This is what you wrote in the column on modesty — the above discussion was opened with a statement from the Chazon Ish that says this explicitly:

There was an incident with our master the Chazon Ish of blessed memory: a young man came to him regarding a match that had been suggested, because the girl’s mother went without covering her hair, asking whether to pursue such a match. The Chazon Ish answered him: if she comes from a Lithuanian home, you can pursue it, because in Lithuania not everyone was strict about this. But if she comes from a Hungarian home, don’t pursue it, because that indicates corruption.

I didn’t remember it. You really do see here that modesty is a matter dependent on circumstances. That doesn’t mean it is permitted to go without covering one’s hair, but modesty is a broader matter than Jewish law.

Not necessarily. I’m claiming that all that was said here is that this does not indicate general corruption. The lapse is due to ignorance or habit only with respect to hair.

Let us begin by saying that there is a fundamental difference between nakedness forbidden at the Torah level (the law of Moses) and nakedness forbidden rabbinically (Jewish practice). The law of Moses never changes and does not depend on local custom, whereas Jewish practice changes according to place and time, in line with the current custom of the observant women in that place (the term “observant women” means women who are fully careful about the other commandments).

The law of Moses, regarding bodily covering, includes the private area and the main body up to the elbow and up to the knee, inclusive. Beyond that, it is Jewish practice and depends on custom (this is not the place to elaborate on the proofs).

But regarding hair, the halakhic decisors disputed whether it falls under the law of Moses or under Jewish practice.

According to the view of the overwhelming majority of halakhic decisors, head covering is a Torah-level obligation (according to the Talmud in Eruvin 100b — the reason for it is the curse of Eve), and this is also the plain meaning of the Talmud in Ketubot 72a, “It is Torah-level.”

However, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef proved in the responsa Yechaveh Da’at (part 5, sec. 62) that this is not conclusive: “Now even though the Talmud objects simply, ‘It is Torah-level,’ this is not definitive proof that it is a Torah prohibition, as Meiri wrote similarly (on Ketubot 103b), that the Talmud’s question there, ‘Honoring one’s father’s wife is Torah-level,’ refers only to a rabbinic law which they attached to a verse. And we find many such cases, as in Ta’anit (28b): ‘The Hallel of Rosh Chodesh is not Torah-level’ — implying that that of festivals is Torah-level? And in Moed Katan (11b), that labor on Chol HaMoed is forbidden at the Torah level. And so in many places [and the distinguished editor Rabbi Abraham Sofer cited Rosh Hashanah 32b: ‘One may not climb a tree’ — Torah-level; and see Rashi there]. And Tosafot wrote this in Chagigah (18a), s.v. Chol HaMoed, and the Rosh in his rulings (beginning of Moed Katan), and in Sefer Yere’im (end of sec. 113), and Meiri (Moed Katan 2a). See there. And in Meiri on Rosh Hashanah (9a) he wrote: ‘The addition to Yom Kippur is only rabbinic, and the verses are merely an asmachta.’ And some dispute this from what was said in Beitzah (30a), ‘The addition to Yom Kippur is Torah-level,’ but that is not conclusive, for we find in many places in the Talmud that rabbinic law is called Torah-level when it has some root or connection in Torah, even though that particular matter is not itself from the Torah.” End quote. And see there that he ultimately ruled that head covering is indeed a Torah prohibition.

But a minority of halakhic decisors held that head covering is rabbinic and depends on custom.

This makes no practical difference in law, since in any case the current custom is that one hundred percent of commandment-observant women cover their heads, and therefore there is no room at all to be lenient about this, because the custom is determined by observant women. But this can serve as an additional supporting factor for leniency regarding a wig, for example, or for a divorcée or widow, for whom Rabbi Moshe Feinstein permitted going bareheaded.

And I will detail those who hold that head covering is rabbinic or a matter of custom:

Foremost among them is Terumat HaDeshen, sec. 242, who wrote regarding Maimonides’ view that uncovering the head is prohibited rabbinically. This is his language: “And although Maimonides wrote that it is only from the words of the prophets, he too wrote that uncovering a woman’s head is only a rabbinic precaution, as is evident from his wording. Presumably he held that when the Talmud asks, ‘Is it not Torah-level?’ it means to say that it has a Torah allusion.”

So too wrote the eminent Rabbi Yosef Nissim Burla, head of the religious court of the Sephardic community in Jerusalem at the time, in his book Vayeshev Yosef (Yoreh De’ah part, sec. 2), that the prohibition of uncovering the head is an enactment of the Sages, with only a scriptural support:

“We heard the warning from the school of Rabbi Yishmael that they should not go out with uncovered heads, and even though there is no Torah prohibition, and even if they are accustomed to it, this is not a modest way. And we learned that she leaves without her ketubah because of Jewish practice… The prohibition of a woman revealing her hair is not because they took stringencies upon themselves, but rather because their prohibition is rabbinic, and they attached it to the verse ‘your appearance is lovely,’ etc…. Their prohibition stems from the warning of the school of Rabbi Yishmael, etc., and in the end there is scriptural support from the Torah… from the enactment and warning of the school of Rabbi Yishmael mentioned at the end of HaMadir. If so, the matter returns to being an enactment of the Sages. Certainly they dealt with this as a fence and safeguard… their prohibition is rabbinic, with support from the Torah, and they did it as a safeguard.”

And he further wrote there, regarding the questioner’s astonishment at him for saying it was a Torah prohibition: “His words are truly astonishing, for at one point he seemed convinced by what I proved, that uncovering the head is not Torah-level but only an asmachta, and at another point his words seem to decide absolutely that uncovering the head is specifically a Torah prohibition — yet without any support or proof for his words, only assertions, and he also showed us no refutation of my words proving that the prohibition is not Torah-level. End quote. To this the author replied as follows: ‘I was astonished at the sight and saw that he seeks a pretext to refute my words, etc. Blessed be God, everything is written in the book, and from beginning to end nowhere in my words did I write that uncovering the head is a Torah prohibition. Rather, all I said was that uncovering the head is alluded to in the Torah, and once I wrote that its prohibition is from the verse “and he shall uncover the woman’s head,” meaning that it is alluded to in that verse. That is what I wrote, and I do not know where he found in my words that uncovering the head is definitely a Torah prohibition. This is only his own assumption, and this is not the way of proper study, to bring the law to light. And see the book Be’er Sheva, which says that the prohibition of uncovering the head is Torah-level from the verse; see there at length. Upon him your difficulty would fall.’”

So too wrote the gaon Rabbi Yosef Messas in his book Otzar HaMikhtavim, part 3 (sec. 1884):

“The established foundation for all the halakhic decisors, on which they built like the heights of their sanctuary, is what Rabbi Yishmael expounded: ‘And he shall uncover the woman’s head’ — a warning to the daughters of Israel that they should not go out with uncovered heads’ (as written in tractate Ketubot 72a). And Rashi explained… ‘Since it says “and he shall uncover,” it implies that until that point it was not uncovered; infer from this that it is not the way of the daughters of Israel to go out with uncovered heads, and this is the primary interpretation’… And according to the second interpretation as well, the prohibition is not due to the essence of exposed hair itself, but because of the custom of the daughters of Israel, who were accustomed to cover their heads, because in their time they thought this involved modesty for a woman, and one who reveals her hair is considered to be breaching the fence of modesty. Therefore the Torah warned every daughter of Israel not to act contrary to the custom of the daughters of Israel in this matter… And so now, when all the daughters of Israel have agreed in their minds that there is no modesty at all in head covering, and all the more so no disgrace in an uncovered head… the prohibition has been uprooted from its root and has become permitted…

Nowadays, when all women reveal all the hair of their heads, the hair of married women has reverted to being like the hair of virgins, since all are alike in being accustomed to reveal it. For what is the reason regarding virgins? Because they are accustomed to reveal it, its exposure is not considered immodest. So too and for the same reason nowadays regarding married women who are accustomed to reveal it — there is absolutely no immodesty in this, Heaven forbid. And likewise regarding what is written, ‘a woman’s hair is nakedness’ (Berakhot 24a) — what is the reason regarding virgins? Because one does not have improper thoughts about what one is used to seeing. The same applies to married women who are nowadays accustomed to reveal it: there are no improper thoughts about what is familiar. Every person can see this from his own experience, for he sees thousands of women pass before him day after day with uncovered heads, and he pays them no attention and does not entertain thoughts about them. And one who does entertain such thoughts does not do so because of exposed hair.”

[He wrote these words when he served as rabbi in Algeria, and innocently thought that women throughout the world had stopped covering their heads.]

So too wrote the gaon Rabbi Yitzchak Simcha Halevi Horowitz of blessed memory, one of the rabbis of the United States, in his book Yad HaLevi (on Sefer HaMitzvot, p. 143):

“There is no difficulty at all from the fact that they said an uncovered head is Torah-level [why it was not counted among the commandments], because it is not a commandment in itself, and it depends on place and time… There is no difference between a virgin and a married woman, and if the prohibition for a married woman is more severe, so what? Even an unmarried woman is included among forbidden relations, as explained in Sanhedrin (end of chapter Ben Sorer), and moreover all unmarried women nowadays are menstruants. So too wrote Maimonides (chapter 21 of the laws of Forbidden Relations), and the Tur and Shulchan Arukh (Even HaEzer sec. 21) explicitly: ‘The daughters of Israel shall not go with uncovered heads in the marketplace, whether unmarried or married.’ And this is from the Talmud in Ketubot there, for the school of Rabbi Yishmael taught: a warning to the daughters of Israel that they should not go with uncovered heads. He did not distinguish between unmarried and married, and so wrote the Kesef Mishneh and the Bach… The truth shows its way: different places differ, and everything depends on local custom…

Today the custom is in almost all Jewish cities, and especially in our place in the New World [the United States], that all of them go today with uncovered heads in the marketplace, and the matter has already become permitted even for the observant and modest Jewish women. And who would dare conclude that they are licentious and transgressing Jewish practice? For if so, you have left no daughter of Abraham our father living with her husband… And since this is their way today, they are like the virgins of former times whose practice was this and who were not prohibited in it. Their hair is like their flesh: places that are customarily covered are forbidden to expose, as the Tur was precise in sec. 75 and wrote, ‘A handbreadth exposed in a woman, in a place which she usually covers, and likewise a woman’s hair which they usually cover — it is forbidden to recite the Shema opposite it.’ But places that are customarily exposed, whether of their flesh or their hair, are like their faces and hands, which may be exposed outside. And that which they said (Berakhot 24a), ‘A woman’s hair is nakedness, as it says: your hair is like a flock of goats,’ and Rashi explained, ‘Since the verse praises her with it, infer from this that it is an object of desire,’ this refers to a place where women customarily go with covered hair.

And the verse is merely an asmachta, as the Sages regularly do everywhere, supporting their words on some verse, as is known. For if you do not say so, but rather that it is a full derivation from the prophetic writings for every place and every time, why did they not also derive that even a woman’s nose is nakedness, since it says ‘your nose is like the tower of Lebanon,’ or that a woman’s eyes are nakedness, since it says ‘your eyes are doves,’ and the like that are mentioned there? And the context itself proves it, for they also said there, ‘A woman’s voice is nakedness, as it says: for your voice is sweet,’ and despite this the glosses to Maimonides, brought in Beit Yosef and Bach there, wrote that regarding a familiar voice there is no concern. And this is as we wrote. So too in the source passage there where they said an uncovered head is Torah-level, from ‘and he shall uncover the woman’s head,’ etc. Rashi in his second explanation, which he says is the primary one, wrote that they learned this from the fact that it says ‘and he shall uncover,’ implying that until then her head was not uncovered; infer from this that it is not the way of the daughters of Israel to go out with uncovered heads. Thus it is clear that Rashi himself wrote that the matter depends on custom… I wrote all this not as a practical ruling, but only to speak in defense of the daughters of Israel.”

And in a responsum printed in the journal Degel Yisrael (responsa section, p. 274), he further wrote: “And when I said in my responsum to one elder rabbi in Jerusalem, may it be rebuilt and established, that what we hold — that Torah laws have no change or substitution — applies only to things explicitly stated in the Torah, they laughed at me as though I had invented this from my own heart. But these matters are explained in the words of our master Maimonides at the beginning of chapter 9 of the laws of the Foundations of the Torah. And in a matter not explicitly stated in the Torah, not only could the Great Court change it from time to time, as Maimonides wrote at the beginning of chapter 2 of the laws of Rebels, but even Jewish custom today has the power to alter Torah laws, as written in the Jerusalem Talmud (chapter 7 of Bava Metzia, halakhah 1, and chapter 12 of Yevamot, halakhah 1), that custom overrides law…. And it is explained there that even if the law preceded the custom, the custom uproots it — and especially in the matter of uncovering the head, where I already proved with clear proofs that the entire prohibition from the start was only because of custom, that such was the practice of women in those generations. Certainly one custom can come and nullify another custom.

And regarding a prohibition more explicit than the prohibition of uncovering a woman’s head — namely the prohibition of new grain, where all the early authorities such as Rif, Maimonides, Tosafot, the Rosh, the Tur, the Shulchan Arukh, and the Semak all upheld and accepted as law that its prohibition is from the Torah even nowadays and even regarding a non-Jew’s produce — the people practiced, without the permission of their sages, to permit it and eat it unhindered. And I did not see anyone go out against them with thunder and lightning to fence them in. On the contrary, all the later authorities, such as the Bach, Be’er HaGolah, Taz, Magen Avraham, and other great later authorities, all went out to speak in their defense, even though those who ate it had not turned to them with questions at all. Rather, they themselves found it intolerable to say of the entire people of God that they had gone outside the boundaries of the Torah, Heaven forbid.

And that is what stirred the desire in me as well, to speak in defense of the daughters of Israel in this country, all of whom without exception — even the daughters and wives of rabbis’ sons who raised their voices against me — go out bareheaded in the marketplace. Heaven forbid that we should judge them as licentious women and transgressors of the law of Moses; their Master would not be pleased that we should say such a thing. So I searched and found for them a permission from the Torah, for we say: it is preferable that Israel eat the meat of dying animals that were slaughtered than the meat of dying animals that are carcasses. And at the time when the great sages mentioned above who enacted the leniency regarding new grain relied, in order to vindicate Israel, on very tenuous permissions, as the Vilna Gaon noted against them, I by God’s help arrived at the true understanding of Torah, as I showed in my book: that the whole prohibition of uncovering a woman’s head depends only on custom… And if in Jerusalem the custom still today is that women do not go out in the marketplace with uncovered heads, then certainly for them the prohibition remains in place, as I proved in my book. And any woman who goes out there in the marketplace bareheaded leaves without her ketubah, as one who transgresses the law of Moses.”

And there in his words he pointed to another halakhic decisor who wrote similarly: “I saw one holy man who understood this simply from the above-mentioned words of Rashi — namely the gaon Dov Ber Meislish of blessed memory, rabbi and head of the religious court of the holy community of Warsaw, in his book Chiddushei HaRad on Sefer HaMitzvot, see there.”

So too wrote the gaon Rabbi Avraham Romano of blessed memory, rabbi of the city of Sarajevo in Bosnia, in his book Avraham Avraham (part 2, parashat Naso): “An uncovered head is Torah-level — meaning a strong rabbinic decree supported by a verse, for a decree supported by a verse is stronger than one not supported by a verse. But how then does the Mishnah call it Jewish practice, which implies merely a custom practiced by Hebrew women? He answers: at the Torah level — that is, the asmachta — a basket-like head covering is enough, while Jewish practice requires a shawl over the basket-like covering when she goes out to the public domain. But at the actual Torah level there is no prohibition at all, even in the public domain, against complete uncovering of the head with no covering.

And the halakhic decisors copied the term ‘Torah-level’ as it appears in the Talmud, but they did not go down into the interpretation that it is not really Torah law but only an asmachta, just as the Rosh, Tosafot, and Mordechai did regarding ‘and sanctify him,’ as stated in Gittin… And the Korban Netanel asked there in Gittin from the Rema Magen Avraham, for in Gittin it says explicitly that it is Torah-level. It seems to me that they call an asmachta ‘Torah-level,’ etc. It is also possible to explain, as the gaon Shev Shema’tata wrote… that the respondent preferred to answer according to the questioner’s mistaken assumption… And similarly one may say in Ketubot 72a that the questioner asked, ‘An uncovered head is Torah-level,’ from the verse ‘and he shall uncover the woman’s head,’ and from the school of Rabbi Yishmael, etc., but he did not know the end of the baraita, which teaches, ‘although there is no proof for the matter, there is a memorial for the matter,’ and therefore it is only an asmachta. The respondent answered him according to his mistaken assumption: at the Torah level a basket-like covering is sufficient. But according to the truth, at the Torah level nothing is required, and everything is rabbinic.” End quote.

So too wrote the gaon Rabbi Asher Grunis of blessed memory, rabbi of Viltshin in Poland, in his book Pri Asher (sec. 12, p. 101): “It seemed to me possible to say that even though the Talmud uses the phrase ‘an uncovered head is Torah-level,’ the intention is not that this is one of the 613 commandments. Rather, since the Torah mentioned the ancient custom that women were not accustomed to go with uncovered heads, this is called ‘Torah-level.’ And similarly we find in Tosafot on Gittin 47, etc., and in Tiferet Yisrael on Arakhin (3:5): ‘We hold that the ketubah of a virgin is rabbinic, even though it is written in the Torah, “the bride-price of virgins,” etc. — that was the prevailing custom…’ So too here, the Torah adopted the moral custom that was found also among the nations of the world. This is common in the Talmud, that they use the phrase ‘from the Torah’ when it is not actually from the Torah… [and he elaborates with proofs]. And here too, regarding uncovering a woman’s head, where there is no explicit warning in the Torah, but rather from the fact that in the case of the sotah it commanded, ‘and he shall uncover her head,’ we infer from here that women customarily covered their heads. And that is what they meant when they said it is Torah-level: because it is an ancestral tradition from the time of the Torah, and the daughters of Israel were careful about it for thousands of years; and this is the law of Moses and Jewish practice.”