The Mitzvah I Swore I’d Never Keep

If you had asked me when I was younger, growing up in a non-observant home, whether I would ever fully cover my hair after marriage, especially with a wig, I would have said, “Absolutely not!” Not, “probably not.” Not, “maybe one day.” Absolutely not.

But today, there is no mitzvah that represents my journey to willingly accept the Torah more than covering my hair.

Before I got married and became more observant, I associated covering my hair with becoming someone I wasn’t. Someone overly religious, even fanatical. And less modern and less stylish. The only part of the mitzvah that appealed to me was the idea of married women wearing hats to shul. There was something elegant about those hats, which symbolized status and announced: I am married.

So when I got married, I went to a fancy hat store near my parents’ home in Englewood, New Jersey, and bought a collection of beautiful designer hats. And for a while, I loved them.

Until reality set in. Hats, especially big fancy hats, are decidedly impractical when you have little kids. I was carrying diaper bags, chasing toddlers, sweating through youth groups, trying to survive Kiddush. Eventually, I transitioned to headbands and fascinators.

But even though I had never actually taken the time to properly learn about the mitzvah, I knew the headbands and fascinators were symbolic more than halachic.

Around that time, my family and I started attending our local Chabad in Potomac, Maryland, more regularly. And every Shabbat I would sit there in my uncomfortable hat, staring at the backs of beautiful wigs, “sheitels” in Yiddish.

I wondered to myself, “What if I just got one for Shabbat?” (Just to try.) So, I made an appointment in Baltimore.

The sheitel woman put a wig on my head, and I freaked out. I looked in the mirror and thought, “No way. Absolutely not.”

I compromised by buying a topper, which clipped onto the top of my own hair. But I remained uncomfortable with my choice. I was constantly touching it, adjusting it, worried people could tell that some of the hair was mine and some was not.

At the time, I worked at a secular Jewish organization, and I was convinced that if my colleagues knew I was wearing a wig, they would think I had become some ultra-religious fanatic.

But to my surprise, it grew on me. I felt different when I wore the topper: Stronger and more confident.

I decided it was time to stop reacting emotionally to the mitzvah and actually learn about it seriously. And at the same time, the COVID pandemic began. Suddenly, I was working remotely and had the freedom to experiment without worrying what anyone thought.

When I first learned the Torah and Talmudic sources for hair covering, they didn’t resonate with me. The Biblical basis felt ancient and disconnected from my modern life. So I turned to essays by modern women explaining their personal connection to the mitzvah.

And that changed everything. One woman described hair covering not as disappearing, but as becoming intentional. As choosing which parts of yourself belong to the public and which parts remain sacred.

And my Chabad rebbetzin, Sara Bluming, shared with me that the Rebbe spoke about hair covering in a way I had never heard before. Not as shame or repression, but as dignity, beauty, confidence, and spiritual strength.

That mattered to me, because I wanted to feel beautiful. I wanted to feel polished and professional. I wanted to feel spiritual without feeling erased.

So when I realized that the mitzvah was never supposed to make women smaller, it was supposed to elevate them, I decided to go all in.

With Senate Majority Leader, John Thune (R-SD).

Two women from my community took me back to Baltimore, where I invested in beautiful wigs. And I loved them. I loved how they looked, I loved styling them, and I loved how I felt in them.

My husband loved them too and was completely supportive (even after he found out how much they cost!).

But most importantly, I loved that my daughter was proud of me. I loved knowing that covering her hair would never feel strange or foreign to her. And I loved knowing that if my son someday married a woman who covered her hair, it would feel normal and respected to him, too.

Covering my hair changed other things, too. It led me to dress more modestly because it didn’t feel right to cover my hair but dress in a way that didn’t align with the values my wig was projecting.

Then it changed how I ate. I stopped going to non-kosher restaurants with colleagues and ordering a cold salad or vegetable sushi, just to fit in. I didn’t want to wear the uniform of Torah observance while selectively choosing which mitzvot mattered, so I started keeping strictly kosher, only eating in kosher restaurants.

Then it changed how I spoke. I realized that I couldn’t walk around in a wig gossiping or swearing, because when someone looks visibly religious, their behavior carries weight.

The mitzvah I took on was shaping who I was becoming.

When I started working at a new nonprofit organization, I wore a wig from day one. Everyone knew I was religious. Nobody questioned when I left early for Shabbat. Kosher food accommodations were always made. In many ways, life actually became easier.

Over time, I began having meaningful conversations with other women about why I cover my hair. “Why cover your hair if your wig looks even better than your real hair?” one woman asked me. So I explained: “The mitzvah isn’t to look ugly. Judaism does not believe holiness and beauty are opposites.”

Now that I’m in a more senior professional position, I also appreciate knowing that other women who cover their hair may feel more confident seeing that I do, and recognizing that they can be ambitious, professional, polished, successful — and visibly religious.

The Jewish people once stood at Mount Sinai and accepted the Torah with the famous words, “Naaseh v’nishma” “We will do, and we will listen.”

For years, I struggled with that phrase, believing that we should understand first and then decide whether to do something. But now I see that sometimes it’s the doing that changes us, and the understanding comes later.

Taking on the mitzvah of covering my hair opened the door that my mind could not. And ultimately, the mitzvah I most strongly resisted, the one I least understood, was the one that transformed me the most.