Modesty, Expression and Undies
Song Stuck In Head: Undies Theme Song Artist: UOTO (Undies On The Outside) Link: MySpace Music Page
An interesting question came to my attention recently, it is one that I have pondered in the past but never heard a spiritual approach to. This question also got a song stuck in my head that I haven’t heard since high school…
I rock the undies on the outside!
Who rocks the undies on the outside?
We rock the undies on the outside!
This song is the theme song for “Undies On The Outside” a Los Angeles based band from the early 2000s, and it expresses a certain mentality, one that reflects this generation’s mentality: ’What is normally on the inside, we show off on the outside!’ Undies are a thing that are usually private and yet, express a certain part of our souls, they reflect a lot about a person’s individuality and personality, as the song says “I rock undies in three different shades/I rock five pairs just in one day”. People will also often spend lots of money on undies, different brands “Gucci, Gap and Calvin Klein/Get ‘em while they’re hot and buy the whole line”, etc. but this extreme expenditure and focus on undies would generally be a private thing. This song is an anthem for those who have an extreme desire to express the inner parts of their souls, things that are normally kept private are made public and flaunted to the world.
Many people would condemn this mentality as having a lack of tzniut. Tzniut, often translated as modesty, is generally taken to mean covering up that which is attractive or which draws attention. People take this idea to mean that a person should cover up their insides – their pnimiut - and keep those things which make them special private. This could not be further from the truth! Tzniut is supposed to cover up those things that we share in common with others, those things that distract us from our pnimiut - essence or insides – and that would end up blocking our individual expression.
The mentality of ‘undies on the outside’ is a very healthy Torah mentality. To better express this, let me present the question that I mentioned in the first paragraph. “Why is the male reproductive organ of mammals on the outside of the body? This seems to be ‘unintelligent design’! This organ which is responsible for the perpetuation of the species should be the most protected, not most exposed.” First of all, not to enter the Intelligent Design vs. Evolution debate (of which I don’t really see a debate, in my mind both opinions could work in harmony…) but those evolutionists who use this question as a proof against intelligent design are asking an equally damning question on their own theory. If the placement of the organ seems “unintelligent” than according to survival of the fittest the species with this placement should have died off, and if it is evolutionarily sound than the placement must have some intelligence to it…I heard a video tour online of a zoo with a rabbi recently who expressed a very interesting idea, he explained that the briah - creation – is here to teach us. There is something to be learned from all the seemingly insignificant parts of creation (see intro post) and he applied this idea to the placement of this organ. He explained that the organ was placed in this way to teach us that, in a spiritual sense, our creative aspect, the part of us that has the greatest potential to contribute to this reality must be on the outside, not hidden or protected from view. This is the lesson to be learned from male mammals in the zoo.
(For those who are interested, a very satisfactory scientific answer to the above question is that having the sperm in a more hostile environment creates a mini-survival-of-the-fittest situation in which the weaker and/or lesser quality sperm cannot survive, leaving only the top-notch cells to make the journey and perpetuate the species)
So, to sum up, rock your undies on the outside (in a metaphorical sense)! Don’t cover up and hide the parts of your soul that make you who you are and/or are the parts of you that are creative and can be used to contribute to the universe.
