I spent the better part of yesterday organizing shaitels. I was helping my friend, client, and self-proclaimed "rebel shaitel-macher" do inventory after a sale she had over the weekend. Being in a room full of wigs for hours on end is very bizarre; I went back and forth from feeling normal to very strange, then normal again. As they were all made from "100% virgin european hair" they felt very luxurious and life-like--which was actually what made it feel so creepy. I suppose creepy isn't the right word, but they do look an awful lot like scalps when they're all heaped up on a table together.
I'm living my professional life in an odd, chabad-bubble right now. So many of the ladies I work with are practicing hasidic jews that their way of life is starting to feel strangely normal. Sometimes I even catch myself second guessing my moves in my own kitchen, questioning whether the dish I'm washing is milchig or fleishig, before remembering that I don't subscribe to such an onerous system of kitchen organization. Truthfully, I think the Kashrut is something I could deal with, though it does limit culinary flexibility (and produce a ridiculous number of dishes to wash); it's the hair covering I can't reconcile. Of course, I have a lot of respect for the women I know who practice it, if only for the level of will-power and commitment it reflects. But not only do I still find the logic behind the custom, especially as it pertains to shaitels, somewhat flawed; I just can't bear the thought of having something on my head all day long, every day, for the rest of my life. In the heat of the summer? Never feeling the wind in your hair? Can you even imagine?
Do you think you could do it??
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