit of insight why it was such a shocking thing, once, for a certain somebody to declare that “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”
I mean, it’s a personal insight, not something extrapolated to interpret anybody else’s beliefs.
That’s really rude. AFAIK, Judaism is all about the letter of the law. The letter of the law is the law, period. That you personally feel differently doesn’t make you right (or them, for that matter).
Just to be clear, because the OP didn’t specify, we are discussing hair on the HEAD, right?
Yes. However, other body parts must be covered as well. Please note that although unmarried women are not required to cover their hair, they must abide by the other laws of modesty. For more information, see the Wikipedia article on Tznuit.
I note that the linked text says (bolding mine),
Is it rude for me to observe the bolded part seems to embody – gasp, dare I say it – the spirit of the law?
zweisamkeit said:
If that’s the case, then why do Orthodox Jews have to worry about, say, driving or riding elevators or flipping light switches on the Sabbath? Those things didn’t exist at the time the laws were written, so the laws’ wording cannot possibly cover them. Ergo, they should be acceptable. But my understanding is that a lot of consideration has been put into interpreting how to apply the law to modern situations and technology. In order to do so, you must step beyond the words and understand the reasons. And that is the spirit of the law in a nutshell.
No. The law that these particular acts violate is the proscription against making fire. It has been interpreted that using electricity creates sparks, and therefore fire. There doesn’t need to be a specific law against flipping light switches. The is also a law against working on the Sabbath, and some of those things have been interpreted as work.
It really is about following the letter of the law to the detail.
There’s also a concept in Judaism called Gader HaTorah, which means “a fence around the Torah”. There’s an idea that sometimes it’s impossible to be sure exactly what is intended by the law, and therefore, just in case, we should take the extra step and not do whatever is in question. So maybe flicking a lightswitch isn’t starting a literal fire, but if there’s an electrical spark that might be interpreted as fire, we shouldn’t do it. Just in case.
The fact that you have used the word interpreted means you are not solely following the “letter of the law.” The phrase means doing the minimal possible thing to still be within the rules. The fence around the Torah is the exact opposite of this concept.
Following the letter of the law would be more like what David did with Uriah. He didn’t technically murder him, but he still intentionally contrived a way to get him killed. He did not actually commit adultery, but he did take the already married wife of someone else. And he was chastised by God for this disobedience.