July 22, 2012

Should single girls squirt perfume at the bochurim?

The girls of tzion would walk around with head held high, with tiny measured steps so everyone should look at them, all loaded with makeup, and the taller girls would walk next to the shorter girls in order to look tall. And they would put perfume flowers in their shoes and walk the streets of Jerusalem. And when they would pass a group of boys they would bang their feet in the ground and squirt perfume at them, injecting them with a poisonous lust (Shabbos 62b).


There was only one problem though. These girls were married women (Rashi) and that's why Yeshayeh cursed them out. So it would seem that it's not such a bad thing for a single girl to do. (After all, she can use a Shidduch) Rav Yakov Emden says that you see a little from the daughter of rebbe Chanina Ben Teradyon, that she was punished for walking with fancy steps even though she was single (Avoda Zara 18a). I don't know.

Rashi says in the end of Ben Soreh Umoreh (Sanhedrin) that if hangouts would cause marriage it would be a Mitzva, not an Avayrah. The problem is that the guys who hang out are generally not interested in marriage, they just wanna fool around. But if the guys were really interested in marriage I would say "go ahead", and I wouldn't worry so much about frumkite. The Satan is laughing all the way to the bank because of all the destruction frumkite caused. (Click Mar 27, 2012)