Our obsession with the beauty of the human form stretches back virtually to the dawn of civilization.
Predating the Renaissance by a couple of millennia, the ancient Greeks extolled its splendour by initiating the Olympic games. Participants had to be natives, non-slaves and dressed in their birthday suits (and nothing else).
In her film of the 1936 Olympics entitled ‘Olympia’, Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler’s favourite director captured the naked athletes promoting the Nazi ideal of Aryan superiority. In doing so, she deliberately echoed the ancient Greeks’ ‘celebration of physical form’
You may legitimately wonder why beauty should not be appreciated in the way it was intended. After all, is this not how Gd created us?
On 14th December 1613, Sir Thomas Overbury, an English poet and essayist was murdered whilst imprisoned in the Tower of London awaiting trial. The background to his assassination is beyond the scope of this Drasha but his death led to a scandalous trial which implicated no less a person than King James I.
Suffice to say that a significant catalyst leading to his murder lay in an infamous poem he had recently written entitled “The Wife” which
(according to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Overbury) ‘depicted the virtues that a young man should demand of a woman’. The 16th stanza states:
'And all the carnall beauty of my wife,
Is but skin-deep, but to two senses known;
Short even of pictures, shorter liv’d then life,
And yet the love survives, that’s built thereon:
For our imagination is too high,
For bodies when they meet, to satisfie.'
This is the first recorded contemporary example of the idea of ‘beauty being skin-deep’.
Of course, this notion was not new. Sir Thomas may have had Isaiah (53.2) in mind as the Prophet described Gd,
'He came up like a tender shoot before Him, like a slip from a desert land; he has no appearance or manifest glory, no beauty for us to desire.'
Every Friday night, we recite Eshet Chayil, taken from Mishlei/Proverbs which extolls the virtues of our exemplary wives. We say,' Charm is false and beauty is empty breath; a woman who fears the L-rd, she is praiseworthy.'
Sir Thomas Overbury, Isaiah and King Solomon in these observations are questioning the very notion that we have or rather should have of what beauty really means.
Predating the above, this week’s Parasha describes the following scenario:
'When you wage war against your enemies and the L-rd your Gd gives them into your hand and you take captives, if you see a beautiful woman among the captives and you desire her and wish to marry her, bring her to your house. Have her shave her head, pare her nails and remove her captive’s garb. She shall sit in your house mourning for her father and mother for a full month. Only after that may you go in to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife. But if you no longer desire her, you must let her go free. You may not sell her for money or treat her as a slave since you have dishonoured her. (21.10-15)'
In these five verses, the Torah has commanded us to act in a manner that is totally counter-intuitive to human behaviour. Particularly if we contrast this with the description that I provided at the start of my Drasha.
One does not need to have much imagination to understand what it would feel like to be the male victor in a battle. You have defeated the enemy and everything and everyone that they valued is now within your control, including a beautiful and vulnerable female captive. She is literally defenceless.
You could do with her as your will and indulge your lustful urges. We don’t need to look too far to witness the behaviour of blood-soaked warriors with respect to the women they captured, do we?
The Torah understands what could take place whereupon you see the woman and immediately instructs the soldier to treat her compassionately (‘bring her to your house and allow her to mourn her parents demise’ – which was presumably extremely brutal) whilst simultaneously deglamourizing her through shaving her head and paring her nails. To the point that she is no longer the ‘beautiful woman that you saw amongst the captives.’ She has removed her captive’s garb, but she is unattainable to you.
The Ramban explains that by going through this process, the soldier will tame his yetzer hara (evil inclination) and hopefully view her inner beauty over the period of the thirty days she mourns her parents. Additionally, dealing with the trauma she has endured will not be compounded with the fear that she may be taken advantage of.
The Malbim elaborates on the Ramban’s commentary underscoring the topic of this Drasha, that beauty is not merely ‘skin-deep’. He explains that the Laws we read in the Torah are designed to cultivate within us a sense of moral and spiritual appreciation instead of focusing on external appearances. By withholding the captive from him, The Torah forces the warrior to spend time valuing her inner beauty. To the point that if he rejects her upon the completion of her ‘shloshim’ (thirty days), she unconditionally regains her freedom. If he can’t ‘see’ her beauty beyond a superficial level, he is not worthy of her.
This is a point that Rabbi Sacks ztl highlights. He says that in a world obsessed with superficial beauty, we must cultivate an appreciation for the inner qualities that matter. It behoves us to look beyond the surface and recognize the inherent dignity and worthiness of every individual. The Torah instructs us to love our neighbours like ourselves (ve’ahavta rea’cha kamocha’) and in doing so, create a society in which every person is valued for who they are.
True beauty is found beneath the skin. The Nazis used the concept of appearance to promote Aryan racial superiority over all others and we know what this led to. The ancient Greeks were similarly obsessed whilst at the same time intolerant of views that clashed with their belief system (as we know with reference to the Chanukah story). In both cases, these attitudes masked extremely destructive forces. In its understanding of human nature, the Torah impresses upon us the importance of recognising genuine beauty. The kind that exists beneath the skin, irrespective of its texture and colour. This message is as resonant in the 21st century as it was over three thousand years ago.
Because, unlike the quote – real beauty is anything but skin-deep.
Shavuah Tov.
