1. Now that I'm on vacation and have some time (and 280 characters!) it's time for another Twitter Shiur / Class.
Today's topic: "Tzniut" / Modesty in Torah
Today's topic: "Tzniut" / Modesty in Torah
2. Audio and source sheets from when I first gave this class back in 2012 are available here: joshyuter.com/2012/01/22/jud…
3. Discussions about Tzniut (or tznius depending on your dialect) in Jewish culture are almost always discussions over women's dress and behavior. For example, how long must women's sleeves or skirts (never pants) go, or women taking on public roles etc.
4. As you might expect, these discussions tend to irritate lots of people (both women and men) regardless if they're led by women or men
5. My approach today is less about the *details* of tzniut / modesty as much as the categorical *scope* of when and where it's mentioned or applied in Torah
6. Rather than start with an a priori assumption of what tzniut / modesty is and work my way back through supporting sources, I am taking a different approach
7. To find relevant sources, I searched for instances of where Torah uses variants of the root for tzniut/modesty צנע and work from there
8. First, we'll start with sources pertaining to women. The first few sources will not mention tzniut explicitly, but they're going to be important nonetheless. For example, many conversations on modesty reference Ps. 45:15 
9. The Talmud in Yevamot even applies this to Sarah who remained in her tent when Abraham received visitors (Gen 18), and in Bava Metzia explains this was because she was modest
10. Interesting and important digression to note that the Talmud rejects the idea that Ps 45:15 restricts a woman from going out of the house to work.
11. According to this Talmudic Midrash, what attracted Boaz to Ruth (Ruth 2:5) was that she harvested the gleanings modestly. Medieval commentator Rashi elaborates
12. According to Rabbah, during a time when Romans practiced primae noctis, the women were modest and would sooner kill themselves rather than submit
13. Modesty does appear in connection with dress on occasion. In one instance it appears to be in order to avoid calling attention to onesself
13. In this source modesty is mentioned as a sexual ethic, in this case perhaps more for the husband than the wife
14. At any rate there are certainly sources within the Talmud which discuss modesty as applied to women, in some cases explicitly connected with sexuality. (This is by no means an exhaustive sampling, just citing enough to prove the point).
15. Where I find things get interesting is when we find the concept of modesty/tzniut extending beyond a purely sexual ethic.
16. According to my searches, the root צנע appears only twice in the Bible. We'll get to the more well-known example later but the lesser cited one doesn't seem to refer to either women or sexuality
17. In this Midrash , Rachel and her descendant King Saul both displayed modesty in their own respective ways
18. My apologies, I meant to include this source regarding dress, again, notably *men's* dress
19. Here Rabban Gamliel also applies the term tzniut / modesty to eating and going to the bathroom
20. Priests could be modest by not grabbing their portions from the Temple
21. One could be modest by facilitating others to not violate a commandment (and doing so without shaming)
22. Consider this teaching of R. Yohanan where God gives a special blessing to the one who tithes in "secret" / privately בצינעה, related to our root צנע for "modesty"
23. Perhaps my personal favorite usage of tzniut / modesty is the Talmud's interpretation of the more well-known of the two Biblical instances of the root צנע, that of Micha 6:8, "Walk humbly with your God"
