Q&A: The Ideal of Beauty — Subjective and Its Implications
The Ideal of Beauty — Subjective and Its Implications
Question
With God's help,
Hello Rabbi,
What does the Rabbi think about the concept of female beauty — is it subjective or objective? The reason to say that it is subjective, in my humble opinion, is that throughout history we see many changes in this ideal (from fatness, fullness in certain areas, anorexia, and so on, different skin colors, etc.), so that those considered ugly in the past are the beautiful ones of today, and vice versa.
On the other hand, if I am indeed right and it is subjective, the obvious question arises: why is it that the individual person can hardly free himself from the current worldview and see beauty and attraction in style X rather than Y? I thought to say that it depends on subconscious environmental influence or something like that, which is hard to change. And if so, then the ideal of beauty is also socially derived.
In any case, if I am right and the influence of the beauty ideal comes from what society projects toward us, then does the Rabbi think it would be proper to prohibit the modeling profession and advertisements that include modeling and so on? Because according to this, it is a significant factor that directly affects individuals in society, and every individual has the right not to be influenced subconsciously unless he consents to it. And more than that, here it also causes a great deal of major long-term harm.
For example, it is really unfair that a woman who has a tendency to gain weight and a somewhat different face should be considered “second-tier” in beauty because of a billboard featuring a certain model with a different body structure.
Or that there are many girls who practically kill themselves with anorexic tendencies just because a few people want to sell us some household product or article of clothing…
True, each sign by itself probably has no immediate effect, but the totality of the signs and advertisements seems to create this tendency in us.
What does the Rabbi think about this?
And even if you hold that this is something objective, it seems obvious to me that most secular people would not accept that because of the metaphysical implications of ideas, and would think it is something subjective; and if so, according to their view, is there room to prohibit these things?
Answer
I tend to think that beauty really is a subjective matter, and in any case it is clear that there are strong cultural and social influences regarding it.
I would not prohibit anything. Each person should be cautious according to his own understanding. If you ban influences, you’ll end up with a police state and ban everything. Everything influences various aspects of our lives.
Discussion on Answer
Then it also wouldn’t be worthwhile to teach mathematics. Do you know how much frustration that creates for people? There is no end to this, and it’s impossible to do such a thing.
There is a simple solution. Just as mathematics studies are required, so aesthetics studies will be required, with all the explanations and philosophical pilpulim, and the distinctions between ontic beauty and epistemic beauty, etc. etc., and that way they’ll make the whole matter of beauty repulsive to the male and female students 🙂
Best regards, Shatznimos the Levengardian
And the height of beauty, in accordance with the philosophical definitions, will be called: ontic deliciousness 🙂
With God's help, 22 Av 5780
Someone who dealt extensively with the influence of the “culture industry” on thinking, and even on the aesthetic taste of individuals, was the German-Jewish philosopher Theodor Adorno, of the Frankfurt School, whose 51st yahrzeit falls today, 22 Av. So the discussion of cultural-social influence on concepts of beauty is very much timely.
Best regards, Shatz
Do you really think the modeling example is close to our case? First, mathematics studies need to be learned by anyone who wants to engage in many fields. And that is no different from all other school study, which according to the common claim is supposed to give him the foundations. In truth, anyone who doesn’t want to can easily avoid it, whether without core studies or without access to matriculation in mathematics altogether, or with access only to the relatively easy level of 3 units. In any case, most if not all of the feeling of frustration from those studies has only short-term effects. Do you know whole groups in the population that suffer because they studied mathematics in school? Usually it’s the opposite: because they didn’t manage to learn, they are upset with their current situation. But that shows there was a need for the study and there was no alternative… not so here.
Shatz, interesting, I hadn’t heard of him. Would the Rabbi say, because of that, that this is a sign of providence? Because I’ve been thinking about this for a while, but only by chance yesterday I finally decided to ask people about it.
With God's help, 22 Av 5780
The sages of the Renaissance period also set conditions and criteria for feminine beauty.
For the development of the topic, beginning with the Latin poem of the French poet François Corniger, which lists 30 conditions, continuing with the poem of the rabbi, physician, and historian Rabbi Joseph Ha-Kohen in Italy, who listed 33 conditions, and ending with the adaptation by Rabbi Isaac Akrish of Constantinople — see the article by Professor Joseph Bonfil, “The Thirty-Three Conditions of a Woman’s Beauty: A Study of a Poem by Joseph Ha-Kohen (author of Emek Ha-Bakha),” in: Memorial Volume for Professor Meir Benayahu, Jerusalem 5779, vol. 2, pp. 559–584.
Noteworthy is Rabbi Joseph Ha-Kohen’s conclusion and recommendation at the end of his poem:
‘A woman who possesses these conditions of beauty — the gold of Ophir could not appraise her.
But one whose desire is for the Torah of God, and also all the thoughts of her heart are hands raised to God,
A woman such as this shall be called, and to her draw near; do not spread your hands to a strange woman.
Say “grace is false” and let beauty be vanity; women — and praise — for fear of Heaven.
Take, my son, the counsel given you by Joseph, also a priest to the God of heaven.’
Best regards, Shatz
It seems to me that in the second line of the quotation from the poem, it should read:
“… and also all the thoughts of her heart are directed to deeds,” based on the verse “Let us lift up our heart with our hands,” and the sense is: “and also all the thoughts of her heart are directed toward action,” that her desire for the Torah of God should be expressed in actual practice.
Best regards, Shatz
According to the meter, the first version is correct. And in the fourth line it apparently should read: “and praise for fear of Heaven.”
Actually, it seems to me that under pressure of the meter he pronounced the resh of “fear of Heaven” with a vocal sheva (like zehav, le-El, tifresah, yi-r-at, la-El).
With God's help, 23 Av 5780
To Tet — greetings,
Also in the first line, one should say that he made the silent sheva under the peh in the word “her beauty” mobile in order to fit the meter (especially in a poem about beauty, where care for meter is an important principle 🙂
Best regards, Shatz
And perhaps it may be explained: “and also all the thoughts of her heart are hands to God,” meaning that the thoughts of her heart are that her deeds be for the sake of Heaven, in the sense of “may my hands be sanctified to their Maker.”
Indeed. And the meaning of the line seems to me to be: all the thoughts of her heart are to spread hands to God in prayer. (And parenthetically, let me say something about it: the translation there is surprising, since it explained “let us lift up our heart with our hands” as “let us purify our heart and cast away snatched and stolen goods from our hands.” And where did it get this idea from — taking “hands” as clean hands rather than as the other commentators do? And why specifically link hands to theft? Rather, its source is “for there is no violence in my hands, and my prayer is pure” in Job.)
“Specifically to theft” is a typo, and it should say “specifically to prayer.”
(By the way, “her beauty” is actually correct with a silent sheva, because in the first line of the poem the meter is equal to a segor — that is, it ends with three vowels and not with two vowels and a yated — what is called “the glory of the opening,” as you can see, for example, also in the elegy of Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel about Yekutiel.)
Kav, it’s exactly the same thing. According to your approach, mathematics studies should be prohibited because they cause suffering to those who are less talented at it. Certainly mathematics that serves no practical needs. And likewise regarding many other studies (in fact all school studies cause suffering, and most of them are unnecessary). Note well: not merely to give up mathematics studies, but to prohibit teaching them by law.
But seemingly, even if one argument leads to two conclusions, one can easily and indifferently choose only one of them and ignore the “metaphysical considerations.” Because people do what is useful and convenient, and from that angle there is a difference between mathematics and beauty.
With God's help, 23 Av 5780
It may be that this is a dispute between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel as to whether one may praise a bride as “beautiful and gracious” when she is not such. It may be that Beit Shammai hold that beauty is an objective concept, and if according to the objective standard she is not “beautiful and gracious,” then this involves falsehood.
In contrast, Beit Hillel hold that “beautiful and gracious” is a subjective concept, and if the groom chose this bride, then she is presumably “beautiful and gracious” in his eyes (though one could say that even Beit Hillel agree that this is not the truth, but that it is permitted to deviate for the sake of peace).
Best regards, Samson Bezier-Grintzoybel
Thank you for the answer,
First of all, I don’t think this is a practical possibility. After all, as much as a person wants to live here in this world, he cannot be careful in such a way that from the outset he never sees any picture of a female or male model in some advertisement. And even if you suggest that the moment he sees it he should immediately lower his eyes (and let’s assume that would even help regarding the Jewish law aspects from the standpoint of “do not stray after”), I still think that in the present case it would not help regarding the ideal of beauty. After all, you accept that this whole feeling is learned in a “subconscious” way, so beauty becomes fixed in us דווקא because of those people, not in a conscious way.
Likewise, these advertisements by their very nature are aimed at the general population, including minors, and are also found in the urban and public space, so it cannot be said that the citizen bears the ability to be careful. (Unless that means locking your child in the house with no access to any kind of media except through very extensive censorship.) And of course also putting yourself into a voluntary lockdown.
Moreover, regarding the slippery slope, the case here is very different, because it has truly unreasonable effects on society as a whole; it’s not like a bit of noise a person makes in the street with a negligible effect on society overall. Here there is an enormous effect! Don’t you think the institution of modeling causes tremendous injustice to masses of teenage girls and adult women whose luck did not favor them, sometimes entirely because of certain biological tendencies, so that they are considered “second-tier,” while in a parallel world just a few generations away they could even be seen as the most beautiful? And in general, what about all those men who would prefer not to think that specifically a girl with a certain build is beautiful, when there are others better than her.
In any case, it sounds from you that were it not for that slippery slope, it really should be prohibited. But I don’t know of any other example of something with so much influence on the human psyche in an unconscious way that it is almost impossible to defend oneself from. If you have one, feel free to bring it. And we can start checking whether it makes sense. And in general I thought the Rabbi was known as someone who is not afraid of a slippery slope. (And I thought, in my humble opinion, to explain that even though the Rabbi is not concerned about a slippery slope, that is when the legislators are sensible people who won’t casually compare one matter to another, like the sages in the wisdom of Torah. But in our case, according to his approach, there is a real concern about a police state)…
In any event, just to conclude generally: to me it sounds completely reasonable that someone who wants to sell product X should not use subconscious factor Y to try to get us to buy it. And that’s even before the consequences it has. Why do I need to see a certain picture in order to want to buy an apartment, or a soft-drink bottle…