Wearing a Kippah
I’ve been wondering a lot about wearing a kippah in life again. It would be the first time since I lived in Jerusalem for one school year five years ago. I got these gnarly knit black ones that I feel send the right message. What am I afraid of, anyway? (i.e. is it non-Jews? or Jews? Answer: yes.)
(context: I am about to head over to the neighborhood sukkah to greet guests)
Sneak peek: The answer is, “You are not a halakhic Jew, marit ayin, how many times must we go over this,” but part of me thinks that’s a cop-out.
Marit ayin (“appearance to the eye”) is a rabbinic principle that it is impermissible to do something that LOOKS impermissible because it might mislead people. The trouble is that I find that to be a good principle.
I have actually been asked on the street whether a restaurant I was entering was kosher, and I had to be like, “😬😬😬😬😬😬 no.” That wouldn’t happen where I live now, though, so it feels like the calculus has changed.
More importantly, apparently there is an energetic basis, which I should have intuited because that’s obviously where this draw back to wearing it is coming from:
the notion of covering the head is recognizing the limit point at which human consciousness is forced to double back into itself, over and over. running forwards and retreating backwards. the perpetual movement creates friction which warms the mind in its intensity
It turns out that whether or not I want to wear a kippah on a particular day depends entirely on whether I want the energy contained at the crown of my head or not, and sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t, so perhaps people who look at me will just have to deal.
Also, the signifiers are more granular than on vs. off. I’m not wearing tzitzit, which to me would be more of an “I am bound by mitzvot according to rabbinic consensus” signal.
