Today I was telling my 8 year old daughter that men don't shave during the 3 weeks. She asked me "What is 'shave'"? She speaks a fluent English [besides her Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, Spanish, French, Afrikaans and Hungarian. In her Beis Yaakov she is studying Latin to be able to read the selected works of Cicero and The Conquest Of Gaul by Julius Caesar. We would like her to work in the United Nations as a translator] but wasn't familiar with that word. I explained to her the concept of "shaving". She asked me why a man wouldn't want to have a beard.
Where she comes from - all the men have beards. That is what she is used to. So she is not familiar with any other reality. [Since as we saw in the previous post, gender is a social construct but not rooted in biological reality - it is a wonder that frum women don't have beards, too. I guess that they have been conditioned by society not to be able to grow any facial hair].
But I say "מי כעמך ישראל"!!! So many Yidden going through the discomfort of not shaving for three weeks to express mourning for the Beis Hamikdash!!!
May we all be zoche to get a haircut to welcome משיח צדקינו!!!
