Rabbi Amnon Yitzchak on the Wig

I know what Rav Ovadia Yosef ztz”l and also your opinion about this. What bothers me is how can you explain the Rebbe from Lubavitch’s allowing of wigs for women as hair covering?

Is this the 70 faces of the Torah? Is this the advice of one’s personal Rav? Who can you rely on?

It is written “to make oneself a Rabbi” and do what your Rabbi advises you, but there is one Torah and one truth. What is your opinion on the subject?

We have spoken about this on many tapes, so I will tell you in short

The head covering for a woman is a tichel or a modest hat that covers all her hair.

A wig was an “after the fact” thing that was established in Europe again because of the “Haskala” movement (education movement) where the Jews were on the way down from spirituality.

This started 150 years ago. It started when the Jews started to be close with the goyim and learned from their ways. This was to prevent the women from removing their head coverings completely.

The Rabbis decreed that women must go out with hair covering that covers the entire head and hair. Of course, that the wigs of then are not like the “custom” wigs of today.

What $1000, now it is $4000 dollars per wig. What you speak of is a fake one.

The wigs of before, the loufa that you use in the bathroom were softer looking than these wigs. Every women that went out with these wigs back then for sure covered her hair

and the other side she did not attract attention. The essence of the modesty did not lose in its value. However, today women buy wigs and half of their natural hair is showing

and there is a special connection that you cannot see so it looks like their natural hair completely with the “custom” wig. They sin and cause others to sin;

and it is forbidden for them and their husband to make blessings in the presence of these wigs.

This means that these women are going out with a completely uncovered head! What the Lubavitcher Rebbe said and other Ashkenazi poskim is true, that according to the minhag of Ashenazi forefathers

that they instituted because of the bad situation in Europe, that women are permitted to go out with wigs. Of course, the wig has to be of the one of older times that is short and modest without attracting attention.

For them it counts as a head covering, but for Sepharadim it does not, as Rav Ovadia Yosef ztz’l forbade wigs completely and he brought along with him

over 80 Ashkenazi poskim who also forbade the wigs among themselves.

I will tell you a story of the Chatam Sofer ztz”l who was also an Ashkenazi and a Gaon of Israel.

In Europe there was a woman who broke through fences and she started to walk with a wig and the Chatam Sofer ztz”l knew of this and called her to speak with him.

He asked her to not to not go out with a wig and not break the fences of the Torah. She did not listen to him. He asked her an additional 2-3 times to stop wearing the wig and she did still not listen.

After some time she died. The Chatam Sofer ztz”l asked for this woman’s casket be brought next to his house before he leaves.They brought her casket next to his house.

He went out, all the congregation wanted to see what the Rav would do, what he would say or do. He came to the casket, removed the blanket from her face, he spit , covered her face back

and said to not bury her in a Jewish cemetery. Do you hear? Why, she broke through the fences that the Sages made. “A breaker of fences is a home for the snake.”

She was sentenced to cherem (exile) and completely cut off. She lost her olam haba, her world to come.

The Baba Sali, ztz”l that was Sephardic, said scary things about wearing wigs and a woman who walks out with her hair uncovered.

There were daughters of his house that walked out with uncovered heads. He said something scary and amazing that I do not want to repeat here, he said this about his own family.

The Steipler ztz”l was an Ashkenazic Rabbi. I will not say who, but some women from his household also did this and he said similar things about them.

He said what just because they are from my family means they will not go to Gihennom for this?

There is no such thing as a head covering that are allowed through “heter” (permission) that break through the fences of our Sages in the Torah.

Whoever follows the halacha according to his Rabbi and does as the halacha cautions, then you do not lose anything.

Like an Ashkenazi who does not eat kitniyot on Pesach who keeps the minhag of his fathers. Although it is allowed according to the law to eat kitniyot and it is not forbidden to eat them on Pesach.

Because his Rabbis were stringent in the matter, so he does the same. The Sepharadim who look at the rice and beans three times on Pesach by the hands of three women.

This is allowed according to the law. Everyone must hold according to the customs of their forefathers. “Do not forsake the Torah of your mother.” (Mishlei 1;8)

So according to the Sephardic Rabbis say according to their tradition and also the Temani congregations never knew such things as wigs, and thus they are forbidden for their women to wear.

More than this, in Teman a girl of 3 years old covered her hair, even a single girl not just a married girl.

To the sadness of our community, many women of the community mimic one another. One sees that one does this, the other one follows but a step further.

Even if the first woman made things worse, the second one mimics here. She learned from the bad instead of the good.

The women do not know how much they lose because (of wearing a wig or going with her hair uncovered). If the women only knew how much blessing they would receive for covering their heads, (they would change).

the Holy Zohar says, Rabbi Chizkiya says: “come and show the man who sees his wife’s hair that comes out of the covering, even in the home

the curses that come upon this man, who lets his wife to take ot some of her hair from the covering on her head, even within her own house!

She will bring poverty to the home; impurity in the home, and her sons will not be great scholars of the generation. If she goes with modesty (by covering her hair),

she will bring wealth, holiness in the house, and her sons will be great scholars of the generation.”

This is like Kimchit that covered her hair and the walls of her house not once saw a hair on her head; from this she merited 7 sons all Cohanim Gedolim (head Cohen’s) in the Beit Hamikdash.

This is the essence of the verse in Tehillim 128;3 “your wife shall be like a fruitful vine within your house, your children will be like small olive plants around your table. Blessed is the man who fears Hashem.”

A man who fears Hashem will merit a modest wife and his sons will be around the table. Not that one is in India, one in Thailand and one in Gihennom.

They will be around the table and close to the family like olives. Olives are the trees whose leaves do not fall off, not in the Summer not in the Winter.

Your children will not leave you from your home, they will not go after and marry a goya and invite you (the parents) to the (nonjewish) child’s “Brit.”

No. If there is the fear of heaven and modesty, this will safeguard your children for length of days and years.

However, to be close to and intermingle with the goyim, to look at others, will cut them off the tree of Judaism, they will cut themselves off from the root.

This is the total of everything. I will show you oan amazing things, a short movie, it is unbelievable.