The Princess and the Prostitute

Eeees and I were walking back from shul one Yom Tov morning when we passed by another shul in the neighborhood which we do not attend. As we passed by, she told me that the rebbetzin of the shul gave a speech to the women in the shul about their manner of dress in shul. Apparently, the key note of the speech was this: do you want to look like a princess or a prostitute?

Now, I know that some people might have a problem with the way some of the women dress in my neighborhood. Some of them might wear clothing that some would consider too tight. And, as the rebbetzin in the shul, I suppose she sincerely thought that she had some say in the matter, especially when it came to how they came dressed to shul.

Let's even say, for the sake of argument, that she was right -- the women dress in clothing that is too tight, perhaps the skirt is slightly above the knee (which, knowing the shul, I doubt), or the sheitel is too attractive. Nonetheless, I'd be willing to bet dollars to donuts that the women in my neighborhood do not, in fact, dress like prostitutes. There are many degrees of dress between princess (which, from the context, I'm assuming is code for tznius*) and prostitute.

In fact, I think that by framing the question this way, the rebbetzin probably lost most of her audience. Had she framed it in terms of a laxity in the spirit of tznius, her audience might have been able to internalize the message, seen how it applied to them and made the adjustments the rebbetzin was aiming for. But by framing it as "dressing like a prostitute," she probably lost them completely. The ladies attending the speech probably said to themselves "Well, that doesn't apply to me. I don't dress like a hooker!" and then proceeded to dismiss the rest of what she said.

The Wolf

* Although most of the formal gowns worn by European princesses certainly wouldn't qualify as tznius...