Lipa just woke up the dead!
There has been a custom by Chassidim and the Oberlander (Hungarians from Pressburg area) community that once a woman gets married, she shaves all her hair off, bald like the palm of your hand!
There is absolutely no mekor (basis) for this custom from the Talmud, Geonim, Rishonim or early Achronim for that matter!
In matter of fact the opposite is true, the custom was actually that woman had hair but had it covered!
The Zohar does extol the virtue of women, whose hair is never even seen by the "beams of her own house", but there is no mention that the Zohar Hakodoshs' own wife shaved her head!
Lipa bravely pointed out Rashi's commentary in this week's Parsha Ki Seitzei to bolster his point!
The Torah discusses a soldier in a war who finds a beautiful lady in captivity and desires her. The Torah permits this soldier to take the women as a wife on condition that he shaves off her hair and has her nails grow.
Rashi comments on the words of the Torah that states "he should have her nails grow" that it is because, he would "be repulsed by her!"
The Torah wanted the soldier to be repulsed so that this practice of falling in love with a gentile girl in war not become a habit!
Based on this Rashi, Lipa warns Chassidic ladies in a video that bald heads is a repulsion and a turn off for the male gender.
Lipa's critics came out like roaches and rats.... attacked, screamed and yelled that Rashi only makes this comment about the soldier becoming "repulsed" on her long nails, but it seems from Rashi that he wasn't talking about the hair...
In other words, according to Rashi, the requirement of shaving off her hair is not because the soldier may becoming repulsed... because only the growing of long nails will repulse him!
Shaving off the hair is because of some unnamed reason according to Lipa's critics!
The truth is, that Rashi actually got his information from the Talmud Yevomos page 48 that actually supports Lipa!(see below).
Lo and behold Lipa has it right!
The talmud discussing this verse in the parsha states that
Rebbe Eliezer said
"that just like "shaving off the hair is a repulsion, so too is growing long nails!"
So from this piece of Talmud in Yavamaos it seems that shaving off the hair of a woman is a greater repulsion than the nails!
So there you have it!
I actually like baldies, and I think that Rashi did too, that's why he only addressed the "repulsion" of the long nails!
There could be another reason why Rashi only mentions "repulsion" by nails and not by the shaving off the hair, and that is because all rabbis agree (in the above Talmud) that shaving off the hair, is disgusting and ugly, but, I would think that not all rabbis would agree that long nails are disgusting, so Rashi adds that long nails on a lady are just as disgusting as a lady with a shaven head!
The Gemarrah is very clear that a women with a shaven head is repulsive! No one argues this fact!
The minhag of women having a full head of hair is thousands of years, and the "holy minhag" of women shaving their heads is only about 200 years at most!
Some other critics of Lipa say that those who instituted the "Baldy Gezeirah" also saw this Rashi and nevertheless they saw fit to institute this insane rule, so it must be right! ........
With this twisted logic, you can destroy the entire Torah!
This is actually the underlying reason the Conservative movement changed the Torah! They saw the Rashi and saw the Torah but changed it anyway! Very dangerous!
So now we a learned a shtikal gemmarrah with a shtikal Rashi!
