Is Your Wig Kosher?

Modern wigs today are very problematic as they are made to appear very natural to the onlooker. Obviously, the wig market is not for tznius, but for enhancing one’s appearance, for role-playing, costume making and Hollywood.

To determine if one’s wig is kosher, one has to learn how to spot such a wig. Many factors have to be considered. The following resource you will find very useful in helping you keep a kosher wig.

It details many features you should look out for in a wig, besides its length of course, which you will have to cut it to shoulder length in order for it to be kosher.

Note that most poskim, including, Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, zt”l, much preferred a kerchief over a wig.  The wig is very problematic and should be avoided at all costs.

Chazal teach us: “The evil inclination of man finds new tactics every day (with which to cause a person to stumble and do wrong)” (Kiddushin 30b). It appears that the yetzer hora has found himself no better target than the holy mitzva of kisuy sa’aros — hair-covering, which he continuously undermines with new ploys and tactics. There were times when he managed to entice women to forsake this mitzva altogether, and women who kept Shabbos, kashrus, taharas hamishpochoh and other areas of mitzvos would walk around in public with no hair covering whatsoever, imagining (for no good reason) that the mitzva does not apply nowadays. He is, however, far too sly and wily to attempt to cause the present day Bais Yaakov-educated young lady to totally abandon this mitzva. He is nevertheless busy nonstop, destroying the character and significance of this mitzva and, to our great distress, with much success. We live in a generation in which the descriptive words “it is a beautiful sheitel” no longer means “it is an appealing head wear” or “it is a beautiful piece of clothing.” Instead it means “the sheitel looks totally natural and is undetectable.” To our shame, looking natural has become the standard of beauty, as far as sheitels are concerned. When buying a sheitel, instead of putting an effort into buying something that will be attractive to her husband, the young woman is striving to look like “a girl” in the eyes of the general public. The yetzer hora is furthermore making a farce of this mitzvah, as he ensures that the focus of women is on “how to beat the decree” and overcome the restriction the mitzva presents, rather than on how to ensure that this mitzva is kept properly and that all hairs are covered.