Almost seventy years ago, a teenage immigrant, a beloved only child, moved from her parent’s farm in New Jersey to live in New York so she could attend a Bais Yaakov high school. During roll call, on the first day of school, the young girl raised her hand when her name was called, but the teacher ignored her, seemingly blind to the girl’s presence. “Vi is Sima,” she asked in Yiddish, “Sima is nisht du” (Where is Sima, Sima is not here). Sima, who had gone to the Jewish day school in Lakewood, was not familiar with the Bais Yaakov dress code and had worn a blouse whose sleeve rode up when she raised her hand in class, an infraction that had, unbeknownst to her, rendered her invisible.
Now, a lifetime later, my mother tells the story calmly – passionately, but calmly; because time and distance will do that. Although it is not my story, it is part of my inheritance, no less real than my grandmother’s brooch, albeit much less shiny and much heavier to hold. Intellectually I know that tznius is a middah, an outlook, a shield that guards our inner selves from becoming diluted, but invariably, one of the first images that pops into my mind when I hear the word tznius is that young teenage girl on her first day of school.