Money on the Floor

Translated from Rabbi Arush’s feature article in the weekly Chut shel Chessed newsletter. The articles focus on his main message: “Loving others as yourself” and emuna.

See Part 1, Wishing to Connect.

Investing Wisely 

In this life, you must choose the right investments. If you see an area where the demand for land is very low and the prices are too, but your analysis show unequivocally that in the near future the demand will go up by hundreds of percent, then now is the time to get moving and buy as many plots as possible, because every shekel you invest today will double and triple its worth in the future. We’re not talking about a ten percent increase, but rather hundreds of percent! 

It is the same way with tzniut (modesty). Last week we mentioned that all of the Jews’ protection is due to tzniut, and that that is the secret of our existence and our hold on the Holy Land. In this article we will elaborate on this. But first we will begin with some encouragement and empowerment. 

Daughters of Israel! You have gemstones and pearls and diamonds on the floor – easy money. Especially in this difficult reality that we are all experiencing, one of the things in which there is much hester panim (Hiding of Hashem’s Face) is the trait of tzniut. So especially now we have the opportunity and the mission to strengthen our tzniut and to get others to do so as well. Particularly now, anyone who trades in the real gold – tzniut – can become rich easily! 

The strong pull of our generation causes any woman who goes against the flow and gathers tzniut and holiness for herself to receive much greater rewards than women received in all previous generations, and she can gain immense, untold profits. 

What is Tzniut? 

From countless sources we can understand that tzniut is the main advantage and importance of the Jewish woman. 

Modern culture attempts to present tzniut in a very distorted way, as if tzniut is a kind of asceticism and oppression of the woman, something old-fashioned, enforced and extreme, Iranian style. And that was exactly Bilaam’s advice, whose goal was to damage and break down the fence protecting the vineyard of Beit Yisrael. 

But the truth is that tzniut is something else entirely! Tzniut is a wholeness of the soul and the strongest expression of the woman’s pnimiyut (inner existence). Also, it points to her amazing qualities and definitive roles in the development, success, and geula (salvation) of the Jewish People. Tzniut provides space for the perfect expression of a woman’s personality, and it is the secret of the happiness and success of the woman and of the Jewish home.  

When a woman dresses and behaves with tzniut, the Shechina (Divine Presence) rests on her; she brings the Shechina to rest on the Jewish People, and when the Shechina is there, there is protection and blessing, and we see the Divine Providence clearly. And so, she is protecting the generation; she is protecting her children and the ones she will bear in the future. A modest woman has a greater power of prayer; she has a greater power of blessing. 

And when tzniut is not observed, the first one to be affected is the woman herself. But on the national level, the damage is much more severe, because, as we said in our previous article, lack of tzniut disconnects the Jewish people from Hashem yitbarach and exposes us to harsh decrees that threaten our very existence: “Pinchas ben Elazar… has allayed My rage against Bnei Yisrael… and I did not destroy Bnei Yisrael in My own passion.” The Jews came close to total annihilation, and that would have been not a punishment, but rather a direct result of the removal of the Shechina! 

Practical Guidance 

Therefore, we have come out with a loving call to the Jewish women, that each and every one of them should take a small step in the direction of being more particular about her tzniut, for the sake of our soldiers and all Jews, wherever they are. At the same time, they should learn about the true meaning of tzniut and return to the happiness that lies in tzniut and tmimut (wholeness). 

In educating our boys and girls to tzniut, one must do it gently and without pressure, without making the children hate the concept. Rather, one should answer their questions and talk to them about the true meaning of tzniut and always emphasize the pnimiyut. 

Also, one should know that tzniut is not pressure and chumras (extra strictness) and craziness. There are clear and simple definitions in halacha regarding tzniut, and a woman can be well dressed and feel very good about herself while maintaining all the rules of tzniut. 

The Gemara tells us that tzniut is a natural feeling, and the more a woman adopts the rules of tzniut, so too the natural, simple feeling of tzniut returns to her. It is then not seen as a burden or difficulty, but becomes a natural part of life, just like the need to be clean and maintain a clean conscience.  

The Quiet Power 

And just to strengthen those who are already doing this, we will tell the Jewish boys and girls a few lesser-known things about tzniut. 

A mother and also a future mother, even if she has a career and works and is successful outside of the house, is still an akeret bayit. She is the main factor in the house, the central gear, which quietly and “under the radar” directs the immense ship known as the Jewish home. She gives strength and blessing to her husband; she motivates the children to succeed, as well as giving them their fear of Heaven and love of Torah. And everything – everything! – is based on her tzniut, as we know from many stories about Torah giants and their households. 

These days, many parents are coping with their children’s attention deficiency. It is one of the plagues of the generation. It is known that every material problem has a spiritual root. Did you know that attention deficiency is closely connected spiritually to the modesty of the woman? 

Spiritual Ritalin 

What’s the connection? The connection is in two circles. First of all, in the woman’s personal circle. It is said about the woman that “her honor as a princess is inward” – the real honor of the woman and the immense light of her soul lies inside her. True, a woman also wants to look respectable and presentable, but lack of tzniut is the desire to emphasize her external aspects, and when a woman is connected to her external aspects, she loses contact with her real role and her pnimiyut. She is really scattering herself around, so to speak. 

Attention deficiency is also a scattering of attention, and instead of being connected and attentive to the main messages, the children connect and converse with all the unimportant things around them and lose the main point. When the woman returns the focus to her inner world, the children receive the ability to focus on the main thing and not on the things of secondary importance.  

This is true also for the woman’s outer circle – her environment. Clearly, lack of tzniut in a woman attracts men in the street. That is the way the world goes, and it is impossible to get away from that. When a man looks at other women, says Rabbi Nachman, he “leans away from his wife”, in other words he loses his concentration, his attention, because all his attention and concentration should be aimed at his wife – “they should face one another.” 

So, we see that a woman who does not dress modestly affects the concentration and attendance of other men, and measure for measure, her children too lose their attentiveness and concentration, and therefore one of the strongest segulot for the children’s success in their studies is the mother maintaining tzniut. 

Bli Ayin Hara – The Evil Eye 

Also, every mother wants to make sure that no one should cast an evil eye on her children, and one must know that there is nothing that protects the children from ayin hara more than the mother being modest. And that is clear, because lack of tzniut attracts the ayin hara and jealousy. And so, when you cover yourself from the ayin hara, you bring upon your children protection and covering from others’ ayin hara. 

There is a very deep, spiritual explanation to this. Hashem created the world so that the mother is the one who encases the children and hides them in herself for nine months, and this is like a succah, as it says, “you have covered me (tesukeini) in my mother’s womb.”¹ 

But the Kabbala books add that even after birth, throughout life, and even before a woman becomes a mother, she herself is the secret of the holy sukkah and she is the one who protects and hovers over her children, even if the children are themselves parents already, and she also protects the children she will have in the future, as mentioned in the holy Zohar, that the mother hovers over the sons and she is the aspect of protection, as in “He will hide me in His shelter (succo) on the day of evil.”² 

And this is not only from ayin hara, but from every harm and distress. Because when a woman covers herself according to halacha, she becomes “a kosher sukkah”, and in her merit Hashem spreads His sukkah of peace over her entire family! 

And with this we will conclude, even though we are far from having said everything on the topic. We have barely touched the matter of the advantages of tzniut and its wonderful affects. I ask the daughters of Israel from the bottom of my heart – for Hashem’s honor and for all our brethren, Beit Yisrael, who are in trouble – do your part, and with your tzniut you make this whole world a brighter one. 

¹ Psalms 139:13 

² Psalms 27:5